HELLO this is Sherlock and that picture is of a lamp being powered by moss. This is a thing people have made up called biophotovoltaics and it is where the plants photosynthesise and release stuff into the soil that feeds bacteria and then the bacteria break that stuff down and release electrons and you can make power from that. Not very much yet, but I think this would be a good way to power space ships.
I think the different kinds of plants release different stuff, so moss works well and trees might not even though it seems like trees should release a lot more of it. They should find trees that release the right combination of things to feed loads of bacteria and then you could make a giant sphere in space with lots and lots of trees and plants and stuff and it would all run on BPV and could go forever because if the plants died you could just plant new ones.
The plants need their bacteria though so you would have to not do it from the same plants all the time, but it doesn't seem like you would need that much to power a space ship once it got off the ground and if you built it already in space that wouldn't be a problem and it would go forever and we could go to other planets. So I think they should work on that.
Also there is a man who wants to replace all the roads with solar panels you can drive on. That's not as fun but it's probably a good idea but I would rather have spaceships.
124 comments:
Wow..that's amazing.
They keep talking about floors that can power things from the vibrations of being walked on, don't they? That'd be good. I know there are dance floors like that already :)
What do they use them to power? Do they make the music play?
That is very cool Sherlock. You've thought through some of the potential problems very logically.
Such a table/lamp would not work for me, though. No sort of instruction set has ever kept me from eventually killing houseplants. (I do o.k with ones outdoors.) So I'll have to wait for the vibration-generated power.
fA
I think so far they mainly power lights in the floor...but imagine if they were in every city, in every pavement? You could power loads!
Anyone else using the Unicef webpage to earn water for people? Every ten minutes you don't touch your phone for it 'earns' a day of water. I've been doing it with my personal phone at work, and my work phone at home!
The point about making the thing in orbit is the key, it's getting out of the gravity of the planet that is difficult, once in space you don't need near so much energy/fuel. A hollow sphere gives maximum growing area if you can light it properly!
That's pretty amazing, Sherlock, and so eco-friendly. I was thinking the other day that, if you follow the food chain down, we are all basically solar powered, but I didn't think of using bacteria to power anything!
I wonder, though, if this method might not be better for space stations than for spaceships? Because to go to any of the outer planets, or planets in other solar systems, you'd have to get pretty far away from our sun, and I'm not sure there'd be enough light to feed the trees or even moss out there. Of course, it should be enough to go to the moon, and probably even Mars, and it would be good to have a power source that you don't have to worry about running out of for all of those.
I love the idea of using dance floors to power music and/or lights...
L, I don't have a smartphone (although I do have a cellphone), so I cannot join.
Can I grow moss on every wall of my room?
I don't think miss would get the nutrients they need from drywall or wallpaper glue, Sherlock.
That is an amazing idea though--powering spaceships with (indirect) photosynthesis. I know of many science fiction stories that put plants on spaceships to produce oxygen, and to keep the interstellar travelers from going insane with homesickness, but not that have used it for energy.
Interesting about paving roads with photovoltaic cells too--but what would that do to the friction coefficients? Would cars still be able to safely drive? How expensive and common would road repairs be?
Ella
Er, that's supposed to say moss, not miss, in my first sentence up there.
Ella
You definitely can't grow moss on the walls of your room.
I'm sure you could do some sort of moss experiment at school, seeing what it survived on best.
I happen to know that mail-order moss is available.
I was wondering if the lamp is some sort of special gro light or similar. The best windows in my house face north, so we can only have low-light plants. And drought tolerant, but I suppose a duty roster on a space ship/station would solve that problem.
I think I saw a thing where they were working glow-in-the-dark bits into the matrix for cement walkways. The actual walkway would then have a soft glow, not enough to cause light pollution, just enough to point out where the walkway was. Or maybe I completely didn't understand what they were saying.
How'd the school experiment idea go over, L?
Kestrel - there's a glow in the dark path somewhere here! Cambridge, I think? Called a 'starpath' - it was in the news. Brilliant idea, I think.
RR - not as good as living in his own mossy cave, apparently...
what a cool thing, to power a lamp with a moss table!
here is the web site for the solar roadway company
http://www.solarroadways.com/intro.shtml
I've been following them on facebook for a while, I think it's a really great idea. If I could get my driveway done with these panels I could probably make an electric car a real workable thing for me.
S
A moss powered lamp? Wow! That's really neat, Sherlock. And I like the idea of solar roadways, too, but I'm just not sure they'd be very good when there's a foot of snow fallling on top of them.
I sometimes think I'll never run out of neat things on the web. Just today I found a person who visits toilets all over the world. He's even got a history of toilets here: http://toilet-guru.com/overview-history.php
RR - not as good as living in his own mossy cave, apparently...
Like a man cave, only younger? ;)
I wouldn't know, not having a man cave.
Danger, I'm off tomorrow. Want to go for a really long run? Then die quietly in art club?
Sounds great. They can grow moss on us and use us to power something...
I'm fairly sure there will be no energy left in my body. I will need to be powered by the moss.
Oooohhh! Quantify "really long" ? Or is it more along the lines of "start out slow-ish and don't stop till you have to?"
If the latter, please do a little less than you think you can in the moment. I don't think one can rely too much on the regenerative powers of moss as of yet.
fA
Moss as a restorative? Are we eating it? Moss smoothie to the rescue!
(My surgery has been scheduled for next week - I'm actually sort of relieved.)
Becca! Yay! However painful/tedious/trying recovery & rehab is, it must feel good to be starting in on the process of improving the foot. Is it in-patient or out-patient surgery? Keep us posted as you can.
fA
P.s. And I hope you get at least a few days worth of the good drugs out of it. The ones that really let you experience the astonished feeling of "nothing hurts!" The ones that we know would be a bad idea to have too many of.
fA
I just got off the phone with my pain doctor's office - if we do the same as last time, I'll get drugs so good I can't focus my eyes - my pain is stubborn.
It's out patient surgery, next Thursday. I won't find out what time it is until the day before.
I guess the plus side of it being surgery #X out of Y is that you have a good idea of what to expect. We (this corner of the Internet) will be thinking of you & I'm sure I'll say it again, but: good luck!
fA
Yeah, I'm not nervous about the surgery itself. It's scheduling my life around it that was stressing me out. And is still stressing me out a bit, but it's so soon that I've gone into emergency management mode, which is calming me down.
Thanks a bunch for the support fA.
More than half the reason anything I am responsible for is organized is the thought "what if I had to be gone/in hospital/?? for a week or two without notice?" Very motivating.
Which is to say "Onwards!" The beauty of needing to get it done is that somehow or other *enough* will get done. There isn't time to worry too much about the intractable details.
fA
Hope it all goes well, Becca.
fA - really long doesn't mean very long! I was thinking about 5 miles? Depends how we feel! We can do a route with lots of options for places to give up and still get home ;)
Good luck, Becca.
5 miles sounds "very long" to me! I've walked that far in one go when it was needed, but I confess that I didn't enjoy it.
I used to do 5 miles easily. Many years ago. I'm still happy walking ten or so, no problem.
(...Maybe with better shoes? Probably not.... :D)
(I meant, maybe if I had better shoes, etc.)
I'm impressed. It's been a long time since I could do a half marathon distance.(Or a 5 mile run, either.) And I am not going to get there this year. I am between 4.5 and 6 for my long days, but a good quarter of that is walking. ;-) It feels good, though, and that's the point for me at this stage of my life.
fA
RR: as long as your joints can tolerate it, you'd be surprised how distance builds if you're willing to go slowly. But you do have to get to the point where you enjoy either the training, or the way the training makes you feel. Otherwise it's just not worth the time investment, IMO.
fA
I prefer t'ai chi, fA. It may not do much for me aerobically, but my bones are in fab shape! (And if you need broken cement blocks, I can provide. ;))
T'ai chi is also way more use in promoting body consciousness, balance and economy of movement, from what I'm told. It's been one of the things on my "one day I will" list for years. Fortunately, I'm also told one doesn't have to start as an infant to benefit.
fA
It's all round good for you! And there is no "too old"--the way martial artists tell it, you start with karate (or any of the hard styles) until your joints don't want to let you any more, then you switch to t'ai chi!
fA- walking may feature! It's really just a way to see what we can do. We're not out for medals or anything, so if we walk, we walk. If we only get to 2 or 3 miles that's how it goes. We shall see!
At least you know you'll arrive at art class feeling virtuous and full of exercise endorphins!
fA
You can't be rubbish in art class because you have to pay attention.
Very true, Sherlock!
You seem to be learning quite a lot from the art class. Do you have a whole gallery of your completed projects in school, or do you take them home when they're done?
Some come home, some stay at school. It depends what it is. He has a pretty good gallery in his room.
That must feel very satisfying. :)
That sounds amazing. My parents still have some of my projects from grade school.
What's this week's project? Or is it a surprise?
Most things concerning Sherlock are a surprise...
I don't know what we're doing. I don't know if Sherlock does - he hasn't told us, any rate!
Every time I visit my dad's house, I am stunned to see that he still has an art project from when I was in grade school, prominently displayed in his bathroom.
I hope you have a great day together gentlemen and that the weather is as good with you as it is here, cool yet sunny always seems like perfect running weather to me :-)
It is perfect running weather! I think we'll go along the canal as far as we can, and either turn back or get oublic transport back, depending how we're feeling...
We've just about put the flat to rights - both assuming we certainly won't feel like it once we're back! Just hope we're done in time to recover before art club...
Woke up to the news that an older friend of mine, who apparently took a fall over the weekend (off what/onto what I don't know) has been taken off the ventilator and now we're all...waiting. Her wife is with her. And...yeah.
Ella
I'm so sorry, Ella.
I'm sorry to hear that, Ella.
Ella, that's awful, I'm very sorry to hear that.
I'm so sorry, Ella. (It may not have been off of or onto, but just falling.)
Sorry to hear that, Ella. You're all in my thoughts.
Oh, Ella. Waiting is hard. Thinking of you and those you care about.
fA
Waiting is definitely the worst part. That limbo of not being able to do anything
Agreed on the waiting. I just found out she died about an hour after being taken off the ventilator, I missed the news this morning. I was getting worried because if she was breathing but not getting better, she would get stuck in that limbo in between, and I know that isn't what she would've wanted. I'm glad (relatively) that it was just me being out of the loop.
Thanks for the thoughts, everyone. I know none of you knew her, but...the world is a poorer place without her in it. And I'm glad I knew her.
Ella
I'm sure she was glad to have known you, as well. I'm sorry for your loss.
So sorry to hear about your friend, Ella. All thoughts are with you and her family and friends.
I'm sorry for your loss, Ella; it's hard to lose the people that make the world a bit brighter.
Did you have fun in art class today, Sherlock? What did you all make?
My sympathies, Ella.
". . . the world is a poorer place without her in it. And I'm glad I knew her."
And there's nothing better than that, that can be said about anyone after we're gone.
fA
Joining with the others in my thoughts, Ella.
My condolences, Ella.
Ella - I hope the best of her qualities live on through those she met.
I'm...considerably worried about how tomorrow is going to feel. I may be rather...stiff, to use a dangerous word on these blogs.
How far did you end up running? Were you sufficiently recovered for art time?
We did over 4 miles. With walking.
I don't think Sherlock was impressed by our art achievements... (I thought even getting there was an achievment!)
Well, if you are stiff I'm sure that John will rub you better.
Your'e assuming John can move...
Stretch, guys. (Admit it. Feels good to feel sore & creaky in this particular way, doesn't it?)
SH: And here I thought you were one of the ones who resisted the cheap shots! ;-)
fA
we do need to get off the sofa and into bed.
one day.
I don't know, you're pretty comfortable
We'll try getting off the sofa tomorrow then. Or at the weekend.
sounds good
It sounds like you both need to get off now, otherwise you'll be really stiff and achey in the morning...
Thanks for the kind thoughts, again, everyone. I'm thinking lots of thoughts but I feel like this might not be the place for them.
Sleep well, guys, and I hope you're not too sore tomorrow.
Ella
Good sleep, all. Remember the stretching and maybe ibuprofen (or whatever it's called on your side of the Atlantic) if the muscles complain in the a.m.
And don't get trapped in a chair for too long at a stretch lest you give your best 80-year-old-man impression for the first few steps up. Though maybe your office mates are kinder about these things than are mine . . .
fA
fA - re cheap shots, there are times when a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do. And I'd hate for L to be disappointed at the lack of relevant comments ;)
Ella, hope you managed to get some sleep yourself, and know that we are thinking of you.
fA - don't worry, marrying a doctor means you get free stretching routines thrown in to things like running.
I'm at work, hoping no one requires chasing today.
I'm imagining a conversation with your superior that goes something like, "I can't do my job today because I was training for the test that proves to you that I'm able to do my job."
Ella
SH: I should have realized, you're just that much of a giver!
Hope it's a good day, all.
fA
Ella - I hadn't quite looked at it like that, but it's so true!!
I got a salad for lunch. You know, all healthy and full of vitamins and stuff.
Then went back out and got a bacon and chicken roll. The salad really didn't cut it.
Protein is necessary to rebuild muscle.
Bacon feeds the soul.
fA
Hope Sherlock is treating you well, John.
Yeah he was pretty excited when he came home. It's world book day apparently and his school has new little reading corners and bean bag charisma and things.
...chairs
I believe my current level of charisma is about 'been bag charisma' - I might look pretty nice, and even approachable...but really I'm just going to sag into the corner until a dog tries to eat me and all my stuffing comes out. :)
...can't believe I spelt it wrong in an attempt to mock you for spelling it wrong.
I've been a bean bag.
I currently am a been bag
A lean mean been bag?
A leaning against the wall been bag.
I hope Sherlock doesn't leap onto you and explode all your stuffing out.
I'm glad he's excited about the reading corners. That's a nice thing to have. And it beats having to make him a costume for their usual book-related fancy dress...
Anything that doesn't involve costumes is better. How's your day?
I could sure have gone for a reading corner or two when I was in school. (I tended to read under my desk, or hide in corners of the schoolyard during recess, both strategies which consistently got me in trouble. For reading. In school.)
Not bad. A meeting about 'responsible use of social media during off-duty hours.' Obviously I'm already an expert at that...
News that someone we wanted to speak to has been found dead, which is...mildly annoying.
And Sal bought me some mini creme eggs, which I've eaten the lots of, thereby cancelling out any goodness the run did yesterday. So now I'm not only achy, but also full of sugar.
You?
Not bad. Made biscotti. Walked a lot, looked at half marathons. Want to do one in France?
biscotti?? Please tell me there are some left! Do not let Sherlock eat them all! I love biscotti.
Err...yes? I mean...I think I know enough French to manage the essentials. 'L'eau!' 'm'aide j'ai une coeur-attaque!' (that might be Franglais, rather than French...but it'd get the point over.)
I'm now deeply unhappy that you've walked and I've eaten chocolate...
I've probably had more biscotti than you've had chocolate, but yes there is some left. The ones I was looking at we're in July so we could take the boys and they could translate for us. It was just a thought.
"both strategies which consistently got me in trouble. For reading. In school.)"
I read so much during school that my teachers gave up on detention and started suspending me. And they gave me work I was supposed to do during my suspension, but I finished it in 3 hours and they had taken away my books so I didn't have anything to do for another 4. It was SO BORING. And did not have the result that they were probably hoping for.
Ella
How hot would it be? I think it sounds good. We could even go over on the bikes, provided we had a few rest days after the run before riding back ;)
Ella - why was suspension boring? Weren't you at home. I loved getting suspended. Obviously looking back it wasn't wise...but at the time I enjoyed it.
RR - Well, there's a lot more to school than reading, isn't there? Otherwise we could all be put in a box from ages 4-18 with a constant supply of books.
There's a few in the mountains that shouldn't be too bad? I'll check the temperatures for that time of year. Going on the bikes would be great.
Yes, of course there is more to school than reading. (Although I suspect that the box-with-books approach would have suited me quite well!)
Mostly I was found guilty of a) reading ahead, while the teacher sadistically made students who couldn't quite manage it read aloud; b) reading after I had finished some in-class assignment and had nothing to do; c) reading something that hadn't actually been assigned because I had finished whatever had been assigned; or d) reading when I was supposed to be running around having rather heavy balls thrown at me which I could neither manage to dodge nor catch.
Lestrade--Unfortunately no, they put me in the school library (and then wouldn't let me look at any of the books) because my mom told them she couldn't take time off work. Apparently the library was their back up plan. So I was essentially stuck sitting at a desk, only with no books or classmates or teachers to occupy me.
"Otherwise we could all be put in a box from ages 4-18 with a constant supply of books."
I would not be opposed to this.
Ella
Ella - yeah, I would have found that a much more effective deterrent than getting a few days off school!
RR - I was probably a kid who couldn't quite manage reading aloud. I hated it at the time, but I'm glad they made me, now, and doing presentations, which again, heated then, but it's stood me in good stead, over he years.
Danger - MOUNTAINS? You said half marathon, not half marathon over a mountain!!
I'm on the way home - need me to get anything?
I hear high altitude makes running easier. Fewer air molecules to pugs through.
(Yes. That was sarcasm.)
Ella
It's not over them! It's just...near them. I think.
No, just you :)
I took a speech course in college--how to organize and deliver public talks--which was required and turned out to be fantastically useful over the years.
In elementary and high school, however, the only goal of the exercise was to shame those who couldn't read up to standard into working harder so they'd read better. (Of course, no one had heard of dyslexia at the time, nor alternate methods of teaching reading, so humiliation was the whole of the arsenal in my school. At least they didn't smack us with rulers!)
Ella--I used to get sent to the principal's office, but they really didn't know what to say to me when they saw the teachers' notes, so they'd just send me back to class. We didn't detentions or suspensions; most they'd do would be to call your parents, but if they ever called mine about my reading, my parents--my mother, that would have been, since my father would have been at work and they wouldn't dream of disturbing fathers at work, of course--never mentioned it to me. (Other things I did hear about. ;))
We got smacked with worse than rulers. I guess I was embarrassed at the time about my reading. It wasn't very good and I had a stammer that got worse with stress - still does, sometimes. But I'd still like to think everyone listened given I had to do it anyway, wether they did or not.
John - I require topographical evidence of routes without mountains! :). Or just more training, involving hills...
We may need to find some hills...
...push through. Not pugs through. Oy.
Silly question--does London have many hills? I remember it being flat, but then, I spent almost all my time on a coach with a tour group.
Ella
I used to writhe with projected embarrassment, imagining it was me, and couldn't listen, far too upsetting.
I had a problem with my name when I started school, because, just as at home, my Hebrew name was used. It's got three consonants--the resh, which has an "R" sound; the het, which is the gutteral sound; and the lamed, which has an "L" sound...and I could pronounce none of the three! The teacher's solution was to tell my mother to make me practice tongue-twisters, but my mom had a degree in elementary education (which the teacher had NOT) and did no such thing. I outgrew it.
Evidence! L., you REQUESTED "more training involving hills."
No wonder you are good at your job. Dedication to getting results, that is.
I'm impressed. Inspired by your long run, coincidentally today I sought out HILLS (which must be sought out, here). I ran (Ahem. "walked/jogged" if we're respecting accuracy) 3.5 mi and it took over an hour because of said HILLS. Also, am feeling the hamstrings & glutes, so tomorrow should be a treat.
Ella & RR: There is something to be said for modern teaching. My brother was one of the ones with undiagnosed learning disabilities. It was dreadful. And I was the one getting in trouble for reading a book in her lap. Poor kid. He didn't need me for a sibling.
fA
Ella - I used to do sprints up the hill to the Greenwich observatory. And reward myself with a cigarette at the top! We might do something more gentle... Ally Pally maybe.
RR...I'm sure you don't mean it like this, but I'd have been pretty hurt by someone calling my best efforts 'upsetting'.
Thankfully at some point someone shoved me towards a speech therapist for an hour a week, and she made me sing to help stop stammering and the rest is history.
It wasn't the reading that was upsetting, it was the teachers doing their level best to deliberately embarrass my classmates and friends over and over and over that was upsetting. And I'm not in the least ashamed about that.
So would it have been better for the teacher to effectively say to them don't you bother reading because you're just too thick? They possibly needed the practice, do you think?
I dunno. I think I'm probably with ReRe on this - if you're really not good at something, there's better and more supportive ways of helping you improve than making you do it repeatedly in front of people who are good at it. Especially for kids. Doing those things first, then, when they improve, getting them reading aloud in class might be a better way of doing things than just a very public sink or swim approach.
But then, I get very self-conscious and flustered when I have to "perform" in public, and plenty of more extrovert types don't.
All the practice in the world wouldn't have helped girls who quite literally could not see the letters correctly. And even not knowing that, there is no pedagogic reason to deliberately, as a "teaching tool," attempt to humiliate those children. The classrooms were large enough--and the curriculum in those days loose enough--to read with students individually (as a couple of our teachers over the years did) instead, and just maybe to try to figure out something else. Even finding books that spoke more directly to a particular child's interests has been sown to improve dyslexic children's reading somewhat (at least in less severe cases) but humiliation takes less effort.
Anon - it depends why the kids were struggling to read. For my brother, "concentrating" "trying harder" and "practicing" weren't going to do it. He needed techniques of how to physically look at the words on the page, to move his eye and pace, as well as "brain training" practices that happen apart from regular reading (as I understand it) and then, to practice THOSE. At the time, you just stumbled onto the technique or didn't; learned to read or not.
The teachers were probably well meaning, so were parents, but they weren't offering anything very helpful and crushing frustration if the kid was already trying wasn't helped by public attempts at reading that came with a lot of ridicule, often.
fA
I started in remedial reading and finished up as an inveterate reader. I never felt like teachers were humiliating the slower readers, I just felt it was fair that they got a turn. It wasn't too much of a task to keep a finger in a page where the class was up to and carry on reading where I was up to.
My school certainly didn't have resources to help everyone individually. I agree that humiliating kids isn't helpful, but even being put in a special class/made to go to different sessions made you stand out and get picked on. So it was a bit of a lose/lose situation there. But like I said, while I was there, being forced to read or speak in front of the class, I'd hope people paid me as much attention as they did anyone else.
Luckily some places have moved on in terms of helping kids these days. I know schools are constantly struggling with budgets and time though, impossible balancing act.
I too got in trouble for reading during lunch and recess and other times when I wasn't supposed to be doing so. For me it was because I wasn't socializing with the other children. Which wasn't something I wanted to do, but I was obsessed with following the rules, so it was a tough time for me.
Late to the conversation (like always lately) but I thought I'd pass along this video about learning disabilities. It's long, but it really does a great job of explaining what the world is like for a kid with LD.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jZhRf2fxlyw
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