First hydrogen-powered cars, and now hydrogen-powered mobile phones. Will these alternate sources of fuel and power eventually become mainstream someday? The possibility doesn't seem far off at this point, with STMicroelectronics working on a mobile phone power system that uses hydrogen as a reserve power supply. More in the full article.

Methanol fuel cells have been found to be an efficient and sustainable replacement for fossil fuels. The one thing preventing this device from hitting the mass market is its price since these devices need a catalyst made of platinum, a very expensive metal. However, a researcher from the University of Basque Country may have just the solution to drive the cost down. To find out more, head on over to the full article.

Looking for a car that's as stylish as it is eco-friendly? Then the hydrogen-powered Lifecar is just for you, with its sleek profile and zero-noise (as well as zero-pollution) engine. Developed by a consortium of UK companies and universities, the Lifecar offers top-class performance and looks - and you won't feel the least bit guilty when you're tearing down the road at its top speed, with the car's exhaust consisting of nothing but water vapor. Check out the full article for more details.

Honda has shown interest in mass producing eco-friendly fuel cell-using cars in the coming ten years. These cars emit no carbon dioxide get their power from the electricity produced by reaction of hydrogen and oxygen.

But they are facing a difficulty that's keeping them from making their plans into reality. If you want to know more about Honda's plans, click on the "read more" link.

Students at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Boston have successfully developed and created a prototype for a new energy source called Microbial Fuel Cells (MFC). In essence, these are batteries running on microbes in solid waste.

The idea for the MFC was born from the desire to provide basic electric comforts to people living beyond the reach of power lines in rural areas. Farming communities in developing countries could be the primary beneficiaries of bacteria-powered mobile communications.

Using electricity produced by bacteria feeding on compounds in the solid waste of grass-eating animals, enough power could be generated to be used in mobile phones. This could provide a vital channel between urban facilities and industries to raw material producers in countrysides. Asian and African nations have been considered as the first testers of the technology.

An extension of the idea is the vision of waste treatment facilities running on their own power. This could open the door for self-sustaining plants which don't use up fuel and help rid the environment of agricultural excrement.

One of the possible weaknesses of the project could be costs. Analysts have suggested that the creation of a single cell could take significantly more resources than it would to create a traditional dry cell.

"We're using a non-platinum catalyst, so that allows us to lower the cost," counters MFC team member Gerardo la O' as he justifies that their technology is applicable to real-life implementation and could benefit countless communities globally.

The explanation apparently convinced the judges at the MADMEC contest where the MFC team signed up and entered their MFC prototype called BioVolt. "As a proof of concept, BioVolt is pretty extraordinary," says organizer Michael Tarkanian. "They used a lot of materials science to drive the price down."

When it comes to predicting how Earth would look like hundreds of years from now, there are two schools of thought dominating the field of science. First are the conservatives who believe global warming, exhaustion of fuel cells, and destruction of the environment will ultimately lead to our extinction. The second group is the liberals, who think that Homo Sapiens are far too advanced to let these things end their existence - they maintain that we'll be able to come up with scientific methods to clear pollution, produce alternatives for energy, or if all else fails, create a colony of our own outer space.

We're neither fans of human extinction nor are we narcissistic fools, but this latest technological wonder from Netherlands can further fan the flames of that debate.

The folks over at the Delft University of Technology has come up with a solar-powered mouse (not live ones silly, we're talking about computer peripherals here). According to the press release they issued, Sole Mio was designed to be used by anyone with access to sunlight, or even artificial light. The technology behind this product enables it to charge power from sources of light, making it available for the owner's usage. Here's a text from the press release:

With solar energy, under ideal circumstances charging can occur a factor of five times quicker than in the current situation. Over time it is estimated that several hundred million batteries could be saved annually on a global scale. The net environmental benefit is still restricted by the high energy content of current PV cells. However the introduction of new types of cheap and energy-extensive PV cells, on which TU Delft and partners are working, would eventually yield an even higher environmental gain.

So they're looking into making this more environment friendly in the long run. Is this then the first step towards what the liberal wing in science believes as the next stage of man's evolution? Can humans actually create ways to destroy the planet and save itself at the same time?

Wake me up from cryostasis when a solar-powered race is in charge of the planet.

Paul Kenis, a professor of chemical and biomolecular engineering at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign (UIUC), developed a new ceramic microreactor prototype that converts fuels, such as methanol or propane, into hydrogen for fuel cells. 

Although microreactors are nothing new, Kenis and his team claim their microreactors are much better than other fuel reformer systems. They are now trying to use the device to convert gasoline and diesel into hydrogen.

The microreactor converts propane at temperatures up to 1,000C. The device also decomposes ammonia at temperatures up to 1,000C. High-temperature operation is essential for peak performance in microreactors.

According to Kenis, the microreactors can be used for powering small appliances, laptop computers, and charging battery packs.

Area 51: aliens, conspiracy plots, crashed weather balloons, experiments on alien corpses, Agent Scully... A lot of good stuff comes to mind when the name of the most famous classified base is mentioned. What else comes to mind? Agent Scully... Mmmm... let me get my head out of the gutter. What else comes to mind? Ah, yes, top secret airplanes, or "black planes."

Black planes can get really famous whenever the government reveals one of them. Think about the U-2 spyplane of the 1950s; a band's named after that plane now. Then there's the SR-71 Blackbird. The X-men's plane looks awfully similar to the SR-71. Then there's the F-117; during the first Iraq war, it literally became the poster boy for the whole war effort. The first Iraq war was around fifteen years ago. Only three aircraft have been introduced since. One was Polecat. Another was Northrop Grumman’s Tacit Blue, nicknamed "the Whale." The third was Boeing’s Bird of Prey, which tested visual stealth strategies, including shaping that minimizes shadows and contrast and, rumor has it, body illumination that allows it to blend into its background.

This does not mean, however, that the black-aircraft community is dormant. Google Earth reveals a newly constructed additional runway and multiple new hangars and buildings at the base. Increased activity? It may mostly be educated speculation but the nice folks at Popular Science have featured a list of probable planes that are currently being tested at the famous site.

Read on to see concept images of the planes and the evidence and details surrounding them (click on the Full Article link below).

As NASA's ground and Discovery crew anxiously await the shuttle's new launch date on the 4th of July, today's aborted lift-off has cost the agency about $1 million. The process of standing down from the cancelled launch attempt, topping of Discovery's fuel cells and revving back up to a space shot on Tuesday has been called by NASA as a challenging task. Pad workers drained Discovery's external tank and will replenish the super-cold liquid hydrogen in the orbiter's fuel cells, and change out some payloads in preparation for the next launch date.

But NASA officials are not concerned about the cost of the delays. "After a year of preparation, and after a very careful countdown, you don't want to do something that's not smart from a weather standpoint," said John Shannon, NASA's deputy shuttle program manager, during the briefing. "Nobody is going to remember that we scrubbed a day or two days a year from now. But if we go launch and get struck by lightning or have some other problem that will be very memorable."