BREEZEThe Fresh Science

Environment Friendly GadgetsEver since humans started to evolve from ape, he started discovering tools and things which helped him in performing his daily tasks. Then it started growing day by day and now the technology has grown so much along with human evolu on that communica on around the world has become extremely simple and absolutely quick. Exchanging of informa on has become very easy and even the smallest news from one corner o f t h e w o r l d r e a c h e s everywhere due to technical advancement. This has made our life quite easier by reducing the complexity (e.g. things which were difficult to do by human beings like carry heavy things from one place to other but now we can just use a trolley to move things around) and increasing our comfort (e.g. before half a century we have to cook our food for a long me in front of fire, but now we can cook food in a closed oven); Ever since the Industrial revolu on the number of inven ons increased dras cally which gave birth to new equipment; A gadget is a tool or a machine which helps us in our day to day life in one way or the other making complicated things s impler and give us more comfort to handle it. Almost everyone in our present world owns some kind of gadget, e.g., a cell phone or laptop or a pager, etc. But as the Gadgets or machines developed over the century, it has also started to po l lute our env i ronment . Env i ronment po l lu on as become a major problem. It has reached to a certain extant because of which we have the well‐known hole in the ozone layer. So the need for gadgets which will not have a nega ve impact over our environment has also increased day by day. Scien sts over the world have developed a lot of environment friendly gadgets. These gadgets use the non‐conven onal source of energy; simply, to say t h e y d e p e n d o n t h e environment to be operated.

Let's take a look at few environments friendly gadgets in d e t a i l :

Solar rechargers

6

How wonderful it will be to have ba eries that don't require us to connect to a power supply in order to recharge them. Imagine you are cha ng with your most “favorite person” when you are out and your phone starts beeping because of low ba ery. You have to search for a power bank nearby to recharge your phone. But what if you don't get one? Solar rechargers solve the issue. You can easily plug in your phone with the charger and all it needs is the solar power to work. These ba eries are eco‐friendly nonpollu ng ba eries, which don't emit CO2; they harness the power of sun light by using photo voltaic cells. It converts them into electrical e n e r g y a n d c h a r g e s t h e rechargeable ba eries. By this method we can also ensure that w e d o n ' t d a m a g e o u r environment nor lead it to

I know how it sounds! It is like saying cool‐fire, but yes, NASA has developed an amazing product named SunDanzer. It is a solar refrigerator which can also store excess energy. All they require is five hours of sunlight for charge, and then they can work even for a week straight without the need to recharge again, whereas the normal refrigerator will be dead with all the food inside being ro en. The reason is its technology behind the working method; it uses a vapor compression system which is u lized from a solar i n p u t s o u r c e .

pollu on.

Solar refrigerator

These are the future saviors of people from increased fuel prices. With almost the fossil‐fuel resources being depleted and the infla on in oil rates; furthermore, they have given new hope to people. Being an en rely clean energy and fuel independency scien sts and car manufacturers are working hard to make completely efficient self‐driven solar cars which could replace the exis ng cars

Bloom energy, without a doubt i s the answer for a l l our ques ons related to energy. Bloom energy can generate power from hydrocarbons w h i c h i s p r o d u c e d f r o m biological sources. It uses solar energy to generate power from the hydrocarbon fuel. This is invented by Sridhar, and Indian for NASA. Which he later re‐e n g i n e e r e d f o r e n e r g y produc on and marketed it as Bloom energy box. This is already powering up Giants like eBay, Google and Wal‐mart efficiently. Bloom energy will be the best alterna ve for our conven onal energy source and what is best, it is a clean energy, meaning it does not pollute our environment.

The primary advantage of these environments friendly gadgets is that they u lize clean energy, so they do no damage to the Earth. T h ey a l s o u s e re n ewa b l e resources of energy, so they can be u lized in any loca ons. Non‐renewable resources based e n e r g y p r o d u c o n f a l l s ; environmental so ware gadgets keeps us updated on the environment change, as well from this advantages we can clearly see that environment based gadgets can help people a lot in their day to day life by reducing their dependency and increasing their comfort . .

Solar powered cars

Bloom energy

Top 10 Scientific breakthroughs of 2013

The science part of 2012 was quiet iconic with the discovery of Higgs boson, pushing the limit of knowledge about extra‐terrestrial space and landing Mars‐Rover on Mars. This year, science was more subtle and shined only among field experts. Most of the inven ons made in the field of Medicine and Astronomy will make its mark in the near future, though it did not have much impact immediately.

We have compiled a list with what we consider as the important breakthroughs in 2013. Go through the below list to find out our science breakthrough count down.

10. Fall in Human Intelligence levelYes, we begin with a bad news, but let us hope to see something more exci ng as we go down the list. A study suggests that the intelligence level of average human is on the fall since the Victorian era. Dr. Gerald Crabtree, professor of pathology and developmental biology at Stanford University reported in an e‐mail that, “The reduc on in human intelligence would have begun at the me that gene c selec on became more relaxed. I projected this occurred as our ancestors b e g a n t o l i v e i n m o r e suppor ve high density socie es (ci es) and had access to a steady supply of food. Both of these might have resulted from the inven on of agriculture, which occurred about 5,000 to 12,000 years ago.”

Simply put, with the fast development of technology, need for humans to be flexible in society is greater than the need for intelligence for survival. Since this informa on is being passed through our genes, we tend to be less intelligent and more tolerant to society.

9. New Ligament found in Human KneeWere you struggling already to remember all the names of human body parts? Well, Belgium surgeons are not h e l p i n g y o u a t a l l . A n u n k n o w n l i g a m e n t ' s existence, now named as Anterior Cruciate Ligament, which was not confirmed before, has been discovered recently by Dr. Steven Claes from University of Levuen. The presence of such a ligament was already proposed by French surgeon Paul Segond in 1879, but was not classified, with proof, un l recently by Dr. Steven Claes.

This ligament is supposed to be the bane of athletes. Even a er a successful ACL opera on, which is done to repair the knee injuries for athletes, few of them con nue to have problem with their knee area. Thanks to Anterior Cruciate Ligament. Even though the surgeons have hypothesized the above men oned theory, more research is being conducted to confirm it.

continued page 7

BREEZEThe Fresh Science

7

Top 10 Scientific breakthroughs of 2013

continued page 7

8. Discovery of a new Carnivorous MammalSome mes it is just astounding that even

a er so much of improvement in technology

and increase in knowledge about our galaxy

and universe; we s ll keep discovering new

facts about own earth. It is just nature's way

of reminding our humanity that known is a

drop and unknown is an ocean. In Andean

cloud forests a new meat‐ea ng species has

been found by the scien st camped over

there for years. DNA and anatomical test have confirmed that

“Olinguito”, so it is called, is actually a new addi on to the

carnivorous mammal classifica on.

7. Cancer ImmunotherapyCancer is one disease that has been evading the medical grasp for

centuries. Cancer is characterized by a cell which grows above its

expected size. Though it sounds like a simple phenomenon, the

problem it causes are not simple. There are various classifica ons of

cancer and Doctors have been ba ling for years to find a cure for

cancer. There are already exis ng treatment facili es which include

Surgery methods, Radiotherapy, Chemotherapy, Hormone therapy,

etc., but the percentage of success has always been less. The recent

development in gene cs has helped greatly in trea ng cancer.

Immunotherapy makes use of our body's immune system to treat

cancer. By gene cally modifying the T‐Cells, which fight against

foreign par cles such as bacteria and viruses, to fight against the

cancer cells, Gene c researchers have truly made a laudable

discovery. This method turns out to be successful, as there are quite a

number of people saved from cancer by immunotherapy.

6. Interstellar entry of Voyager 1A er 36 years of travel, our very own

Voyager1 has escaped our solar

influence and went abroad. It is

remarkable that a satellite which

was launched in 1977, with memory

capacity of only 32kb, is the first

man‐made instrument to fly into

o u t e r s p a c e . P r o b a b l y t h e

smartphone which we have now in

our hand is more advanced than

Voyager1. Scien sts are expec ng more exci ng but faint data to be

transmi ed from Voyager1 as it entered into unknown places in deep

space. Let us wish a good luck to the proud work of our ancestors and

expect some interes ng data from it before 2020 or 2025, since it will

probably wear out by then.

5. Producing organs from Stem‐cellsRemember the movie “The Island”? In which

they cloned humans to replace new organs

when it fails for the original person from their

copy? Turns out it is not necessary. Scien sts

have found a way to create new organs from

the stem cells of individuals. This is an

extraordinary step, yes. European scien sts

have developed a reprogrammed mini‐brain,

yes! you read it correctly, from stem cells of

an individual, just by providing the correct chemical environment.

Meanwhile Japanese researchers have developed liver ssue, which

is actually working, and several other teams have reported to have

developed kidney ssues.

To have replaceable ssues available in Medical centers will actually

take more me, but these are really promising improvements. We

can expect a future were deaths because of organs damage are

reduced, for transplantable organs will be developed on request.

4. Quantum teleporta on record brokenIf you are expec ng teleporta on of humans or

even something of a macro size like a book or a

pen, I am truly sorry to disappoint you. But let

us hope that is not very far in future, since

researchers from China and Austria broke a

previous record by telepor ng quantum

par cles across 50 miles. They tangled two

quantum par cles which have same proper es

and recorded the details in a third par cle. Later this third par cle is

sent to a distant loca on and a remote copy of the tangled par cle is

created at the receiver's end. Scien sts believe that this will be the

future of quantum compu ng, since transmi ng data through this

method, will be much faster than the current method which makes

use of fiber op cs or satellite transmission. Praise the quantum

par cle for fast downloads.

3. Implantable electronicsWe use lot of electronics day by day like

watch, smartphones, laptop, etc. With

wearable electronics becoming a must

for today's genera on, Scien sts have

developed biodegradable electronic

circuits. These circuits, when ta ooed

on body work just like usual circuits.

When the need of these circuits is over,

we can just heat to see it dissolve.

They have already developed a

combina on of ny LED probes and

gold nanopar cles, which could manipulate your brain. Does this

remind you of Cyborg? You are not alone, trust me.

2. Google glassGoogle glass is one of the biggest

inven ons which came out for

tes ng in 2013. Google glass makes

us look at world like we are playing a

video game from first person point

of view. It provides us a lot of

valuable informa on like details

about the places we visit, the

people we meet, way we need to

follow on map, etc. Not only it is

useful, it is also very stylish and

sleek! Think about wearing a stylish

and sleek glass like a geek and

knowing all the details about places and people just with a mere look.

No doubt on the way it will storm the market once it is released for

public use.

1 . I n f o r m a o n

storage in DNA

T h i s i s b y fa r t h e m o s t

breathtaking innova on in the

fi e l d o f i n f o r m a o n

technology. George Church, a

gene cist at Harvard Medical

School, decided to print copies

of his book, 'Regenesis: How

S y n t h e c B i o l o g y W i l l

R e i n v e n t N a t u r e a n d

Ourselves' and for that he

chose an en rely different

way. Instead of prin ng it as a

book or an e‐book, he printed

it in DNA.

Researchers used sequencing

technology to format his book

and its size came down to 5.27

Mb. They printed 20 million

copies of his book in a single

DNA module. If we actually

print this as books, it will

require 3500 public Libraries

to just to accommodate all the

printed material. For its digital

copy, it will require 46TB hard

drive to store all the data. But

this large volume data was

easily tailored into a single

DNA, which we need to look

through a microscope to even

locate it. The copy on this DNA

will last for thousands of years

and all the place it needs is just

a small glass slab. All we could

is, welcome to the new era of

Data Storage, which is million

m e s effi c i e n t t h a n t h e

current systems.