Wave Your Hands to Charge your Mobile Phone

Forget about plugging your iPod or BlackBerry into a power source ever again, for now you can charge these devices just by waving your hand, or stretching your arm, and even by taking a walk.
Scientists at Georgia have now come up with a new technology, called "nanogenerator", that converts mechanical energy from body movements or even the flow of blood in the body into electric energy.
And this electric energy can be used to power a broad range of electronic devices without using batteries.
"This research will have a major impact on defense technology, environmental monitoring, biomedical sciences and even personal electronics," said lead researcher Zhong Lin Wang, Regents' Professor, School of Material Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology.

The new "nanogenerator" could have countless applications, among them a way to run electronic devices used by the military when troops are far in the field.

The researchers have described how it's possible to harvest energy from the environment by converting low-frequency vibrations, like simple body movements, the beating of the heart or movement of the wind, into electricity, using zinc oxide (ZnO) nanowires that conduct the electricity.

The ZnO nanowires are piezoelectric - they generate an electric current when subjected to mechanical stress. The diameter and length of the wire are 1/5,000th and 1/25th the diameter of a human hair.

The process of generating energy from movement made the researchers to conclude that it was most effective to develop a method that worked at low frequencies and was based on flexible materials. The ZnO nanowires met these requirements.

Also, Wang said that a real advantage of the technology was that the nanowires could be grown easily on a wide variety of surfaces, like metals, ceramics, polymers, clothing and even tents. And the nanogenerators could operate in the air or in liquids once properly packaged.

"Quite simply, this technology can be used to generate energy under any circumstances as long as there is movement," said Wang.

The nanogenerator would be particularly critical to troops in the field, where they are far from energy sources and need to use sensors or communication devices.

Wang also said that having a sensor, which doesn't need batteries, could be extremely useful to the military and police sampling air for potential bioterrorism attacks in the United States.

Although biosensors have been miniaturized and can be implanted under the skin, he points out that such devices still require batteries, and the new nanogenerator would offer much more flexibility.

A major advantage of the new technology is that many nanogenerators can produce electricity continuously and simultaneously.

The study was presented at the American Chemical Society's 237th National Meeting.

Why most people dont choose Teaching as a PROFESSION ?

Barack Hussein Obama, the pessimist !!

President Barack Obama's plea Tuesday for patience in the economic turmoil fits with the view of most economists that a turnaround will take some time. It doesn't fit quite so neatly with his bullish budget.

The president's spending plans and deficit projections rest on the assumption that the economy will post solid growth next year after a mild, further decline this year. Many economists think that's too rosy.

Obama was more cautious than that in his prime-time news conference — possibly to the point of having it both ways.

A look at some of his statements and how they square with the facts:

THE CLAIM: "We will recover from this recession. But it will take time, it will take patience, and it will take an understanding that when we all work together, when each of us looks beyond our own short-term interests to the wider set of obligations we have to each other, that's when we succeed."

THE FACTS: No one really knows when the recession will end. But Obama's own budget forecasts the recession will continue through this year but with a relatively shallow 1.2 percent decline in the gross domestic product.

Then, the budget predicts solid 3.2 percent growth for 2010, followed by three years of more than 4 percent growth each year.

Christina Romer, head of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said this week she was "incredibly confident" the U.S. economy will recover within a year.

Congressional Republicans and some Democratic budget hawks have suggested the Obama budget projections are unduly optimistic to make the math to pay for the president's programs work. The higher the GDP growth, the more tax revenues come in.

Meanwhile, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office last week predicted that the Obama budget would produce deficits averaging nearly $1 trillion over the next decade.

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OBAMA: "In this budget, we have made the tough choices necessary to cut our deficit in half by the end of my first term even under the most pessimistic estimates."

THE FACTS: Not all credible estimates foresee a deficit halved in that time.

Obama's budget forecast a deficit of $530 billion by the end of 2013. That would cut by half the deficit he inherited at the start of his term. To succeed, Obama is counting on a recovered economy, a tax boost for the rich and success in easing foreign entanglements. But his assertion that he can accomplish that "even under the most pessimistic estimates" flies in the face of an answer he gave moments later.

The Congressional Budget Office forecasts that Obama's spending plan would leave a deficit of $672 billion by the end of 2013. Explaining the differences between his projections and CBO's, Obama said his administration projects a higher growth rate.

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THE CLAIM: "Our assumptions are perfectly consistent with what blue-chip forecasters out there are saying."

THE FACTS: The Obama administration's economic growth projections are more optimistic over the next five years than those of the Blue Chip Consensus, a monthly average of 50 economic forecasts from the private sector.

The Blue Chip projection is for a deeper contraction this year than is foreseen by the administration — 1.9 percent versus 1.2 percent. Then it foresees growth of only 2.1 percent next year, instead of 3.2 percent, and less than 3 percent in each of the next three years, when the administration's forecasts are for 4 percent or better.

After 2015, the blue chip forecast is a little brighter than the administration's.

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THE CLAIM: Obama repeated his assertion that his housing bailout will help "stabilize the housing market and help responsible homeowners stay in their homes."

THE FACTS: Even officials in his administration, many supporters of the plan in Congress and the Federal Reserve chairman have said some of the bailout money is bound to go to those who acted irresponsibly.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke has said it's important for the nation to go ahead with the plan even though it means assistance will go to some who should have known better than to get in over their heads.

Sheila Bair, head of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., made a similar point when she said it's "simply impractical" to examine every delinquent loan and weed out those taken by people who overstated their income or assets to get a mortgage they couldn't afford.

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THE CLAIM: Responding to Republican critics in Congress who say his proposed budget carries an irresponsible deficit, Obama said, "I suspect that some of those Republican critics have a short memory, because, as I recall, I'm inheriting a $1.3 trillion deficit, annual deficit, from them."

FACT: Obama inherited a whopper of a deficit, much of it due to policies and spending led by Republican President George W. Bush. But the Congress, which authorizes spending and is not blameless in driving up deficits, was controlled by Democrats in the last two years of Bush's presidency.

Courtesy : Yahoo news

Most common password by internet users !!

'123456' is the most common password used by people on the Internet.

Obscenities, names of fast cars and even ncc1701 - the ship number for Star Trek's Starship Enterprise, have made it to the list of top 500 worst passwords of all time.

Compiled by Whatsmypass.com, the list features passwords most commonly used by Internet users.

And topping the list of the most common password is 123456, followed by "password" in second place.

Other popular password choices were first names, repeated letters and numbers, pop-culture references.

Even batman, bond007 and cocacola made it to the list, reports the Courier Mail.

The website said that almost one out of nine people use at least one of the passwords mentioned on the list, and one out of every 50 people use one from the top 20.

In fact, a study commissioned by digital communications agency @www found that an average adult had as many as 15 passwords to remember.

But 61 per cent of people used the same passwords for as many different accounts as possible in order to make life easier.

India's population growth is essential to the world!

Nine nations-India, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, the US, Congo, Tanzania, China and Bangladesh will be majority contributors to the world's population that will hit seven billion by the early part of 2012 and will top nine billion in 2050, according to a UN estimate.

Hania Zlotnik, director of the UN Population Division, said: There have been no big changes" from the previous estimate in 2006. We are still projecting that by 2050, the population of the world will be around 9.1 billion." The projections are based on the assumption that fertility that is now around 2.56 children per woman is going to decline to about 2.02 children per woman in the world," she added.

Zlotnik said if fertility remained about where it is now, then world population would reach 10.5 billion by 2050. If fertility fell even more than expected, to about 1.5, then the population would only increase to eight billion by mid-century, she said.

Population growth will remain concentrated in the most populous countries through 2050.

In sharp contrast, the populations of 45 countries or regions are expected to decline at least 10 per cent over the same period, including Japan, Italy and many other countries that were once part of the Soviet Union, the UN said.

According to the study, the largest number of migrants will head to the United States - an estimated 1.1 million every year between 2010 and 2050.

The immigrants and the US birth rate will help boost the US population from an estimated 314.7 million in mid-2009 to 403.9 million in 2050, according to Gerhard Heilig, chief of the UN's Population Estimates and Projections Section.