Timbuktu Chronicles: Basket Car

Timbuktu Chronicles: Basket Car: Continuing a tradition of tricked out transport.In Ibadan,Nigeria an automobile with a woven exterior, from Obaniyi (aka 'Alapere'of 'King Jossy Cane Productions'-08121687680):

'Africa's hackers are today's world-class tech innovators'

Timbuktu Chronicles: 'Africa's hackers are today's world-class tech inn...: Ethan Zuckerman writes in Wired: Growing up in the US, I didn't have much first-hand knowledge of technological progress in other countries. I assumed some countries were rich, which meant they had lots of cars, computers and electricity, whereas others were poor, which meant that most people cooked on charcoal, used kerosene for light and went through their lives without making a phone call. I'd developed a (not uncommon) cognitive shortcut: technological progress happens in parallel, so countries are high-tech or low-tech, never a blend of the two.

One trip to sub-Saharan Africa is all it takes to demonstrate the failings of this mental shortcut. Wireless ISPs were common in the Ghanaian capital of Accra before public Wi-Fi nodes were widespread in the US. My hacker friends in Lagos work from taxicabs, logging on to 4G networks. In Kenya, 70 percent of adults use M-Pesa, a phone-based payment system, to buy groceries and send money to family. On much of the African content, telecoms infrastructure is world class, whereas transport, power and other infrastructures lag far behind...[continue reading]
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Next-Generation Quantum Space Propulsion System

From: HumanIPO 

by-Galgallo Duba Fayo


A 19-year-old Egyptian university student called Aisha Mustafa has invented a propulsion device intended to offer spacecrafts a new method and cheaper means of energy consumption.


The propulsion device promises chances of using quantum physics and chemical reactions in artificial satellites, instead of the current radioactive-based jets and ordinary rocket engines.


Mustafa’s device is based on a scientific mix between quantum physics, space technology, chemical reactions and electrical sciences.


Mustafa said the inventions generates energy for space vehicles from electric energy formed by Casimir-polder force, which occurs between separate surfaces and objects in a vacuum and by the zero-point energy considered as the lowest state of energy.


The device uses reflective panels for additional force which resembles photovoltaic solar cells.


At present, artificial satellites, spacecrafts and space vehicles depend on rocket gas engines that use forced gas at a supersonic speed, or chemical reactions rockets propelled by solid or liquid fuels such as radionuclide or petroleum. Others use electrically propelled probes, which depend on thrusting force via accelerating ions.


The physics student at Sohag University told EGYNews agency she has patented the device with Egyptian Academy of scientific Research and Technology (ASRT).


The invention is related to a hypothetical concept of a jet propulsion called “Differential Sail”, theoretically created by NASA’s retired professor Marc G. Millis -- who led NASA breakthrough propulsion physics project.


Dr. Ahmed Fikry, Mustafa’s supervisor, said the invention would be highly beneficial in several fields and areas of industries once adopted.


The 19-year-old says she aims at testing her invention at major scientific research organisations hence the possibility of applying it in upcoming space missions.


The new invention, analysts say, is expected to make space travels, easier, cheaper and faster in future.

A Vision To Help

From: Physorg


via- University of California - San Diego



Engineering students design bare-bones microscope for clinics in developing world


Students at the Jacobs School of Engineering are working to develop a cheaper, lighter, multi-function microscope that could be used in clinics in developing countries. Their prototype will be flown to Mozambique this summer and field tested at Universidade Eduardo Mondlane in the country’s capital, Maputo.



Their goal is to design a three-in-one device that can be used as a brightfield and fluorescent microscope as well as a spectrophotometer to examine everything from blood cells to bacteria. Traditional 2-in-one microscopes can cost more than $50,000—and none have historically been equipped for spectroscopy as well. “We are aiming for under $500,” said Dr. Eliah Aronoff-Spencer, a physician scientist in UC San Diego’s infectious disease department and the project’s sponsor. The low-cost microscope has another advantage: it’s run by and sends the images it captures to a laptop or iPad so physicians can start using and sharing data right away.


Dr. Aronoff-Spencer is one of the physicians partnering with Mozambique doctors to improve research, training and technology in the country as part of a five-year, $12.5-million award from the U.S. Medical Education Partnership Initiative. Mozambique badly needs medical equipment, the UC San Diego doctor explained. The country of 20 million residents, and less than 1,000 doctors, only has two functioning medical schools and is building two more.
Engineering undergraduates said building the microscope is the best learning experience they’ve had on campus.


“It really brings home all the issues we talk about in class,” said Kyle Stewart, one of the four mechanical engineering seniors working on the device. “All that becomes real when you work on this project.”
Stewart said he had a great internship last summer. “But I didn’t learn anywhere near what I’ve learned from this.”


The students are now on their third prototype for the microscope and estimate there will be at least three more before the quarter is over. The goal is a 6 by 6 by 13 inches box with different trays that allow for different imaging techniques.
Their decision to keep slide trays stationary, and the optics mobile, is what made the device possible, said Leonardo Costello, one of the four students working on the project. In a traditional microscope, it’s the other way around.


The device uses a CMOS chip in the imaging unit and a full CCD chip to take spectrometry pictures in any position. The ultimate goal is to image objects down to 0.5 microns in diameter. A hair’s breadth is about 100 microns.


The project has become a full-time job for the students, who have been spending eight to 14 hours a day, five days a week, in the lab at EBU II. “It’s to the point where people are surprised if they don’t see us in here,” Stewart joked.


All say they knew they wanted to be engineers from a young age. Stewart has played with LEGOs since he was 6 years old and learned how to use LEGO Mindstorms as part of a middle school gifted and talented students program. “I’ve always liked making things, so everything pointed to engineering,” he said. He is going to graduate school at San Diego State University.


Reginald Ballesteros is following in the footsteps of his father, who is a civil engineer. He will be interning at Goodrich Aerostructures this summer. In the fall, he will be going to Santa Clara University for a master’s degree in mechatronics.


Costello’s father was a general contractor. Costello, who was home schooled until he came to UC San Diego, often got to spend time with him on the job. The younger Costello also spent a lot of time in the family’s garage, building various creations. He recently accepted a job at North American Repower, a company that specializes in heavy-duty natural gas engine technology.


Sean Patno is responsible for much of the user interface and software aspects of the project. He will probably land a job as a software engineer after he graduates, he said.
Dr. Aronoff-Spencer said he has been impressed by the students’ work—and by their work ethic.


“They are working harder than any students I’ve ever seen,” he said.

Timbuktu Chronicles: Atlantis Science Club

Timbuktu Chronicles: Atlantis Science Club: In Enugu Nigeria, Ugo Eze of Automobile Laboratories launches the Atlantis Science Club  "where science and creativity meet "

Timbuktu Chronicles: WinSenga | Hand-Held Pregnancy Scanner

Timbuktu Chronicles: WinSenga | Hand-Held Pregnancy Scanner: Ventures Africa reports : Second-year students at the Makerere University College of Computing and Information Technology (CIT) ,in Uganda, have invented a hand-held pregnancy scan-like machine called the WinSega.....

Timbuktu Chronicles: Suleiman Famro's ‘Farmking Extractor’ cassava proc...

Timbuktu Chronicles: Suleiman Famro's ‘Farmking Extractor’ cassava proc...:
From the Leadership website : Famro has invented a multi-purpose crop processing machine branded ‘farmking extractor’.The machine was designed, primarily for the processing of root crops, especially cassava. 


The other benefits offered by the processing machine is the opportunity for farmers to extract all the useful by-products of cassava for other economic uses.

"Pressure Retarded Osmosis Power Generation"

From: SPECTRUM.IEEE


by- Dave Levitan


River Mouths Could Offer Hundreds of Gigawatts of Clean Energy


There are a lot of rivers in africa and in the world, and a lot of places where those rivers discharge into an ocean. And according to a study published recently in Environmental Science & Technology, taking advantage of even 10 percent of those interfaces of fresh and salt water could provide more than 150 gigawatts of power.


The process is called pressure-retarded osmosis. Basically, a membrane divides fresh water coming in from the river with the salt water of the ocean or sea. The fresh water flows through the membrane due to the salinity gradient, and the pressure difference spins a turbine to generate electricity. Simple, no fuel required, and clean.


The total river discharge globally is about 37,000 cubic kilometers (somewhere in the vicinity of 10 quadrillion gallons); the new study suggests that if 10 percent of that could be exploited using pressure-retarded osmosis, it would generate 157 gigawatts of power. (For comparison: The U.S. has an electricity capacity of just over 1,000 gigawatts.) And that's 157 gigawatts of emissions-free power; the same amount from coal-fired power plants would release a billion tons of CO2 every year.


The authors of the study, Ngai Yin Yip and Menachem Elimelech of Yale University, might overshoot a bit with one number: they estimate that this power could provide electricity for 520 million people. They base that on the DOE's Energy Information Administration per-capita electricity consumption numbers, but somewhere between one and two billion people still lack electricity access. So, a couple of caveats to what seems like a really good idea: somehow using 10 percent of the world potential for river discharge power is an immense undertaking and extremely unlikely to happen on time scales that matter for emissions reductions; and no, 157 gigawatts will not provide power for half a billion people.


Still, this seems worth doing. There is one prototype facility already in place, in Norway, which we'll watch closely to see if it delivers on the concept's promise.

Wind To Water

From: TreeHugger


by-Megan Treacy


Wind Turbine Makes 1,000 Liters of Clean Water a Day in the Desert


A cool new concept being tested in the Abu Dhabi desert uses a wind turbine to condense water from the air and pump it into storage tanks for filtration and purification. The technology was created by Eole Water after its founder, Marc Parent, was inspired by the water he could collect from his air conditioner unit while living in the Caribbean. He began thinking of ways that water could be condensed from air in areas without access to grid power and the wind turbine concept was born.


The 30-kW wind turbine houses and powers the whole system. Air is taken in through vents in the nose cone of the turbine and then heated by a generator to make steam. The steam goes through a cooling compressor that creates moisture which is then condensed and collected. The water produced is sent through pipes down to stainless steel storage tanks where it's filtered and purified.


A prototype of the technology has been installed in Abu Dhabi since October and has been capable of producing 500 to 800 liters of clean water a day from the dry desert air. Eole Water says that volume can increase to 1,000 liters a day with a tower-top system. The system requires wind speeds of 15 miles per hour or higher to produce water.

This technology uses a simple process that has been experimented with in a variety of designs, but this is the first powered by a wind turbine. That component makes it able to produce large quantities of clean water in areas that don't have ready access to it without requiring grid power, which makes it especially promising for remote communities and disaster areas. Eole has already landed 12 industrial partners for manufacturing the turbines.

DIY Drug Stores Coming Your Way..BeSpoke Health Care

From: Physorg

Provided by- GLA

A new 3D printing process developed at the University of Glasgow could revolutionise the way scientists, doctors and even the general public create chemical products.


Professor Lee Cronin, Gardiner Chair of Chemistry at the University, believes his research could lead to the development of home chemical fabricators which consumers could use to design and create medicine at home.


A new research paper, published in the journal Nature Chemistry today, outlines how the process has been proven to work. Using a commercially-available 3D printer operated by open-source computer-aided design software, Professor Cronin and his team have built what they call ‘reactionware’, special vessels for chemical reactions which are made from a polymer gel which sets at room temperature.


By adding other chemicals to the gel deposited by the printer, the team have been able to make the vessel itself part of the reaction process. While this is common in large-scale chemical engineering, the development of reactionware makes it possible for the first time for custom vessels to be fabricated on a laboratory scale.


Professor Cronin said: “It’s long been possible to have lab materials custom-made to include windows or electrodes, for example, but it’s been expensive and time-consuming. We can fabricate these reactionware vessels using a 3D printer in a relatively short time. Even the most complicated vessels we’ve built have only take a few hours.


“By making the vessel itself part of the reaction process, the distinction between the reactor and the reaction becomes very hazy. It’s a new way for chemists to think, and it gives us very specific control over reactions because we can continually refine the design of our vessels as required.


“For example, our initial reactionware designs allowed us to synthesize three previously unreported compounds and dictate the outcome of a fourth reaction solely by altering the chemical composition of the reactor.”


Although the technology they are developing is still at an early stage, the team, comprised of researchers from the University’s School of Chemistry and School of Physics and Astronomy, is also considering the long-term implications of developments in 3D printing technology.


Professor Cronin added: “3D printers are becoming increasingly common and affordable. It’s entirely possible that, in the future, we could see chemical engineering technology which is prohibitively expensive today filter down to laboratories and small commercial enterprises.


“Even more importantly, we could use 3D printers to revolutionise access to healthcare in the developing world, allowing diagnosis and treatment to happen in a much more efficient and economical way than is possible now.


“We could even see 3D printers reach into homes and become fabricators of domestic items, including medications. Perhaps with the introduction of carefully-controlled software ‘apps’, similar to the ones available from Apple, we could see consumers have access to a personal drug designer they could use at home to create the medication they need.”






see also:

             

                    3D Printers: Dawn Of Personalized Medical Care

Timbuktu Chronicles: Hydroponics production in Mauritius

Timbuktu Chronicles: Hydroponics production in Mauritius: From Nawsheen's world : Sweet Pepper grown under hydroponics culture in a Greenhouse Presently, most of the crops produced in Mauriti...

Morse Code- Based Texting For Deaf Phone Users

From: SciDev


by-Lucar Laursen


Indian designer develops Morse-based texting for deaf phone users


An Indian graduate student has development a mobile phone application that enables people with sight and hearing impairments to send and receive text messages.


The PocketSMS application was developed for Android smartphones, which are generally cheaper than Apple's iPhones. The application converts text into Morse code vibrations so that users can "feel" the message.


Regular mobile phones already use vibrations to alert users to incoming calls or messages. Anmol Anand, a graduate student at the Guru Gobind Singh Indraprastha University in Delhi, realised that the same vibrations could also convey text message content.


He used the open source Google App Inventor to write a new application to covert each letter in a text message into Morse code — in which each letter corresponds to a set of a short and long tones — and then used the phone's hardware to vibrate for each letter.


An accompanying application, MorseTrainer, has been designed to teach deaf-blind users Morse code, and to use it without having to rely on smartphone keyboards, which can be difficult to see.

Text messaging is growing in importance as a tool for safety and social inclusion. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo late last year, for instance, a group of deaf users protested for their safety late last year when the government shut down text messaging services, the BBC reported.


In Uganda, the National Association of the Deaf is working on a project in which hearing students and deaf students learn how to send text messages together.


"We saw that deaf kids were not integrating," said education consultant Sacha DeVelle, who was volunteering in Kabale with the charity Cambridge to Africa.


When teachers began showing pairs of hearing and deaf students how to send text messages, deaf children became far more integrated into the school community. "It encourages them to go on and do what they want to do, [for example] go to university or set up a shop," DeVelle said.


Anand's collaborator, Arun Mehta — president of the Bidirectional Access Promotion Society (BAPSI) — said that internet access is just as important for the disabled as everyone else.


He said that the introduction of text-to-speech screen reading software had meant that "the gap between the sighted and the blind has shrunk dramatically. We would like to do that for the deaf-blind too."


Inclusive technology can help disabled people take part in everyday life, said Mohamed Jemni, a computer scientist at the School of Science and Technology in Tunisia.


Jemni says he is now  testing an application to turn text messages into animated avatars which "sign" the message visually. He said the underlying software could be customised to suit national sign languages in use around the world.


see also: Rice Farmers App

"MineSweeper"

From: Future Of Tech 


by- Neal Ungerleider


Piano inspires 17-year-old to invent land-mine detector


17-year-old Marian Bechtel might live in Pennsylvania, where land mines are not a common occurrence, but she has still managed to invent the prototype for a brand-new minesweeper.


The device, which cost far lower than current technology, uses sound waves to figure out where the deadly devices are. The combination of sensitive microphones and a seismic vibrator connected to a standard metal detector was tested, successfully, on mock plastic and metal land mines. It was a finalist in the recently concluded 2012 Intel Science Talent Search.


"My parents are both geologists," she says. "Years ago they got connected with an international group of scientists working on a project called RASCAN, developing a holographic radar device for detecting land mines. During the summer before eighth grade, I met all of these scientists and talked with them about their work and the land mine issue.
I was really touched and inspired by what they had to say, and wanted to get involved in science and possibly land mine detection."


Where does a 17-year-old find inspiration for life-saving innovation? In her music practice:


"I noticed that when I played certain chords or notes on the piano, the strings on a nearby banjo would resonate," says Bechtel. "I heard this, and it was almost like the story of the apple falling on Newton’s head -- I thought that maybe I could use the same principle to find landmines. So, I began doing research and talking with scientists in humanitarian de-mining and acoustics; three years later I had built a prototype."


Sean Sennott of the FDW Corp. and Lorenzo Capineri of the University of Florence also provided assistance. In addition, Bechtel was the recipient of a fellowship from the Davidson Institute for Talent Development; the video clip below contains an interview of her with inventor Dean Kamen.


The winners of the Intel Science Talent Search, who were named on March 13, also include Nithin Tumma of Michigan, who won $100,000 for his research into breast cancer treatments, and Andrey Sushko of Washington state, who won $75,000 for developing a tiny motor for use in microrobotics. Other winners included projects on microscopic worms, Cherednik algebras, and the use of non-speech patterns of sound to convey information.

Coconut and Mango Waste: An Electric Cocktail?

From: SciDev


by- Syful Islam


Go on a tropical beach vacation and chances are you'll sip a piña colada or a mango passion as you watch the waves lap at the shore. The waste generated to make the key ingredient in those cocktails could be used to power up rural communities in South and Southeast Asia, a study suggests.


Researchers in the United States say agricultural waste from coconut and mango farming could generate significant amounts of off-grid electricity for rural communities in South and South-East Asia.


Many food crops have a tough, inedible part which cannot be used to feed livestock or fertilise fields. Examples of this material — known as 'endocarp' — include coconut, almond and pistachio shells, and the stones of mangoes, olives, plums, apricots and cherries.


Endocarp is high in a chemical compound known as lignin. High-lignin products can be heated to produce an energy-rich gas that can be used to generate electricity.


The researchers identified high-endocarp-producing regions of the world – and noted that coconut and mango agriculture account for 72 per cent of total global endocarp production. Coconut production alone accounted for 55 per cent.


Most coconut endocarp comes from South and South-East Asian countries, including Bangladesh, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, Thailand, and Vietnam.


They then overlaid these findings with energy consumption data to identify communities with little access to electricity, who could benefit from endocarp-based energy.


"We noticed that production was unevenly distributed around the globe, which could make a very significant contribution to the energy budget in some countries like Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and the Philippines, [as well as] regions of India," Tom Shearin, co-author and a systems analyst at University of Kentucky, United States, told SciDev.Net.


Writing in the Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences , the researchers said endocarp bioenergy could meet up to 30 per cent of total energy needs in Sri Lanka, 25 per cent in the Philippines, 13 per cent in Indonesia, and 3 per cent in India.


Shearin said endocarp was preferable to crop-based biofuels as it had no value as a food item. "Its exploitation as energy source does not compete with food production," he said.


Wais Kabir, executive chairman of the Bangladesh Agriculture Research Institute, told SciDev.Net that most of the country's agricultural waste, including non-edible by-products, was already used to generate bioenergy.


"I don't think that supply of adequate volumes of coconut shell, [for example] to run a power plant, is possible at this stage until we go for its production in a planned way," he said.


The researchers acknowledged that efforts to scale up infrastructure to deliver decentralised bio-energy in developing countries would face economic, technical and social challenges.


Advocates of an endocarp-based energy sector would also have to persuade investors that it would be financially viable.


Abser Kamal, managing director of Grameen Shakti, a renewable energy firm in Bangladesh, said: "We have to check if these are cost-effective or not".


Islam Sharif, CEO of the Infrastructure Development Company Limited (IDCOL), a state-run renewable energy financing firm in Bangladesh, said IDCOL would encourage investment in endocarp-based energy production if it was found to be financially viable.

Turning Human Waste To Energy and Clean Water

Original Article From: Imperial College


Green light to a prototype device for harvesting energy and clean drinking water from human waste.

A project from a team of researchers from Imperial College London, the University of Manchester and Durham University beat more than 2,000 other proposals to receive funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to develop a prototype system for recovering drinkable water and harvesting hydrogen energy from human faecal waste. 


The researchers believe the technology could provide an inexpensive device for people in the developing world to generate clean water and energy from waste and a sustainable source of hydrogen energy that could be used to power homes in developed countries.


The researchers say that the device will be portable, allowing installation in homes and remote locations. The technology is based on a porous scaffold that holds bacteria and metal nano-particles. When faecal sludge is filtered through the scaffolding these particles will react with the waste mater to generate the recycled resources. These can either be used immediately or stored for later use.


The first stage of the project will see the team developing a stand-alone sanitation device, making it easier and cheaper for people in developing countries to adopt the technology where large sewage networks may not exist. Where sewage infrastructure is in place, the technology could be hooked into the system, minimising implementation costs for home owners.


In the long-term, the researchers aim to further develop their device into a ‘pick and mix’ series of recycling units that can extract the types of resources most useful for users such as: electrolytes, used for generating electricity; methane, for energy; and ammonia, which is a widely used fertiliser. The team says their device would be an advantage over other systems currently on the market that can only recover one or two resources at most.


Dr Martyn McLachlan, Department of Materials at Imperial, says: “In the future, we may see homes in the UK generating their own clean water, energy and fertilizer simply by doing what comes naturally to us all once or twice day. More important are the implications for developing countries, where the provision of clean drinking water is essential for supporting life and self-generated energy could be used to support economic growth.”


The researchers plan to have a prototype ready to demonstrate by 2013. The project team and the concept were a product of a recent Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council "Inspire in the Physical Sciences" workshop.