ELECTRONS CONFINED INSIDE NANO-PYRAMID

Electrons confined inside NANO-PYRAMID

Quantum dots are nanostructures of semiconducting materials that behave a lot like single atoms and are very easy to produce. Given their special properties, researchers see huge potential for quantum dots in technological applications. Before this can happen, however, we need a better understanding of how the electrons "trapped" inside them behave. Dresden physicists have recently observed how electrons in individual quantum dots absorb energy and emit it again as light.


Quantum dots look like tiny pyramids. Inside each of these nano-pyramids are always only one or two electrons that essentially "feel" the constricting walls around them and are therefore tightly constrained in their movability. TU Dresden and the Leibniz Institute for solid State and Materials Research Dresden (IFW) have now studied the special energy states of the electrons trapped inside individual quantum dots.

CLEAR SOIL COULD IMPROVE CROPS

Can crops actually improve with just adding artificial clear soil?

If you answered with yes, your correct! 

Artificial soil-like materials have beed developed to help scientists image the secret world of the plants roots. The view could help biologists, chemists and physicists improve crops and identify ways to prevent the outbreak of plant based diseases. 

The clear soil was developed by theoretical biologist Lionel Dupuy, the the James Hutton Institution in Dundee Scotland. It's made of a synthetic material know as 'Nafion'. This material can be modified to mimic (to copy) the chemistry of the natural soil. Its not see through first, but when water is added, the particles bend light, making it clear.

Portable Solar Desalination 'Plant' That May Aid In Third World Water Woes

Water can be found anywhere. But there is not a lot that can be drank. That, unfortunately, is the situation faced by millions of residents in developing countries who are surrounded by oceans, but have no access to fresh drinking water. Now thanks to this ingenious portable ceramic desalination 'plant' created by Milan-based designer Gabriele Diamanti, there may be a viable solution.

What this "plant" does is it takes the salt water in the top and makes it into fresh water. It kind of works like an upside down coffee maker, during the day, the hear of the sun raises up the steam pressure into the black watertight boiler. The steam is forces down through the expansion nozzle, and then it condenses against the lid to create fresh drinking water.