Good Morning! 🌞 

While doing research for an upcoming article about the new Apollo moon missions, I came across an interesting anecdote!

The Moon's Dust Smells Like Gunpowder: Astronauts during the Apollo missions reported that the dust they brought back from the Moon smelled strikingly similar to gunpowder. This is quite peculiar, considering there's no atmosphere on the Moon to facilitate processes like combustion which produces the gunpowder smell on Earth. The scent is actually due to the fine, jagged nature of lunar dust, which is made up of minuscule shards of glass and other reactive compounds.

Innovation

Indoor Solar Power!

Indoor solar cells, developed by California-based company Ambient Photonics, have been in the works since 2019, focusing on enhancing performance and affordability. These cells, adaptable in size and shape, can be applied to common devices like remote controls and wireless keyboards, potentially eliminating the need for batteries and reducing the size and weight of electronics.

Utilizing both natural and artificial light, such as LEDs and halogen bulbs, low-light solar cells convert any light source into power, enabling continuous device charging without requiring a direct plug-in. This technology builds upon low-cost dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) from the 1990s, designed to harvest energy from low-intensity indoor light.

While DSSCs are slower in converting light energy compared to conventional silicon cells, they are more cost-effective and can perform efficiently in any indoor light setting. Ambient Photonics CEO, Bates Marshall, highlights the breakthrough in developing high-performance solar cell technology for mass-market devices.

Ambient's new bifacial solar cells, made with optically clear glass, can simultaneously harvest light energy from both sides, potentially tripling the output of conventional silicon cells. Devices equipped with bifacial cells can power up regardless of their orientation, offering increased efficiency and enabling more powerful electronics.

In collaboration with Google, Ambient Photonics plans to release a solar-powered device utilizing bifacial cells in 2024. Marshall emphasizes that harvesting ambient light power can help reduce battery waste in landfills and minimize carbon emissions. The technology also received support from Amazon’s Climate Pledge Fund.

The company has already integrated indoor solar cells into products like Universal Electronics' remote controls and Chicony's wireless keyboards. Collaborations with E Ink aim to incorporate these cells into electronic shelf labels. Ambient's California facility, one of the world's largest low-light solar cell manufacturing factories, plans to start a second smart manufacturing facility in the US in 2025 to meet growing demand.

If I’m understanding this correctly, there’s a good chance that we won’t ever need to change batteries for our remotes in the future… Pretty cool!

Culture

Britain’s New ‘Drinking’ Game

A trending drinking activity in the UK involves spending money without actually consuming any alcohol. Known as "Wetherspoons: The Game," this unconventional pastime revolves around ordering drinks for strangers at various locations through a loophole in the JD Wetherspoons app. (JD Wetherspoons is a very large British pub chain)

The originator, Chris Illman, stumbled upon a way to manually select a location on the app, allowing users to order drinks for people nationwide. Initially, Illman and his friends used this feature to buy each other drinks. However, when the group became public, it quickly amassed 500,000 members.

Participants in the Wetherspoons Game share photos, ID cards, location details, and table numbers along with reasons why someone should buy them a drink. A team of volunteer moderators screens posts, approving only those deemed polite and good-natured. Anyone browsing the feed can then choose to send a drink to individuals in need of a pick-me-up.

The stories vary widely, from overworked ICU nurses seeking a reprieve to individuals coping with personal losses. Despite its unconventional nature, the game has gained popularity, with some recipients receiving so many drinks that they end up sharing them with others at the pub.

World News

16th c. Scottish Plaid was Found in a Bog

The oldest-known Scottish tartan, discovered buried for centuries in a peat bog around forty years ago, has been given new life. A Scottish textile manufacturer has successfully reproduced the fabric weave and dye. The tartan, now knows as the Glen Affric Tartan, underwent testing by The Scottish Tartans Authority last year, which confirmed its status as the oldest surviving tartan, dating back to 1500-1600 AD.

The House of Edgar, a specialist in tartan fabrics and highlandwear accessories, worked with tartan historian Peter Macdonald to recreate the Glen Affric tartan, maintaining the original thread count and colors determined through dye analysis— recreating the greens, yellows, and reds which would have been made from woad or indigo, among other natural dyes.

The tartan, part of The House of Edgar's Seventeen Eighty-Three collection, is available for purchase by businesses and the public, with a portion of the sales supporting The Scottish Tartans Authority's preservation efforts. Emma Wilkinson, the project's designer, expressed the uniqueness of recreating this historical piece of tartan, and its significance to Scotland's identity.

Environment

Camera Set up to Capture a 1000 Year Long Exposure

An experimental philosopher in Arizona, Jonathon Keats, has developed the 'Millennium Camera' with the goal of capturing a one-thousand-year exposure of Tucson. Alongside colleagues, Keats installed the camera near a bench in Starr Pass to prompt people to envision the city's future over a millennium.

To counter the challenge of capturing such an extended timeframe, Keats opted for a pinhole camera with unique components. The device uses a pin-sized hole in a thin 24-karat gold sheet, allowing light to enter a small copper cylinder atop a steel pole. Over a thousand years, sunlight reflected from Tucson's landscape will gradually affect a light-sensitive surface coated with numerous layers of rose madder, an oil paint pigment.

When the surface is eventually removed in the year 3024, the result will be a millennium-long exposure documenting the changes in Tucson's cityscape. Keats acknowledges the uncertainties, citing potential natural forces and human decisions that could impact the camera's durability.

Despite potential challenges, Keats sees the project as an opportunity to encourage people to consider the future and take proactive steps to shape it. The camera, positioned near a bench at Starr Pass, invites hikers to reflect on the city's evolution over the next thousand years.

Mind Stretchers

⁉️ 

What is it that no one wants, but no one wants to lose?

Answers to yesterday’s Mind Stretchers:
The letter “O”

We have an interesting situation. We received Albert Knox and Chris Hostetler’s answers at the exact same time. We consider it a tie, but you two can duke it out if you feel the need to decide a winner. 😁 

Be the first to send us the correct answer for today’s mind stretcher for a shout-out with the answer tomorrow. Just send us the answer and your name to [email protected] or reply to the email.

If you have any uplifting stories and experience you might want to share, send those over to [email protected] for the chance to be featured.