SCIENCE BOND

Usually classrooms, laboratories and offices are equipped with traditional whiteboards. But sometimes the area of the whiteboard is not enough for all the ideas, equations, or random stuff that just needs to be there. With this in mind researchers have come up with IdeaPaint, which virtually turns any surface it is applied to into a dry erase board.As soon as the paint is dry, users can easily write on it with the help of standard dry erase markers, and then wipe off the written stuff using a soft cloth.  The authors of IdeaPaint also suggest that their invention could be applied to things like refrigerators, desk tops, lockers, or any other surface where people can leave notes or messages. There are two versions of the paint: CREATE and PRO. The former comes in white, black, or clear (which, when applied, allows the color of the surface underneath the paint to show through). The price of the CREATE version (which allows to cover 50 square feet (4.7 square meters)) is US$225. You c...

This process in the near future could be used to transform 80 million tons of garbage into a valuable product. Despite the fact that rice represents a staple crop in the majority of the nations, it is also the producer of a huge amount of waste.  It should be noted that on average 20% of all rice by weight is thrown away. Thus each year accounts for 80 million tons of inedible husks from today's annual rice yield of 422 million tons.  These husks are tough and abrasive and can be used in low-cost materials like fertilizer additives or bed soil and nothing more. Nevertheless a team of scientists from South Korea managed to come up with a way of reducing the amount of agricultural waste from rice farming. They were able to turn the husks into a more precious finished product.  Researchers at the Chungnam National University were able to extract silica from the silicon-rich husks to turn it into silicon for    battery anodes. Despite the fact that molecularly rice ...

Using a 3-D printer, a petri dish and several cells from a cow, a team of researchers from the United States managed to grow artificial ears that are able to receive and transmit sound. A group of scientists from Princeton University sent cow cells blended in a liquid gel through a 3-D printer, in which they also added small particles of silver. It would be interesting to note that the researchers' printer has been programmed to create the shape of a "bionic ear" from the introduced material. It also makes a coiled antenna using the silver particles. This antenna, like any other, is able to catch radio signals that the ear will understand as sound. However, the 3-D ear cannot replace a real human ear. The study was launched with the goal of exploring a new way of combining electronics and biological material. The actual aim was to demonstrate that 3-D printers can be used to create much more than just plain objects like figurines and jewelry. As soon as the ea...

A team of scientists from the Swiss Federal Laboratories for Materials Science and Technology (Empa) recently came up with the world's first air-conditioned bulletproof jacket based on a special technology called Coolpad that helps police stay cool in hot days. It is worth mentioning that the Coolpad technology elaborated by Empa was initially developed for cooling clothes for different medical applications. Researchers say that the built-in Coolpads  evaporate sweat through the material, thus helping the wearer to stay cool.  Besides, the bulletproof jacket has a tiny fan that easily fits into the garment and blows air inside the vest to offer more cooling. To be able to incorporate the fan, researchers at Empa teamed up with Eschler, a textile company from Switzerland, to develop a special fabric spacer that is both stable and flexible.  In order to quickly refill the cool pads with water, scientists created a portable filling station the wearer can easily attach to the...

One of the latest inventions in the field of light emitting devices might change the way people light their homes and design clothes. The device represents a thin film of plastic able to conduct  electricity and create solar power . Scientists working on the international project are looking forward to bring the organic light emitting devices to the masses. Thus the invention could significantly cut costs by billions of dollars each year. Due to the fact that the organic light emitting devices are very thin and flexible, electronic display screens could be easily created on nearly every material, thus, for example, clothing could, for the first time in history, display specific electronic information. There are various ways of using the this OLED, like for example change the color of clothes, beer can would be able to display various sports results. In addition the OLED is much more efficient than the light bulb used today. Currently these devices are applied in mobile p...