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Nov 27, 2021

Doing photon upconversion a solid: Crystals that convert light to more useful wavelengths

Posted by in categories: chemistry, solar power, sustainability

Solid-solution organic crystals have been brought into the quest for superior photon upconversion materials, which transform presently wasted long-wavelength light into more useful shorter wavelength light. Scientists from Tokyo Institute of Technology have revisited a materials approach previously deemed lackluster—using a molecule originally developed for organic LEDs—and have achieved outstanding performance and efficiency. Their findings pave the way for many novel photonic technologies, such as better solar cells and photocatalysts for hydrogen and hydrocarbon productions.

Light is a powerful source of energy that can, if leveraged correctly, be used to drive stubborn chemical reactions, generate electricity, and run optoelectronic devices. However, in most applications, not all the wavelengths of can be used. This is because the energy that each photon carries is inversely proportional to its wavelength, and chemical and are triggered by light only when the energy provided by individual photons exceeds a certain threshold.

This means that devices like solar cells cannot benefit from all the color contained in sunlight, as it comprises a mixture of photons with both high and low energies. Scientists worldwide are actively exploring materials to realize upconversion (PUC), by which photons with lower energies (longer wavelengths) are captured and re-emitted as photons with higher energies (shorter wavelengths). One promising way to realize this is through triplet-triplet annihilation (TTA). This process requires the combination of a sensitizer material and an annihilator material. The sensitizer absorbs low energy photons (long-wavelength light) and transfers its excited energy to the annihilator, which emits higher photons (light of shorter wavelength) as a result of TTA.

Nov 27, 2021

ESA’s Solar Orbiter Spacecraft Is Skimming Earth for a Gravity Assist — And It’s One of the Riskiest Planetary Flybys Ever

Posted by in categories: energy, satellites

The chance that ESA’s Solar Orbiter spacecraft will encounter space debris during its upcoming Earth flyby is very, very low. However, the risk is not zero and is greater than any other flyby ESA has performed. That there is this risk at all highlights the mess we’ve made of space – and why we need to take action to clean up after ourselves.

On November 27, after a year and eight months flying through the inner Solar System, Solar Orbiter will swing by home to ‘drop off’ some extra energy. This will line the spacecraft up for its next six flybys of Venus.

Continue reading “ESA’s Solar Orbiter Spacecraft Is Skimming Earth for a Gravity Assist — And It’s One of the Riskiest Planetary Flybys Ever” »

Nov 27, 2021

Red light therapy could improve eyesight that has declined due to age

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

Exposure to deep red or near-infrared light can improve the function of the eye’s mitochondria, the powerhouses in cells, resulting in slight but lasting improvement to declining eyesight.

Nov 27, 2021

Upcoming Moon missions spur the search for new spacesuits

Posted by in category: space

NASA has asked the private sector to design new spacesuits that can be used on the Moon.

Nov 27, 2021

Heavy antimatter created in gold collisions

Posted by in category: particle physics

Circa 2010


Most massive antimatter nucleus yet identified in particle experiments.

Nov 27, 2021

Physicists Outlined a Simple New Way to Create Antimatter

Posted by in categories: physics, space

A group of researchers has outlined a surprisingly simple method for recreating the conditions near a neutron star, a breakthrough that could lead to new unimagined scientific discoveries revolving around the mysterious role of antimatter, a report from New Atlas explains.

The team of physicists designed a device, detailed in a paper in the journal Communications Physics, that fires two lasers at each other. The result is that the energy from the two lasers is simultaneously converted into matter, in the form of electrons, as well as antimatter, in the form of positrons.

Nov 27, 2021

How To Make and Trap Antimatter

Posted by in categories: particle physics, space travel

Circa 2017


Antimatter sounds mysterious and powerful. In science fiction, it often has properties like defying gravity or taking on opposite colors. But in reality, antimatter is really no different than regular matter, except that antimatter atoms have positrons instead of electrons and antiprotons instead of protons. At CERN in Switzerland, scientists have actually been able to create antimatter and store it in a magnetic field that keeps it from touching regular matter. If that happens, the antimatter annihilates, producing a burst of energy. In sci-fi like Star Trek, this energy is used to power spaceships. We’re still very far from something like that, but it’s still pretty incredible that we can create something that was for a long time just a hypothesis.

Nov 27, 2021

Meet the robot that can write poetry and create artworks

Posted by in categories: information science, robotics/AI

When people think of artificial intelligence, the images that often come to mind are of the sinister robots that populate the worlds of “The Terminator,” “i, Robot,” “Westworld,” and “Blade Runner.” For many years, fiction has told us that AI is often used for evil rather than for good.

But what we may not usually associate with AI is art and poetry — yet that’s exactly what Ai-Da, a highly realistic robot invented by Aidan Meller in Oxford, central England, spends her time creating. Ai-Da is the world’s first ultra-realistic humanoid robot artist, and on Friday she gave a public performance of poetry that she wrote using her algorithms in celebration of the great Italian poet Dante.

The recital took place at the University of Oxford’s renowned Ashmolean Museum as part of an exhibition marking the 700th anniversary of Dante’s death. Ai-Da’s poem was produced as a response to the poet’s epic “Divine Comedy” — which Ai-Da consumed in its entirety, allowing her to then use her algorithms to take inspiration from Dante’s speech patterns, and by using her own data bank of words, create her own work.

Nov 27, 2021

China backs UN pledge to ban (its own) social scoring

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

UNESCO member countries endorse plan for ‘ethical AI,’ calling for clear red lines.

Nov 27, 2021

AI That Tries To Be Funny Is Not Necessarily A Laughing Matter, Especially When Used By Self-Driving Cars

Posted by in categories: humor, robotics/AI, transportation

Humor can be quite useful.

Let’s see how.

Suppose you are having a bad day (I realize this seems a bit dour and gloomy, but the venerated gallantry of well-placed humor will turn this around, wait and see).

Continue reading “AI That Tries To Be Funny Is Not Necessarily A Laughing Matter, Especially When Used By Self-Driving Cars” »