Environmentally conscious? The TZOA Pollution Monitor might interest you. It’s a wearable device that detects air pollution, an environmental issue that plagues many modern cities. It’s simple: “A fan directly beneath TZOA’s triangular cover sucks in air. As pollutants cross a laser, they scatter light onto a sensor that counts them. TZOA then glows a color corresponding to the air safety level. A smartphone app also displays that data, along with daily UV light exposure and crowdsourced polluti...

The Wave Glider represents an innovative approach to ocean persistent presence; it harnesses ocean wave energy to provide essentially limitless propulsion while solar panels continually replenish the batteries used to power the Wave Glider’s control electronics and payload systems. The Wave Glider vehicle is propelled by the purely mechanical conversion of ocean wave energy into forward thrust, independent of wave direction. Through extensive engineering trials and demonstrations, the Wave Glide...

When babies are  born, they don't have enough body fat to keep their body warm. To these newborns, room temperature is extremely cold. This means that babies in developing nations that don't have access to ways to keep their children warm, leading to many harmful consequences. To help stop this  world wide problem, Embrace Global created the Embrace Warmer, a device that regulates the body temperature of recently born babies, keeping them alive in places that are still developing and would no...

Scientists at Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium have succeeded in converting the cellulose in sawdust into hydrocarbon chains, an important additive in petrol (gasoline) and plastics, which could potentially provide a solution to the global energy crisis.’ Cellulose, an organic compound obtained from wood pulp, straw, grass and cotton, contains strong carbon chains. The researchers were able to remove the oxygen bonded to these carbon chains to create a product that only r...

WiTricity builds a "Source Resonator," a coil of electrical wire that generates a magnetic field when power is attached. If another coil is brought close, an electrical charge can be generated in it. No wires required. "When you bring a device into that magnetic field, it induces a current in the device, and by that you're able to transfer power," Don't worry about getting zapped, the magnetic fields used to transfer energy are "perfectly safe" -- in fact, they are the same kind of fields...

A fridge for the common man that does not require electricity and keeps food fresh too. With this basic parameter in mind 'Mitticool', a fridge made of clay was developed for rural areas.   It works on the principle of evaporation.  Water from the upper chambers drips down the side, and gets evaporated taking away heat from the inside , leaving the chambers cool. The top upper chamber is used to store water. A small lid made from clay is provided on top. A small faucet tap is also...

Buoyant Wind Turbine (BAT) is a new innovation to generate energy in sky as it works at a thousand feet above the ground. The energy-creating innovation has been in development for a couple of years by the Altaeros Energies Company in the US and testing of the latest incarnation is currently underway. If successful, the idea could prove to be an invaluable way of generating electricity in areas of dire need, such as locations affected natural disasters where power lines might have been destro...

3D printers have been used to make everything from human stem cells to food to full-size cars, and now researchers are using the technology to build models of rocks to study how fluid seeps underground. Geologists are reproducing the microscopic, intricate porenetworks of rocks in scaled up3D-printed models. Franek Hasiuk, a professor of geological and atmospheric sciences at Iowa State University in Ames, is printing replicas of the tiny holes at huge magnifications to get a better look at h...

Mitochondria, often called the powerhouse of the cell, have been harnessed in a new battery-like device that could one day power small portable devices like mobile phones or laptops. Mitochondria convert fatty acids and pyruvate, formed from the digestion of sugars and fats, to adenosine triphosphate (ATP), the cell's energy supply. Along the way a tiny electrical current is generated, and Shelley Minteer and coworkers from Saint Louis University in Missouri, US, have now harnessed those flow...

  Solar energy that doesn’t block the view A team of researchers at Michigan State University has developed a new type of solar concentrator that when placed over a window creates solar energy while allowing people to actually see through the window. It is called a transparent luminescent solar concentrator and can be used on buildings, cell phones and any other device that has a clear surface. And, according to Richard Lunt of MSU’s College of Engineering, the key word is “...