See on Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future
Arrays of tree-like nanowires consisting of Si trunks and TiO2 branches facilitate solar water-splitting in a fully integrated artificial photosynthesis system
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Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) scientists have developed the first fully integrated nanosystem for artificial photosynthesis, in which solar energy is directly converted into chemical fuels.
“Similar to the chloroplasts in green plants that carry out photosynthesis, our artificial photosynthetic system is composed of two semiconductor light absorbers, an interfacial layer for charge transport, and spatially separated co-catalysts,” says Peidong Yang, a chemist with Berkeley Lab’s Materials Sciences Division, who led this research.
“To facilitate solar water- splitting in our system, we synthesized tree-like nanowire heterostructures, consisting of silicon trunks and titanium oxide branches. Visually, arrays of these nanostructures very much resemble an artificial forest.
“In natural photosynthesis, the energy of absorbed sunlight produces energized charge-carriers that execute chemical reactions in separate regions of the chloroplast,” Yang says. “We’ve integrated our nanowire nanoscale heterostructure into a functional system that mimics the integration in chloroplasts and provides a conceptual blueprint for better solar-to-fuel conversion efficiencies in the future.”
See on kurzweilai.net
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A new species of philosophers is coming up: I shall venture to baptize them with a name that is not free of danger. As I unriddle them, insofar as they allow themselves to be unriddled, for it belongs to their nature to want to remain riddles; these philosophers of the future may have a right, it might also be a wrong, to be called “tempters.” This name itself is in the end a mere attempt and, if you will, a temptation.
Are these coming philosophers new friends of “truth”? That is probable enough, for all philosophers so far have loved their truths. But they will certainly not be dogmatists. It must offend their pride, also their taste, if their truth is supposed to be a truth for every man—which has so far been the secret wish and hidden meaning of all dogmatic aspirations. “My judgment is my judgment: no one else is easily entitled to it”—that is what such a philosopher of the future may perhaps say of himself. One must shed the bad taste of wanting to agree with many. “Good” is no longer good when one’s neighbor mouths it. And how should there be a “common good”! The term contradicts itself: whatever can be common always has little value. In the end it must be as it is and always has been: great things remain for the great, abysses for the profound, nuances and shudders for the refined, and, in brief, all that is rare for the rare.
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Friedrich Nietzsche, Beyond Good and Evil (via ludimagister)
-A scientist has discovered an ancient extinct creature with ‘scissor hand-like’ claws in fossil records and has named it in honour of his favourite movie star.
The 505-million-year-old fossil called Kooteninchela deppi (pronounced Koo-ten-ee-che-la depp-eye), which is a distant ancestor of lobsters and scorpions, was named after the actor Johnny Depp for his starring role as Edward Scissorhands — a movie about an artificial man named Edward, an unfinished creation, who has scissors for hands.
Kooteninchela deppi is helping researchers to piece together more information about life on Earth during the Cambrian period when nearly all modern animal types emerged. David Legg, who carried out the research as part of his PhD in the Department of Earth Science and Engineering at Imperial College London, says: “When I first saw the pair of isolated claws in the fossil records of this species I could not help but think of Edward Scissorhands. Even the genus name, Kootenichela, includes the reference to this film as ‘chela’ is Latin for claws or scissors. In truth, I am also a bit of a Depp fan and so what better way to honour the man than to immortalise him as an ancient creature that once roamed the sea?”
“Even modest improvements in the social, economic, and political problems that our global civilization now faces could release enormous resources, both material and human, for other goals. There’s plenty of housework to be done here on Earth, and our commitment to it must be steadfast. But we’re the kind of species that needs a frontier - for fundamental biological reasons. Every time humanity stretches itself and turns a new corner, it receives a jolt of productive vitality that can carry it for centuries. There’s a new world next door. And we know how to get there.”
See on Scoop.it - Knowmads, Infocology of the future
Eric Schmidt, Jared Cohen, and Steve Clemons discuss the political limitations of the Internet.
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It’s easy to assume that a global Internet, with all its promise of scaled communication and education and democratization, will eventually help to foster democracy. But it’s also not entirely accurate to assume that. In a conversation with The Atlantic’s Steve Clemons yesterday evening, Eric Schmidt and Jared Cohen — co-Googlers and co-authors of The New Digital Age: Reshaping the Future of People, Nations, and Business — made a point of emphasizing the limitations of technological innovation. Particularly when it comes to geopolitical change.
See on theatlantic.com
