Revenge is ours: extracting energy from a cockroach

Scenario:        

A research was conducted about cockroach as a source of energy. The main purpose of the research was to generate electricity from cockroach’s abdomen to make devices work. It is believed that the cockroach’s abdomen has stored sugar that can be a form of energy when it is chemically processed.

Action:

Instead of burning the cockroaches to death to produce heat and make energy out of it, the researcher had used the stored sugar in the cockroaches to make electricity. With redox reaction, reducing and oxidizing chemical, specifically starch or sugar in the cockroach’s body can generate large amount of energy. They also tried to produce energy physically. The sugar inside the cockroach can be burned by oxyen. By connecting the two variables involved using electrodes with enzyme catalyst to speed up the reaction a very small amount of energy was formed (1microwatt). That’s how it goes and you may ask why the researcher used cockroach instead of other animal or insect, the answer is revenge. J

Four Mistakes Publishers Make When Bringing Content to Tablets

Scenario:

            Using tablets nowadays are very common. For this reason, news or articles which are usually on papers are now mobilized. This maybe an advantage to some especially to the readers, to have a more convenient reading but it is a disadvantage to the publishers of newspapers or magazines.

Action:

However, successful publishers were able to solve this predicament. Now that they are into mobile publishing, there are new problems that arise. Publishers commit mistakes and here are some. First, trying and failing to reinvent the wheel. Publishers thought that their team was good enough to create the best platforms and experiences but it is not true. There are people who are better and make new trends that are more interesting than the ones published before. Reinventing the wheel is not encouraged because new wheels will already come. Second is getting left out of mix. News needs to be distributed. Publishers have an important role in participating in social media and the news revolution. Discovery tools like news reader can help. Nevertheless, publishers do not use discovery tools. Third mistake is ignoring the brand potential. Choosing big branded publishers has a big impact in publishing articles or news. They create large amount of content every day but they choose not to collaborate with them. Last on the list is searching in the wrong places. Using the traditional search engines such as Google, Yahoo!, and Bing leads to inaccurate results. The related articles may appear but the particular article would be sometimes hard to find.

Why we are much smarter than we think we are

Scenario:

            The article is basically about being smarter and to be smarter by being smart. This may be vague but the author explains how to be smart.

“No matter at which point you are in life, there is always people not as far ahead as you. They will find what you know valuable.

Even if you are thinking about starting a startup for 1 hour, you will have 1 hour more knowledge than all the people who haven’t started to think about startups. They will find what you know useful.”

Action:

When we start embracing that idea, it becomes extremely powerful. We understand that every thought that comes to our mind are thoughts that others are yet to discover. By being vocal about it (not just thinking about it) and sharing it, we are not only helping others. They also share their ideas which lead to another idea from us and we become smarter.