Science Around Us

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Is Technology Hurting Or Helping Us?

Whether the technology is dragging us down or making our lives better is not easy to answer. In fact, if we spend a lot of time to evaluate about it, I think we could make an effective argument for both cases.

To demonstrate this point, let's examine some of the ways in which technology can undermine followed our plan, time management, in some ways that can help us. How technology hurts us...

One of the great new ways technology can hurt us is to make things too easy. It is a proven fact that the brain gets stronger with use. If we rely on technological progress, which is defined as a computer program or use something more mobile, like mobile phones, you run the risk of damaging our minds by not doing the thinking anymore.

Another way technology can harm us is that it can plan our lives. We in our handy-dandy cell phone and see if... traffic is thick on this area, then we re-route. Our weather app says it will rain on your preferred vacation spot, then we cancel the vacation that we are planning for months. Technology is somehow controlling our actions, we are becoming slaves and relying too much on it.

How technology can help...

One of the great new ways technology help us is by making things easier for us. In the short term, this can be an advantage, since all things we’re made simple and make our lives more stress-free (although the downside was mentioned above). It's easy to take our cell phone and program in a task so you do not run the risk of forgetting any special day or assignment. In this way we can effectively reach our planners we connect to our site and we can see at a glance if you take the time to bake these cupcakes for our son to class or have at least one lap by the local club warehouse and buy.

Another advantage is that they help to keep more to plan our lives. We can see immediately if we need to do this or that at any given time.

There are pros and cons to everything, and it also applies to technology. One thing is for sure man will always create things that will make life easier and it is up to us if we want to embrace it or be slaves to that new kind of technology.

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PTFE Seals In Engine Technology

PTFE seals have become an industry standard seal component in rotating and sliding shaft and piston seals.  It can be no surprise in view of its low coefficient of friction between 0.05 and 0.10, its high density of 2,200kg/m3, its chemical inertness, and high temperature resistance approaching 300˚C, makes an ideal material to use in high temperature sealing components.  Its near unique properties were discovered by accident in 1938 and it wasn’t long before the material came to the public’s notice when DuPont branded it as Teflon®

You will all have used non-stick coated pans in the kitchen for many years and those of you who have been around for more than 50 years will remember a time when cooked-on scrambled eggs in aluminium and steel saucepans was a real pain to remove involving brillo pads and a lot of elbow grease. 

We all thought it was fabulous when the new Teflon® non-stick coated pans came into use.  However, the coating was so fragile that the expensive pans never lasted.  Gradually over the years, the durability went up as the price of pans came down.  Even now though, metal scourers are banned for washing up such items.

So what is PTFE and where does its extreme toughness come from in industry? 

Well, PTFE is the industry-standard acronym for Polytetrafluoroethylene and is a custom-formulated material that it can be modified chemically.  It can be of great use particularly on the sliding surfaces as a composite seal or guide in rotating and reciprocating machinery such as engines.  From its fragile domestic beginnings, PTFE seals and guides can be found in automotive and steam engines where its high temperature resistance is ideal.

Shaft seals with PTFE sealing lips are the seal of choice for sealing rotary shafts where they can operate in hot and dry environments.  Even in a combustion engine, the low friction of a PTFE piston and shaft bearing seals comes into its own to further reduce friction losses.

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The Importance of Technology on Our Changing Lives

It is extremely difficult to imagine the world without some of the technologies that we enjoy today.

From what we can remember, man has always tried to improve, make things faster, stronger and simpler.

When we look back, we can see that there are things that have a greater impact than others, but it is undeniable that technological advances paid for every a major role in the life we enjoy today. We easily can’t underestimate the importance of technology.

Technology has led to the agricultural revolution, when humans first learned to grow and harvest food. While world population grew, it became necessary to know what plants grow in different climates and conditions. With current technology, we have access to a large amount of data that you can study and understand how we have moved from the agricultural era, where the ability of plants and animals, tame control the food supply while social changes were implemented.

Social changes brought about by the Renaissance technology at 14-16 Century. This was the moment when the man tried to improve the situation, and introduced the printing press, which is considered one of the most important technological advances.

Printing introduced mass printing of books that have to be largely responsible for the spread of knowledge.

It is very difficult to find a technology that sort of an impact than the other, but certainly at the top of any list would be medicine. All these list include the ability to treat disease, transplantation, vaccines, antibiotics were discovered, and the discovery of new diseases.

The phone is another important milestone in the advancement of technology. Before Alexander Graham Bell invented the telephone, you must get the latest news from one place to another. Pigeons are not yet available, it was usually due diligence or office, or train. There was no mass communication methods, and it was still in a one on one. No wonder the news is not destiny.

Invention of the telephone has opened communication technology. Communication has always changed the way we live and work. Communication affects every aspect of our lives, and the best that we can communicate, means we work efficiently and effectively, as a whole, this means that things can be done at a much faster rate, which means that the rate of the introduction of more technology can be expected to increase.

To solve better communication of new discoveries and new tools, more problems.

There can be no greater adoption of technology in recent decades, the development of the Internet, and although we are still in the early stages of childhood, it is easy to imagine a world in which everything is connected in the world.

At present, there is very little you can do on the internet, and although we are far from where the physical property becomes bits of zeros and ones, scientists are slowly moving in this direction and it is physically possible to transfer items.

[ingflores]

3 Innovations That Prove the Future is Already Here

Most of us would like to take a peep into the future, and to know what is around the corner, but in reality we hardly need to do that. Progress is made so fast in so many fields that the future is constantly shifting to today. Yes, the future is already here, and there is so much of it that it is often not even newsworthy. A motoring show may pinpoint an innovation, or a medical seminar may reveal a new treatment, but most innovations pass us by without mention. Here are a few innovations and designs that I think it is worth knowing about, if only to mention them in conversation with your work mates.

DEKA Arm System

The world of bionic limbs in developing nicely, but to you and me bionic limbs may all seem to be very much the same. However, a new arm from DEKA has just been approved for production, and is a major step forward. It is the first bionic limb that can actually move 2 joints simultaneously. EMG electrodes detect the wearer’s intentions and can move the hand and wrist at the same time to achieve the intent. If, like me, you thought this was already happening, you will see this for the breakthrough it is.

3D Scanners

From the world of science fiction, and only possible with CGI in the movies a few years back, 3D scanners are now used in many fields. Did you know that 3D scanners were being used to recreate images of limbs and bodies to help in medicine? I didn’t. To me reverse engineering is something that is completely Sci-Fi, but apparently not; 3D scanners are used at this moment to do this. OK it is for engineering purposes rather than creating beings, but it is still there. 3D scanners are used in many other fields too, including criminology and media. It makes me wonder how long until we can scan inside a body.

Neurogrid

This is the next step forward in computer evolution and, as you may have guessed from the name, is trying to copy the brain. Neurogrid is a circuit board that emulates the way the brain uses neurons and synaptic connections to do such efficient work on such a grand scale. A team from Stanford University’s work is proving very successful, and their circuit board is 9,000 times faster than a conventional computer’s. However, it may be energy efficiency that is the big winner here ( it is 100,000 times better when it comes to energy efficiency). This could lead the way to neural implants that do not need cumbersome batteries to power them and open up a host of applications in the body. At the moment, the board costs $40,000, so it will be a while before we see one of these in the shops.

There are many new ideas and technologies out there, but I hope that these 3 will open your eyes to the possibilities that the future holds and the wonders that are here today. The way we are developing it makes you wonder what Sci-Fi writers of the future will have to write about.