Each of us once in life wanted to leave the stuffy apartment and to go somewhere outside the city, away from the smog and the exhaust to breath with pure sea or mountain air. Even in perfectly clean apartment with a daily wet cleaning and airing we still suffocate and feel that we do not have that pure air. Why is this happening? There are particles in the air which are called air ions, positively and negatively charged. They are ranked as light, medium, and heavy. The...

People often use a flashlight to make some notes at night in a place where there is no electricity (for ex., during a hike, fishing or in some other place). They just fit it in some way and make records. This seems to be very inconvenient. A small light bulb, 3 feet of bell wire, a flashlight battery and a pen, connected to the circuit shown in the attached figure, allow you to make notes in the pitch darkness. One more advantage of this solution is that one can write with such a tool...

The suitcase will communicate with a smartphone to automatically follow the user, even locking itself and sounding an alert if it gets lost. The suitcase will move about on small set of treads powered by compressed air and will include a microcontroller able to identify and triangulate signals from the user's smartphone. It will follow at a constant distance, and will lock itself and send a vibration alert to the phone if the signal is lost. The bags can also be programmed to...

In order not to litter while drilling holes in the wall take a piece of paper and attach its upper edge below the future hole with a duct tape or a plaster. Fasten the bottom corners as shown in the attached picture. All trash during drilling will be collected in the bag. You should only take away the bag after the drilling is finished. You need to be extremely careful while attaching the bag to the wall as it can fall and all the trash can scatter all over the floor.

Do you know what to do if an old, rusty nut does not turn? Firstly, you should try to move the nut turning it clockwise and anticlockwise. Secondly, you should tap at the nut sides with a hammer. Thirdly, drop some kerosene or liquid oil on the thread and let the lubrication to get inside. Then try the first and the second advices again. Fourthly, if the advices above do not help, make the spanner longer (see attached picture). But remember that the long...

A new chip about half the size of a business card will be able to automate all the stages of DNA testing, and could help make personalized treatments more widespread. To being the DNA testing process, a drop of blood will be mixed with a chemical substrate and then dropped onto the chip. The rest of the process will be automatic, as the DNA will be extracted from the solution and the regions containing the SNPs will be cut out and amplified by a technology called PCR. The PCR...

Expecting parents can start filling their photo albums even earlier with the introduction of HDlive 3D ultrasound machine, which will create clear, color images. The HDlive technology will be able to support a moveable, virtual light source, which will allow it to create shadows, highlights and depth. The result will be an image with significantly greater detail than was previously possible. Besides giving proud parents a better first look at their baby, the technology will also...

A hybrid solar system could help increase the efficiency and eco-friendliness of natural gas power plants while also creating a synthetic fuel for vehicles. The system will feature a parabolic mirror that will focus sunlight on a small chemical reactor lined with narrow channels containing natural gas. A catalyst will break down the molecules of the sunlight-warmed gas to create a mixture of carbon dioxide and hydrogen called syngas (synthesis gas). The waste heat from this...

A new self-healing plastic can go beyond healing small cracks by regenerating itself to seal even large holes. The plastic is based on a technology called 'vascular delivery,' that has been under development for some time. The technology is built upon using a series of vein-like channels to circulate two chemicals that can flow into the gaps caused by damage. When the two chemicals mix, they form a gel that fills the space and then hardens into a strong polymer--repairing the...