Fishing for space junk. On Friday, Dec. 9, Japan successfully launched an unmanned cargo spacecraft with an experimental space garbage collector that is supposed to pull junk out of orbit with its electrodynamic tether made from thin stainless steel and aluminum wires.
Heavyweight rival for controversial impact factor. Publishing giant Elsevier launched the CiteScore Index to assess the quality of academic journals. It uses a formula similar to the influential Journal Impact Factor (JIF) with tweaks as well as a much larger database for notably different results.
Nanogenerator captures energy from human motion. A film-like device is fabricated using a silicon wafer, several levels of substances such as silver, polyimide and polypropylene ferroelectret. Ions are added so that each layer in the device contains charged particles. Electrical energy is created when the device is compressed by human motion, or mechanical energy. A phone-charging jacket here we come!
Smart contact lenses to help people with iris problems. Part of a larger project on smart contact lenses, "An Active Artificial Iris Controlled by a 25-μW Flexible Thin-Film Driver" was presented at the recent IEEE meeting. It explores an artificial iris system built on a contact lens.
Driverless cars tests and sales legal. Michigan now joins the US states that allow companies to test self-driving cars without a driver or a steering wheel on public roads. The new law also legalizes autonomous taxi services, test parades of self-driving tractor-trailers as long as humans are in each truck, and the sale of self-driving vehicles to the public once they are tested and certified.
Photo credit: RT.com
