Suramya's Blog : Welcome to my crazy life…

September 18, 2020

Hackers – 25th Anniversary thoughts

Filed under: My Life,My Thoughts — Suramya @ 10:01 AM

15 September 2020, was the 25th anniversary of one of my favorite movies which also happens to be one of the most iconic movies about hacking ever released: Hackers. I first saw the movie in late 1999. I was introduced to it by Jerome who was my RA in college at the time and it has been one of the most fun and phenomenal movies on hacking that I’ve seen.

Yes, the video depictions of hacking are corny since there are no 3d file systems that we have to navigate and when we open a file it doesn’t give a 3D psychedelic video with equations floating around, but the overall concept and the whole mindset of what hacking actually means is very accurately depicted in the movie. For example, a lot of hacking involves social engineering and right in the beginning of the movie Dade/Crash Override social engineers a security guard to get access to the computer systems for the TV Network he is trying to take over. There are tons of quotes in the movie that cover/reference the core of the Hacker identity in the 90’s. Some of my favorites are:

We make use of a service already existing without paying for what could be dirt-cheap if it wasn’t run by profiteering gluttons.

[- Razor & Blade. While demoing Phone Phreaking]

We explore… and you call us criminals. We seek after knowledge… and you call us criminals. We exist without skin color, without nationality, without religious bias… and you call us criminals.
You build atomic bombs, you wage wars, you murder, cheat, and lie to us and try to make us believe it’s for our own good, yet we’re the criminals. Yes, I am a criminal. “My crime is that of curiosity.” I am a hacker, and this is my manifesto.

[From the Hackers Manifesto]

“Hackers of the world unite!”

“Hack the planet!”

These are all things that we grew up with, and refer to core hacker identity/mindset in 90’s. It actually surprised me to find that the original hacker manifesto was no longer easily available and had to resort to visiting the Internet Archive to pull up a copy of it. The movie gives you a good idea of what the original definition of hacking was: learning for the sake of learning & curiosity. It encouraged/inspired a whole generation of folks to go into computers & hacking. I remember this quote from one of the kids I watched a movie with in college, and he basically said, “watching this movie makes you want to go learn computers so you can do cool stuff like this instead of the boring ass programming crap we have been doing.”.

I saw the news of the movie’s 25th Anniversary on my twitter feed 2 days ago and since I was feeling nostalgic I watched the movie again yesterday night. And I’m happy to report, I still love the movie. Yes, there are parts of the movie that feel dated e.g. where they are all running around with floppy disks & CRT monitors and the phone couplers! and it’s corny to see everyone being on skateboards/rollerblading all the time. But overall the movie itself doesn’t feel dated in fact even the graphics from the movie have aged quite well.

The movie got a lot of flack on it’s release for being “dubious,” “unrealistic,” and “implausible.” A lot of the visualization was just plain silly (but really visually awesome) like the super cool looking 3d visual file systems that the protagonists have to navigate or the really cool looking 3D visualization with floating equations that come up when they try to view the ‘garbage file’.

Yes the movie is not accurate, but what movie is? I mean, it is at the end of the day a fictional story to tell people, have a great visual and audio extravaganza. All of that is not meant to be an accurate representation of the hacking process because honestly speaking, watching people type for three hours will probably be one of the most boring movies that I could think of and interestingly even with this visual extravaganza the movie was a comercial failure when it came out and it’s only over the years it’s become a cult favorite. There are other movies like ‘the Net’ or Sneakers that also covered Hacking/hackers but none of them had the lasting impact Hackers did.

Always remember: “This is our world now… the world of the electron and the switch, the beauty of the baud. “

– Suramya

Drawn Blades (Fallen Blade 05) by Kelly McCullough

Filed under: Reviews-Fantasy — Suramya @ 9:56 AM

Drawn Blades (Fallen Blade 05)

by Kelly McCullough

Description:

Aral Kingslayer’s past is never more than a shadow’s breadth away in this Fallen Blade novel from Kelly McCullough.

Once one of the world’s greatest assassins, Aral Kingslayer has finally reclaimed his swords and his soul. But the forces that destroyed his patron Namara twelve years ago are still there, waiting…

In the days before the fall of his goddess, only one other rivaled Aral’s skills, Siri the Mythkiller – a woman who ruthlessly earned the title First Blade. As a friend, Aral owes her his loyalty. As a former lover, he owes her part of his heart. As a Blade, he owes her anything she asks, including his life.

When Siri seeks Aral’s aid, he knows he must go. But as they journey towards the ancient Sylvani Empire, only time will reveal whether Aral can save the former First Blade, or if he will simply fall with her…

Buy From:

Rating: (4/5)

Review:

Drawn Blades is the fifth book in the Fallen Baid series and picks up soon after the previous book ended. Things start off at a quick pace with Siri, also known as Mythkiller coming back in Aral’s life after years of him not knowing if she was alive or not. It appears that by now pretty much all the blades referred, or name checked in the previous books have come back to life and/or become part of the plot in one of the previous books. If the books were less well written it would be easy to get to a point where the additional books become more of the same but fortunately, that is not the case.

And as always, there are a lot of complications in this book, with past regrets, vengeance and regrets coming back and haunting Aral & Siri. We finally get to explore more of the others in this book with a more detailed overview of their society & structure than what we have seen in the past. It was a fascinating view and really expanded the world the stories are based in. They also encounter fallen gods and a whole lot of other way interesting stuff which we can’t go into details because spoilers. Significant changes to how Aral looks at things happen in the book, which really sets up shades nicely for the next entry in the series which I’m really looking forward to reading.

September 17, 2020

Blade Reforged (Fallen Blade 04) by Kelly McCullough

Filed under: Reviews-Fantasy — Suramya @ 11:25 AM

Blade Reforged (Fallen Blade 04)

by Kelly McCullough

Description:

After the fall of the goddess of justice, temple assassin Aral Kingslayer lost his purpose in life and turned to the bottle. That might have been the end of him if luck hadn’t given him a few people to help him get back on his feet—notably the irresistible Baroness Maylien Dan Marchon, who once sought his aid in claiming the throne that’s rightfully hers. Reluctant to resume the role of an assassin, he turned her down.

But now Aral has learned that one of the few people willing to help him in his darkest days has been imprisoned by Maylien’s uncle, King Thauvik. Aral knows he can’t let an old friend die, but the alternative is to return to the life he left years ago. It was the death of Thauvik’s half brother that earned Aral the name Kingslayer, and now he is thrust into a war that will see no end until he lives up to his name…

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Rating: (4.5/5)

Review:

The 4th book in the series starts off in a very weird way. Aral is back at the Gryphon which has been destroyed getting drunk, we have no idea how he got there and why Jax & Faran are not there with him. This is never completely explained in the book and it bugged me. I had to check to make sure I was reading the correct book in the series and hadn’t missed any book in the middle. However once I got past that I liked the book, we have an old flame back in Aral’s life making a play for the throne. Plus there is a living legend who has come back from the dead to make things very difficult & dangerous for Jax. I liked how he had to change his whole way of thinking to get through the mission and how throughout the book he is slowly healing himself. Though his struggle with addiction is still a big part of the character. The following paragraph from the book really highlighted the difficultly Aral is going through with his addiction, and I loved it. Its rare when writers get nuances like this rather than just handwaving it away to advance the plot.

I didn’t answer Triss. I couldn’t. It was taking everything I had not to tear out the cork and drink off half the bottle on the spot. I could feel sweat breaking out on my brows and the palm of the hand holding the bottle as I fought with my own desire. Fuck me but I wanted that drink bad. Without seeming to cross the intervening space, I found myself holding the whiskey out over the water, willing my hand to unclench. It wouldn’t, and probably better that it didn’t.

I ignored that and the increased urgency in his voice and used a word of opening to free the cork—a spell where normally I would have simply torn it free with my teeth. Then, slowly, oh so very damned slowly, I turned the bottle over and poured the contents into the sea. It felt more than half like I’d opened a vein and it was my own blood I was draining away, but I did it. When it was empty, and only when it was empty, did I let the bottle fall into the water and sink to the bottom. I watched it all the way down. Then I sat back against the wall of the cavern and dangled my bare feet in the cool water.

The book is the commulation of the previous three books and if you read this without having read the previous books some parts of it will not make sense. However it can be read as a standalone for the most part.

How HTTPS Works? Explained in a comic!

Filed under: Computer Security,Security Tutorials,Tech Related — Suramya @ 10:41 AM

Found a fantastic explanation of HTTPS works, what is SSL/TLS & why you should care about any of it in a easy to understand comic format. I love seeing comics like this that aim to show concepts in simple ways.

Have you ever wondered why a green lock icon appears on your browser URL bar? And why is it important? We did too, and this comic is for you!
Follow the adventures of Certificat, Browserbird, and Compugter as they explain why HTTPS is crucial for the future of the web and how it all works together.
Don’t let the bad crabs get you (you’ll know what we mean in the comic). Get to know HTTPS and why it is essential to your privacy.

Check it out at: howhttps.works

– Suramya

September 16, 2020

Crossed Blades (Fallen Blade 03) by Kelly McCullough

Filed under: Reviews-Fantasy — Suramya @ 11:17 AM


Crossed Blades (Fallen Blade 03)
by Kelly McCullough

Description:

For six years, former temple assassin Aral Kingslayer has been living as a jack of the shadow trades, picking up odd jobs on the wrong side of the law. But the past is never dead, and Aral’s has finally caught up to him in the beautiful, dangerous form of Jax Seldansbane – a fellow Blade and Aral’s onetime fiancée.

Jax claims that the forces that destroyed everything Aral once held dear are on the move again, and she needs his help to stop them. But Aral has a new life now, with a fresh identity and new responsibilities. And while he isn’t keen on letting the past back in, the former assassin soon finds himself involved in a war that will leave him with no way out and no idea who to trust…

Buy From:

Rating: (4.5/5)

Review:

Crossed Blades starts about a month or so after the previous book with Aral reuniting with his lost love Jax who he thought had died with the rest when their temple was destroyed and Goddess murdered. The story is a lot more dark than the previous volumes in the series, with a lot of focus on revenge & vengeance. There is a lot of double dealing in the book and you don’t always know who to trust as everyone has a hidden agenda. Not all is as it seems which requires you to pay attention to the plot & actions of each of the characters.

Aral’s dealings with Faran on the other hand are a treat, he is really unsure on how to handle a teenager who is also one of the best assassins around and has been surviving on her own for years. I like the fact that they don’t downplay her experiences even though they don’t go into a lot of details about it. I expect that they will cover them in future books.

The vengeance part of the story is pretty stark and some of the plot twists make it complicated to achieve. I really didn’t get the goal of the other main character (I am not going to name them as that would be moving into the spoiler territory) till the last chapter and I loved it. I think we will see them again in future books.

Looking forward to reading the next book in the series.

Potential signs of life found on Venus: Are we no longer alone in the universe?

Filed under: Interesting Sites,My Thoughts,News/Articles — Suramya @ 11:15 AM

If you have been watching the Astronomy chatter the past two days, you would have seen the headlines screaming about the possibility of life being found on Venus. Other less reputable sources are claiming that we have found definite proof of alien life. Both are inaccurate as even though we have found something that is easily explained by assuming the possibility of extra-terrestrial life there are other potential explanations that could cause the anomaly. So what is this discovery, you might ask which is causing people worldwide to start freaking out?

During analysis of spectrometer readings of Venus, scientists made a startling discovery high in its atmosphere; they found traces of phosphine (PH3) gas in Venus’s atmosphere, where any phosphorus should be in oxidized forms at a concentration (~20 parts per billion) that is hard to explain. It is unlikely that the gas is produced by abiotic production routes in Venus’s atmosphere, clouds, surface and subsurface, or from lightning, volcanic or meteoritic delivery (See the explanation below), hence the worldwide freak out. Basically the only way we know that this gas could be produced in the quantity measured is if there are anaerobic life (microbial organisms that don’t require or use oxygen) producing the gas on Venus. Obviously this doesn’t mean that there aren’t ways that we haven’t thought about yet that could be generating this gas. But the discovery is causing a big stir and will cause various space programs to start refocusing their efforts on Venus. India’s ISRO already has a mission planned to study the surface and atmosphere of Venus called ‘Shukrayaan-1‘ set to launch late 2020’s after the Mars Orbiter Mission 2 launches and you can be sure that they will be attempting to validate these findings when we get there.

The only way to conclusively prove life exists on Venus would be to go there and collect samples containing extra-terrestrial microbes. Since it’s impossible to prove a negative this will be the only concrete proof that we can trust. Anything else will still leave the door open for other potential explanations for the gas generation.

Here’s a link to the press briefing on the possible Venus biosignature announcement from @RoyalAstroSoc featuring comment from several of the scientists involved.

The recent candidate detection of ppb amounts of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus is a highly unexpected discovery. Millimetre-waveband spectra of Venus from both ALMA and the JCMT telescopes at 266.9445 GHz show a PH3 absorption-line profile against the thermal background from deeper, hotter layers of the atmosphere indicating ~20 ppb abundance. Uncertainties arise primarily from uncertainties in pressure-broadening coefficients and noise in the JCMT signal. Throughout this paper we will describe the predicted abundance as ~20 ppb unless otherwise stated. The thermal emission has a peak emission at 56 km with the FWHM spans approximately 53 to 61 km (Greaves et al. 2020). Phosphine is therefore present above ~55 km: whether it is present below this altitude is not determined by these observations. The upper limit on phosphine occurrence is not defined by the observations, but is set by the half-life of phosphine at <80 km, as discussed below.

Phosphine is a reduced, reactive gaseous phosphorus species, which is not expected to be present in the oxidized, hydrogen-poor Venusian atmosphere, surface, or interior. Phosphine is detected in the atmospheres of three other solar system planets: Jupiter, Saturn, and Earth. Phosphine is present in the giant planet atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn, as identified by ground-based telescope observations at submillimeter and infrared wavelengths (Bregman et al. 1975; Larson et al. 1977; Tarrago et al. 1992; Weisstein and Serabyn 1996). In giant planets, PH3 is expected to contain the entirety of the atmospheres’ phosphorus in the deep
atmosphere layers (Visscher et al. 2006), where the pressure, temperature and the concentration of H2 are sufficiently high for PH3 formation to be thermodynamically favored. In the upper atmosphere, phosphine is present at concentrations several orders of magnitude higher than predicted by thermodynamic equilibrium (Fletcher et al. 2009). Phosphine in the upper layers is dredged up by convection after its formation deeper in the atmosphere, at depths greater than 600 km (Noll and Marley 1997).

An analogous process of forming phosphine under high H2 pressure and high temperature followed by dredge-up to the observable atmosphere cannot happen on worlds like Venus or Earth for two reasons. First, hydrogen is a trace species in rocky planet atmospheres, so the formation of phosphine is not favored as it is in the deep atmospheres of the H2-dominated giant planets. On Earth H2 reaches 0.55 ppm levels (Novelli et al. 1999), on Venus it is much lower at ~4 ppb (Gruchola et al. 2019; Krasnopolsky 2010). Second, rocky planet atmospheres do not extend to a depth where, even if their atmosphere were composed primarily of hydrogen, phosphine formation would be favored (the possibility that phosphine can be formed below the surface and then being erupted out of volcanoes is addressed separately in Section 3.2.2 and Section 3.2.3, but is also highly unlikely).

Despite such unfavorable conditions for phosphine production, Earth is known to have PH3 in its atmosphere at ppq to ppt levels (see e.g. (Gassmann et al. 1996; Glindemann et al. 2003; Pasek et al. 2014) and reviewed in (Sousa-Silva et al. 2020)) PH3’s persistence in the Earth atmosphere is a result of the presence of microbial life on the Earth’s surface (as discussed in Section 1.1.2 below), and of human industrial activity. Neither the deep formation of phosphine and subsequent dredging to the surface nor its biological synthesis has hitherto been considered a plausible process to occur on Venus.

More details of the finding are explained in the following two papers published by the scientists:

Whatever the reason for the gas maybe, its a great finding as it has reenergized the search for Extra-Terrestrial life and as we all know: “The Truth is out there…”.

– Suramya

September 15, 2020

Neuroscience is starting to figure out why people feel lonely

Filed under: Interesting Sites,My Thoughts — Suramya @ 10:10 PM

Loneliness is a social epidemic which has been amplified by the current Pandemic as humans have an inbuilt desire to be social and interact with each other. The lockdown and isolation due to Covid-19 is not helping things much in this sense. The amount of cases of clinical depression are going up world wide and psychologists world wide are concerned about the impact of this in the near future.

Humans have been talking about social isolation/loneliness for centuries but till date we haven’t really analyzed it from a neurological point of view; to say what does really happen when we are lonely? Does the desire for companionship light up a section of our brain similar to what happens when we are hungry and are craving food? Till recently there wasn’t much research done on the topic, infact till Kay Tye decided to do research on the the neuroscience of loneliness in 2016 there were no published papers that talked about loneliness & contained references to ‘cells’, ‘neurons’, or ‘brain’. So while working at the Stanford University lab of Karl Deisseroth, Tye decided to spend some time trying to isolate the neurons in rodent brains responsible for the need for social interaction. In addition to identifying the region in rodents she has also managed to manipulate the need by directly stimulating the neurons which is a fantastic break through.

Deisseroth had pioneered optogenetics, a technique in which genetically engineered, light-sensitive proteins are implanted into brain cells; researchers can then turn individual neurons on or off simply by shining lights on them though fiber-optic cables. Though the technique is far too invasive to use in people—as well as an injection into the brain to deliver the proteins, it requires threading the fiber-optic cable through the skull and directly into the brain—it allows researchers to tweak neurons in live, freely moving rodents and then observe their behavior.

Tye began using optogenetics in rodents to trace the neural circuits involved in emotion, motivation, and social behaviors. She found that by activating a neuron and then identifying the other parts of the brain that responded to the signal the neuron gave out, she could trace the discrete circuits of cells that work together to perform specific functions. Tye meticulously traced the connections out of the amygdala, an almond-shaped set of neurons thought to be the seat of fear and anxiety both in rodents and in humans.

…

One of the first things Tye and Matthews noticed was that when they stimulated these neurons, the animals were more likely to seek social interaction with other mice. In a later experiment, they showed that animals, when given the choice, actively avoided areas of their cages that, when entered, triggered the activation of the neurons. This suggested that their quest for social interaction was driven more by a desire to avoid pain than to generate pleasure—an experience that mimicked the “aversive” experience of loneliness.

In a follow-up experiment, the researchers put some of the mice in solitary confinement for 24 hours and then reintroduced them to social groups. As one would expect, the animals sought out and spent an unusual amount of time interacting with other animals, as if they’d been “lonely.” Then Tye and Matthews isolated the same mice again, this time using optogenetics to silence the DRN neurons after the period in solitary. This time, the animals lost the desire for social contact. It was as if the social isolation had not been registered in their brains.

Since the experiment worked on Mice, the next step involved replicating the same thing with humans. Unfortunately they couldn’t use the same method to study the human behavior as no one sane would opt to have fiber-optic cable wired through their head just to participate in a study. So they fell back to a more imprecise method of using fMRI’s to scan the brains of the volunteers and she was able to identify a voxel (discrete population of several thousand neurons) that respond to the desire of wanting something like food/company. In fact they even managed to separate the two area’s responsible for desiring food and desiring company.

This is a fantastic first step because we have managed to identify the first part of the circuit that makes us social animals, obviously a lot more study is needed before this will have practical applications but we have taken the first steps towards the goal. It’s not hard to imagine a future where we have the ability to help suicidal people by simulating the area of their brain that enables them to extract joy from social connections. Or suppress the same in people who have to spend long duration’s of time alone, for example astronauts in interplanetary travel or deep sea researchers etc. The possibilities are endless.

Source: Why do you feel lonely? Neuroscience is starting to find answers.

– Suramya

Bared Blade (Fallen Blade 02) by Kelly McCullough

Filed under: Reviews-Fantasy — Suramya @ 5:44 PM


Bared Blade (Fallen Blade 02)
by Kelly McCullough

Description:

Former temple assassin Aral Kingslayer has a price on his head and a mark on his soul. After his goddess was murdered, Aral found refuge in the shadow jack business, fixing problems for those on the fringes of Tien’s underworld. It’s a long step down from working for the Goddess of Justice, but it gives Aral and Triss—the living shadow who is his secret partner—a reason to get up in the morning.

When two women hit a rough spot in the tavern Aral uses for an office, he and Triss decide to lend a helping hand–only to find themselves in the middle of a three-way battle to find an artifact that just might be the key to preventing a war. And with so many factions on their trail, Aral and Triss are attracting a lot more attention than anyone featured on ten thousand wanted posters can afford…

Buy From:

Rating:

Review:

Bared Blade picks up about a year after the events of Broken Blade where Aral is no longer trying to drown himself in Alcohol and is trying to help people achieve Justice (not the black/white version he used to believe in when his Goddess was still alive but his own take on it. He has made some friends and seems to be doing ok for himself. While he is having dinner, two women get into trouble while he is there and he helps them out at some risk to himself. This decision starts off the story and embroils him in the intrigue involving the Others, Hand of God, Stingers etc.

The story is quick moving and is a lot more twists and turns than the previous book in the series. The book explores the affects of addiction from Aral’s perspective and makes it more realistic by not hand waving it away. Aral was a functioning alcoholic and even a year later he has urges to go back to drinking especially when things are hard and he doesn’t have good solutions. Which is what happens in the real world as well from what I have read. There is a major twist about 3/4th of the way through which creates a lot of drama for the team and it becomes even more important in the next book of the series.

The book can be read as a standalone novel if you want but reading the previous book will give you additional context for some of the decisions and actions taken by the characters.

Final Review: Good read. Check it out if you like the previous book in the series.

September 14, 2020

Fusion is possible in the Future – First Article by my Nephew Vir (8 years old)

Filed under: My Life — Suramya @ 9:05 PM

My 8 year old Nephew Vir has written his first article on “Fusion is possible in the future”. Since I am really proud of him I am sharing it here for you all to read as well.

—- Start Article —-

Fusion is possible in the future

Fusion is a reliable source of clean energy made by plasma when it is put in a nuclear fusion reactor. But not just any plasma will do, we need HE-3/ a radioactive isotope of helium (2 in the periodic table of elements) found on the moon.

2.Nucear fusion is the process that makes the sun shine.

When nuclieses of atoms collide they release tremendous amounts of energy . An atom is the most basic matter, made of quarks and electrons .The quarks make protons and neutrons which makes a nucleus.
For fusion to occur plasmas need to be hotter and denser than they naturally exist.

If fusion reactors were possible now they would use @2@ ways to get plasma hot and dense enough . way !1!. First: they would use super powerful lasers and an electromagnetic field to do that . Way @2@ .second we would put it in a donut shape reactor and use magnetic fields to compress the plasma. A donut shape reactor works like this:The magnetic field comprises the hot plasma and the plasma generates its own heat .
All of this is very costly, that’s why we can’t do it YET.

So in the future, we could possibly use way @2@ because it’s less costly and much safer.it’s safer because if the reaction fald the plasma would expand and cool

—- End Article —-

What do you think of the Article? I am not going to write much in this post as I want the focus to be his article.

– Suramya

September 13, 2020

Convert Waste Heat From Devices Like Refrigerators Into Electricity

Filed under: Emerging Tech — Suramya @ 11:57 PM

All electric devices that we use continuously dump waste heat into their surroundings, the amount discarded as heat depends on how efficient the device is. However no matter how efficient the device is there is always some energy lost as heat. We have known for years how to convert heat into electricity (that’s how power plants work), but that requires a large amount of heat and the waste heat generated by our devices is too low to covert to electricity in a cost effective/efficient manner.

There are specialized semiconductors called thermoelectric materials that generate electricity when one side of the material is hotter than the other. Unfortunately for them to work well the heat difference between the two sides needs to be in the order of hundreds of degrees making them useless to convert low-grade heat to electricity. To solve this problem materials physicist Jun Zhou and colleagues at the Huazhong University of Science and Technology have come up with Thermocells that use liquids instead of solids in the space between the two sides. The liquid conducts charges from the hot side to the cold side by moving charged molecules or ions instead of electrons. This unfortunately also transfers heat from one side to the other making them less efficient over the long run. To solve that problem they spiked the ferricyanide with a positively charged organic compound called guanidinium that reduces the thermal conductivity of the solution making it over 5 times more efficient than the previous versions.

Zhou and colleagues started with a small thermocell: a domino-size chamber with electrodes on the top and bottom. The bottom electrode sat on a hot plate and the top electrode abutted a cooler, maintaining a 50°C temperature difference between the two electrodes. They then filled the chamber with ionically charged liquid called ferricyanide.

Past research has shown that ferricyanide ions next to a hot electrode spontaneously give up an electron, changing from one with a –4 charge, or Fe(CN)6–4, to an ferricyanide with a –3 charge, or Fe(CN)6–3. The electrons then travel through an external circuit to the cold electrode, powering small devices on the way. Once they reach the cold electrode, the electrons combine with Fe(CN)6–3 ions that diffused up from below. This regenerates Fe(CN)6–4 ions, which then diffuse back down to the hot electrode and repeat the cycle.

To reduce the heat carried by these moving ions, Zhou and his colleagues spiked their ferricyanide with a positively charged organic compound called guanidinium. At the cold electrode, guanidinium causes the cold Fe(CN)6–4 ions to crystallize into tiny solid particles. Because solid particles have lower thermal conductivity than liquids, they block some of the heat traveling from the hot to the cold electrode. Gravity then pulls these crystals to the hot electrode, where the extra heat turns the crystals back into a liquid. “This is very clever,” Liu says, as the solid particles helped maintain the temperature gradient between the two electrodes.

If we can make this more efficient and get similar energy output while reducing the cost of the cell by using more inexpensive materials in the cell then we can soon imagine a world where we can power devices using the ambient heat around us. It will also allow us to make engines/motors/gadgets etc more efficient by reducing their energy requirements.

The study was published this week in Science: Thermosensitive crystallization–boosted liquid thermocells for low-grade heat harvesting

– Suramya

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