Sci-tech: The wondrous world of science

Combined car and motorcycle The Chinese auto designers were seen in action with their creativity at the Shanghai auto show held in April this year. One item which drew in the crowds was a combined car/motorcycle! The car is a two-door, four-seater vehicle which has a foldable electric scooter at the rear. It is planned to be manufactured as an all-electric car, or as an electric-petrol hybrid. Once docked at the back, the battery of the scooter is charged by the car. It meets the need of a vehicle which can serve for medium/long distance driving as well as provide a solution for travelling the last mile through congested areas in a handy scooter. This novel car has been manufactured by an emerging auto giant in China, Geely, and it has been named "McCar", derived from the popular McDonald's brand name, indicating value-for-money and popular appeal. Geely has entered into collaboration with Volvo in China and there is a possibility of Volvo marketing this car internationally. Recycling wastes—using robots The recycling of paper, cardboard, glass, plastics and metals is routinely carried out in the West. This is normally done by housewives who place different types of objects into different colour bins. Now a company in Finland, ZenRobotics, claims to have developed a robot fitted with various types of sensors that will do this task. The robot can be fitted above a moving conveyor belt on which various articles of trash are placed. It automatically senses the article, picks it up and drops it into an appropriate container. The sensing systems on the robot include various types of cameras, metal detectors, and a whole array of other detecting systems that allow it to distinguish between cables, glass bulbs, cans, pipes, bricks, cloth pieces, etc. Reducing food spoilage with ozone About 30 per cent of all harvested fresh fruits and vegetables are spoilt by fungal contamination each year. A number of techniques have been developed in the past to preserve food, which include the use of synthetic pesticides, special packaging and pre-package treatments with chlorine or bromine. Dr Ian Singleton and plant biologist Prof Jerry Barnes at the University of Newcastle have now found that the spoilage can be substantially controlled if tomatoes, plums, grapes and other fruits and vegetables are stored in an atmosphere which contains small amounts of ozone. The spoilage can be reduced by 95 per cent if batches stored with or without the ozone are compared after eight days. Tomatoes stored under ozone also developed resistance to fungal attacks even when taken out of the ozone containing atmosphere, indicating that they had acquired some kind of memory, comparable to the vaccination process that led to the development of resistance. Water desalination—employing carbon nanotubes The two commonly used processes for removing salt from saline water (desalination) are thermal distillation and reverse osmosis. In the first process, the salt water is heated to boiling point and the steam generated is collected by condensation leaving the salt behind. In the second reverse osmosis process, the salt water is pumped through a special "semipermeable" membrane that allows only pure water to pass through while the salt is left behind. Both processes use a considerable amount of energy and are therefore not considered environmentally friendly. Now scientists working in the New Jersey Institute of Technology in USA have developed a process which can be considered to be intermediate between the two processes mentioned above. Hot saline water is passed though a special semi permeable membrane that has built-in carbon nanotubes to allow greater permeability. The result is a process that allows flow rates that are six times higher than those achieved in conventional membranes. Healing cartilage wounds—with nanofiber spheres Cartilage wounds are often difficult to treat. They can be allowed to heal by themselves but the healing process may not proceed well as the new cartilage formed may not have the same form or provide the same functionality. The patient's own cells are often injected into the wound to promote the healing process, but as the cells are not injected uniformly across the wound, the procedure is often unsatisfactory. Now scientists at the University of Michigan in USA have developed tiny nanospheres made of a special fiber that can trap the patient's cells and carry them uniformly to the site of the wound by injection. The nanospheres can also carry trapped nutrients, thereby promoting the healing process. As these tiny spheres are made of a substance that degrades naturally (biodegradable), the spheres dissolve away in time without causing any side effects. Nanotechnology is finding myriad applications in almost every field of human activity. aurahman786@gmail.com Erratum: In my article about using used motor oil as car fuel (May 24), the total used world motor oil production should be eight billion gallons of oil and not eight billion tons. The error is regretted.