RESEARCHERS HAVE DEVELOPED A WATER-BASED BATTERY TO STORE SOLAR AND WIND ENERGY
The prototype manganese-hydrogen battery, reported April 30 in Nature Energy, stands just three inches tall and generates a mere 20 milliwatt hours of electricity, which is on par with the energy levels of LED flashlights that hang on a key ring. Despite the prototype’s diminutive output, the researchers are confident they can scale up this table-top technology to an industrial-grade system that could charge and recharge up to 10,000 times, creating a grid-scale battery with a useful lifespan well in excess of a decade.
Read moreNASA ADVISERS SAY SPACEX ROCKET TECHNOLOGY COULD PUT LIVES AT RISK
When Elon Musk and his team at SpaceX were looking to make their Falcon 9 rocket even more powerful, they came up with a creative idea – keep the propellant at super-cold temperatures to shrink its size, allowing them to pack more of it into the tanks. But the approach comes with a major risk, according to some safety experts. At those extreme temperatures, the propellant would need to be loaded just before takeoff — while astronauts are aboard.
Read moreTHE PATH THAT THE DECIMAL NUMBER SYSTEM TOOK FROM INDIA TO MEDIEVAL EUROPE
The history of the early development of the place value decimal number system is long, complicated and full of holes and I shan’t be dealing with it here. It also throws up some important and unanswered questions. The Babylonians developed a place value number system as early as the beginning of the second millennium BCE but it was a sexagesimal or base sixty number system rather than a decimal base ten one.
Read moreCELLS TALK IN A LANGUAGE THAT LOOKS LIKE VIRUSES
For cells, communication is a matter of life and death. The ability to tell other members of your species — or other parts of the body — that food supplies are running low or that an invading pathogen is near can be the difference between survival and extinction. Scientists have known for decades that cells can secrete chemicals into their surroundings, releasing a free-floating message for all to read.
Read moreROTOR SAILS COULD REDUCE CARGO SHIP FUEL CONSUMPTION BY 20%
The shipping industry is under pressure to reduce emissions. If rotor ships catch wind on the global shipping market, Norsepower could be entering a market worth some 30 Billion euros. The number is estimated from the 25,000 ships’ 1.2 MEUR install cost. Norsepower remains conservative, and pegs it’s 2024 revenue target at a mere 100 Million euros. Source: metropolitan.fi
FACIAL RECOGNITION TECH WRONGLY IDENTIFIED 2,000 PEOPLE AS POTENTIAL CRIMINALS
Figures also revealed that 46 people were wrongly identified at an Anthony Joshua fight, while there were 42 false positives from a rugby match between Wales and Australia in November. All six matches at the Liam Gallagher concert in Cardiff in December were valid. Chief Constable Matt Jukes told the BBC the technology was used where there was likely to be large gatherings, as major sporting events and crowded places were ‘potential terrorist targets’.
Read moreEUROPE TAKES FIRST STEPS IN ELECTRIFYING WORLD’S SHIPPING FLEETS
Norway is already a global leader in the adoption of electric vehicles, spurred in large measure by the hydropower that provides 98 percent of the country’ electricity. So moving into the forefront of tackling a major global environmental challenge — decarbonizing the world’s shipping fleet — was a natural step for the country. Other nations — including Finland, the Netherlands, China, Denmark, and Sweden — also are beginning to launch electric ships.
Read moreTREADMILLS WERE MEANT TO BE ATONEMENT MACHINES
If you are one of the 51.8 million people in the U.S. who use a treadmill for exercise, you know there’s much pain for your muscle-and-fitness gain. On your next 30-minute jog, as you count down the final seconds, ponder whether the hard work made you a better person. Consider whether the workout would feel different if you had powered something, even a fan to cool yourself off.
Read moreWHAT MAKES A TRANSLATION GREAT?
To the outside world, literary translators are famously invisible. Being a tight-knit community of solitary home workers, though, we talk a lot amongst ourselves. Recently, one big thing we’ve been talking about is reviews of our work. As critics come to notice our existence, we garner both praise and – in what feels like greater depth – criticism. So I thought it might be useful to ask other literary translators what they aim for, what positive criteria we have for judging the outcome of our work. I was not disappointed.
Read moreNEW SOFTWARE SYSTEM SNAGS TSB’S ONLINE AND MOBILE BANKING CUSTOMERS
TSB’s problems began Sunday night, April 22, after the bank completed its weekend-long migration to a platform called Proteo4UK. The migration involved the transfer of more than 1.3 billion records related to 5.2 million customers from Lloyds Bank’s IT systems. Soon after the migration was complete, customers began complaining that they weren’t able to access their accounts online or through their mobile devices, while others said they were seeing incorrect account information including zero balances.
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