Elon Musk and SpaceX
Welcome the tech world’s recent events! I would like to start off this article with a pat-on-the-back to Elon Musk, who managed to launch a cherry-red Tesla Roadster, (a base price of $200,000) into space. The roadster was launched from the SpaceX Falcon heavy rocket along with a dummy named “Starman”, who sported a SpaceX spacesuit. Earlier chatter had sparked speculation that the official plan was to send the car to Mars; however, the vehicle will instead coast on its own orbit around the Sun.
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Quantum Dots (QD’s)
Let’s now shift the conversation toward Quantum dots (QD’s), which have the potential to supercharge farming, medicine, and solar energy. QD’s are microscopic molecules that are hundreds of times smaller than red blood cells. They absorb energy and have the ability to emit specific wavelengths of light. QD’s are currently being utilized in improving the colors and efficiency of televisions; however, QD’s can play a major role in numerous other aspects of our lives, such as farming.
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Right after the United States, the second leading exporter of food by the dollar value is the Netherlands–which happens to be one of the smallest countries in the world. This is because Dutch farmers have perfected the art of indoor farming, which includes advanced greenhouses with LED lighting, hydroponics, and more. The innovative indoor farming techniques that the Dutch have implemented enables them not only to grow food efficiently at a faster rate, but also to do so in smaller, confined spaces. The biggest cost of indoor farming is lighting. However, by utilizing certain wavelengths and colors of light, farmers can benefit from producing yields in a much more efficient and cost-effective manner than with traditional lighting methods. When farmers grow plants that are green, these plants favor the color magenta. Using QD’s, one can produce the magenta color efficiently, and thus provide green crops with wavelengths of light that are most effective for growth. Farming is not the sole application that QD’s are incredibly useful for.
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QD’s can be used to help uncover cancerous cells in your body. There are various other methods to scan for these cells, such as X-rays, CT scans, and MRI’s, but none of these methods can do what QD’s can in this department. QD’s can be attached to the body’s immune cells, and doctors can track the areas that cancer cells attack the most, like tumors. QD’s light emitting properties cause these cancer cells to glow, which makes them easy to identify. Thus, QDs will aid tremendously in the diagnosis and treatment of cancer, and even surgery. Currently, there do exists methods of flagging cancer cells using dyes; however, the implementation of QD’s allows the glowing effect to last for entire hours as opposed to only a few minutes. In addition to identifying cancer cells, QD’s can also help make the process of treating cancer more accurate. To elaborate, doctors can employ nanoparticles in the treatment of cancerous cells. Equipped with an actual treatment, nanoparticles can locate cancerous cells, and once they have been targeted, the nanoparticles can then be supplied with a surge of energy that would then cause them to explode and release the treatment to the specified area.
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The last area that QD’s are being harnessed for is solar panel technology. The current way QD’s are being used is to take energy and produce light. Right now, scientists at companies like Solterra and UbiQD are working on having QD’s take light and create electricity. Just as the light emitted by QD’s can occur at varying wavelengths, the QD’s would also be able to collect light at different wavelengths, including light that is emitted at night. Another method is to change the wavelength of the incoming light received by solar panels, making the light more efficient in a smaller time span. The Center for Advanced Solar Photo physics at Los Almos, estimates this could improve the efficiency of solar panels by as much as 34% for about $10 increase in cost.
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Google Chrome Encryption Update
Now on to some more computer related aspects: Google announced that starting in July, any website accessed using Chrome that is not protected by an encryption key will be shown as “not secure” to users. This isn’t entirely a surprise, as 3 years ago Google warned this alert mechanism would one day surface. You can expect this new feature to come with the release of Chrome 68 in July of 2018.
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Tech Joke of the week :
How many programmers does it take to change a light bulb? None. It's a hardware problem
References
Kooser, A. (2018, February 9th). Telescope spots Elon Musk's Tesla flying through space. Retrieved from cnet.com: https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musk-tesla-roadster-spotted-by-virtual-telescope-project-in-space/
Morrison, G. (2018, February 9). cnet.com. Retrieved from How quantum dots supercharge farming, medicine, and solar, too: https://www.cnet.com/news/how-quantum-dots-supercharge-farming-medicine-and-solar-too/
Shankland, S. (2018, February 8). Chrome soon will warn that lots more websites arent secure. Retrieved from cnet.com: https://www.cnet.com/g00/news/chrome-soon-will-warn-that-lots-more-websites-arent-secure/?i10c.encReferrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuY25ldC5jb20vbmV3cy82Lw%3D%3D&i10c.ua=1