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POPSSun + Water = Fuel Michael Grätzel, however, may have a clever way to turn Nocera's discovery to practical use. A professor of chemistry and chemical engineering at the École Polytechnique Fédérale in Lausanne, Switzerland, he was one of the first people Nocera told about his new catalyst. "He was so excited," Grätzel says. "He took me to a restaurant and bought a tremendously expensive bottle of wine." In 1991, Grätzel invented a promising new type of solar cell. It uses a dye containing ruthenium, which acts much like the chlorophyll in a plant, absorbing light and releasing electrons. In Grätzel's solar cell, however, the electrons don't set off a water-splitting reaction. Instead, they're collected by a film of titanium dioxide and directed through an external circuit, generating electricity. Grätzel now thinks that he can integrate his solar cell and Nocera's catalyst into a single device that captures the energy from sunlight and uses it to split water.
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POPSA Diamond Bigger than Earth Discovered The diamond is actually the crystallized interior of a white dwarf – or the hot core of a star that is left over after the star uses up its nuclear fuel and dies. It is made mostly of carbon and is coated by a thin layer of hydrogen and helium gases.
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POPSWhat Makes People Racist? The researchers say that negative associations likely have such power in most people's minds because evolution prepared us to notice bad things more than good things. “If there’s a lion hiding in a bush, you’d better see it,” . “Whereas if there’s a tree of mangoes, it’s unfortunate if you don’t notice it, but it’s not as critical to your survival. ” Since each negative association has more weight in the brain, one must overcompensate with many positive links just to get back to neutral. The psychologists aren’t clear on why some people don’t make negative associations, but they are looking for genetic and social factors that predict it. Unfortunately, other research shows that simply wanting to be less negative -- or less racist -- won't actually work. You have to do something about it. The best way to become less racist, say psychologists, is to spend time with the very people you're prejudiced against.
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POPS"Perhaps our moral reasoning is not as reasonable as it seems". Presented with this option, said Banaji , most people refuse. In our guts, something seems different about tossing someone in front of the train rather than sending the train at someone -- and neither social psychologists nor neuroscientists nor philosophers know why. Interestingly, if the characters in the dilemma are replaced with chimpanzees, people are unhesitatingly willing to throw the monkey on the track. "When something is different from us, we become utilitarian. But for ourselves, we observe Kantian principles," said Banaji.
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POPSClippers, get over it I see clips that forecast everything from Socialism to return of Hitlers third Reich. Go outside look up and see that the sky is not falling, your family is not in chains. Time to return to life or get one.
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POPSAtheism, a positive pillar Some clips from an article about a group of atheists attempting to wise up the bigots about their humanity. Wouldn't be hard to show, but a lot of ignorance woven into the culture of religion, to overcome.
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POPSThe dance of consciousness "Experience is something that is temporarily extended and active. Perceptual consciousness is a style of access to the world around us. I can touch something, and when I touch something I make use of an understanding of the way in which my own movements help me secure access to that which is before me. The point is not that merely that I learn about or achieve access to the world by touching. The point is that the thing shows up for me as something in a space of movement-oriented possibilities".
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