Charging Cellphones With Boiling Water

A group of designers in Nairobi, Kenya, has created a way to charge your cellphone with green energy while recycling a plastic bottle.
According to Inhabitat, the Bottle Charger transforms any used plastic soda or water bottle into a 5-watt charger capable of powering a smart phone.
Simply add boiling water and the miniature Blackbeard Unidirectional Constant Turbine (BUCT) creates electricity with the rise and fall of temperature, charging your phone while creating a mini science lab right on your kitchen counter.
With just one cup of boiling water, the Bottle Charger can power a cellphone in just 15 to 30 minutes, depending on the temperature around the device. The device was created with those living off the grid in underdeveloped countries in mind.
Over 200 million cellphone users in Africa do not have access to electricity at home, and must walk miles to the nearest charging station, where they must pay to re-juice their devices. The Bottle Charger would allow these families to power up, by simply boiling water on a fire or gas stove.
The number of off-the-grid cellphone users is expected to double by 2015, driving the need for a sustainable and inexpensive energy source. Devices like the Bottle Charger will help these people become more independent, and less reliant on outside power.

Apple Patent Hints At Smart Watch

Fresh evidence that Apple has been working on a smart watch concept since at least 2011 has emerged in a patent filing.
The document describes a flexible touchscreen display that would communicate with a smartphone or other electronic device, BBC said.
It coincides with a report from a tech consultancy suggesting there is huge pent-up demand for such a gadget. But ABI Research warns that battery life issues still need to be addressed.
It says such problems can be resolved. About 485 million wearable computing devices might be shipped by 2018, providing a significant growth opportunity for Apple and the wider consumer electronics industry.
Not all published patents lead to actual products, but Bloomberg, the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times have all published reports this month saying sources had confirmed Apple was experimenting with a watch-like device.
The iPhone-maker declined to comment when contacted by the BBC.
The US Patent Office only revealed Apple’s filing on Thursday, but the document dates back to August 2011.
The mooted device is likened to a “slap wrap”--a thin strip of metal covered in fabric that snapped around the user’s wrist to form a bracelet.

Iran Cooperating In Global Proteome Project

A researcher of Royan Research Institute said Iran is cooperating with 19 developed countries in the global Human Proteome Project (HPP) in the fields of medicine and science.
Speaking to IRNA on Saturday, Mehdi Alikhani said the project is a collaborative effort coordinated by the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO).
He said HUPO’s goal is to experimentally observe all of the proteins produced by the sequences translated from the human genome.
Alikhani stressed that the project can also provide extensive information on basic sciences and medicines, and help find genetic characteristics (markers) that would be effective for detecting various diseases.
“In this project, a group of world researchers and laboratory professionals is gathering to exchange views,” he said, adding that all genes in human chromosomes will be examined during the project.
The results of the ten-year project will be reported annually.
HUPO is an international consortium of national proteomics research associations, government researchers, academic institutions and industry partners.
Founded in June 2001, HUPO promotes the development of proteomic research, advocates on behalf of proteomics researchers throughout the world and facilitates scientific collaborations among HUPO members.

Digicam Fits in Palm of Hand

After a fruitless search for a teeny key-chain digital camera with a fish-eye lens out front, Greg Dash decided to design and build his own.
The subsequent prototype was intended for his own use, but when more and more folks asked him where they could buy one when they spotted him snapping photos, he hatched a crowd-funding plan to bring his LoFi-Fisheye Digicam to market, Gizmag wrote.
Thankfully, monster lenses like the one introduced by Nikon at the 1970 Photokina show are something of a rarity. Today’s smaller varieties, however, are still a rather expensive addition to a photographer’s toolkit, and certainly something that was out of Dash’s price range.
Dash could have opted to add something like a TurtleJacket PentaEye lens wheel to his iPhone, or post-processed images using software or apps for a digitally-manipulated snap, but didn’t feel that such things were quite what he was looking for.

Options
“Although apps give the appearance of a fish-eye effect, they’re unable to replicate the true 170-degree image due to the limitations in the hardware,” he told us. “Snap-on attachments can suffer from low quality construction, can fall off, can break and can be device specific.”
He wanted an easy-to-use, pocket-friendly digital camera that had a quality fish-eye lens, was able to record in HD, and included features like time-lapse--criteria that were satisfied in his (roughly) Chobi Cam-sized LoFi-Fisheye Digicam.
Dash, who works and studies at Aberystwyth University in Mid Wales, told us that the reference to Lo-Fi in the camera’s name relates to its simple, uncluttered style and the distinct lack of bells and whistles of the design itself, rather than an indication of anything lacking in image quality.
In fact, the camera’s onboard sensor can record HD video and grab images at up to 12 megapixels.

Easy Functions
Pressing and holding the power button on the top brings the camera to life and it goes straight into HD video mode (indicated by a red LED on the back).
Next to the power button, there’s another which allows the user to choose between video and photo (green LED).
A microphone on the rear picks up and records audio and the button on the front of the camera activates the camera’s time-lapse feature. The front is also home to that desirable 170-degree glass fish-eye lens.

Why Snacking at Night Is Bad

Eating that bowl of cocoa puffs at night may be much worse than having it in the morning. The body tends to turn more of that food into fat at night, while turning it into fuel during the day, new research suggests.
The study, published in the journal Current Biology, found that mice’s ability to regulate their blood sugar varied throughout the day, LiveScience said.
In addition, disrupting their circadian clock, which signals sleep and wakefulness among other things to the body, caused them to put on more fat.
The findings could explain why night-shift workers are more prone to diabetes and obesity.
“Disrupting your biological clock leads to a disruption of metabolism such that there’s more of a tendency to put on fat,” even with the same amount of caloric intake or diet, said study co-author Carl Johnson, a chronobiologist at Vanderbilt University. “It’s not only what you eat but when you eat it that’s important.”
Several studies in the past have shown that shift workers gain more weight and are likelier to develop diabetes. Past work also showed that mice (which are nocturnal) put on more fat if they can only eat during the day, even at the same caloric intake.
Researchers suspected the circadian clock played a role, though exactly how was a mystery.
To find out, Johnson and his colleagues tested how well mice’s bodies processed food across the 24-hour cycle. During daylight hours, when mice wouldn’t normally eat, they were less responsive to insulin, a hormone that tells the body’s tissues to take sugar from the blood so it can be used as energy. The excess sugar not used as energy gets turned into fat.
In addition, when they disrupted the mice’s circadian clocks by keeping them in dim red light all day, the mice developed signs of insulin resistance, meaning the tissues didn’t respond to insulin’s signal to take up sugar, and they put on more fat. Insulin resistance has also been tied to diabetes and heart disease in humans.
The findings hint that snacking late into the night may be worse for people than eating earlier in the day, Johnson said.
The study is impressive, Satchidananda Panda, a biologist at the Salk Institute in La Jolla, Calif., who was not involved in the study, wrote in an email.
“This paper for the first time conclusively shows there is a circadian rhythm in insulin sensitivity in animals and potentially in humans as well,” Panda wrote.
“Because older studies have shown that humans have daily rhythms in their blood glucose, even with constant sugar infusion, researchers already suspected that insulin sensitivity waxed and waned throughout the day.”

Iran Ranks Fifth In Orthopedic Sciences

Iran has attained the fifth international rank in the field of orthopedic sciences and is among superior Asian countries in this medical field.
This was announced by Gholamali Akasheh, the head of Iranian Orthopedic Surgeons Society, on Friday, IRNA reported.
“Iran is very developed and advanced in the field of orthopedic sciences and the country ranks fifth in orthopedic surgeries after Britain, Canada, the US and two European countries,” he said.
“Due to the vastness of this science in the country, we can dare say that we are ahead of many international centers.”
The official noted that Iran is not witnessing breakthroughs in the field of orthopedic science, but the country experiences new achievements in all medical fields both in terms of performance and technology.
Akasheh played down the effectiveness of the US-led western sanctions on orthopedic equipment, and said, “Although medical equipment of this field has become expensive, no shortage is being currently felt in this area yet.”

Monster Goldfish Found In Lake Tahoe

Giant goldfish have mysteriously found their way into the famously crystalline waters of Lake Tahoe, the second-deepest US lake, alarming researchers and raising questions about the invasive species’ long-term effects.
Goldfish weighing as much as 4 pounds and measuring up to a 1-1/2 feet in length have recently been caught in Tahoe, which straddles the California-Nevada border, and scientists say the influx threatens native species while posing a potential waste pollution problem, Reuters reported.
“These fish are competing with the native fish, and that’s a big part of the problem,” said Heather Segale, spokeswoman for the Tahoe Environmental Research Center at the University of California at Davis.
A group of researchers from Davis, the University of Nevada at Reno, and the fish and wildlife departments of both California and Nevada were the first to study the presence of goldfish in Lake Tahoe, beginning an annual survey in 2006.
In 2011, the group began a project to reduce the number of goldfish and other non-native fish from the lake through “electrofishing,” dangling metal wires from the bottom of a boat to stun fish with electrical current, then capturing the fish as they float to the surface.
Researchers then sort the fish, releasing native species and sport fish such as trout, and removing the rest.
“The project has rid the lake of 50 to 60 goldfish a year since 2011, but their foraging abilities and potential to multiply means removal efforts must continue to keep populations under control,” said Christine Ngai of the University of Nevada.
The influx at Tahoe, at the base of a world-class ski area in the eastern Sierra Nevada mountain range, is believed to have originated from specimens dumped from a fish bowl by pet-owners who no longer wanted them.

Monkey Kit Holds Tablet Any Way You Like

A new tablet stand called the Monkey Kit takes what users expect from a stand, which is obviously holding a tablet with greater creativity.
Instead of being limited to just one position, the Monkey Kit is adaptable, IdeaConnection wrote.
What makes Octa’s Monkey Kit worth a second look is its versatility. It comes with a bendable arm called the Monkey Tail that can be manipulated and placed in almost any position.
Users can bend the arm into the shape of a base to sit on a desk or a table, or they can get a little more creative and use the arm as a hook. It can even be placed under a mattress like the Manatee stand.
The Monkey Tail portion of the device weighs in at about one pound (0.45 kg) and is three feet (0.9 meters) long, which should give it enough length to wrap around objects or form a sturdy stand for a tablet.
The Monkey Kit also includes what Octa calls the Vacuum Dock. Instead of a standard suction cup, which could be a little weak to hold a heavy tablet, the Monkey Kit’s suction cup actually sucks the air out of the space between it and the tablet, which creates a tighter hold. Users pump the button five times and then it is locked in place.
To release the Vacuum Dock, users slide their finger underneath a built-in tab and lift up. Alternatively, they can slide a credit card under the Dock to release the vacuum’s grip.
Octa is planning for the future, and as such, the Vacuum Dock will work with future tails (including the already available Whale Tail), so buyers won’t need to purchase additional docks if they decide to upgrade to a different tail.
The company has completed its funding period on Kickstarter. It had a $20,000 goal, and finished with $103,621.

Soccer Lowers BP

Playing soccer can help reduce high blood pressure (BP) in adults. The British men also had improved lung function, lower resting heart rates and less body fat.