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Submission + - Scientists Develop Solar Cell That Can Also Emit Light

Submitted by Anonymous Coward
An anonymous reader writes: Scientists at the Nanyang Technological University have developed a solar cell that not only converts sunlight into electricity but also emits light as electricity passes through it. Tuning the composition of the solar cell enables it to emit different wavelengths of light, and because it is only about 1 micrometer thick, the material is semi-translucent and therefore could potentially be used in windows. The solar cell is comprised of the semiconducting mineral perovskite, which has been studied as a replacement for silicon in solar panels since 2009. Perovskite solar cells are not yet as efficient at energy conversion as silicon solar cells, but gains in this area of development coupled with cheaper manufacturing costs (10-20 cents per watt projected as opposed to 75 cents per watt with silicon solar panels and 50 cents per watt with fossil fuels) make perovskite a popular subject matter in the solar cell industry.

Comment Re:Arcs are a lie (Score 2) 145

by olsmeister (#46499811) Attached to: US Navy Strategists Have a Long History of Finding the Lost
Well that would present a problem! One would then wonder how those creative terrorists managed to get a jet engine to operate outside of an atmosphere. :)

But seriously, wouldn't you just compare the timing of the signals received from the jetliner of interest with the timing signals received from other, less hijacked, planes and based on their more reliable locations figure out what distance 370 must have sent from?

Comment Re:Wrong target (Score 4, Informative) 295

Not only that, but student loans are one of the few types of debt that are not normally discharged in a Chapter 7 bankruptcy filing. It's pretty much with you for life. You'd be better off putting your tuition on a credit card than taking out a student loan for it. Starting off that far in the whole with student loans is one of the worst mistakes you can make, unless you really understand what you are taking on.

Submission + - Microsoft Releases TypeScript 1.0 RC

Submitted by CMULL
CMULL writes: Microsoft unveiled TypeScript 1.0 RC in its Visual Studio 2013 Update 2 today. TypeScript is the company’s programming language that is meant for application-scale JavaScript development. Unlike Google’s programming language Dart, which is a strategy to replace JavaScript, TypeScript is a superset of JavaScript designed to strengthen the language and make up for its missing elements like larger scale application structure concepts and static typing. According to the core developer of TypeScript Anders Hejlsberg, TypeScript enables projects, multiple files and cross-platform refactoring to give the look and feel of Java or C++. TypeScript 1.0 RC is the near final version of TypeScript 1.0

Submission + - Will Overselling Global Warming Lead To A New Scientific Dark Age? 5

Submitted by Hugh Pickens DOT Com
Hugh Pickens DOT Com writes: Patrick Michaels writes in Forbes that atmospheric physicist Garth Paltridge has laid out several well-known uncertainties in climate forecasting including our inability to properly simulate clouds that are anything like what we see in the real world, the embarrassing lack of average surface warming now in its 17th year, and the fumbling (and contradictory) attempts to explain it away. According to Paltridge, an emeritus professor at the University of Tasmania and a fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, virtually all scientists directly involved in climate prediction are aware of the enormous uncertainties associated with their product. How then is it that those of them involved in the latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) can put their hands on their hearts and maintain there is a 95 per cent probability that human emissions of carbon dioxide have caused most of the global warming that has occurred over the last several decades? In short, there is more than enough uncertainty about the forecasting of climate to allow normal human beings to be at least reasonably hopeful that global warming might not be nearly as bad as is currently touted. Climate scientists, and indeed scientists in general, are not so lucky. They have a lot to lose if time should prove them wrong. "In the light of all this, we have at least to consider the possibility that the scientific establishment behind the global warming issue has been drawn into the trap of seriously overstating the climate problem—or, what is much the same thing, of seriously understating the uncertainties associated with the climate problem—in its effort to promote the cause," writes Paltridge. "It is a particularly nasty trap in the context of science, because it risks destroying, perhaps for centuries to come, the unique and hard-won reputation for honesty which is the basis of society’s respect for scientific endeavor."

Submission + - Can Wolfram Alpha Tell Which Team Will Win the Super Bowl? (slashdot.org)

Submitted by Nerval's Lobster
Nerval's Lobster writes: Which football team will win the Super Bowl this weekend? That’s a multi-million-dollar question, given the amount of cash people will bet on either the Seattle Seahawks or the Denver Broncos to win. Fortunately, Wolfram Alpha (the self-billed “computational knowledge engine”) can analyze the historical statistics for both teams and throw out some potentially useful numbers. Developed by Stephen Wolfram and based his Wolfram Research’s Mathematica analytical platform, Wolfram Alpha is an altogether different search engine from Bing or Google, which generally return pages of blue hyperlinks in response to queries. Instead of multiple results leading to still other Webpages, Wolfram Alpha usually returns set of definitive, numerical answers. (A lengthy rundown of the engine’s capabilities is found on its “About” page.) So how does Wolfram’s engine, which features sophisticated algorithms chewing through trillions of pieces of data, break down the potentials for Sunday’s game? Out of the 38 times the two teams have met on the field, the Broncos have triumphed 25 times (versus 12 wins for the Seahawks), scoring 98 total touchdowns to the Seahawks’ 84. It’s definitely advantage Broncos, in that sense. But the teams’ percentages are fairly close with regard to total yardage, penalties, penalty yards, and other metrics, although the Seahawks have managed to nab more interceptions (47, versus the Broncos’ 37). But while Wolfram Alpha can crunch all the historical data it wants, and that data can suggest one team will likely triumph over another, there’s always the likelihood that something random—a freak injury, or a tweak to the player lineup—can change the course of the game in ways that nobody can anticipate. Also, given how player and coaching rosters vary from year to year, the teams taking the field can change radically between meetings.

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