GRIST.ORG: Just stick this portable outlet to your window to start using solar power
by Sarah Laskow
We have seen a lot of solar chargers in our day. And among of all of them, this is the first one we’ve seen that we will definitely run out and buy as soon as it’s made available in the U.S. It’s a portable socket that gets its power from the sun rather than the grid. You plug into a window instead of into the wall. It’s easy.
That was the whole point, according to the designers, Kyohu Song and Boa Oh: “We tried to design a portable socket, so that user can use it intuitively without special training,” they write.
It is really simple. The portable socket attaches to a window like a leech to human skin. On its underside, it has solar panels. The solar panels suck energy from the sun. The charger converts that energy into electricity. You plug in to the charger.
Even better, the charger stores that energy. After 5-8 hours of charging, the socket provides 10 hours of use. You can pop it off the window, stick it in your bag, and use it to charge up your phone with solar energy, even if you’re sitting in a dark room.
(via: http://grist.org/list/just-stick-this-portable-outlet-to-your-window-to-start-using-solar-power/)
(photos: Kyohu Song and Boa Oh)
Stunning Map Reveals World’s Earthquakes Since 1898
by Andrea Mustain
If you’ve ever wondered where — and why — earthquakes happen the most, look no further than a new map, which plots more than a century’s worth of nearly every recorded earthquake strong enough to at least rattle the bookshelves.
The map shows earthquakes of magnitude 4.0 or greater since 1898; each is marked in a lightning-bug hue that glows brighter with increasing magnitude.
The overall effect is both beautiful and arresting, revealing the silhouettes of Earth’s tectonic boundaries in stark, luminous swarms of color…
(read more: OurAmazingPlanet) (image: John Nelson, IDV Solutions)
Simulated Higgs Boson Produced
This track is an example of simulated data modelled for the ATLAS detector on the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN. The Higgs boson is produced in the collision of two protons at 14 TeV and quickly decays into four muons, a type of heavy electron that is not absorbed by the detector. The tracks of the muons are shown in yellow.
(image Credit: CERN/ATLAS)
The Minutes listener @shadowfax1007 made this jazzy pic of us with some Wicked Wings, we’re hoping KFC will make us International Ambassadors for The Wicked Wing. We can wait.
