Innovation // Current TV

''I fell in love with the dirt''

Paul Quinn College has found a way to score big on the football field--without playing... more

CraigMcCordHPN
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1 month ago
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8 comments

Research and innovation in US wind won't die with expiration of PTC

While one might be tempted by headlines to assume that wind energy-related activity in... more

Danbethrach
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1 month ago
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Wave powered robot revolutionizes ocean exploration

Edward Lu isn’t the easiest guy in the world to impress. He’s not only an astrophysicist and an electrical engineer, but also an astronaut who’s flown on the Space Shuttle (twice) and the International Space Station — and on top of that, he ran Google’s Advanced Projects Group that gave Google Maps and Google Earth their imaging capabilities.

Then, last year, Lu heard about a technology so simple yet powerful that it could fundamentally change the way oceanographers, meteorologists, fisheries experts and climate scientists gather their data — so he signed on with a company called Liquid Robotics, which owns the technology, as Chief of Innovative Applications. “It seemed like chance to get in on something that can really change way we monitor the ocean,” he said.

“It” is the Wave Glider, a surfboard-shaped apparatus, about 7 feet long, that can sail the open seas propelled by nothing more than wave power. Just last week, a flotilla of four Wave Gliders arrived in Hawaii after a months' long excursion that started in California last November, and they’ll soon be continuing on toward Australia and Japan. For people who keep track of such things, the little vessels have already shattered the Guinness Book World record for distance by an unmanned wave-powered vehicle. “It can go essentially forever,” Lu said, “until it’s covered with barnacles.” (That hasn’t happened yet.)

But for people who care about what human-caused global warming is doing to the oceans, in particular, and the climate more generally, the Wave Glider could turn out to be pretty important. The way it works is completely straightforward: the surfboard part of the device, made of carbon fiber and plastic foam, is connected by a tether about 20 feet long to an underwater “glider,” fitted out with hinged flaps. “It’s kind of like a Venetian blind that lies horizontally,” Lu said.

At 20 feet down, the water is pretty still, so when the surfboard is lifted by a wave, it yanks the glider upward. That makes the flaps angle forward, and propels the whole assembly forward at about 1.5 knots. When the surfboard drops into a trough between two waves, the weighted glider pulls the assembly downward, putting the flaps in a position that moves everything forward as well (it’s hard to describe in words, but there’s a video that helps).

The surfboard itself is covered with solar panels that power any scientific instruments on board, along with a transmitter that uses Iridium satellites to send data to, and receive commands from, a control room at company headquarters in Sunnyvale, Calif. What that data consists of depends on which customer has signed up as a client — oil companies, for example, which uses Wave Gliders to sniff for leaks around drilling rigs and undersea pipelines; or the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, which uses them to tow earthquake-monitoring sensors; or the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which uses them to gather carbon dioxide data out at sea where sensing buoys are few and far between. “Over the world’s oceans as a whole,” Lu said, “there are maybe 5,000 or 6,000 buoys, which amounts to two, on average, for an area the size of California.”

Not only could a fleet of Wave Gliders add dramatically to that sparse coverage, Lu said, but it could also fill a crisis that faces climate science: a looming gap in satellite observations as budget problems allow older satellites to fail without new ones ready to go. “We have an uninterrupted 30-year record of climate observations,” Lu said, but if there’s no overlap between older satellites and new ones, there’s no way to calibrate the two to make sure they’re making measurements consistently. It’s kind of like trying to carry out a commando mission without everyone synchronizing their watches.
By Michael D. Lemonick

More ar the linkEdward Lu isn’t the easiest guy in the world to impress. He’s not only an... more

JanforGore
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2 months ago
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Marshmallow Cannon: Obama's New Arsenal Against GOP Obstructionism? (VIDEO)

President Obama welcomed young innovators on Tuesday during the White House Science... more

StewSteve
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4 months ago
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Growing the Culture of Disruption: A chat with Linda Bernardi, a Most Personable Provocateur

Linda Bernardi, author of ‘Provoke: Why the Global Culture of Disruption is the... more

lokimee
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4 months ago
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What Is SOPA - Stop Online Piracy Act (VIDEOS)

Beginning earlier this morning at midnight, Wednesday, January 18, 2012 some major... more

dryeraser
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4 months ago
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3 comments

List Of Supporters Of SOPA: H.R. 3261, the Stop Online Piracy Act

Stop the Internet Blacklist Legitimization The Internet Blacklist Legislation - known... more

dryeraser
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5 months ago
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Eminem Drives Crysler - Made in Detroit Chrysler ad

From the Motor City, Detroit, the Chrysler advert celebrates car industry and its... more

leelondon
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7 months ago
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1 comment

Russian anarchist guerrilla artists from the Voina art collective

The whole Voina lifestyle and narrative are something of a performance; it is about... more

worrg
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7 months ago
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Uncanny Valley launches: outstanding new literary pub with a commitment to innovation and genre-busting

Those who know me have listened to my carping literally since the 1980s about how our... more

hoosierdaddy
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8 months ago
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Steve Jobs R.I.P.

Yesterday evening I happened to take a look at twitter and got hit by a ton of bricks.... more

baghdadbythebay
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8 months ago
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Tech development firm announces plans for innovation city in American west

Pegasus Global Holdings, a Washington, DC-based technology development firm, is... more

Danbethrach
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8 months ago
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A Chance Meeting That Shines a Light

For those who don’t know, I am a Mason. I believe their philosophy of brotherly... more

joeeddy
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8 months ago
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Creating a new science of human interface design for global change

As a social innovator who specializes in human system design, I have spent many years... more

Cabal
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9 months ago
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Startup acceleration: what on earth does that really mean?

Is it just about speeding up the rate at which startups emerge, or making them grow... more

littlemissdebbie
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9 months ago
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IBMs Cognitive Computing Chips - designed to emulate the brain’s abilities for perception, action and cognition

IBMs announcement of the first working cognitive computing chips covered nicely by... more

worrg
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10 months ago
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Green cities

Innovation & people can change the world.

Frank81
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11 months ago
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1 comment

“Hair Glasses”: Eyeglasses Made Of Human Hair

Graduates from Royal College of Art have discovered a way to turn hair cuttings, that... more

Apocalipstick
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11 months ago
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Inviting YOU to Decode Cancer!

Above, Dr. Burzynski and his cure with antineoplastons: http://burzynskimovie. com/... more

lookatmypix
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11 months ago
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Tissue-engineered hearts and bones may help repair our damaged bodies.

By Melanie D.G. Kaplan | June 8, 2011, 2:00 AM PDT When people call Gordana... more

sleepyboy
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12 months ago
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