Electricity consumption from the manufacture of artificial intelligence (AI) chips has soared by more than 350 percent worldwide between 2023 and 2024, according to new research from Greenpeace East Asia. In East Asia, the global hub for AI semiconductor production, growing electricity demand from AI chipmaking has been met primarily …
Folk remedies, which for long used moulds and fungi for patching up wounds, have been discovered to have a scientific basis. Researchers at the British Textile Technology Group in Manchester hope to develop fungus-based surgical dressings to accelerate wound healing. Fungi contain chitin and chitosan in their cell walls rendering …
GERMAN researchers have developed a tiny reversible pump which allows through just 50 nanolitres of liquid, equivalent to 1/1,000th of a drop of water. The micropump was designed by researchers at the Fraunhofer Institute based in Munich for Solid State Technology. The pump consists of 4 silicon chips superimposed on …
THE direct steelmaking process, long the holy grail of researchers around the world, may soon be reality. Scientists from Nucor, a US steel producer, have identified iron carbide as a new raw material for steelmaking. The new technology aims at producing steel directly from iron carbide, cutting out expensive and …
MOST burgeoning cities are cursed with piles of rotting garbage and endless hours without electricity. But now, Western-Paques (India) Limited, a subsidiary of the Rs 1,000 crore Western India group, is offering a solution to both the problems, rather using one to address the other. The company has developed a …
ANTI-POLUTION GIZMO: Diesel engines will be spewing less nitric oxide fumes, promise KMH, a Doncaster-based business house, and Leeds University in the UK. They have jointly developed a steam-based anti-pollution device, which they claim is cheaper and requires less maintenance than catalytic converters. The De-NOX device, as it has been …
WHO would have thought of archaeologists and anthropologists using cutting-edge computer and laser technology in their disciplines? Now, the scribble pads beloved of anthropologists and archaeologists' calipers could well be given a decent burial for all time to come. At the University of Texas at Austin, for instance, researchers are …
INDIAN scientists, in collaboration with Dutch researchers, have developed the technology to convert agricultural residues -- like rice husk and groundnut shell -- into briquettes for use as an efficient, economical and a non-polluting fuel. The screw press technology for briquetting biomass compacts low-density agricultural residues into cylinders with a …
A recent study conducted by scientists from the Regional Engineering College (REC), Kurukshetra, reveals that all energy needs of a village can be met locally from the available biomass, using fluidised bed technology -- an industrial technique for efficient combustion. The technology involves suspending the material to be burnt by …
Sundaram-Abex Limited, an Indian firm, has begun producing clutch facings free of asbestos. The company, which has been producing asbestos-free brake linings for years, recently imported technology for clutch facings with the same feature from a Spanish company, Saluda, at a cost of Rs 6 crore. The clutch facings will …
THE roar of a V8, the smooth looks of a shark, the power of a freight train, the goggle-eyed gullibility of a citizenry used to driving biscuit tin -- India is a gold mine for automobile manufacturers. An indicator of their serious intent was a closed door workshop on Environment …
Researchers from Magellan Technology, a firm based in western Australia, have developed radio signal-based bagtags to ensure that the luggage of air passengers is not misplaced during transit (New Scientist, Vol 145, No 1961). Unlike the currently used optical scanners, which 'read' the codes inscribed on the tags, the new …
Computers will now bring peace in war-ravaged West Asia. This hope has inspired Israeli foreign minister Shimon Peres to initiate a project that could give a new direction to information technology in the region. On January 29, he organised a meeting with the Egyptian foreign minister and senior executives of …
OFTEN, a question elicits the cryptic "maybe" as the reply. The fuzzy logic behind such an answer has not escaped mathematicians who have built a mathematical theory known as fuzzy set theory around it. Considering the nebulous character of such logic, the benefits accruing from it are nothing less than …
European railway companies have decided to undergo a facelift. A consortium of 11 railway companies are joining hands to develop a crossborder European communications network. It plans to lay fibre optic cables alongside Europe's rail lines to provide an uninterrupted network transnationally. The consortium has linked up with Global Telesystems …
Delhi's All India Institute of Medical Sciences has become the country's first hospital to launch a new technique to detect artherosclerosis -- a disease of the blood vessels caused by cholesterol deposition within the arteries. Called the Intra Vascular Ultra Sound (IVUS), the new technique is currently being demonstrated by …
TAKE some silk cotton. Add a dash of the bacteria Rhodospirillum rubrum. Keep aside for a few days. Sieve and dry. This, in essence, is the recipe for a new environment-friendly method of paper manufacture that scientists at the A M M Murugappa Chettiar Research Centre (MCRC) in Madras have …
The US Department of Energy and a Maryland-based company, Fusion Lighting, have jointly developed sulphur light bulbs, which experts claim could be the light sources of the future (New Scientist, Vol 144, No 1951). These bulbs are small glass spheres filled with a mixture of sulphur and argon which when …
FOR international environmental technology firms, Asia's colossal environmental problems are a business paradise. The darker side of growing economic prosperity and a burgeoning population are the major invites. Plummeting air quality is just one indicator that Asia has much cleaning up to do. According to the World Health Organisation, 12 …
A Japanese company, Hitachi, has developed the technology for making pocket-sized camcorders -- video cameras which are becoming essential family items (New Scientist, Vol 143, No 1945). The technology is based on a secret technique to compress data some 100 times, thereby enabling it to be recorded on "flash memory", …
Not content with chemical methods of assessing the impact of pollution on a river's ecosystem, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) has intensified its efforts to develop a method that uses bioindicators for the purpose. A project aimed at developing a universal biomonitoring methodology to study all the river systems …
