Science: Nanotechnics: Fuel cells, oil-addiction overcome, scientific secrets

Recently, nanotechnology has produced three discoveries of its positive potentials for bettering our life in ways related to our environment. One holds promise of replacing the chemical battery, a hi-ly toxic 200-yrs-old invention. Another may make the solar-energy cell fabulously more efficient. And the third raises the ante to the modal level of biotics, allowing a look into the minisculities of living plant and animals cells to see if toxins are damaging them, or whether they are themselves producing toxins in never-before-visible amounts that could accumluate to kill a living organism - such as perhaps, yourself. The info is collected in a newspaper article by Robert C. Cowen, writing in Christian Science Monitor, "Big news on a very samll scale" (Feb24,2k6):

Conventional solar cells, for example, are made from thin wafers cut from blocks of silicon. Building the cells as assemblies of nanotech units is a better way to boost solar-cell efficiency, says Craig Grimes, an engineering professor at Pennsylvania State University. His research team builds cells as molecule-size arrays of titanium. These titania nanotubes are covered with a dye that converts light energy to energy of electrons. The tubes channel the electron flow to form the cell current - electric power.

I can't imagine how this mite allow you to drive your car at nite, but who knows? If you had a bunch of these and exposed them to sunlite, maybe one would be ready on a grey day to be popped into a spot under the hood and off you go. If not, think of the many other uses to which solar-sourced energy could be channelled by way of such new-style nanotech 'batteries' in home and workplace.

If you know what a cyclotron is (basically a pipeline that circles in a huge spiral some miles long, as in southwestern France where a cyclotron was used to bombard atomic structures to demonstrate by means of statistical measurement only, the subatomic changes of a micro-instant's duration (literally a "split second' of time) that take place. I'm not sure what those cyclotronic results are good for, except in theoretical physics. But in any case at MIT, there's something analoguous being made using microscopic fractions of a hair's width (instead of a pipeline-sized object) but of length longer than most oil piplines out there in our usual-scale world. These are being coiled microscopically now to create magnetic fields to store electrical energy. Well, I think I got the science rite but you'd better read Cowen.

For the third of Cowen's examples, you can't get the oriignal source without paying Science Magazine, but you can get a taste by looking at the "figures" and accompanying short texts. Or look up related studies by Andre Nel and his research group, where you may not have to pay for a little knowledge scientific. Amateurs and the scientific laity are often locked out of science by these pay-stingers, but for the public to vote for candidates for public office who make decisions on environmental, ecological, and other scientific matters: the lockout from scientific information - especially when its already funded by government - seems to be an entirely elitist set-up. Maybe if we politely email Dr Anre Nel, he'll be happy to send us each a PDF of this gnostic cache of info. - Owlb