Sayan's BlogWorld
highlighting the future's bizzare as it transforms into the present's mundane
TED goes to India
Sep 27th
TED | Michael Pritchard’s water filter turns filthy water drinkable
Aug 9th
Turn any water into drinking water… $20 billion can provide safe drinking water for the entire world… this would an ideal stimulus plan…. healthier people can improve their own lives and contribute to their and society’s development
Star-Trek Traction beam discovered
Jul 15th
The traction beam cannot lift your car or boat but it can move really really small objects. Who knows this may solve other mysteries like dark energy 
Here is the blurb from the article in ScienceDaily:
A team of Yale University researchers has discovered a “repulsive” light force that can be used to control components on silicon microchips, meaning future nanodevices could be controlled by light rather than electricity. The team previously discovered an “attractive” force of light and showed how it could be manipulated to move components in semiconducting micro- and nano-electrical systems—tiny mechanical switches on a chip. The scientists have now uncovered a complementary repulsive force.
Rainforests may pump winds worldwide
Apr 2nd
The NewScientist has an article titled Rainforests may pump winds worldwide, which may shake up the climate and environmental skeptics. It seems large forests are the heart, lungs and kidneys of our living planet. Large forests may be responsible for pumping moisture laden air across continents helping rainfall far inland…
Cool factoid of the day from the article: “More moisture typically evaporates from rainforests than from the ocean. The Amazon rainforest, for example, releases 20 trillion litres of moisture every day.”
How can forests create wind? Water vapour from coastal forests and oceans quickly condenses to form droplets and clouds. The Russians point out that the gas takes up less space as it turns to liquid, lowering local air pressure. Because evaporation is stronger over the forest than over the ocean, the pressure is lower over coastal forests, which suck in moist air from the ocean. This generates wind that drives moisture further inland. The process repeats itself as the moisture is recycled in stages, moving towards the continent’s heart (see diagram). As a result, giant winds transport moisture thousands of kilometres into the interior of a continent.
Happy Birthday! The Gasoline-Electric Hybrid Car is 100 Years Old
Mar 4th
Treehugger has a great article on the hybrid car technology turning 100. Actually about a 100 years ago there were more electric or hybrid cars than pure gasoline / petrol driven cars.
Google Calendar and contact syncing for iPhone and Windows Mobile devices
Feb 9th
Google just announced a new service for pushing Gmail contacts and Google Calendar updates to mobile devices. This is neat!
Forward Osmosis- revoluntionary water treatment?
Feb 5th
Cleantechnica has a post on Forward Osmosis. It is better explained here. The authors description in a gist:
…conventional desalination and reuse technologies use substantial energy. “forward osmosis,” exploits the natural diffusion of water through a semi-permeable membrane. Their process “draws” pure water from its contaminants to a solution of concentrated salts, which can easily be removed with low heat treatment — effectively desalinating or removing contaminants from water with little energy input.
The concentrated salt solution is probably a mixture of ammonia and/or carbon dioxide dissolved in water. The ammonia and CO
Fighting hunger with flood-tolerant rice
Jan 31st
CNN reports that scientists after over 10 years of research have successfully developed a new strain of flood-tolerant rice through precision breeding. Read the article to know more about the inspiring work being done to positively impact the lives of hundreds of millions.
New Catalyst Paves The Path For Ethanol-powered Fuel Cells
Jan 31st
This could prove to be a breakthrough for bio-ethanol based fuel cells. Current fuel cells are mostly methanol based which is a toxic chemical and have low efficiency.
Here is the ScienceDaily (2009-01-29) article:
Scientists have developed a new catalyst that could make ethanol-powered fuel cells feasible. The highly efficient catalyst performs two crucial, and previously unreachable steps needed to oxidize ethanol and produce clean energy in fuel cell reactions.
How bad is the ‘bad’? The Economy According To Mint
Jan 30th
Aaron Patzer (CEO and founder of Mint.com) has posted an article titled The Economy According To Mint on Techcrunch. This is probably one of the best real looks at the real economy. Mint.com is a personal finance site used by close to 1 million US consumers to keep track of their spending. Mint’s data is a snapshot of the consumer economy.
From the article:
Consumers are hurting, but if Mint’s data is indicative of the economy as a whole, it is not as bad as you might think….(mint.com customers) are spending $400 less each month than they were a year ago, have burned through half of their savings, and on average have taken on an additional $5k in debt.
Fortunately credit card debt has not gone up substantially yet but we may still need to watch out for a credit card crisis as job losses continue. On the other hand, a robust spending by the government could replace consumer demand by government demand and in turn put people into work and money into their pockets. Theoretically, this sounds good, but only time can tell if it is possible practically.
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