Wallpaper*: April 2011

Mahasiswa MIT Meningkatkan Efisiensi Sel Surya Dengan Menggunakan Virus!!

Setahun yang lalu, peneliti dari Massachusetts Institute Of Technology (MIT) berhasil menemukan konsep sel surya yang lebih kecil namun dengan kemampuan yang tidak kalah dengan sel surya konvensional dengan ukuran yang lebih besar. Mereka menggunakan nanotube carbon untuk mengkonsentrasikan elektron pada sel photovoltaic pada sel surya. Kali ini, para peneliti MIT lagi - lagi melakukan gebrakan dengan penemuan mereka yang mampu meningkatkan efisiensi sel surya hingga lebih dari 30%. Namun, kali ini bukan menggunakan zat karbon atau sejenisnya, akan tetapi menggunakan Virus!!

Masalah yang terjadi pada nanotube konvensional adalah nanotube tersebut cenderung menggumpal sehingga menurunkan efisiensinya. Selain itu, biasanya nanotube pada sel surya tersusun oleh dua jenis bahan, yaitu bahan semi konduktor dan bahan metal. Keduanya ternyata memiliki karakteristik yang berlawanan. Bahan semikonduktor yang tidak selalu membiarkan arus lewat, ternyata mampu meningkatkan kemampuan solar sel, namun bahan metalik justru sebaliknya, mengurangi kemampuan solar sel.

Untuk mengatasi masalah tersebut, tim ilmuwan MIT yang terdiri dari mahasiswa S2 Xiangnan Dang,Hyunjung Yi,dan beberapa mahasiswa lainnya — dibimbing oleh Angela Belcher (seorang W. M. Keck Professor bidang Energi),melakukan penelitian rekayasa genetika terhadap virus yang biasa menyerang bakteri. Dan ternyata virus yang disebut M13 itu dapat digunakan untuk mengontrol susunan permukaan nanotube, menjaga jarak antar nanotube sehingga terhindar dari konsleting, dan menjaga setiap nanotube agar tidak menggumpal . Ketika dikondisikan pada lingkungan nanotube, peptida virus '(polimer yang dibuat dari asam amino) terikat erat dengan nanotube, keduanya bisa menahan peptida virus tersebut pada AND agar terpisah satu sama lain. Satu virus mampu mengikat lima sampai sepuluh nanotube,total sekitar 300 molekul peptida untuk masing-masing tabung.

Dalam diagram ini, virus M13 terdiri dari untai DNA (angka-8 koil di sebelah kanan) yang melekat pada seikat protein yang disebut peptida - protein mantel virus (pembuka botol bentuk di tengah) yang melekat pada nanotube karbon (silinder abu-abu) dan menahan mereka di tempat. Sebuah lapisan titanium dioksida (bola kuning) yang melekat pada molekul pewarna (bola pink)mengelilingi bundel.

Tipe solar sel dye-sanitized ini merupakan jenis solar sel yang ringan dan murah, di mana permukaannya tersusun atau dilapisi oleh Titanium Oksida (TiO2),bukan silicon seperti solar sel konvensional lainnya. Menurut para peneliti itu teknik Viral (penggunaan virus) ini ternyata juga bisa diterapkan dengan baik pada jenis solar sel lainnya, termasuk jenis solar sel quantum-dot dan sel surya organik. Pada penilitian ini, mereka mendapatkan peningkatan efisiensi hingga sekitar 33%, yaitu dari 8% menjadi 10,6%. Yang mencengangkan adalah komposisi virus yang diinjeksikan para solar sel atau nanotube tersebut hanya 0,1 % dari berat keseluruhan sel.
Penelitian MIT ini diterbitkan online minggu ini dalam jurnal Nature Nanotechnology.Untuk penjelasan lebih lengkap silahkan kunjungi website berikut ini :

web.mit.edu

tag : solar cell, sel surya, jenis sel surya, sel surya dari virus, meningkatkan efisiensi sel surya, energi listrik, MIT, penelitian

7 Annoying Gamer Types

1. Inspector Gadget

This guy loves all the bits and pieces associated with gaming. He actually bought the Nintendo Power Glove and the Virtual Boy. He has Rumble Paks on his Rumble Paks. Maybe he just really likes Nintendo… No wait, there’s a stack of every color of PlayStation memory card ever made. He always shows up with his own controller in pristine condition, and you laughed at him when he brought over the Master Chief helmet that came with the Legendary edition of Halo 3, because it’s tiny and you can’t actually wear it. Then he used it to build a scale model that actually fit, and you were kind of jealous.

2. Freak of Nature

Ok, I thought pot made your reaction time slower. I thought being on the phone while doing stuff made you less skillful. I thought having played the game before would give me some kind of advantage. Yet here you are, high as a kite, talking on the phone with your girlfriend, never having played this game before, and beating the crap out of me. I don’t know whether to salute you or cut you up into little pieces and hide them in the CD tray.

3. Purist/Completionist

Doing stuff out of order just freaks this guy out. Don’t ever invite him to play multiplayer on a level he hasn’t played through himself on single player. He won’t put down a game until he has every scenario beaten, every achievement achieved. “I’d love to play MF2 with you, man,” he says, “but I’m still working on GTA IV.” He still brags about how, at the age of 12, he got every star in Super Mario 64 in perfect order. You wonder seriously whether he puts this on his resume.

4. Old School Elitist

He’s indifferent about games today, but oh man, were you alive when the first Super Mario came out? That game was tight. The mechanics, the controls, both groundbreaking and breathtaking. Halo can’t hold a candle to GoldenEye; A Link to the Past leaves Uncharted in the dust. His reaction to any Call of Duty titles is lukewarm at best, though in a private conversation he’ll admit he finds the realism of the guns frightening.

5. This is Why We Can’t Have Nice Things

This guy loves his old games, but he can’t play them any more because every one of his consoles is completely trashed. The floor of his room is littered with scratched CD’s, and even when playing his 360 you can’t use the left trigger or it’ll erase his whole hard drive. His controllers have brown grime in every nook and cranny, and starting up his console blows a hurricane of dust up from behind the TV. Because of this guy, you get down on your knees and thank your older brother for forcing you to swiffer the entertainment center, lest you receive a beating by his hand.

6. Hardcore Elitist

No points for originality here— he plays games until dawn, with empty energy drink cans covering every horizontal surface in his room, which, yes, is still in his mom’s house. You’re his only friend left that isn’t represented by an avatar, because he makes way too many gaming jokes and disdains anyone who isn’t on at least their fourth prestige in Call of Duty. Any game he touches, he masters; if only that were a marketable skill.

7. Whiner

This guy has never lost a fair game, ever. He always wins. Except when he loses, but that’s only when the game is glitchy, every other player is modding, the connection drops, someone resets the modem, a small focused lightning storm over Texas brings the servers down, or everyone else had made more animal sacrifices to the gaming gods. I mean, if it weren’t all that stuff, he’d win all the time, no problem.

source : lolhehehe.com

tag : gamer type, annoying, the type of people, types of gamers

Memory Lapses Not Only Caused By Old Age!!

Some people say that Memory lapses will just infecting old people. But, based on scientist research that statement is not valid. This article will explain you about this problem.

If you struggle to remember names and numbers or frequently fail to follow the plot of a film, help could be at hand.

Scientists say the problem is that you know too much – and you need to declutter, or spring-clean your mind.

Experiments show that the memory lapses that come with age are not simply due to brain slowing down.

Examples in everyday life include retain plots of films and books to understand or predict what will happen next and following the thread of a conversation while working out how you can contribute to the topic.

In the context of the study, it involved giving the volunteers groups of sentences and asking them to work out whether each line made sense – and to remember the last word of each sentence.

Overall, the younger people, who had an average age of 23, did better, the Quarterly Journal of Experimental Psychology reports.

Age-old problem? Memory lapses can affect the young as well as old

The Canadian researchers then did a second experiment to see what was hindering the older volunteers, who had an average age of 67. This involved being shown a pictures of eight animals and being asked to memorise the order in which the creatures appeared. The volunteers were then shown dozens of the pictures and asked to click on their computer mouse when the first animal in their memorised sequence occurred, then the second and so on. The older adults found it more difficult to progress, suggesting the previous picture was stuck in their mind.Mervin Blair, of Montreal’s Concordia University, said: ‘We found that the older adults had more difficulty in getting rid of previous information.

‘We found that that accounted for a lot of the working memory problems seen in the study.’
A third study confirmed that the memory problems were not simply due to a simple slowing down of the mind.

Mr Blair, a PhD candidate, says that the older mind appears to have trouble suppressing irrelevant information. This makes it more difficult to concentrate on the here and now.
For those who have trouble remembering, he suggests relaxation exercises to declutter the mind.
‘Reduce clutter, if you don't, you may not get anything done.’Keeping the mind young, through learning a language or musical instrument can also help.He added that younger people can also fall foul of memory lapses caused by a failure to suppress extraneous information, with sleepless nights making it harder for the brain to function properly.Previous research has found that the part of the brain that keeps embarrassing thoughts in check also weakens with age, leading to people losing some of their inhibitions.
In other words, outspoken old people aren't being rude - they just can't hold their tongues.

Source : www.dailymail.co.uk

tag : memory lapses, young, old, how to strength memory, brain,

Smartphone Yang Mampu Mentranslate Bahasa Panggilan Audio Secara Otomatis

Konsep Transducer Mobile Phone ini dapat dikatakan telah mampu memecahkan kendala bahasa dengan menjadi penerjemah sempurna antara Anda dan penelepon lainnya secara langsung. Perangkat canggih memungkinkan semua panggilan masuk mampu secara langsung diterjemahkan ke bahasa pilihan Anda dan sebaliknya. Fitur-fitur yang terdapat di dalamnya antara lain seperti GPS, LCD transparan dan efek - efek perpaduan warna yang memukau. Selain itu kedepannya ponsel ini bisa juga digunakan untuk berkomunikasi dengan orang - orang yang memiliki keterbatasan pendengaran & penglihatan. Konsep yang semoga saja bisa segera terelaisasi.

Selain itu, ponsel ini juga memiliki fitu Digital scan. Fitur ini memungkinkan Anda untuk membaca terjemahan buku atau mungkin ebook,majalah, dan lain sebagainya secara langsung, dan bahkan mengkonversikannya dalam format audio. Dari segi disain, ponsel ini juga menghadirkan suasana yang canggih dan nyaman, selain karena ukuran dimensinya yang mungil, juga karena bentuknya yang terlihat aerodinamic.

Designer: Jasper Hou

Transducer Mobile Phone Concept by Jasper Hou

tag : ponsel, smartphone, cerdas, translate otomatis, mengubah bahasa, 3G automatic translator, jasper

source : yankodesign.com

Recipe For Awesome Writing

Being a great writer is no accident. Simply having the ability to write is no indication of potential for excellence (however it is the first step). No. If only it were so simple. The recipe for success is much more complicated, and requires a large amount of salt, so beware if you suffer from hypertension.

Ingredient #1: Ham

No, I am not talking about pigs. I'm using the term "Ham" in reference to the desire to perform, or attract attention. Writing is an art, and notoriety comes with the territory. "Hamming it up" is a vital skill for drawing in readers and captivating an audience.

Ingredient #2: An appetite for vocabulary

No one wants to read a story in which the description of the main character is "tall" or "fat". They want to read about the man who "towers over his rivals", and "who's words echo through the vast, unforgiving mountain range". Words like "good" should never be used as adjectives.

Ingredient #3: Fruit Loops

Mild to moderate depression and anxiety are common symptoms of creative people. Embrace the mania for what it is. Accept the cynical thoughts, and even the pessimism. These symptoms can actually be utilized to add perspective to your work. Since you're stuck with it for the time being, you may as well put it to good use. (DISCLAIMER: I am in no way suggesting that one should not seek treatment for mental illnesses! Mental illnesses are very serious and debilitating! If you do not treat your illness, your work will also be likely to suffer! I am a much better writer when I am taking my meds!)

Ingredient #4: Booze

Writers' Block is a common ailment amongst the creative. Symptoms include, but are not limited to:

-Staring blankly out the window

-Starting a sentence with out a plan for how you will be ending it

-Repeating the same sentence over and over again, swapping out various words for others

-Snacking

-Re-reading past work, searching for any spark of leftover inspiration

-Constipation (literally and figuratively)

Anyways, that's the short list of symptoms. For the full list, email me. The perfect cure for a lil' bit of the ole Writers' Block is, you guessed it, Sweet Sister Smirnoff. A warning however, Sister Smirnoff may assist in liberating alternate regions of the creative mind, it may also exacerbate several of the above listed symptoms.

Ingredient #5: Salt

Don't be afraid to get "salty", sassy, cynical or crude. A general disregard for public opinion is a healthy way to get noticed. People love to hate, and it is a constant battle to keep them hating on you. There's always someone younger and someone meaner than you right around the corner, and if you're not careful, they may win over the public disapproval that you once basked in. No press is bad press. If you have one hater, you will likely have a small army of haters. They will comment up a storm. You may even get a new fan site as a result. (Someone actually took the time to set up a site for me called ihatecherylbirch.blogspot.com. Not sure if it still exists, but I consider this to be a victory.) Be prepared for personal attacks on your physical appearance, personal integrity, and technical writing skills. (Some personal attacks that have come my way include insults on my appearance such as; "five-head", "receding hairline", "troll", "look like an aborted fetus", etc. I've been called bitter, jealous, "jelly" (in reference to being jealous). I've even been accused of having "atrocious" spelling errors.) Don't take it personally. These people are insecure, and lack the language skills and emotional intelligence to reconcile their own personal issues within themselves.

Bake at 350 degrees F for as long as it takes to become crispy on the outside, and gooey on the inside

Choose your words wisely. Let them sit. Come back to them later, and elaborate further. Make sure to have plenty of napkins on hand to clean up the messes you've made. Enjoy a feeling of accomplishment, even if your work isn't praised or published, because someone noticed, and someone enjoyed it.