New Light Bulb Promises Better Efficiency

Since the incandescent light bulb came out there hasn’t really been a whole lot of advancement in the lighting. There are a number of improved designs that are widespread but none of them are drastically different than the original, at least until now. A new light bulb unveiled this week is made of high tech plastic polymers that allow it to create brighter and cleaner light with significant less energy than most bulbs.

Unlike traditional light bulbs this new polymer bulb does not even rely on a single piece of metal to heat up and create a luminescent glow. The poly bulb uses a new technology that actually allows the polymer itself to glow when electricity flows through the body. Because electricity is not being used explicitly for heat and power this bulb will be a significant amount more economical and will require much less power to operate.

The bulb is still in the development stages but researchers say it is looking really good at this point. They are hopeful that this technology will be on the market in the coming years for people to buy which will drive energy costs down. The polymer bulb is also expected to have an incredibly long life time which will save even more money and contribute greatly to the green energy cause.

U.S. Government Preparing to Sell Wind Farm Leases

Wind farms have begun to pop up all across the United States in the past decade thanks to a number of factors, obviously the environmental friendly movement has helped spur this on as well. This week the federal government made an announcement that will surely help bring even more wind power to the United States thanks to a number of newly available wind farm locations.

Wind farms have traditionally been set up in the Midwest due to location and seclusion, but now the federal government is going to allow wind farm leases on the coast of Rhode Island, Massachusetts, and Virginia, which will be the first in the area. The locations are considered to be very prime areas that are likely to be very profitable but up until now they simply were not available for wind power.  Various power companies have expressed interest in the land so the government is hopeful that it’ll be a very successful venture over the next decade. Wind power is quickly becoming the most likely candidate for green energy and this is absolutely a step in the right direction. The government hopes that this along with other efforts will help make wind power plants and wind farms more economical and easier to build which will lead to more development in the future.

Google Selects Wind Power For Data Center

Renewable energy is a huge focus right now and unfortunately many companies have been avoiding it due to cost, difficulty, or other reasons. Until major corporations begin to embrace these technologies they will never become truly widespread, but the good news is that Google has finally taken the plunge this week.

This week Google announced that they have reached a deal to use the power generated at an Oklahoma wind farm to power one of Google’s largest data centers. The data center is located in Pryor Oklahoma and Google believes that the power generated at the wind farm will be more than enough to completely operate the data center. Google has been using wind power in multiple locations but none of the projects have been nearly as big as this one, so it is absolutely great news.

Most analysts feel that Google’s success with wind power will likely encourage other companies to at least look at and consider renewable energy. There is a pretty high cost to initially get into renewable energy but Google is expected to prove that it is actually fairly simple to save money as well as the environment with renewable green energy sources. Google is expected to continue working with renewable energy companies so hopefully in the future nearly all of Google’s data centers will be completely green.

New Solar Landfills Developed

All around the world landfills have become common as trash begins to pileup. Unfortunately landfills are not only trash collection sites, they are also major wastes of power and natural resources due to the amount of work taking place. Fortunately a new innovative design announced this week may help shape the clean future of landfills through solar power.

The idea is quite simple, as trash begins to pile up at the landfill and is turned into a permanent land structure farms of solar panels can be laid on top of the land. This is an ingenious idea because due to the nature of landfills it is nearly impossible to do anything on top of the land after a landfill has closed; placing solar panels though is a completely possible idea.

The amount of land wasted in the thousands of landfills around the world is an absolutely astonishing number and with a little bit o investment it would be possible to turn each of these landfills in to power generating solar farms. The installation would be no different than any other solar development and experts say these solar landfills would likely be able to supply enough power to reduce the dependence on fossil fuels by a significant percent. This is great news in every possible way because it will help clean up the environment in multiple ways while also turning one of the most wasteful centers, landfills, into a viable energy production center which also helps clean up the environment.

Greenest Manufacturing Plant in the US Opens

Greener technologies and green lifestyles have been growing in popularity for years as the constant environmental movement continues to gain strength. Recently many companies have taken heed and have begun to make changes on their own as well; this week one of the biggest changes yet has taken place. Frito-Lay is the company responsible for the change and many analysts say that this could be what leads to the green revolution in the manufacturing industry.

The changes made were quite astonishing; Frito-Lay officially opened a new manufacturing facility this week and it has been dubbed the greenest manufacturing facility in the United States. The name is not just for show either, Frito-Lay really did work hard to develop the new plant into a green plan that uses little to no energy other than what it can produce. The plant which opened in Arizona has a variety of futuristic and cutting edge energy sources that are often unheard of in the industry but thanks to the combination of these Frito-Lay managed to make the new plant function on 75% of the power generated by the plant.

This is an absolutely astonishing feat given that most manufacturing plants do not generate any of their own power in any way. The fact that Frito-Lay’s new manufacturing plant draws 75% of its power from self-sustaining energy sources truly shows how far alternative energy has advanced; it is also a sign of hope for the future of manufacturing and green energy.

Government Approves Alternative Energy Funding

The idea of alternative energies to fossil fuels has been around for quite some time and in recent years it has really become a hot topic with many people. In particular the idea of clean solar power has become popular because it offers an abundance of power without any real pollution. Fortunately today the U.S. government took a step in the right direction by approving a budget of approximately 1 billion dollars to further research and implementation of large solar farms.

According to the official budget the 1 billion dollars is actually being given in the form of a loan which the two major corporations will be forced to repay upon completion of the project. The massive solar farms are expected to produce significant advancements in terms of solar technology while also producing significant amounts of energy and power from the solar radiation.

This is good news on multiple levels. First off it is obviously good to see that some major development is being done on clean energy for much of the world; more importantly analysts say that the advancements in solar technology thanks to this project will likely make a huge impact on future efficiency of solar panels. This should, theoretically, mean that in the future it will be cheaper for companies and the government to implement solar power farms; these projects will not only be cheaper, they will also be more efficient which means they are significantly better in a wide variety of ways.

U.S. Homes Using Less Power than Ever

A report released this week is showing some improving signs in terms of power usage around the United States. Homes have generally been using about the same amount of power for quite some time but thanks to recent surges in green technology and more efficient heating and cooling it seems the average power consumption is in fact decreasing.

Amazingly the same report indicates that while power usage is generally down, the number of electronics and technological items is actually up. Most homes have significant more technology than ever before but because everything is getting more and more efficient the amount of power being used is decreasing. This is good news for millions of Americans because it will obviously mean a reduction in monthly power costs but at the same time it is very good news for the environment.

Even more amazing is the future predictions available for power usage; nearly all analysts and experts agree that power consumption will continue to fall and throughout the next decade it will begin to fall even more rapidly. Technology really is becoming significantly more efficient which is very good news environmentally; consumers are essentially helping reduce power waste by simply buying new devices and new technologies rather than using old outdated technology. At this point there is not a solid prediction of how much power consumption will decrease in the coming years but nearly everyone agrees that it will in fact be significant enough to make a major difference.

The Power of A Smile

According to a 2010 Wayne State University research project that focused on examining the 1952 baseball cards photos of Major League players, it was discovered that the span of a player’s smile directly correlated to his life span. Players who didn’t smile for the camera lived only 72.9 years while those who did sport a large smile lived to an average of 79.9 years

A smile is much more revealing than it seems. A universal means of communication, the act of smiling is even more of a reward mechanism than even chocolate can provide. In fact, a recent British survey conducted in Great Britain discovered that one smile
can provide the same level of brain stimulation as up to 2,000 chocolate bars!

Smiling also makes you healthier, which cannot be said about chocolate. Some documented therapeutic effects include: reduced stress hormone levels (cortisol, adrenaline and dopamine), increased mood enhancing hormones like endorphins and lowered blood pressure.

Smiling is not just a universal means of communicating, it’s also a frequent one. More than 30% of us smile more than 20 times a day and less than 14% of us smile less than 5 times a day. In fact, those with the greatest superpowers are actually children, who smile as many as 400 times per day!

In research performed at the University of Clermont-Ferrand in France, subjects were asked to interpret real vs. fake smiles, while holding a pencil in their mouths to repress the muscles that help us smile. Without the pencils in their mouths, subjects were excellent judges, but with the pencils (when they could not mimic the smiles they saw), their judgment was impaired.

These findings would not have surprised Charles Darwin, who in addition to theorizing on evolution in The Origin of the Species, also developed the Facial Feedback Response Theory, which suggests that the act of smiling actually makes us feel better (rather than smiling being merely a result of feeling good).

This theory is supported by various recent studies, including research out of Echnische Universität in Munich Germany. In a 2009 study, scientists there used fMRI (Functional MRI) imaging to measure brain activity in regions of emotional processing in the brain before and after injecting Botox to suppress smiling muscles. The findings showed that facial feedback (such as imitating a smile) actually modifies the neural processing of emotional content in the brain, and concluded that our brain’s circuitry of emotion and happiness is activated when we smile!

If that’s not enough, smiling also makes us look good in the eyes of others. A recent Penn State University study confirmed that when we smile we not only appear more likeable and courteous, but we’re actually perceived to be more competent.for us.

Surprisingly, we’re actually born smiling. 3-D ultrasound technology now shows that developing babies appear to smile even in the womb. After they’re born, babies continue to smile (initially mostly in their sleep) and even blind babies smile in response to the sound of the human voice.

A smile is also one of the most basic, biologically uniform expressions of all humans. Paul Ekman (the world’s leading expert on facial expressions) discovered that smiles are cross-cultural and have the same meaning in different societies. In studies he conducted i
Papua New Guinea, Ekman found that members of the Fore tribe (who were completely disconnected from Western culture and were also known for their unusual cannibalism rituals) attributed smiles to descriptions of situations in the same way you and I would.

Have you ever wondered why being around children who smile frequently makes you smile more often? Two studies from 2002 and 2011 at Uppsala University in Sweden confirmed that other people’s smiles actually suppress the control we usually have over our facial muscles, compelling us to smile. They also showed that it’s very difficult to frown when looking at someone who smiles.

Why? Because smiling is evolutionarily contagious and we have a subconscious innate drive to smile when we see one. This occurs even among strangers when we have no intention to connect or affiliate with the other person. Mimicking a smile and experiencing it physically helps us interpret how genuine a smile is, so that we can understand the real emotional state of the smiler.

So now we know that:

* When you smile, you look good and feel good.
* When others see you smile, they smile too.
* When others smile, they look good and feel good, too.
Perhaps this is why Mother Teresa said: “I will never understand all the good that a simple smile can accomplish.” What’s the catch? Only that the smile you give has to be big, and genuine!

In my fascinating journey to uncover more about smiling, I discovered something far greater than just a way to get through a challenging run – I found a simple and surprisingly powerful way to significantly improve my own life and the lives of others.

So now, whenever you want to look great and competent, improve your marriage, or reduce your stress…or whenever you want to feel as good as when you’ve enjoyed a stack of high quality chocolate without incurring the caloric cost, or as if you randomly found 25 grand in the pocket of a jacket you hadn’t worn for ages…or when you want to tap into a superpower and help yourself and others live longer, healthier happier lives…SMILE

http://www.dailygood.org/more.php?n=4507

School Cuts Energy Costs With Sticky Notes

A school in Long Island New York announced this week that their experiment to reduce power consumption at the school was successful. The project was reportedly able to save the school over on third of a million dollars in a year simply by putting up reminders on sticky notes all around the schools in the district.

The Mount Sinai school district decided to implement this unique energy saving tactic last year when the district started facing serious budget cuts; officials reportedly though of the idea while brainstorming for potential budget savers. Shortly after thinking of the idea the school district put up small sticky notes over each light switch encouraging teachers, students, and staff to turn off the power when nobody is in the room.

Since 2007 the school district has seen an incredible decrease of 30% in power consumption and this program is the only program they have instituted. As news of the school district’s success spread around the country numerous other school districts have begun implementing similar programs. In the end schools are finally realizing that saving power is much easier than anticipated; it doesn’t require and special equipment or tools as long as children and taught the proper principals. In the long run this could even lead to less power consumption by the children as they get older and eventually move on to live on their own. For now though schools are simply happy to see a reduction in power costs.

Data Centers Using Less Data Than Previously Thought

For quite some time now various government agencies have believed that computer data centers and server farms were using tons of power around the country. This week however the EPA released their study on the subject and it was shown that data centers are actually using much less power than previously expected.

Data centers have become a necessary piece of equipment for nearly all companies since everything has gone digital and at the same time the power consumed by them has also sky rocketed. For quite some time the EPA assumed that data centers were a major waste of power in many cases but it turns out overall that was incorrect.

What this means for everyone else is that much less power is being wasted by data centers and as such much less pollution is being caused by the data centers themselves. Power plants are obviously still polluting but the data centers of companies are not a root cause of the problem.

Overall the EPA is happy to release this report because it shows that private sectors of the market are in fact doing what they can to reduce or limit power waste. Obviously cost is the biggest reason many companies and data centers are reducing waste but the environmental factors following closely in the wake of reduced costs which should eventually lead to a positive outcome when it comes to environmental impacts. No word on what other industries the EPA is planning to study like this.