An exciting breakthrough from Columbia University researchers demonstrates a new way to grow human hair follicles using 3D printed molds. This is the first time human hair follicle cells have been grown completely in lab conditions, opening up a potentially unlimited source of hair follicles for future hair restoration surgical procedures.
Category: sustainability – Page 621
New Tesla Pickup Truck Costs Just $49,000 And Will Topple The F-150s
Tesla and the electric cars they produce are renowned for their sleek design and high tech capabilities. There is currently a saloon car (Model S), a budget version (Model 3), an SUV (Model X) and of course, the famous Roadster model which was launched into space by Elon Musk himself. There’s also a mid-sized car which is planned to be released later this year — the model Y, which is in between an S and an X. So, what’s missing from this luxury vehicle line-up? A pickup truck, of course! Tesla’s got that covered as well!
The latest Tesla model that Elon Musk has revealed is an electric pickup truck. Currently, it’s just a rumor and there has been no leak of the design or any details about this truck. That said, there is no shortage of speculation and many people seem to have their own opinions on the appearance of the new Tesla truck. However, one thing that is known is Tesla’s are expensive. Not only the design but the interior and the technology they scream luxury and offer amazing comfort. They are arguably some of the best electric vehicles on the market today but costs can run upwards of $100,000 for the latest models.
So, as anyone would expect, the new pickup truck was predicted to cost in the region of high five-, maybe even low six-figures. However, the price range has been revealed and it’s shocked everyone — apart from the Model 3, this could be one of the cheapest Tesla cars ever produced.
Beautiful, solar-powered EV charging stations promise to charge a vehicle in 15 minutes
See what are possibly the most beautiful and sustainable electric vehicle charging stations in the world — complete with green roofs and solar power.
Former President Jimmy Carter Just Made a Solar Farm to Power Half His City
Carl Gaignage
Jimmy Carter leased 10 acres of land to build a solar farm with the capacity to meet more than 50 percent of the energy needs of his hometown.
Special nanotubes could improve solar power and imaging technology
Physicists have discovered a novel kind of nanotube that generates current in the presence of light. Devices such as optical sensors and infrared imaging chips are likely applications, which could be useful in fields such as automated transport and astronomy. In future, if the effect can be magnified and the technology scaled up, it could lead to high-efficiency solar power devices.
Engineers boost output of solar desalination system
Rice University’s solar-powered approach for purifying salt water with sunlight and nanoparticles is even more efficient than its creators first believed.
Researchers in Rice’s Laboratory for Nanophotonics (LANP) this week showed they could boost the efficiency of their solar-powered desalination system by more than 50% simply by adding inexpensive plastic lenses to concentrate sunlight into “hot spots.” The results are available online in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“The typical way to boost performance in solar-driven systems is to add solar concentrators and bring in more light,” said Pratiksha Dongare, a graduate student in applied physics at Rice’s Brown School of Engineering and co-lead author of the paper. “The big difference here is that we’re using the same amount of light. We’ve shown it’s possible to inexpensively redistribute that power and dramatically increase the rate of purified water production.”
Toyota May Introduce Solid-state Batteries for Electric Cars By 2020
Toyota is working on potentially game-changing solid-state batteries, and they may arrive sooner than expected. The Japanese automaker’s R&D boss said Toyota hopes to unveil the batteries in 2020, two years ahead of schedule. Toyota plans to introduce more electric cars to its lineup.
Drug-Resistant Bacteria Common at Horse Farms, Study Shows
Scientists found 200 E. coli strains, about half of which were resistant to at least one microbial agent, in manure, air, and horse nostrils at Polish riding centers. Here’s what that means for you.
Space Gets 100 Times Cheaper By 2023 and We Will Get Moon Bases and More
If SpaceX gets a fully reusable Super Heavy Starship flying to orbit in 2020 and then has 100 fully reusable flights by 2023 then the cost of space will drop by 100 times. This will start fulfilling the plans for lunar bases, lunar mining, and space-based solar power.
If each Super Heavy Starship costs $300 million and has $1 million in operating and maintenance cost per flight then the per flight cost is $4 million. Super Heavy Starship is supposed to launch about 100 tons to orbit.
Assuming that 800 Starlink satellites are launched by April 2020, then SpaceX will start doubling its revenue from $2–3 billion to $5–6 billion in 2020 and ten billion in 2021. This will mean that SpaceX will be able to afford to build dozens of Super Heavy Starships.
Spinach power for solar cells
Popeye would be proud.
Popeye uses spinach to power his muscles. Now, scientists are looking to spinach as a power source for making electricity.
A solar cell converts sunlight into electricity. Most of these, today, are made of a material called silicon. The new device instead uses proteins from spinach and from a bacterium called Rhodobacter sphaeroides.
To make the solar cell, a team of biologists and chemists at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge extracted certain light-sensitive proteins from the spinach and the bacteria. They placed about 2 billion of these proteins on a piece of glass. They made the proteins stick by embedding them in a special framework that looks and acts like a cell membrane.