ALGAE FUEL: Brazil has plans for the world's first plant to produce biofuels from seaweed. On site already is a factory that produces ethanol from sugar cane. But it also produces 1 Kg of CO2 for each litre of ethanol. The seaweed plant will use the CO2 to speed up photosynthesis and produce 1.2 million litres of algae-based biofuel per year. That ethanol production creates a lot of CO2. PhysOrg details.
FARM THE SUN: The UK's largest solar farm has now opened with 12 hectares of solar PV panels. It will produce enough electricity to power 1,000 homes. The estate is also used for growing some crops and livestock. Perhaps they should include a seaweed processing plant too. Daily Mail has more.
FLASH POWER: Big data centres chew through electricity, both for running the servers and for cooling them. Research at Princeton University may drastically cut that power need, by using solid state memory. A new software technique substitutes flash memory for RAM by promoting it in the hierarchy of how the servers look for data. The flash memory is cheaper than RAM, faster than a hard drive, draws less power, and allows the computer to generate less heat. Those factors help cut the energy required. Savings sometimes come from unusual sources. Princeton University explains.
TRUST NOTHING: Next time you're plugging in your computer look carefully at the power strip. The Power Pwn looks like a good solid power strip but it's actually a device for testing the security level of a wired or wireless computer network. Alongside the power points are hacking software and Wi-Fi, ethernet and Bluetooth connectors. DARPA helped fund the device as a tool for governments and corporations to test their security. Spies are everywhere. BoingBoing has further info.
ELECTRON FLAWS: Electronics are sensitive to damage from radiation, but we may not have realised just how sensitive. And as electronics become ever smaller even the tiniest amounts of damage can have a huge effect. Researchers from Vanderbilt University used a combination of lasers and acoustic waves to precisely pinpoint the size and location of defects buried deep inside electronics, as though X-raying them. This method is so accurate it detects disruption in the positions of electrons. The researchers found many more defects in their testing than other techniques have found. Watch out for those solar flares folks. Vanderbilt University elaborates.