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Cooling
Good vibrations: Lotus leaf's secrets revealed
By Jeff Salton
23:13 October 25, 2009 PDT
The ancient lotus leaf has natural properties that scientists believe could prove beneficial in today's modern world. Already Gizmag has featured articles about the lotus leaf surface, including a self-cleaning cup and a transparent coating for space suits. Recently, though, in an effort to improve the efficiency of modern engineering systems, such as power plants and some electronic equipment that must be cooled by removing heat through water evaporation and condensation, engineers at Duke University have been studying the lotus leaf. Using an ultra high-speed camera, a powerful microscope and an audio speaker, scientists were able to observe water as it condensed on the leaf's surface, and more importantly, how the water condensate disappeared. Read More
Diamonds could soon be used to probe living cells and drug molecules
18:41 September 30, 2009 PDT
While working on their long-term goal of achieving a true quantum computer, a team of researchers from Stanford University, the Joint Quantum Institute, MIT and Texas A&M University has recently discovered that tiny nitrogen impurities in diamonds make outstanding magnetic probes in the cellular and molecular scale, with important applications that could truly benefit medical research. Read More
Keeping hybrids cool under the bonnet reaches boiling point
By Jeff Salton
23:50 September 23, 2009 PDT
As an increasing number of hybrid-powered vehicles move from concept to completion, technology is battling to keep pace with some of the less-publicized technical challenges found among the complex electronics aboard these land- and air-based vehicles, computers and other devices. For instance, how do you effectively cool the electronics in a high-power electric motor that propels a passenger car from 0-60mph in under 10 seconds and uses regenerative braking to stop? Researchers in the U.S. believe the secret may lie in understanding precisely how fluid boils in tiny ‘microchannels’, which has led them to develop formulas and models that will help engineers design unique systems to cool high-power electronics found in today’s and tomorrow’s devices. Read More
NVIDIA graphics cards with 'no fuss' BFG liquid cooling
By Mick Webb
17:27 August 11, 2009 PDT
The availability of increasingly powerful computer graphics cards is placing ever-greater demands on keeping things cool “under the hood”. Certain to have gaming enthusiasts sitting up and taking notice is BFG Technologies' announcement of the release of two NVIDIA GeForce GTX 200 series graphics cards featuring their built-in liquid cooling solutions. Designed to be installed “out of the box and maintenance-free”, the GTX 285 H20+ and GTX 295 H20C offer high performance water-cooled video cards without the fuss. Read More
Eternaleds' liquid-cooled LED light bulb
By Darren Quick
18:10 July 21, 2009 PDT
Liquid-cooled PCs are a mainstay for PC enthusiasts looking to eek every last bit of performance from their beloved machines and now it seems this approach has reached the world of the LED light bulb. A company called Eternaleds has introduced the HydraLux-4 LED Bulb, the world’s first LED light bulb to use "liquid-cooling technology" to give a true 360-degree light like a regular incandescent light bulb. Read More
An ionic wind to cool laptops may blow fans away
By Darren Quick
00:39 May 26, 2009 PDT
Keeping electronic components cool is a constant problem for electronics manufacturers – computer manufacturers in particular. While desktop PCs have a few options open to them, such as water-cooling, laptops are more limited in how they can be cooled. As laptops and other electronic devices continue to shrink while the heat they generate increases, the search is on for alternatives to the bulky, noisy fan-based systems widely used. A cooling system developed by Tessera has discovered a way to create a cooling airflow through ionizing air particles. Read More
Terotech
- November 21, 2009 @ 19:38 UTC
