The beauty of the device is that it can produce the whole spectrum of colours, even ultraviolet and infrared light, using only incident light. As a result, the expensive colour filters used in every other colour display on the market today, are no longer needed. And because the displays use only reflected ambient light, no power is wasted on backlighting, as in today's mobile phones, for example.
Tuesday, September 04, 2007
Stretching crystals promises flexible color displays
Web development tool kit
You smell the freshness of the morning, and whipping up some html, CSS and trying out some new AJAX programming. You're stuck on something! You wish you had a quick cheat sheet to get you back on track. Look no further if you're a web developer! This is the Ultimate Web Development Cheat Sheet Guide!
Albert Ellis -- father of modern cognitive behavioral therapy
Says he's just a modern Diogenes trying to get us to change mental habits.
Bulletproof backpack
A daypack/bookbag which provides level II ballistic protection, as found in most police body armor, at 1/10 the weight.
Neuroscience of making decisions
The findings also hint at why people with Parkinson's disease taking dopamine replacement therapy often develop compulsive behaviours such as overeating, hypersexuality and pathological gambling – the value of the end results (whether food, sex or winning) are overinflated. It may also shed light on the role of dopamine in other diseases characterised by aberrant decision-making, such as impulse control and obsessive–compulsive disorders, or chronic schizophrenia, which leads to a lack of decision-making.
CulinaryPrep -- removing food's microbes
... involves placing the food in a vacuum drum and mixing it with a natural solution containing salt, vitamin C or citric acid, and water. The process takes only minutes, yet it increases the shelf life, sanitation, and even the flavor, of food.
Personality of early risers
In contrast to morning types, evening people preferred the symbolic over the concrete, were creative and risk-taking, and tended to be non-conformist and independent.
Medeco deadbolt lock vulnerability
Any new locks are not vulnerable, but there's plenty of the old ones out there -- two decades worth.
Taleb on low hit rate of medical research
If the success rate of directed research is very low, though, it is true that the more we search, the more likely we are to find things "by accident," outside the original plan.We need a lot of lower cost tinkering instead of large budget research projects. Research design strategy needs to change.
Developing countries need to compete with rich countries' products
... what you need to do to converge [the income levels of the rich countries] is to get a foothold in the goods that rich countries produce ...
Universal increased IQ caused by hybrid vigor?
Just a theory, but increased breeding between genetically distinct populations is helping to raise IQ. So having kids with someone within your race is mildly like marrying your first cousin.
Thorium fuel for reactors to avoid transuranics
Transuranics are the nuclear waste products that last tens to hundreds of thousands of years. Norway's nuclear generation is going in this direction.