The most advanced batteries in today’s electric cars are based on lithium-ion technology. These batteries use metal-oxide cathodes combined with an encased oxidizer. They are heavy and provide a limited range, up to 160 kilometers (approximately 100 miles) before they need recha

Urban Renewal and a Dash of White Paint A recent study published in the April 2012 edition of Environmental Research Letters, the Journal of the British Institute of Physics, and entitled The Long-Term Effect of Increasing the Albedo of Urban Areas, looks at proposals to make cities m

The Wind Challenger Project will be bringing sailing ships to a port near you in the very near future. The earliest date for the first deployment may be 2016. What’s this technology all about? A return to sails on ships, but not the canvas ones of old. The use of up-to-the-minut

Synthetic Genetic Polymers Capable of Heredity and Evolution is the title of a journal article appearing in the April 2012 issue of  Science. The researchers reported the findings of a project in which they created synthetic DNA, called XNA. The X stands for “Xeno,” a term

In the 18th and 19th century the English upper class frequently visited the European continent in a ritual that became known as the Grand Tour. Beginning with a cross-Channel boat trip they would alight in France, the Netherlands or Belgium and then proceed to all the great cities and

When Gregor Mendel discovered the laws of inheritance by cross-pollinating pea plants and observing the results he defined a series of rules that farmers through the centuries had discovered on their own while observing nature and in trial and error. Genetically modified (GM) crops, h

Today is Earth Day and it seems appropriate to include an article about climate change. Last week a study was published in Nature Geoscience showing that some areas of the Himalayas were gaining ice steadily. The study compared data collected on the Space Shuttle Endeavour in 2000 wit

Eole Water S.A.S. is a French company that has developed a wind turbine able to collect water as a byproduct. The product, the WMS1000, achieves this using an airborne condenser within the wind turbine that can produce up to 1,000 liters of safe drinking water daily. The condenser is

With solar panel prices dropping it seems almost every month you would think that roof tops throughout the world would be covered with them. But that’s not the case. In my neighbourhood of hundreds of homes here in Toronto one house has solar panels. It seems that what I observe

The United States appeared to lose their way after Viking landed on Mars. It may have been the lack of definitive proof of life that caused the hiatus. With the discounting of the Label Release experiment results biologists were no longer included in the Mars design team. The Viking d