The Open Laboratory: The Year s Best Writing on Science Blogs.
In their early days, scientific journals were much more generous than they are today about publishing letters from experimenters and collectors in all walks of life. The hard wall between scientists and amateurs had not yet been built and all literate people were, in theory, entitled to participate in the discussion. One such person was Rev. Edward Lhwyd (or Lhuyd or Lhwid or Lloyd), the illegitimate son of a member of the minor gentry who rose from genteel poverty to become keeper of collections at the Ashmolean Museum in Oxford (an unpaid position, but important in the community of science). The 1698 volume of
DNP’s New Touchless Transparent Screen Can Be Operated by Hand Movements Amid increased awareness of hygiene and safety as the Covid-19 pandemic continues to spread around the world, Dai Nippon Printing Co., Ltd. (DNP) (TOKYO: 7912) has developed a new transparent display screen that can be operated in a touchless format, by merely moving a hand over a motion sensor. By removing the need to make direct contact with the cursor, the newly developed screen will be positioned as a countermeasure to the spread of Covid-19. A liquid crystal (LC) light control film is attached to a transparent screen facilitating a variety of video expressions on a single screen, from standard displays to augmented reality (AR) driven effects, including those where vivid images appear to hang in the air.
Our energy dilemma
The hydrocarbon economy is faltering as oil reserves dwindle worldwide (Hirsch, 2008). Commodity prices have begun to fluctuate drastically due to the uncertain cost of petroleum, which resulted in food riots around the world in 2008. With a steadily decreasing energy supply and the demands on energy systems continually growing, the planet is in dire economic, geopolitical, and environmental straits. In order to halt the advance of climate change, prevent ecological collapse, rescue the global economy, and ensure our energy security, humanity must find a way to harness currently available (non-fossilized) energy. The largest source of energy on Earth, excluding the future potential for thermonuclear fusion reactors, is the sun. Human civilization consumes 15 TW annually while approximately 80,000 TW of solar energy fall on the Earth’s surface each year (Makarieva et al., 2008). For hundreds of millions of years, this solar flux has been the driving f