Nano particles may solve one of the world’s biggest problems — water pollution. Particles of pure silica coated with an active material based on a hydrocarbon with a silicon-containing anchor (called Surface Engineered Silica) could remove toxic chemicals, bacteria, viruses, and other hazardous materials from water.
And they can do this more effectively and at a lower cost than conventional water purification methods, say Peter Majewski and Chiu Ping Chan of the Ian Wark Research Institute, in the University of South Australia. Small things can indeed do wonders!
Titan, the largest moon of Saturn, has more hydrocarbon liquid than Earth’s oil and gas reserves. NASA’s Cassini spacecraft has mapped about 20 per cent of Titan’s surface, and found that instead of water, methane, ethane, and tholins (complex organic molecules) are present on its surface.
“Titan is just covered in carbon-bearing material — it's a giant factory of organic chemicals,” says Ralph Lorenz, Cassini radar team member from the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory, Laurel, Maryland, US. “This vast carbon inventory is an important window into the geology and climate history of Titan.” Seems like Titan would be the Middle East of the universe.
What if you could make mobile phones out of recycled materials? Sounds good? Well, a famous mobile manufacturing company displayed a phone made almost entirely out of recycled materials like aluminium cans, old plastic bottles and car tyres. The phone, named ‘Remade’, was displayed at the Mobile World Congress 2008 in Barcelona, Spain. It is in the concept stage, and will take time to hit the market. And this is not all! The company is also releasing ‘3110 Evolve’ - a phone made from over 50 per cent renewable materials, with a charger that promises to use 94 per cent less energy than ordinary ones.
Shoppers at a Norwegian mall can now buy cuts in their carbon emissions along with their daily groceries. The Stroemmen Storsenter shopping centre outside Oslo is selling United Nations-approved Certified Emissions Reductions certificates at 165 Norwegian crowns (US $30.58) per tonne. One tonne of carbon dioxide is equivalent to one CER certificate. “We are doing this also to create awareness among people towards the problem (of climate change)”, says Ole Herredsvela, the shopping centre’s technical manager.
Dutch scientist Marc van Roosmalen has discovered a new species of wild pig in the Amazon forest. He has published his findings in the German journal Bonner Zoologische Beitrage. The pig, dubbed Pecari maximus, is four feet long and weighs 90 pounds. It stays in a logged frontier of the Amazon, around Nova Aripuana. These wild pigs usually travel in small groups comprising of two adults and one or two offsprings. Unfortunately, this makes them vulnerable to hunters. However, scientists say that more research is necessary to confirm that the species is new.
No, it’s a not printing error. This is actually about a frog that ate dinos! Well, not full-grown ones but baby dinosaurs. A 70 million year-old giant frog fossil has been discovered in Madagascar by scientists of University College London and Stony Brook University, New York. It has been named Beelzebufo (the frog from Hell).
It has a squat body, huge head and wide mouth. And is about 40 cm long (not counting the legs) and weighs around four kilos! “Its diet would most likely have consisted of insects and small vertebrates like lizards, but it's not impossible that Beelzebufo might even have munched on hatchling or juvenile dinosaurs”, says Professor Susan Evans of the UCL Department of Cell and Developmental Biology. The discovery of the fossil frog, a kind once thought unique to South America, has boosted the theory that Madagascar, India, and South America were linked until late in the Age of Dinosaurs. Indeed a giant discovery.
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