Lancaster University

Scotland’s Albatern is putting a new, modular spin on renewable energy generation. WaveNET is a scalable array of floating “Squid” generator units that harvest wave energy as their buoyant arms rise and fall with the motion of the waves. Each Squid can link up to as many as three others, effectively creating a large, floating

New Materials Could Turn Water into the Fuel of the Future Researchers at Caltech and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have—in just two years—nearly doubled the number of materials known to have potential for use in solar fuels. They did so by developing a process that promises to speed the discovery of commercially viable

A new world record is in the books for battery technology. Thanks to a tiny particle resembling an egg yolk and shell, scientists have been able to dramatically increase lithium-ion battery storage capacity. According to their paper in Nature Communications (published January 8*), researchers from Stanford University and the SLAC National Accelerator Laboratorya new material described as a “sulfur-TiO2 yolk-shell

Last April, Jared Cosulich and Adam Abrons founded Irrational Design, a technology company, in San Francisco. Since its debut, the start-up has introduced three online commercial products. The founders, who met while working at a software engineering company, Pivotal Labs, are determined to build a business that is free to take risks. THE CHALLENGE To start a

Here’s something rather important that you might not know: there may be a worldwide phosphorus shortage within the next few decades. The majority of the world’s phosphorus is currently mined from non-renewable phosphate rock deposits, and widely used in crop fertilizers. Scientists have begun to question just how much more phosphorus is left, and what

Oxford Photovoltaics reveals plan to raise £3.5m in funding to make solar glass a reality A UK start-up has developed an innovative new form of “solar glass” that could allow glass-fronted commercial buildings such as skyscrapers to generate enough energy to power their lighting and IT systems. Spun out from Oxford University in late 2010,

Simply replacing the connector in the IV system in patients with central lines could help reduce deadly bloodstream infections, researchers at Georgia Regents University have found. A central line or central catheter is a tube placed in a patient’s arm or chest to help deliver fluids, blood, or medications through the large veins near the

University of Wisconsin–Madison researchers have made a material that can transition from an electricity-transmitting metal to a nonconducting insulating material without changing its atomic structure. “This is quite an exciting discovery,” says Chang-Beom Eom, professor of materials science and engineering. “We’ve found a new method of electronic switching.” The new material could lay the groundwork