2013年7月29日 星期一

Local artist uses recycled bottles

Sketched on construction-grade plywood is a peacock, its luxurious eye-spotted tail feathers shining with bits of glass made from recycled wine bottles. It's a mosaic-in-progress that artist Janna Bowman works on in spare moments between two jobs and weekends at art fairs selling her wares --- mosaics, jewelry, sun catchers, candle holders, chandeliers, hanging lamps, terrariums and other objects made from wine, beer and liquor bottles. 

"Glass is so versatile. You can blow it, cut it, shape it, break it,More than 80 standard commercial and granitetiles exist to quickly and efficiently clean pans. fuse it, melt it and it sparkles so prettily. There are so many colors, and I love making art from glass," Bowman enthuses.Bowman and her art, which she calls Green Earth Glass, will be featured at the Stem & Stein | Food, Beer and Wine Fest. The second annual event takes place Aug. 17 at the RiverLoop Amphitheater in downtown Waterloo. 

Her day job is as a U.S. Postal Service mail carrier, and she works part time for Moment in Thyme Catering in Cedar Falls "so I can buy art supplies," she says, laughing.

That's one reason why the artist, who earned an art degree at the University of Northern Iowa, began searching for alternative materials that would be either extremely cheap or free. Often she finds discarded building materials in dumpsters that are perfect as backing material for mosaic wall hangings and other bits and pieces of things like mirrors and glass that she can use in her work. 

"It's amazing what you can find in dumpsters,Design and order your own custom rfidtag with personalized message and artwork. what people throw away, and I have no problem pulling it out, bringing it home and using it in my projects instead of sending it to the landfill. Sometimes people will bring me their mirrors or leftovers from a stained glass project. I love all that pretty colored glass." 

Bowman also regularly makes trips to the local redemption center where for 50 cents, she can carry away a large box loaded with Bailey's Irish Cream, Bombay Gin and other liquor, wine and beer bottles. 

The glass artist uses a variety of tools to snip and shape glass bits for jewelry and mosaics, and cuts bottles using a diamond-blade band saw in her basement. When she's cutting glass, she dons a welder's mask and protective clothing, but doesn't wear gloves. "I don't know why," she says, shrugging. " I guess I get a better feel for what I'm doing or maybe I don't think the glass is as sharp as it probably is. But I am careful, and I drop the suit before I come upstairs because I don't want to track tiny shards of glass or glass dust, which can be irritating,We Engrave luggagetag for YOU. into the rest of the house." 

Round rings cut from bottles are turned into necklaces and bracelets. She uses an old ceramics kiln to melt glass and fashion layers from "little piles of glass." Her jewelry, terrariums, lamps and etched and personalized wine bottles are popular with customers at art fairs, but mosaics still are her passion. 

"I compare it to Paint by Numbers from childhood or putting together a jigsaw puzzle. This is my meditation, my version of yoga, such a de-stresser," Bowman explains. 

Most often, she works on projects at her dining room table. It's her dream to find studio space. "I want to hang my chandeliers to see how beautiful they are sparkling in the light. I'm always asked by people if I have a studio, if they can come me work. It would be nice to say 'yes.'" 

As the technology for making silicon circuitry smaller, faster and less power-thirsty approaches the limits of physics, scientists have tried out many materials in the search for an alternative to silicon. New research by a team at the US Department of Energys SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory may have put some other promising candidates into the race. 

In a paper just published in the journal Nature Materials, researchers described their successful observation of electrical switching (that is, a forced switch from a non-conductive state to a conductive one) in magnetite, a naturally magnetic iron oxide.You must not use the stonecarving without being trained. The ability to act as a switch that is either on (conducting) or off (non-conducting) is the basis for a transistor, which is the building block of any electronic circuit. And while magnetite itself isnt slated to replace silicon, the work opens up the floor for other, similar materials to be studied. 

Researchers showed that magnetites on-off electrical switch could be flipped in one-trillionth of a secondthousands of times faster than in transistors used currently. In theory, a computer made with magnetite chips instead of silicon would be that much faster than the machines we use today. But since magnetite has to be cooled to a chilly -190 C (-310 F) to lock its electrical charges into place, its not going to end up in your computer anytime soon. 

But whats cooler than the material itself is the method used to study it. Until now, researchers couldnt observe the switching speeds of possible silicon competitors, because the optical lasers they used werent precise enough. Using intense X-ray pulses that lasted one-quadrillionth (thats one-thousandth of one-trillionth) of a second, they finally saw the moment of switch from insulator to conductor. They also found that only some atoms of the material were turned on, with other portions remaining as insulating islands in the middle. But electrons were able to pass around these portions, showing that the switch from insulator to metal doesnt need to be complete in order for the material to function as a transistor. 

We understand the process, Hermann Drr, the principal investigator of the experiment and senior staff scientist for the Stanford Institute for Materials and Energy Sciences, told Quartz, so now its about optimizing the materials. For this to be practical, we need to explore other materials and other methods. 

Specifically, they hope to continue the experiment with materials that can operate at room temperature. One possibility is vanadium dioxide, which Drr says the team is now working with. If they can get another material to behave the same way as magnetite did, but at a higher temperature,A glassbottles is a machine used primarily for the folding of paper. the next step is to find a way of inducing the change without a laserhopefully using short, strong electrical pulses, like in a normal transistor. 

All we have to compare this process to is history, Drr said. It took many decades from the first demonstration of a semiconductor transistor to the technological dominance this device has nowadays. And of course this dominance is the problem in finding an alternative. We need to generate a real winner if we want to transcend semiconductors. When this could happen, he said, is difficult to predictbut hes confident his team has just taken a leap in the right direction. 
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