Smallist

It might, according to UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). They’ve issued a report [pdf] listing the many areas where nanotech could create huge improvements in efficiency and reduce our carbon footprint. Their main areas of focus:

• Hydrogen economy - Nanotech could help create hydrogen through photolysis, the separation of hydrogen and oxygen by light. Fuel cells could be improved by “nanosizing the catalyst,” eliminating or reducing the need for rare metals like platinum. The storage challenge might be met with spongelike nanostructures that retain hydrogen more efficiently than regular tanks.
• Fuel efficiency - Cerium oxide fuel additives which reduce the combustion temperature of diesel could reduce fuel consumption by 5%. Special ceramic coatings on jet turbines could allow them to run hotter, and therefore faster, and more efficiently.
• Solar power - a series of technologies are available, at different levels of completion. Some mimic photosynthesis, like the Grätzel cell — others arrange conventional silicon into nanoparticles.
• Batteries - Nanotechnologies can greatly increase the surface area of an electrode. While this has an advantage of increased lifespan, the greatest advantage is that it can greatly decrease charging time, and work in more extreme climates. A more advanced battery would increase the range of electric vehicles and plug-in hybrids. Supercapacitors using carbon nanotubes could also be a key storage technology.
• Insulation - Nanogels are already on the market for industrial and commercial uses. For mass foam insulation, similar technologies are in development stages.

The paper is a good read, especially if you’re looking for a few companies to invest in. Many of the technologies have already hit the blogs at one point or another, but it’s nice to see a bird’s eye view of all the potential advances.

Via Treehugger.

Mmm looks like a fancy dessert!

Gizmodo’s got a few good small things today. First, these miniature classic chairs. At 38 to 50 per set, they’re the cost of cheap real human chairs. But then, I’ve seen those marshmallow couches go for like fifteen grand on ebay, so it’s a bargain if you don’t mind sitting down very carefully.

And then there’s this mini-filing cabinet for business cards. It holds 800 business cards altogether, enough for anyone who prefers cuteness over the practicality of a Rolodex, or zeus forbid, one of these computer things everyone’s talking about. It’s a better deal, at 13.98. Oh and it has a clock.

If you’re sick of broadsheets and ink, keep an eye on Hearst’s pilot e-paper program with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. They’re going to use the Philips color e-paper technology, which uses E-Ink, which Hearst owns interest in. Makes sense! No word on what the device will look like, but it sounds interesting.

Via Slashdot.

The Olmecs had these little creepy homonculi statues. Now anthropologists are arguing that they might be representations of fetuses.

In addition to their naturalistic features and proportions, several of the figures possess specific details of anatomy found in fetuses. One feature that may be portrayed is cutaneous pellucidity. Between 15-25 weeks, veins can be seen beneath the skin. One sculpture under study is fashioned from a light greenish-gray albitite which seems to have a waxy, or translucent, surface or skin. On the top of the head and down the back are finely incised lines that appear to suggest this stage of visibility of the veins beneath the fetus’s skin.

Some wingnut pro-lifer should make a movie about these people. Oh wait…

Via Neatorama.

Enano is another green computer. The manufacturer claims it’s “95-percent quieter, 80-percent more energy-efficient, 65-percent cooler and take up 75 percent less space than standard desktops.” Well at this size, I sure hope so, since it’s probably not a performance juggernaut. It’s a very handsome little device though. And I do like the rear-of-the-monitor bracket. If only Apple had something similar…

T3 has a mini-review and video of the Haier Elegance cellphone, which claims to be the smallest phone in the world, with some set of qualifiers (smallest phone with music, smallest phone that doesn’t flip, yadda yadda). It has an FM radio and a OLED, both very nice touches. And with its nice rounded edges and tiny size, it’s the first phone that can be passed harmlessly through the digestive tract*, if you’re in a cellphone-free zone, or need to smuggle MP3s over the border.

*Not true. Don’t sue me.

Holey moley that’s a small laptop. The Lifebook U is claiming to be the “smallest tablet-convertible UMPC.” It runs full XP or Vista at a resolution of 1024×600, and weighs 580 grams, a little over a pound. The processor runs at 800 mhz and you can get it with a gig of ram and a 20 Gig hard drive. And most importantly, it gets 8 hours of battery life.

I’m still unconvinced that this form factor has a market, but I guess time will tell.

From AudioCubes, miniature appliance alarm clocks. The blender blends little pretend peas when you wake up — why you’d want split pea soup before the 6 am commute is beyond me. Maybe to use the possessed vehicles lane? The fridge has a radio in it. The TV doesn’t seem to do much (it just makes some kind of noise), but has a very nifty display. There’s also a washing machine and an oven, both of which vibrate. These things don’t have to make sense, people.

Wook at the itty bitty pwimate! That’s our great^1,000,000 grandpa there, our 29-million year old ancestor, and the last common relative we shared with gorillas and apes, besides certain politicians. Har. It means that braininess came after the split: all three branches of the family evolved it independently. The little guy was about the size of a cat.

Gotta love the name: Aegyptopithecus zeuxis, “Linking Egyptian Ape”. Does that make a lover of links a “zeuxophile”? Cuz man, that Jimmy Dean…