| Celebrating the birth of the solar cell Editor's Note: Scientific American 's George Musser will be chronicling his experiences installing solar panels and taking other steps to save energy in 60-Second Solar . Read his introduction here and see all posts here . I came across the following un-bylined news story from our June 1954 issue which I thought solarheads would enjoy. Not only does it recount the invention of the photovoltaic cell at Bell Labs , it provides one of the most elegant explanations I've seen of how the device works, though the predictions about its limited usefulness are charmingly dated. A brief excerpt from this story also appeared in the 50, 100 and 150 Years Ago column of our June 2004 issue. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Government Incentives Can Help Finance Energy-Efficient Home Improvements Dear EarthTalk: Since Obama took office, have any new incentives been put in place for homeowners looking to increase energy efficiency and reduce the overall environmental footprints of their homes? --Rob Felton, Little Rock, AK [More] rss.sciam.com |
U.S. Supreme Court turns down Michigan's request to block Asian carp invasion of Great Lakes The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday said it would not help stop the spread of invasive Asian carp by ordering the closure of locks between Chicago-area waterways and Lake Michigan. A suit from Michigan and four other states, plus Ontario, had requested closing the locks to block Asian carp from entering Lake Michigan and damaging its ecosystem, as they have done elsewhere in the country. [More] rss.sciam.com |
Wonders of Life Cheetos Lip Balm. That’s right, you can purchase lip balm imbued with the delicate flavor of Cheetos. Somehow I lived in blissful ignorance of that fact until quite recently, when I discovered that chemists had pulled off this minor miracle back in 2005. As I pondered the idea of a cheese-puffy lip protector, a flood of memories of never having read Proust rose up within me, and I thought of what marvelous recollections he might have come up with had he ever tasted a crunchy curl of faux cheese delicately lifted from a greasy plastic bag, the junkified morsel staining thumb and forefinger a sickly, artificial orange. But I couldn’t think about that for long because I was soon busy thinking about other stuff, stuff I’ll now ask you, dear reader, to think about, too.Here’s something else I just learned about: in a 2007 poll respondents on average estimated NASA’s funding to be 24 percent of the federal budget. Fixing those busted space toilets is expensive, but not that expensive: NASA has in fact been getting about $18 billion annually in recent years, less than 1 percent of the budget. NASA would get about $1 billion more each year under the draft budget President Barack Obama announced in early February, although that money would go to scientific research and robotic missions rather than sending guys back to the moon to look for Alan B. Shepard’s golf balls. (There are two up there: he shanked his first shot and took the rare moon mulligan.) [More] rss.sciam.com |
Organic Strawberries Beat Conventionally Grown In Test Plots Some consumers buy organically grown foods because they believe the products are healthier, tastier and better for the environment. But is this assessment true? [More] Organic farming - Organic - Agriculture - Business - Food and Related Products rss.sciam.com |