Fly Eyes Used For Solar Cells 73
disco_tracy writes "Researchers took corneas from blow flies, fixed them on a glass substrate, added a polymer to protect the shape and then coated nine-eye arrays in nickel within a vacuum chamber. The result was a master template that retained those useful nanoscale features and can be used to make solar cells."
i for one (Score:3, Funny)
man...peta's gonna have a heart-attack (Score:5, Funny)
man....peta's gonna have a heart-attack....perhaps even an aneurysm too.
On one hand, they want to support alternative energy....but for them to know that flies were harmed...
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I believe you meant to refer to PETI?
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PETA Blocks Alternative Energy Research (Score:2)
PETA Blocks Alternative Energy Research
What, they use inflammatory headlines all the time, might as well give 'em a taste of their own medicine!
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Somehow I don't think the slogan would be as catchy as the fur one.
"I'd rather go without power than use solar cells made from blow fly corneas on a glass substrate.
Re:man...peta's gonna have a OPINION ON ENERGY? (Score:1)
Come off it. PETA's platform doesn't include energy policy. If they bitch about fly eyes, that won't make them hypocrites.
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>> PETA's platform doesn't include energy policy.
That statement related to the environmental impact of current sources of energy. Which they do care about: http://blog.peta.org/archives/environment [peta.org]
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Thanks for the list of individuals' blog posts which happen to be tagged "environment". Many of which make no mention of energy of any kind, alternative or otherwise.
I was actually trolling for the PETA organization's platform statement of policy agenda regarding alternative energy, as the OP claimed. Can you google *that* for me?
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Unfortunately, this entire line of argument has gone off the rails.
Saying that PETA is hypocritical for having a position on alternative energy but opposing a particular scheme is just plain silly. The primary good they are pursuing is animal welfare. Energy policy has *utility* toward that good. An energy policy that promotes animal welfare is from their perspective a good thing. They are perfectly entitled to dislike a policy that harms animals, whether that policy is "alternative" or "conventional".
I
Re:man...peta's gonna have a heart-attack (Score:5, Funny)
man....peta's gonna have a heart-attack....perhaps even an aneurysm too.
On one hand, they want to support alternative energy....but for them to know that flies were harmed...
I, for one, think we should act now so we're prepared to harness the energy of their spasms and convulsions.
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Blowflies are very much out of the "nature red in tooth and claw" school, only nastier. They need substantial amounts of protein to successfully lay their eggs and develop their horrid maggots. The nicest ones deal with this by hunting down and infesting carrion. The less pleasant ones don't like to wait. In tropical areas, this so-called "fly-strike"(infestation of
Pets == Slaves? (Score:5, Funny)
But that sir is without question. Pets == Slaves.
Now if you excuse me, I have to clean my cats litter box, buy food for it, entertain it, and sit still for about 8 hours as it sleeps on my lap unless I wish to talk in a high voice.
FREE HUMANS! Oh shit, it heard HELP M[CARRIER LOST]
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The PDF [iop.org] (great pictures in it too) had a bit more info on why those eyes are good:
With these issues in mind, and with the objective of producing textured surfaces that could be useful, for example as reflection-reduction coatings for oblique insolation of solar cells [19–22], we decided to devise a technique for high-fidelity and mass replication of an array of blowfly corneas.
The rest of the paper appears to be all about the process, not about the eyes.
That's cool and all but (Score:5, Funny)
Re:That's cool and all but (Score:5, Informative)
Re: automated fly cornea removal? (Score:3, Informative)
Not hard, and yes: winged micro-sharks with lasers. Genentech is working on them right now.
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Not hard, and yes: winged micro-sharks with lasers. Genentech is working on them right now.
Informative? WTF!
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I know... that's funnier than my attempted joke. I'm going back to pulling the wings offa bees now and leave the humor to the experts.
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no mention of why this is a good idea and what in particular it does for solar power.
My guess is that they have a system to use a bunch of micro solar cells, and are using the fly-eye shaped nickel reflectors to focus light on the cells. That way, they can spend less on the cell-material, and just use a (hopefully cheap) nickel-mini-mirror array to collect most of the light. Like so:
Lameness filter for "Junk Characters" in <ecode> tags gets on my nerves. code should be exempt.
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I dunno but it sounds like more fun than pulling the wings off of them.
In need? (Score:3, Funny)
Help meeeeee... (Score:2, Funny)
Slippery slope (Score:3, Funny)
I know how this one goes. First you start taking the eyes out of blowflies for 'solar energy research', but before you know it it's all gone downhill and you're pulling the wings off butterflies to make your product the right shade of red.
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Uh, whoosh?
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Hey, go easy on him. It's not like anyone else actually bothers to RTFA.
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you're pulling the wings off butterflies to make your product the right shade of red.
And here I thought the recent rash of earthquakes around the world were completely unrelated. Now I know, chaos theory...
So those nasty things might be useful? (Score:2, Interesting)
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Well I never ... saw a fly soar, or just attempt to glide, even. I have a new respect of flies!
(...no I don't.)
Re:So those nasty things might be useful? (Score:4, Insightful)
I've often wondered why we think that every creature was made by a supreme being with a specific purpose in mind.
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you mean like the mosquito? to harbinger death and disease, of course.
oh great (Score:2)
Now they'll smash into parked windshields. Nice going, guys.
So, its the shape ... (Score:2)
... of the lens they're after. Wouldn't a better approach be to take one eye (the best candidate based on performance) and find a way to scale up its duplication? With some sort of MEMS duplicator that stamps out one copy, moves some amount, stamps out another, etc., etc.
Eventually, we are going to want to make sheets of these that measure meters on a side. Paying grad students to glue fly eyeballs to a sheet doesn't seem to be the most efficient process.
Re:So, its the shape ... (Score:4, Informative)
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The part where they are going to make a template from 30 eyes next.
The photo in TFA of the nine eyes leads me to believe that the packing efficiency of the fly's genetics isn't as god as we could achieve by copying one over and over in an array.
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Paying grad students to glue fly eyeballs to a sheet doesn't seem to be the most efficient process.
Why not, what else are they good for?
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You clearly don't know how cheap grad students are.
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Bloodshot eyes aren't any good for solar collectors.
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Doesn't yield much square footage. The grad student eyeballs are larger and might be worth harvesting instead.
Power? (Score:1)
Are there any results as to how much electrical power was generated? Voltages? Currents? Anything?
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0
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0
and 0
It was only a test of the technique of making a template of small-scale features.
now... (Score:2)
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At least you don't have flies in your eyes...
Flies are noisy... (Score:3, Funny)
Stop using buzzwords...
*cough*
a vegan's head just exploded... (Score:1)
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I think you are confusing Radical Veganism with Animal Rights Whacktivism...
Obligatory DIY Craft Project Link (Score:2)
What to do with the leftover flies?
http://spatulatzar.com/fly_plane/original.jpg [spatulatzar.com]
Noise reduction (Score:2)
Have the scientists figured out how to eliminate the buzzing noise these new solar cells will surely generate?