Altaeros’ Buoyant Airborne Turbine: Floats at High Altitude

Neha Shukla

We visualize wind turbine as tall tower with a huge fan mounted on it and fixed at some distant place. But we might have never imagined a wind turbine that floats in the air. Does it sound like a sci-fi movie subject? Surprisingly, it’s a reality being developed by MIT startup Altaeros Energies and will be seen floating in the sky above the city of Fairbanks and the power so generated will be used to power remote military sites and families residing off the grid that usually depend on expensive…

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Brain Mechanics Still a Debatable Issue

Neha Shukla

Humans in their entire life come across thousands of people. And they relatively recognize and remember all of these individual faces, thanks to the extraordinary brain for the same. But the mechanism behind this ability of the brain is still an issue for debate among the scientists. There are two hypotheses proposed by the researchers explaining how humans acquired this ability. One group of researchers suggests that the brain has specialized mechanism, exclusively for faces. Whereas the other group put forward the belief (expertise hypothesis) that the identification of any…

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Virtual Environment gets converged with Real World: The Sulon Cortex

Pooja Kashyap

Running against the walls of the physical reality is one of the major huddles while being into the world of gaming in the virtual reality. Sulon Technologies, a Canadian based startup delved into the issue and pioneered a new spirit into the visual immersion system by their latest concept to which they call the Cortex.

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Juxtaposing Living and the Nonliving Worlds Together: Materials Synthesis

Pooja Kashyap

So far, we have seen robots inspired from the best of biomimicry. Researchers have often looked upon nature to solve problems. At the same time, there are certain natural tendencies, which engineers are still trying to figure out the way towards artificially re-invention and one of them is ‘bone’. Bone is one of those natural materials that require no supervision, yet it fabricates material in response to environmental signals. In order to understand this phenomenon, researchers at the MIT, have tried to juxtapose living bacterial cells with non-living substance like…

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Climate Change Slowing The Deep Ocean Currents

Neha Shukla

We recently covered an article explaining the vital role of the oceans in the global carbon cycle and the process in which oceans accumulate, transport and convert carbon molecules. But according to a recent research carried by Irina Marinov and Raffaele Bernardello from University of Pennsylvania and colleagues from McGill University, says that climate change is slowing down the deep ocean currents and can adversely influence the climate in the future. 

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Active Cancellation of Tremor to Combat Essential Tremor

Wa'd Abuzurayk

In another health technology breakthrough, scientists have successfully managed to design and manufacture a shake cancelling device. As essential tremor causing uncontrollable hand-shakes is a common disorder in older ages, scientists from the University of Michigan Health System conducted a study that evaluated a new device which cancels the effect of hand-shakes resulting from essential tremor. The device was developed by a team from the startup company Lift Labs. 15 adults living with essential tremor participated in a clinical trial to test the use of this spoon. Participants were better…

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New Computer Vision System: Emotion Recognition

Neha Shukla

Everyone, in some point or the other in life, must have faked of being in pain or being ill, to escape from going school, college, office or so on. We humans are not always correct to distinguish a fake emotion from the genuine one. Lately, researchers have developed a computer system that can easily distinguish when an individual is genuinely in pain or is just faking it away more accurately than the humans. 

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Scrabble-Playing Robot: Excited When Wins While Sulks on Losing

Neha Shukla

In the computer science lounge at Carnegie Mellon University, sits Victor, a scrabble playing robot. Unlike other robots who are designed to be the masters of the game, Victor is a below average player and just like humans, the bot is excited when it wins and sulk on losing. But be careful, the bot can be really nastier at times and can talk a lot of trash. 

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Protean Electric’s Gearless, Direct-Drive System: An In-Wheel Motor Concept

Pooja Kashyap

Protean Electric, an automotive start-up is paving way towards revolutionizing electric cars with its in-wheel motor design. Beijing roads will first experience this radical technology. Like the EcoMotors, Protean Electric’s preferred the East Asia since the government is very supportive towards technology that evangelizes fuel efficiency and air quality. In-Wheel Motor Concept Generally, central motor in an electric vehicle is under bonnet that transmits power down to the rotating shaft, which further sends torque to the axels. But in the Protean system, small motors, which is responsible for creating power, is…

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Microplasma Transistors for Smartphones and Nuclear Environment

Pooja Kashyap

Researchers at the University of Utah have created one of the most minuscule plasma transistors that can resist soaring temperatures and ionizing radiation that could be seen in a nuclear reactor. The engineers envision that such transistors would: 1) Facilitate taking and collecting X-rays in war zones by high-end cellular phones 2) Integrated within equipments to gauge air quality in the actual time 3) Plasma based bot could be sent into the nuclear reactor for certain assignments Like beavers, the transistors perform the most important work in the field of…

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Fidelity Can Be Seen In Owl Monkeys: Genetic Monogamy

Neha Shukla

Infidelity is very general trait to be observed in the animal kingdom. Maternal and paternal genetic tests have revealed that even the species that were considered to be faithful in their relationship, were often not loyal to each other. Merely about 10 percent of the species follow monogamy and are truly faithful to each other. However, according to a latest research led by University of Pennsylvania revealed that Azara’s owl monkeys (Aotus azarae) are remarkably devoted and faithful to their mating partners. 

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Sea Serpents Can Remain Dehydrated for Months: Combating Climatic Changes

Neha Shukla

Sea snakes as the name suggest, spend their entire life in the ocean. Researchers have always been curious to know how do these snakes survive in seawater and what method did they employ to satisfy the quench for fresh water. According to a latest research, the sea snakes though surrounded by water, unfortunately, remains thirsty and dehydrated for months. 

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Space Based Solar Power: Photovoltaic Satellite System

Neha Shukla

Researchers are continually trying to improve the ways to capture solar energy more efficiently for powering industries, towns, remote villages and even for military purposes. Military needs lots of fuel for its operations. In fact, Pentagon oil consumption is one of the largest in the world and with the fuel price rise, the military is searching for other energy options. Therefore, in the United States Naval Research Laboratory, researchers are trying to tap solar energy directly from the space and send it to military base operating in far-flung remote villages. 

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Gamification is More Than Just Points & Badges: Lord of the Rings

Pooja Kashyap

Recently, I watched Lord of the Rings, second time of course but consciously with a different angle. This time, I translated Frodo Baggins journey in terms Gamification strategy. By introducing the gaming element in the movie, I discovered that the trilogy became all the more interesting and innovative so I thought of penning down my insights and if I’m wrong anywhere please free to rebut my point(s), I’d be of great help, thanks. Introduction to the world of Gamification: Task assigned Frodo Baggins is having a good time at his…

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