The new structures being built on campus are in love with light - the glass windows of Lattie Coor Hall and the future Biodesign Institute stretch from floor to ceiling in a state where shade is a valuable resource. With new solar technologies available, all that window space could be put to more efficient use: It could help cool the classrooms while shading the students at work hard inside.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, N.Y., began a solar cell project in 2000 using translucent, 1-centimeter silicon squares that could well be the future of solar power. Photovoltaic shades focused the light and heat onto the silicon "solar chips" suspended between dual windowpanes.
Wired.com reported that the squares followed the sun's rays, shifting like miniature Venetian blinds to translucently capture the energy from sunlight.
Just picture it. With this technology in classrooms, you can even tell time with the shadows while marveling at the lack of glare on the projector screens. Meanwhile, the silicon processors would convert the light into electricity and feed it into the building's electrical system, fueling those PowerPoint presentations that we all love so much.
The cells would cost about 25 cents each and have over 50 percent energy conversion, while traditional solar panels (such as those on Hayden lawn) weigh in at only 20 percent. Rensselaer has the prototype on the roof of its science building; with smart planning, ASU will be in the same shadow of efficiency within the decade.
The move toward renewable domestic power will reduce our dependence on foreign energy providers and harvest the greatest resource of the Valley of the Sun. With ASU as a premier research institution, we should be a model for other universities in the discovery, support and implementation of emerging technologies such as these silicon solar cells.
The new Biodesign Institute and especially the Lattie Coor Hall could help to power themselves with their many windows while giving students a cool, shady and more economically sound learning space.
And on a different scientific note, you can now lower your blood alcohol levels and strike back at file-sharing lawsuits by spilling your beer onto CDs and warping copyrighted music.
An Australian scientist and nightclub owner accidentally spilled beer onto a CD and let it dry overnight, according to Slashdot.org. When he later tried to play the CD, he found that the sound was distorted through the cells of a fungus that had grown in a branching fractal pattern on the disc.
The fungal and bacterial growth caused errors that produced subtler sounds than scratching discs, a practice used by many DJs to create new sounds to sample.
The errors are on a much smaller level than traditional scratches, and the shapes of the organisms distort the sound in new ways. Sometimes the pitch changes and other times sharper sounds are added. The process hasn't yet been found to damage discs, though they may not play on more finicky software machines.
So as you are sampling your beer, take a moment to sample your music, too. Who knows, it might grow on you.
Audra Baker is a journalism and biology senior. Reach her at audra.baker@asu.edu.
