2008 was a year packed with new technologies, innovations and discoveries – from a new billion-color display to advanced electric cars making their first appearance on the market. In this summary, we have gathered some of the most unique stories ...
The Fastest Bullet Train in Japan
Japanese company Kawasaki Heavy Industries recently announced the development of the country’s fastest high speed train. Named the “Environmentally Friendly Super Express Train” (efSET), the modern marvel will propel passengers along at 350 kilometers per hour, besting the record-holding Shinkansen’s ...
Flexible Nanoantenna Capture Abundant Solar Energy
Researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s Idaho National Laboratory have recently devised an inexpensive way to produce plastic sheets containing billions of nanoantennas that collect heat energy generated by the sun and other sources. The technology is the first ...
Earthrace – Setting a New World Record
Earthrace, a 24m tri-hull wavepiercer built in New Zealand, has smashed the world’s speed record for a powerboat to circumnavigate the globe by completing the journey in 60 days, 23 hours and 49 minutes. The previous record, set in 1998 ...
Alaska Opts for Underground Energy
Alaskan state officials have recently announced their intentions to begin funding the exploration and surveying of Alaska’s largest volcanoes in hopes of utilizing these as a source of geothermal energy which they say could provide enough energy to power thousands ...
Petrol Excreting Bugs
Greg Pal is a senior director of LS9, one of several companies in or near Silicon Valley that have spurned traditional high-tech activities such as software in order to embark on an extraordinary race to make the dependency for oil ...
New Green Plug Universal Adapters
The California based Company Green Plug has developed a single universal adapter that enables users to power their laptops, cell phones, and other electronic gear with only one power adapter. This technology could help the environment by eliminating the need ...
Super Fuel Cells
Engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have improved the power output of a certain type of fuel cell by more than 50 percent. Their creative use of technology could help these environment friendly energy storage devices find a much ...
CO2 Absorption Made Easier
Researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology (GIT) have discovered a new material capable of absorbing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the smokestacks of coal-fired power plants and other generators of greenhouse gases. According to the scientists, the new substance, which ...
Deep Water Offshore Wind Turbine
Offshore wind-farm developers know that the performance of wind-farms improves greatly in deep waters, where winds are stronger and steadier. However, it is extremely expensive to build the foundations necessary to support wind turbines in waters deeper than 20 meters. ...