Repelight, from Compact Impact of Japan, is a 26-watt compact fluorescent “bug light” that glows gold but acts green.
With tropical mosquito-borne diseases like West Nile Virus and Dengue Fever on the rise, it makes sense to bolster your backyard bug banishers before the pesky varmints put the bite on you and your family. Now you can do just that while at the same time save bucks – and the environment – with the Repelight CFL (compact fluorescent light) energy efficient bulb.
Photo: Daily Mail, ©Matthew Power Masons
Within two years, we could all be paying 75 percent less for home lighting than we are now, with $3 light bulbs that last 60 years and could reduce emission of carbon dioxide by 5 million tons a year!
Researchers at Cambridge Univerisity say their new LED bulbs do not
contain mercury and they do not flicker. (Flickering can lead to
migraine aura and epileptic seizures.) And they’re bright!
The researchers first developed their energy-saving bulb using gallium nitride, a man-made semiconductor used to make LED’s, such as those used in bicycle lights, cell phones, and camera flashes. But to make a household light bulb using the same methods would have resulted in a $30 light bulb, because the gallium nitride was being made on a more expensive material, sapphire wafers.
But yesterday, London’s Daily Mail reported that the University-based Centre for Gallium Nitride scientists found a less expensive method of growing the semiconductor — silicon wafers. So, it seems like it’s heads up for manufacturing the new 100,000 hour bulbs, as they are already on the drawing board at RFMD, a company not far from Cambridge.
Professor Colin Humpreys, who is pictured above with the new LED bulbs, said, “This could well be the holy grail in terms of providing our lighting needs for the future.”
Politicians, oil companies, and automobile manufacturers take note: many of us citizens are getting tired of having to rely on the combustion engine as the only means of getting around.
I must hasten to add that this statement obviously has nothing to do with living sources of transportation (horses, elephants, taun-tauns… oh, wait… that’s a Star Wars critter…). I’m merely stating that alternate fuel sources are available, but still need considerable research before they can be employed to full effect.
Solar power has not yet been developed into a practical source of energy for everyday transportation, but research continues-primarily in the form of racing vehicles. The limitation of the power input into battery cells from solar panels is the primary hurtle yet to be overcome.
But, there is hope: The Tamiya Solar Powered Car Assembly Kit.
The problem: You can’t climb inside it.
Maybe if I just pull my legs up to my chest and bend my head a little…
Yeah… it’s really, really, really tiny. 3.3 x 2.2 x 1.4 cm to be exact.
Essentially, this is a solar powered car stripped down to its very basics. The kit is assembled with screws and snap-together parts. Three gear ratios are available-1.7:1, 2.2:1, and 3.4:1-making this quite a zippy little toy.
The solar panel (0.5V-12mAh) is attached to a ball pivot. This allows the vehicle to collect sunlight (or strong artificial light) at various angles.
The only downside (aside from the fact that its just not gonna be able to get me to-and-from work due to it’s ant-like size) is that it can’t turn. The Tamiya Solar Powered Car Assembly Kit is not a remote-controlled vehicle.
It is, however, an excellent educational tool concerning what could become the future of transportation energy.
This little item can be found at Amazon.com and ThinkGeek.com.
SOURCE: Wikipedia
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