The new, efficient oxygen catalyst in action in Dan Nocera's laboratory at MIT
(Photo courtesy of MIT and NSF)
We hear a lot about the coming
hydrogen economy. Hydrogen has a lot of
promise because it’s a clean burning gas.
But, for the most part, you have to burn
dirtier fossil fuels to make hydrogen.
Scientists can produce hydrogen from water.
But the process is expensive. Julie Grant
reports on new science that has researchers
buzzing:
Transcript
We hear a lot about the coming
hydrogen economy. Hydrogen has a lot of
promise because it’s a clean burning gas.
But, for the most part, you have to burn
dirtier fossil fuels to make hydrogen.
Scientists can produce hydrogen from water.
But the process is expensive. Julie Grant
reports on new science that has researchers
buzzing:
MIT researcher Daniel Nocera has found a cheaper way to get hydrogen
from water molecules. Researchers already have been able to do this – but
only with a precious metal – platinum. It costs nearly $2000 an ounce.
Nocera’s team discovered a material based on cobalt that does the same job.
Cobalt costs more like $2 an ounce.
James McCusker is an expert on solar energy conversion at Michigan State
University. He says the discovery has researchers excited.
“A, it works. But B, it works in such a way that it’s very, very easy to put
together. And it’s made of very inexpensive materials. They’re really
potential game changers in this field.”
McCusker says there’s still a lot of work left before we’re ready for a
hydrogen economy.
The new research was published in the journal Science.
Marc Baldo, associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science (left) and Shalom Goffri, postdoc in MIT's Research Laboratory of Electronics (right) hold examples of organic solar concentrators. (Photo by Donna Coveney at MIT, courtesy of NSF)
Some researchers say they’ve found a way to make every window
in a building gather solar energy. Lester Graham reports:
Transcript
Some researchers say they’ve found a way to make every window
in a building gather solar energy. Lester Graham reports:
MIT engineers say they can coat plastic or glass to redirect sunlight to the edges of a
window – to solar cells.
Instead of using a whole panel of expensive solar cells, the cells could just be aligned
just along the edges. The system could be used for solar panels, or could be used as
windows on tall glass paneled buildings.
Marc Baldo is the team leader at MIT.
“We think that this is a very practical and simple technology. It just relies on simple
coating processes. We have to develop techniques to, you know, manufacture and
integrate solar cells on the edges. But we’re optimistic that this might be useful within,
sort of, two to three year time frame.”
The researchers outlined their findings in the journal, Science. They say the focused
light at the edges really increases the electrical power obtained from each solar cell.
When we go to the movies, we expect to escape from reality. Visiting aliens, time travel, extinct animals coming back to life… that’s the dazzling stuff blockbusters are made of. But not everybody is thrilled by the way scientists look in the movies. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the story of screenwriters who want to make movie scientists a little less weird:
Transcript
When we go to the movies, we expect to escape from reality. Visiting
aliens, time travel, extinct animals coming back to life, that’s the dazzling
stuff blockbusters are made of. But not everybody is thrilled by the way
scientists look in the movies. The GLRC’s Rebecca Williams has the
story of screenwriters who want to make movie scientists a little less
weird:
(Theme music from “Back To The Future”)
So Dr. Frankenstein and Doc Brown from “Back to the Future” are a
little… freaky. But they’re smart… and enterprising. But those kinds of wacky
movie scientists make real life scientists hurl their popcorn.
Researcher Paula Grisafi says movie stereotypes about scientists are actually
worse than those about lawyers or politicians.
“My sense of movies about scientists is that there are maybe 10% good
guys and 90% bad guys. Or not even just bad guys but misguided, even
when they’re trying to be good, they’re usually sufficiently misguided
that what they start out to do turns out wrong.”
Paula Grisafi says there are a few oddballs in real science labs, but she says her peers are really much more normal.
Really — instead of hair frizzing out of control… they have nice haircuts. And they never, ever wear pocket protectors. Grisafi’s day job is at MIT in
Cambridge, but she’s also an aspiring screenwriter. She’s working on
scripts that she says shake up the Hollywood stereotypes.
“These sort of scientist archetypes are Frankenstein and Jekyll and Hyde.
They’re people who were loners obsessed with their work to the point of
being a danger to themselves or to others. It’s usually frowned upon in
science to experiment on yourself.”
Take Jeff Goldblum’s character Seth Brundle, in “The Fly.” When
Brundle tests his transport machine on himself, the experiment backfires.
Brundle becomes a genetic mutant, but he’s kinda proud of it.
“Am I becoming an 185 pound fly? No, I’m becoming something that
never existed before! I’m becoming Brundle-Fly! Don’t you think that’s
worth a Nobel Prize or two?”
Maybe Brundle should’ve stopped when he turned that baboon inside out.
Paula Grisafi admits there are a few movies that show scientists as
somewhat normal people. Jodie Foster’s character in “Contact” for
example. But Grisafi says there aren’t enough to balance out the weirdos.
She says at worst, distorted images of scientists might give audiences the
impression that science is more dangerous than good.
So Grisafi jumped at the chance to be part of a screenwriting workshop
for scientists in LA last summer. It was an intense crash course with
sessions called Plot and Character, and of course, Agents and Managers.
The workshop was dreamt up by Martin Gundersen. He’s an electrical
engineer who’s had a brush with fame. He added credibility to Val
Kilmer’s lasers in the film “Real Genius.”
“I’ve met people now who are young faculty members who have told me
they were influenced by that picture to think seriously about science.”
Martin Gundersen says if the scientists in movies were more appealing,
more people might want to go into the sciences. He says the Defense
Department and companies like Boeing are really concerned that fewer
people want careers in science and engineering. In fact, Gundersen
actually landed money from the Pentagon for the workshop.
But Gundersen admits he’s still testing the theory that scientists can be
screenwriters.
“Oh it’s impossible (laughs). That’s the thing – you can’t promise that
somebody’s going to get their picture made. To me the truest cliché in
Hollywood is that everyone has a script.”
And so, can chemists and engineers possibly compete?
One box office expert says — sure. Paul Dergarabedian is president of
Exhibitor Relations Company in LA. He says scientists have as good a
chance as anyone at selling a script… as long as their stories are
compelling.
“And it’s the more interesting characters who bring that scientific
element, or you have a scientist who’s not the typical nerdy scientist. He
might be more of a sophisticated kind of character in terms of lets say a ladies’
man or something like that you wouldn’t necessarily expect.”
And actually, there is a ladies’ man in one of Paula Grisafi’s scripts. Her
story features two rivals thrown together to figure out why sea life is
dying. The stars of the story are a lovely young marine ecologist and a
hotshot microbiologist from Norway. Grisafi’s been advised that playing
up the romance might help sell the story.
“I guess I was sort of writing for a PG audience. I spent eight years in
Catholic girls’ school so I’m not sure how competent I’m going to be to
write really steamy sex scenes, but I’ll make an effort.”
Grisafi says even if she never sells a script, she’ll still get up at 5 a.m. to
write, and then she’ll put in a full day at the lab.
These new screenwriters hope to prove you don’t have to be a mad
scientist or a loner in the lab to invent movies that sell tickets.
Many people are now making more energy-conscious decisions for their homes. However, one consideration that gets overlooked is the actual size of the house. (Photo by Bjarne Kvaale)
Every year, Americans build about one and a half million single-family homes. One researcher says a lot of these houses are simply too big for American families and the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee
reports:
Transcript
Every year, Americans build about one and a half million single-family homes. One researcher says a lot of these houses are simply too big for American families and the environment. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Shawn Allee reports:
When energy-conscious homebuyers look for a new house, they usually check for the right things: high-tech insulation, special windows, high-efficiency furnaces.
But one researcher suggests these homebuyers waste energy by buying more house than they need. Alex Wilson compared the size and efficiency of American homes for MIT’s Journal of Industrial Ecology. He says, since 1950, American families shrank by twenty-five percent, but their houses are now twice as large.
“If we’re significantly increasing the house size, our energy bills are still going to go up. So we lose the benefits that we would otherwise realize through these better technologies.”
He does hold out hope for bucking the trend toward miniature mansions. A number of architects want to make smaller homes more attractive through higher-quality design and materials.
The new, efficient oxygen catalyst in action in Dan Nocera's laboratory at MIT (Photo courtesy of MIT and NSF)
