Scientists develop mega-thin solar cells that could be shockingly easy to produce: ‘As rapid as printing a newspaper’::These cells could be laminated onto various kinds of surfaces, such as the sails of a boat to provide power while at sea.

  • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    11 months ago

    If it’s shockingly easy to produce then just do it and then you can write a declarative headline that doesn’t need to use the word “could”. If you can’t then I’m guessing it’s not that shockingly easy.

    • NocturnalMorning@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      I mean, even if it’s easy to do, that doesn’t mean a manufacturing process is easy to ramp up. You need equipment to produce it, and people to do it. Logistics of that isn’t like just turning on/off a light switch.

      • frezik@midwest.social
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        11 months ago

        Some people have never tried getting a product to market before, and it shows.

      • Tony N@lemmy.ml
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        11 months ago

        Without headlines, no investors. Without investors, no equipment. Without equipment, no product. Headlines like these drive investment.

      • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        I love shows like How It’s Made, you get to see the Rube Goldbergian systems that produce stuff we take for granted.

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        Yes, exactly. My point is that I’m tired of these bullshit headlines that are implying that we have some great breakthrough; unless the discovery also accounts for everything you listed, it’s not a breakthrough and we, the public, don’t need to hear about it just so that a newspaper can sell clicks and ruin trust in science.

        • wahming@monyet.cc
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          11 months ago

          You seem to be conflating breakthrough with manufacturing capacity

          • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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            11 months ago

            No, I’m just not referring to a slightly novel manufacturing process that will probably lead nowhere as a “breakthrough”.

        • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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          11 months ago

          Some of us like learning about science and technology, if you only want to know about products then watch adverts.

          The average person understands the difference between ‘will’ and ‘could’

    • KairuByte@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      11 months ago

      To echo the other individual who replied, it’s shockingly easy to make injection molded parts, but there is usually a long process before you bring the final product to market. And that’s with all the manufacturing processes already existing at scale.

      In this case, the processes need to be fleshed out from scratch, which adds even more time to the ramp up. So even if the headline is 100% accurate, and there are no other roadblocks, it would still take a significant chunk of time to bring to market.

      • BearOfaTime@lemm.ee
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        11 months ago

        Time, money, man hours, etc, etc. All while still figuring out how to make it at scale and be able to sell it a a price that enables you to continue the business.

        It’s hard stuff, for sure.

    • Meowoem@sh.itjust.works
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      11 months ago

      Yeah, how dare they report on science and technology - I’ve barely seen a dozen articles about Will Smith’s personal life today, we don’t have resources to waste talking about successful research projects from MIT!

      When MIT get in a salacious romance scandal then they can have a bit of our precious media space but get the fuck out of here with your science bullshit nerds.

      • PsychedSy@sh.itjust.works
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        11 months ago

        For a while I was celebrating when I didn’t see Taylor Swift’s name in either the sports or entertainment heading on google news. And each heading only showed three headlines.

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        11 months ago

        This isn’t science, this is engineering, and it’s crappy engineering at that.