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60秒科学:Rice for Nice, Low-Price Ice

时间：2009-09-24 08:07:50

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（单词翻译）

The fridge is one of your home’s biggest energy hogs1. Better insulation2 can make refrigerators much more efficient. And a panel encasing a vacuum is one of the best insulators3 known. But vacuum-insulated panels are too pricy for widespread use.

Enter some University of Michigan students. They took something called rice husk ash: the leftover4 husks from processing rice is burned for energy, and the ash remains5. It’s high in silica and carbon. So they tinkered with the ash and developed a new core material for vacuum insulated panels. It’s about 50 percent cheaper than what’s currently available. And the resulting panels are such good insulators that swapping6 them into refrigerators could lead to about a 50 percent energy savings7. They’re space efficient too: a one-inch-thick ash panel equals today’s four-inch-thick polystyrene panels.

Then Michigan business students partnered with the scientists to create a company called Husk Insulation. They entered the invention in the M.I.T. Clean Energy Prize competition. And on May 13th, Husk Insulation won the competition’s first prize—a cool $200,000. Which will be invested in further research and development.

—Cynthia Graber


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1 hogs 8a3a45e519faa1400d338afba4494209     
n.（尤指喂肥供食用的）猪( hog的名词复数 )；（供食用的）阉公猪；彻底地做某事；自私的或贪婪的人
参考例句：
  • 'sounds like -- like hogs grunting. “像——像是猪发出的声音。 来自英汉文学 - 汤姆历险
  • I hate the way he hogs down his food. 我讨厌他那副狼吞虎咽的吃相。 来自辞典例句
2 insulation Q5Jxt     
n.隔离；绝缘；隔热
参考例句：
  • Please examine the insulation of the electric wires in my house.请检查一下我屋子里电线的绝缘情况。
  • It is always difficult to assure good insulation between the electric leads.要保证两个电触头之间有良好的绝缘总是很困难的。
3 insulators c88ab4337e644aa48cdb61df6ccc0271     
绝缘、隔热或隔音等的物质或装置( insulator的名词复数 )
参考例句：
  • There is no sharp line separating conductors from insulators. 实际上并没有一个明显的界限将半导体和绝缘体分开。
  • To reduce heat losses the pipes are covered by thermal insulators. 为了减少热散失，管子外包保温层。
4 leftover V97zC     
n.剩货，残留物，剩饭；adj.残余的
参考例句：
  • These narrow roads are a leftover from the days of horse-drawn carriages.这些小道是从马车时代沿用下来的。
  • Wonder if that bakery lets us take leftover home.不知道那家糕饼店会不会让我们把卖剩的带回家。
5 remains 1kMzTy     
n.剩余物，残留物；遗体，遗迹
参考例句：
  • He ate the remains of food hungrily.他狼吞虎咽地吃剩余的食物。
  • The remains of the meal were fed to the dog.残羹剩饭喂狗了。
6 swapping 8a991dafbba2463e25ba0bc65307eb5e     
交换，交换技术
参考例句：
  • The slow swapping and buying of horses went on. 马匹的买卖和交换就是这样慢慢地进行着。
  • He was quite keen on swapping books with friends. 他非常热衷于和朋友们交换书籍。
7 savings ZjbzGu     
n.存款，储蓄
参考例句：
  • I can't afford the vacation,for it would eat up my savings.我度不起假，那样会把我的积蓄用光的。
  • By this time he had used up all his savings.到这时，他的存款已全部用完。

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