Printing solar cells(10–50 watts of power per square meter).

Scientists have produced the largest flexible, plastic solar cells in Australia – 10 times the size of what they were previously able to – thanks to a new solar cell printer that has been installed at CSIRO.
The printer has allowed researchers from the Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium (VICOSC) – a collaboration between CSIRO, The University of Melbourne, Monash University and industry partners – to print organic photovoltaic cells the size of an A3 sheet of paper.

According to CSIRO materials scientist Dr Scott Watkins, printing cells on such a large scale opens up a huge range of possibilities for pilot applications.
"There are so many things we can do with cells this size," he says. "We can set them into advertising signage, powering lights and other interactive elements. We can even embed them into laptop cases to provide backup power for the machine inside."
The new printer, worth $200,000 Australian dollars, is a big step up for the VICOSC team. In just three years they have gone from making cells the size of a fingernail to cells 10 cm square. Now with the new printer they have jumped to cells that are 30 cm wide.
"Eventually we see these being laminated to windows that line skyscrapers. By printing directly to materials like steel, we'll also be able to embed cells onto roofing materials."
VICOSC project coordinator and University of Melbourne researcher Dr David Jones says that one of the great advantages of the group's approach is that they're using existing printing techniques, making it a very accessible technology.
"We're using the same techniques that you would use if you were screen printing an image on to a T-Shirt," he says.
Using semiconducting inks, the researchers print the cells straight onto paper-thin flexible plastic or steel. With the ability to print at speeds of up to ten metres per minute, this means they can produce one cell every two seconds.
As the researchers continue to scale up their equipment, the possibilities will become even greater.
"Eventually we see these being laminated to windows that line skyscrapers," Dr Jones says. "By printing directly to materials like steel, we'll also be able to embed cells onto roofing materials."
The organic photovoltaic cells, which produce 10–50 watts of power per square metre, could even be used to improve the efficiency of more traditional silicon solar panels.
"The different types of cells capture light from different parts of the solar spectrum. So rather than being competing technologies, they are actually very complementary," Dr Watkins says.
The scientists predict that the future energy mix for the world, including Australia, will rely on many non-traditional energy sources. "We need to be at the forefront of developing new technologies that match our solar endowment, stimulate our science and support local, high-tech manufacturing.
"While the consortium is focused on developing applications with current industrial partners there are opportunities to work with other companies through training programs or pilot-scale production trials," he says.
As part of the consortium, a complementary screen printing line is also being installed at nearby Monash University. Combined, they will make the Clayton Manufacturing and Materials Precinct one of the largest organic solar cell printing facilities in the world.
The Victorian Organic Solar Cell Consortium is a research collaboration between CSIRO, The University of Melbourne, Monash University, BlueScope Steel, Robert Bosch SEA, Innovia Films and Innovia Security. It is supported by the Victorian State Government and the Australian Government through the Australian Renewable Energy Agency.

AIR BUBBLES IN WATER GLOWS WHEN COLLAPSED.

It's called sonoluminescence. No one knows exactly why this occurs, but there are a lot of different hypotheses. One of the most common explanations is that when the bubble collapses, the air inside gets pressurized. Increasing the pressure on a gas increases the temperature of the gas. During sonoluminescence, the temperature inside the tiny bubbles becomes so great that the gas begins to glow.

Another hypothesis is that the collapsing bubble lends energy to prolong the life of the otherwise quickly annihilating photons that are spontaneously generated in a vacuum. Sonoluminescence could also be the product of the way photons can pop into and out of existence; the sudden collapse of the bubble making the photons noticeable to those in the macro world.

THE NEXT SMART COMPUTER WORLD -- Google Glass – Augmented reality

With speculation of Apple’s growing interest in wearable computing and a smart watch-like gadget the company’s reportedly working on, it’s worth remembering Google entered the space in a big way with last year’s astonishing on-stage demonstration of its Android-driven augmented-reality eye-wear, Google Glass.

Project Glass products display information in a smartphone-like format hands-free, and can interact with the Internet via natural language voice commands. The eye wear’s functionality and minimalist appearance (aluminum strip with 2 nose pads) has been compared to Steve Mann’s Eye Tap  and uses Google’s Android operating system.

Essentially, Glass’ main priority is to move the interactions we’ve grown accustom to with our smartphones and tablets to the hands-free convenience of a pair of glasses. An Android-powered head-mounted display resides just above the right eye, producing a small heads-up display image with information like travel directions and video messaging, all accessible by Siri-like voice commands. A 720p camera is embedded in the front of the device, allowing the wearer to take pictures or perhaps even stream live video.
Project Glass is being developed by Google X Lab which has worked on other futuristic technologies such as driverless cars. The project was announced on Google+ by Babak Parviz, an electrical engineer who has also worked on putting displays into contact lenses; Steve Lee, a project manager and “geolocation specialist”; and Sebastian Thrun, who developed Udacity  as well as worked on the self-driving car project. Google has patented the design of Project Glass.Thad Starner is a Technical/Lead Manager on the project.



Google co-founder Sergey Brin took the stage at TED Wednesday morning for an unscheduled, low-key talk on Google Glass. His aim: to reveal a little bit of the thinking behind the two-year-old project and why he thinks the eyeglass-based always-connected screen is less intrusive than constantly checking your smartphone.Brin admitted he was as guilty as anyone else of repeatedly checking email and social media on his phone “as if it was something really important.” It was comparable to a smoking habit, he said. “I had a nervous tic. But with Google Glass, I’ve really enjoyed exploring the world more.”Finally, he cautioned that the device had a long way to go still — and that the success of Google Glass was far from assured, despite tremendous interest in the tech world.

Prototypes
Though head-worn displays for augmented reality are not a new idea, the project has drawn media attention primarily due to its backing by Google, as well as the prototype design, which is smaller and slimmer than previous designs for head-mounted displays The first Project Glass demo resembles a pair of normal eyeglasses where the lens is replaced by a head-up display.  In the future, new designs may allow integration of the display into people’s normal eye wear.

 The New York Times originally reported that Google Glass would be available to the public for “around the cost of current smartphones” by the end of 2012, but other reports have stated that the glasses are not expected to be available for purchase soon. The product (Google Glass Explorer Edition) will be available to United States Google I/O developers for $1,500, to be delivered in early 2013,while a consumer version is stated to be ready within a year of that.

Google originally targeted 2014 for a consumer release when it revealed Project Glass last year, but the time frame has seemingly sped up in recent months, what with developer hackathons in San Francisco and New York and this week’s announcement that people looking to put Glass to creative use could go through an application process to preorder the augmented reality specs for $1,500.

The plastic components of Google Glass will debut in five colors: gray, orange, black, white, and light blue.
An “Explorer” edition of Glass will snap on to a pair of sunglasses, and there is talk of deals with prescription spectacle sellers Warby Parker to produce a Glass model for those of us withweaker vision. The device links up with built-in Wi-Fi, and can tether via Android or iPhone.

Need of Google Glass
Like any piece of new tech, the usefulness of Glass will probably vary from person to person. Primarily, Glass is a way to communicate hands-free, to keep in touch with our loved-ones and friends without the need to hold onto a smartphone. But the device is also a way to share experiences. A recent demo video from Google attempts to show “how it feels” to use Glass, and the implications of streaming a truly first-person perspective video out into the world are massive.
Cool things you can do by Google glass:
1. Menu
Glass shows off what options users have available, ranging from taking pictures, engaging in a Google Hangout, recording a video, or sharing with others.

2. Reminders
Glass can pop up a reminder on your screen to, well, remind you of an upcoming appointment or other meeting that you have planned.

3. Weather
Like one of the cards that pops up in Android, Google Glass hopes to be able to deliver to you the current weather.

4. Dictate Texts
There’s no reason why Glass can’t be used to dictate texts or short messages to others, using the built-in microphone, Google’s cloud-based speech recognition, and a wireless connection.

5. Travel Alerts
I’ve never seen an alert when a public transportation link has been severed or is inoperable, but I assume Google has the capability to do so. This would be a handy feature.

6. Maps
I’m not sure a “full-screen” overlay would be the most ideal rendering of map data, but this would certainly be a handy feature to have in most cases.

7. Photos
Naturally, Google Glass users can take photos. This is in Glass today, although the photos (unsurprisingly) seem to have rather poor quality compared to even a mobile phone camera.8. Hangout(With screen sharing)
A nice touch. With Glass, there’s every reason to believe that not only could you join a Google Hangout, you could share what you’re seeing. In fact, with no self-facing camera, that might be the only way to communicate.

And a lot of other things like sharing locations, viewing interior maps, turn by turn directions and many more.
Glass will mean the next step towards a future where wearable computing is the norm. Or maybe, it will take years before such devices grow into common usage. Regardless, Glass has the potential to completely alter the computing and mobile industries.
Google glass will change the future!!!

Rewriting memories with red herrings.

Certain types of long term memories can be “rewritten” without drugs or surgery, according to a new study that experts say offers hope for sufferers of post traumatic stress disorder.

The study, conducted by Jason C. K. Chan and Jessica A. LaPaglia from Iowa State University, showed that declarative memories — memories of events, facts or details that can be consciously recalled — are open to change and can be disrupted through exposure to false details or alternative narratives.

The researchers designed an experiment in which participants were asked to watch an episode of the TV show 24 about a fictional terrorist attack.

Soon after the video ended, the participants were asked to recount the plot details. They were then asked to listen to an audio recording of a person explaining the video storyline, but with elements of misinformation woven throughout — for example, the suggestion that the villain used a stun gun on an airline attendant, when in the video it had been a hypodermic needle.

After being exposed to misinformation about plot details, the study subjects fared much worse at remembering the real details but only if the ’re-learning' occurred quite soon after the memory was first recalled.

“Here we show that existing declarative memories can be selectively impaired by using a noninvasive retrieval–relearning technique,” the authors said in their paper, which was published in the journal PNAS.

“These results demonstrate that human declarative memory can be selectively rewritten during reconsolidation.”

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Kristyn Bates, Research Assistant Professor of Experimental and Regenerative Neuroscience at the University of Western Australia said the new study was very interesting.

“The first thing that came to mind was that the data presented in this study could really help inform as to the best treatments for people who have conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, where unwanted memories can have such a devastating impact on a person’s life, through to better learning techniques for students studying for exams,” said Dr Bates, who was not involved in the study.

“Because declarative memory involves diffuse neuronal networks, it has been difficult to study in humans, unlike motor and fear-based memories which have localised, distinct neurological substrates. The authors have conducted a very well designed study where they have attempted to uncover whether declarative or long-term memories can be manipulated in humans without the use of drugs, which may have adverse side effects on other aspects of cognitive function.”

The authors of the study demonstrated that the incorrect details had to be specific, rather than vague, in order to be consolidated into the original memory, she said.

“This may explain why the numerous distractions and stimuli we encounter each day don’t destabilise our declarative memories. The memory-disruption effect was even present for items that participants had previously correctly recalled.”

Dr Bates said that further research was needed but the new findings may help to explain why certain forms of therapy are more effective for post traumatic stress disorder sufferers than others and may have important implications for crime investigation and interviewing of eye-witnesses.

“It is well known that eye-witness accounts can be manipulated. This study implies that the methods of questioning may be important for gathering reliable evidence. Importantly, this is a non-pharmacological, non-invasive technique, thus reducing the possibility of unwanted side effects on other memories and other aspects of cognition.”

Jee Hyun Kim, DECRA Fellow in Behavioural Neuroscience at The Florey Institute of Neuroscience and Mental Health, also welcomed the new findings.

“This study provides evidence how a stable ‘consolidated’ memory can be altered by what the person experiences following its recall,” said Dr Kim, who was not involved in the study.

“We already know that, especially in forensic context, existing memories can be manipulated and/or falsely remembered. This study explains how confabulation can be spontaneous as well as provoked. Confabulation is believed to depend on both subconscious and conscious processes. So far, reconsolidation studies provided subconscious ways in how a memory can be changed. The new study shows the conscious way.”

Dr Kim said that if brain imaging studies could be done while subjects recalled misinformed memories and original memories, “perhaps we can decode what confabulated memory looks like in the brain.”

“This could be used to differentiate true versus confabulated testimonies from eye witnesses in the court, or in diseases where confabulation is rampant such as Alzheimer’s, or alcoholism.”

“Messing With” the Blood-Brain Barrier May Be Key to Treating a Host of Diseases.

A new understanding of the blood-brain barrier as a living, mutable organ may revolutionize the treatment of diseases such as cancer and Alzheimer's

During one of his famous staining experiments of the late 1800s—the kind that would eventually lead to a cure for syphilis and a Nobel Prize for Medicine—Paul Ehrlich stumbled on a conundrum that would haunt medicine down to the present day. When he injected dye into the bloodstream of mice, it penetrated every organ except the brain. Kidneys, livers and hearts turned a dark purplish-blue, clear and stark under his microscope, but the brain remained a pale whitish-yellow. When a student of his injected that same dye directly into the brain, the opposite happened: the brain itself turned blue, whereas the other organs did not. Clearly, the student thought, a barrier—in German, Blut-Hirn-Schranke—must exist between brain and blood.

It would take half a century and a microscope roughly 5,000 times more powerful than Ehrlich's for anyone to actually locate this barrier, hidden as it was inside the brain's blood vessels. The average human brain houses roughly 400 miles of such vessels. They bend and twist in an endless array of tangled loops, ultimately ensnaring every single one of the human brain's 100 billion or so neurons. The walls of all these vessels are lined with endothelial cells. To be sure, endothelial cells line the interior of all of the body's vasculature, but they are much more tightly packed in the brain's vessels than they are anywhere else in the body, which explains why neither Ehrlich's dyes nor most of the medications in existence could cross from the bloodstream into the brain.

In Brief

• For more than a century, scientists believed that the blood-brain barrier was a sacred, impermeable wall. In fact, it is made up of ordinary blood vessels with one extraordinary property: the cells that make up their lining are packed together so tightly that they allow very few substances to cross into brain tissue.
• The barrier is a vital organ in its own right, thrumming with activity as cells communicate with one another to decide which molecules to block and which ones to let through. Many more cells pass through the barrier than scientists previously realized.
• To reflect this new understanding, scientists now call the blood-brain barrier the neurovascular unit.
• Many believe that learning how to open and close it may be the key to curing a host of diseases.