Researchers at UC Berkeley just gave everybody permission to conk out for a few Zs. They found that an hour-long nap can make you smarter in spades.

The team, lead by assistant professor of psychology Matthew Walker, tested the effects of a nap on 39 healthy people. Everyone in the study took a rigorous learning test. Then half the group took a nap while the other half stayed awake. Later in the day they took another learning test. Those who had stayed up were considerably worse than those who had a snooze.

Walker thinks sleep is needed to clear short-term memory storage to make room for new data. Without sleep, there simply isn’t enough space to learn and store new facts. From a UC Berkeley article:

In the latest study, Walker and his team have broken new ground in discovering that this memory-refreshing process occurs when nappers are engaged in a specific stage of sleep. Electroencephalogram tests, which measure electrical activity in the brain, indicated that this refreshing of memory capacity is related to Stage 2 non-REM sleep, which takes place between deep sleep (non-REM) and the dream state known as Rapid Eye Movement (REM). Previously, the purpose of this stage was unclear, but the new results offer evidence as to why humans spend at least half their sleeping hours in Stage 2, non-REM, Walker said.

Makes me wonder why we give up nap time after Kindergarden.

Link to UC Berkeley Article

Compared to this, even you look like a gas guzzler. Students at Cal Poly have built a super-streamlined ride that clocks a record 2,752.3 miles per gallon. They call it the Black Widow. The all-carbon-fiber three wheeler weighs a scant 95 pounds and is powered by a seriously tweaked 3-horsepower, four-stroke Honda 50cc single. Its coefficient of drag is an astounding .12. It uses 20-inch bicycle wheels, two in the front and one in the rear. Yeah, it tops out at just 30 miles per hour, but still, it’s an incredible feat.

Link to Inhabitat article

The bicycle is nearly perfect—an an efficient and beautiful expression of man and machine. Still, the geniuses at MIT have found a way to improve it. Meet the Copenhagen Wheel, a super-snazzy wheel with a kinetic-energy capture system and built-in electronics to monitor everything from distance to pedaling effort.

The heart of the Copenhagen wheel is a KERS (Kinetic Energy Recovery System). The system captures energy when you slow down, which can then be delivered on demand for a boost of speed. It uses an electric motor and batteries contained within the hub.

The Copenhagen wheel also beams information to the iPhone via Bluetooth, including speed, distance traveled, direction, and even air pollution.

The wheel will be on sale sometime in 2010. From MIT:

The initial prototypes of the Copenhagen Wheel were developed along with company Ducati Energia and the Italian Ministry of the Environment. It is expected that the wheel will go into production next year, with a tag price competitive with that of a standard electric bike. According to Claus Juhl, CEO of Copenhagen, the city might place the first order and use bicycles retrofitted with the Copenhagen Wheel as a substitution for city employee cars as part of the city’s goal to become the world’s first carbon-neutral capital by 2025.

It’s pretty slick. I’d definitely add one to my around-town cruiser, budget permitting.

Link to MIT article

A team of researchers from UC Berkeley, Switzerland, and Spain, have found that exposure to exhaust fumes thickens arteries and could increase the chances of cardiovascular disease.

The study looked at people in the Los Angeles area who live within 100 meters of a highway. It found that their arteries thickened by 5.5 micrometers – one-twentieth the thickness of a human hair – per year, more than twice the average.

“For the first time, we have shown that air pollution contributes to the early formation of heart disease, known as atherosclerosis, which is connected to nearly half the deaths in Western societies and to a growing proportion of deaths in the rapidly industrializing nations of Asia and Latin America,” said study co-author Michael Jerrett, UC Berkeley associate professor of environmental health sciences. “The implications are that by controlling air pollution from traffic, we may see much larger benefits to public health than we thought previously.”

Even more reason to bring the age of roaring internal-combustion engines to a close. Which is a bummer, because I happen to really like the roar of a Chevy V8 with a lumpy cam. Oh well, bring on the age of humming electric cars!

Link to UC Berkeley article

100 posts! Yay!

And like a hunk of rotting wildebeest on the searing planes of the Serengeti, I’ve attracted a pack of rabid hyenas—my half-dozen subscribers.

References to scavenging dogs aside, I thank you. And I hope you actually exist and aren’t just spambots.

If you are real, I have a question for you: What technological/scientific advances/discoveries are you most looking forward to in the next 25 years? A lot of promising things are on the horizon—hyper-efficient solar cells, algae bio fuels, the Large Hadron Collider, custom genetically engineered organisms, the iPad. What makes your inner science geek froth at the lips? Post a comment or send me a message and maybe I’ll do a feature on it.

Thanks for reading!

Dustin Driver

In their quest to transform mild-manered scientists into technology wielding superheroes, researchers at Cornell have created a device that could let them walk on walls.

The device uses the surface tension of water for adhesion. It’s inspired by a beetle that can stick to a leaf with 100 times its own weight. Basically you’ve got a small plate drilled with hundreds of micron-scale holes on top of a water reservoir. Current is applied to the plate via a 9-volt battery, which pushes the water up through the holes to form tiny bumps or droplets of water. The surface tension of those droplets makes the plate stick to virtually any surface. Reverse the current and the droplets retract, breaking adhesion.

It’s remarkably sticky. Researchers estimate that a one-square-inch pad would hold up to 15 pounds of weight.

Uses include shoes and gloves for walking on walls, and roll-out mats to stop bad guys in their tracks.

Link to Cornell Chronicle article

Batteries are heavy and weight makes cars crappy. That’s why Volvo engineers are developing a special carbon fiber body panel that can hold a charge, saving weight and space at the same time. The panels could be used to replace some of the batteries in electric cars.

The material could be used in the fenders, hoods, trunk lids, and roofs of electric cars to reduce overall weight by about 15 percent. Eventually, says Volvo, the material could hold all the electricity an electric car could need.

Volvo engineers also say the material could be used in mobile electronics to extend run time or save weight.

Link to Autoblog article

Big Oil killed the car that ran on water, Big Textiles killed the suit that never needed to be dry cleaned, and now Big Detergent is going to kill liquid glass. Made by the aptly named Nanopool corporation, liquid glass is a spray-on glasslike coating that can protect virtually anything from UV radiation, dirt, heat, bacteria, and space rays. Okay, maybe not space rays, but Nanopool claims that the stuff virtually eliminates the need for detergent.

According to an article at PhysOrg.com, the coating is almost all silicon dioxide, the main component of glass. There are no adhesives to make the spray coating stick—quantum forces bind it to whatever you spray it on. Liquid glass is also flexible and breathable, so it can be sprayed on clothing or even plants for protection.

From PhysOrg.com:

The liquid glass spray produces a water-resistant coating only around 100 nanometers (15-30 molecules) thick. On this nanoscale the glass is highly flexible and breathable. The coating is environmentally harmless and non-toxic, and easy to clean using only water or a simple wipe with a damp cloth. It repels bacteria, water and dirt, and resists heat, UV light and even acids. UK project manager with Nanopool, Neil McClelland, said soon almost every product you purchase will be coated with liquid glass.

The liquid glass coating is breathable, which means it can be used on plants and seeds. Trials in vineyards have found spraying vines increases their resistance to fungal diseases, while other tests have shown sprayed seeds germinate and grow faster than untreated seeds, and coated wood is not attacked by termites. Other vineyard applications include coating corks with liquid glass to prevent “corking” and contamination of wine. The spray cannot be seen by the naked eye, which means it could also be used to treat clothing and other materials to make them stain-resistant. McClelland said you can “pour a bottle of wine over an expensive silk shirt and it will come right off”.

In the home, spray-on glass would eliminate the need for scrubbing and make most cleaning products obsolete. Since it is available in both water-based and alcohol-based solutions, it can be used in the oven, in bathrooms, tiles, sinks, and almost every other surface in the home, and one spray is said to last a year.

The miracle spray is supposed to be going on sale in the UK in the near future. No word on whether it’ll be available stateside, but I’d definitely give it a try. And hey, maybe if I spray it on myself, I’ll be virtually indestructible and I’ll finally be able to get my superhero business off the ground.

Link to PhysOrg.com article

Any scifi fan can tell you that engineering immortal killing machines is never a good idea. Still, the Pentagon’s weird science division, DARPA, wants to bioengineer “synthetic” organisms that can live forever. Oh, unless you flip the built-in and totally reliable DNA kill switch. Riiight.

They’re calling the project BioDesign and its goal is to create organisms that will live indefinitely until you issue a self-destruct-type chemical command. Of course there’s absolutely no chance the organisms will evolve a way to ignore the command, swarm, and devour all life like unstoppable cyber locusts. Nope. Not a chance.

Thankfully, the Pentagon only gave the project $6 million to play around with. It’s doubtful that such a paltry sum would be enough to overturn the most fundamental law of nature: What lives must die. Right?

Link to Wired article

Fungal packing material: EcoCradle

Wood is ancient history. The building material of the future is fungus. Artist and hardcore amateur mycologist Philip Ross is growing super-durable bricks of mycelium that could be used for everything from structural support to insulation.

Ross grows bricks of mycelium—wispy, spongy fungal root systems—in rusty shipping containers on his farm Far West Fungi in the California Bay Area. When dried, the bricks are stronger pound-for-pound than concrete and insulate better than fiberglass insulation.

So far Ross has constructed a single six-foot archway out of the stuff. According to the artist, he ruined several saw blades and metal files shaping the bricks—they’re that tough. He called the structure Mycotectural Alpha and it’s on display in a gallery in Germany.

Ross isn’t alone. A company called Ecovative is building at 10,000-square-foot fungi farm on Green Island, N.Y. They plan to grow a ton of fungi-based building material. Their first commercial product will be a biodegradable alternative to Styrofoam called Ecocradle.

The best thing about mushroom-based building material? Mushrooms munch waste—stuff that’s left over from food crops, like seed husks.

So don’t be surprised if you find fungus-based building material at your local Home Depot in a few years.

Link to Time article