Finally, here we are with another edition of the Friday Science Thang. Ever had one of those days where you set out to do something, but other things keep popping up like random monster encounters in a cheap JRPG, and you’re all like “But the thing I want is right there, five steps away, and yet every step I take it’s another bunch of stupid monsters I have to fight before I can just get on and do the damn thing?”

Well that has been what it is like settling down to write today’s science goodness. But now I am here, and baby, it’s science time!

Potential Comeback for Hydrogen

You have not heard a lot about hydrogen as a fuel in a while, but that might be all about to change due to an amazing new nanoparticle that can electrolyze hydrogen from any water, no matter how dirty.

Previous electrolysis systems required the use of highly pure water, and clearly, adding the need to distill the water before even beginning is going to be a serious drain on the efficiency of a system which is already trying to compete with the ease of the fuel we find just lying around underground.

But with these nanoparticles from HyperSolar, all you would need is a plastic bag coated with said nanoparticles, any dirty ditch water you care to put in there, and sunlight, and you are making hydrogen.

Presumably, the future implied would take waste water from any source (yes, even that one… remember, electricity can’t be dirty) and produce hydrogen for fuel cells on a massive scale.

The Circle of Life

Speaking of potentially gross stories involving water, brace yourself for this one : the shower that saves water by recirculating it back to you while you shower.

Now if you are anything like me, your instant and quite severe reaction to the idea of a recirculating shower is ICK. I mean, the whole point of a shower is that it washes the bad stuff off of you, down the drain, and away from you forever. The last thing you want is that water comes right back at you! EWWWW!

But it is not as bad as it seems. Obviously any moron could design a system that just sprays your dirty water on you. But what this guy Peter Brewin has done is create a super efficient shower that uses a tiny powerful heater to boost the water up to Pasteurization temperature, plus a gravity funnel arrangement to get rid of all particulates, and the end result is something that, even counting the energy needed to run the heater, still uses far less energy than a regular shower because the system only needs to heat up a much smaller amount of water.

So you would be washing with water that is not just clean but Pasteurized, and saving on the power bills to boot. Still, they would have to work hard to overcome the ick factor.

I want the dirt to go away dammit.

The Reverse Microwave Lives?

Well, sort of. In effect, it does, although of course, it doesn’t use microwaves.

It’s called the Cooper Cooler, and it can take a room temperate can of beverage and make it icy cold in the space of a minute.

All you need is water, ice, and your beverage, and you can have an icy cold drink a minute later. That sounds like a decent minimum for a consumer level product : I doubt a consumer would be willing to wait much more than a minute for their beverage, ice-cold or no.

But I can imagine being willing to invest a modest amount in a device that would power chill a can for me. The one minute delay is only a big factor for your first brew. If you plan on having (or serving) more than one, you just chill the next one while the first is being enjoyed.

I could see something like that being beyond huge with the backyard barbeque and tailgate party set. And of course, frat parties. Imagine handing bro after bro a super cold brewsky or being able to have the coldest beers (and coolers, and drinks for the kiddies) on your block this summer.

That could be a major social coup, and that is exactly the sort of thing that sells millions.

The Secret Sex Lives Of Penguins

And finally… you know I usually save the best for last in this column, and that usually means one of two things : something really amazing, or something really bizarre.

Well folks… this is definitely the latter.

A secret document has recently come to light, one that was all but lost for decades due to the shocked prudery of its author, Antarctic explorer and scientist George Murray Levick, who was so overwhelmed by the deviant sexual practices of the Adélie penguin that he left them out of his final report, and he wrote those findings down in Greek, so that only learned men would be able to read them.

And just what did he observe? Masturbation, gay sex, chick molestation, rape, necrophilia, and even sex crazed murder, just to name a few.

You see, the Adélie penguin has only two weeks in which to get their freak on, and despite what some wildly unscientific moralists would have you believe about what is “natural” and “unnatural”, nature has no taboos and does not provide detailed instructions on how to mate.

All it provides is horniness. I think this song gets the point across. (NSFW!)

And all the bad behaviour that poor Levick observed was from males who had never had a mating season before, and had no idea what they were supposed to do with how they felt, and that leads to a lot of, well, experimentation. Eventually, they get things right, and most of them presumably lose all interest in the other variations immediately thereafter.

Luckily for science and posterity, a copy of the redacted portion of Levick’s report, which was circulated (only amongst a few other scientists who presumably could take it) under the name Sexual Habits of the Adélie Penguin, recently surfaced, and we all get to enjoy their lurid exploits.

It’s pretty strong stuff even for a rampant libertine like myself. If only there has been someone willing to warn us about all this penguin deviancy…

Oh my god, BILL THE CAT TRIED TO WARN US!

Seeya later, folks!