The Intertubes have been buzzing with news that a research team based at UC-Irvine has created a new type of energy storage device that can last for more than 100,000 charges. For all practical purposes, that counts as an infinite battery. Under real life conditions, such a battery would most likely outlive the device it powers, and it might even outlive the owner of the device as well.
The new battery is still in the early research stage, but if it pans out, it would have a significant impact on lifecycle and supply chain issues for the ballooning number of smart phones, electric vehicles, energy storage products, and countless other battery powered devices inhabiting the Earth.
REIKI translates as ‘Universal Spirit of Life’ – the energy that is continuously flowing through and around every living thing.
It is a gentle energy healing modality that is usually done by placing the hands in a series of positions over or slightly above the body. Reiki promotes healing by activating the relaxation response and helping to accelerate the bodies natural ability to heal itself.
Similar to recharging a battery, Reiki is the channeling of high-vibrational energy into you aura, chakras and meridians.
Reiki is is a natural tool that can be used to help us cope with the stresses of every day life, and works on all aspects of a person by bringing the mind, body and spirit back into beautiful alignment. Reiki works on all planes – physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual.
It has been proven that receiving Reiki affects brain waves by transforming consciousness in the same way that meditation does – the breath deepens, stress levels in the body drop, oxygenated blood flows more freely, aiding in the detoxification of the body + mind.
When you receive a Reiki healing, you are being brought back into a state of harmony with the universe. Its calming effect will leave you feeling lighter, happier and connected. Reiki is a wonderful tool to use alongside modern medicine and other therapies, as it supports the physical body during the healing process.
Physicists have discovered a novel quantum state of matter whose symmetry can be manipulated at will by an external magnetic field. The methods demonstrated in a series of experiments could be useful for exploring materials for next-generation nano- or quantum technologies.
Incorporating individual metal atoms into a surface in the right way allows their chemical behavior to be adapted. This makes new, better catalysts possible.
They make our cars more environmentally friendly and they are indispensable for the chemical industry: catalysts make certain chemical reactions possible—such as the conversion of CO into CO2 in car exhaust gases—that would otherwise happen very slowly or not at all. Surface physicists at the TU Wien have now achieved an important breakthrough; metal atoms can be placed on a metal oxide surface so that they show exactly the desired chemical behavior. Promising results with iridium atoms have just been published in the renowned journal Angewandte Chemie.
Samsung is looking forward to what life might be like in the year 2069. The new report, called Samsung KX50: The Future in Focus, draws on the opinions of six of Britain’s leading academics and futurists to look at a range of new technologies that will affect people’s everyday lives.
Trying to predict the future is a dodgy business that has a notoriously low success rate. If the world of 2019 was anything like past predictions, we should have flying cars, personal jet packs, robot butlers, 100 percent atomic power producing limitless energy, little bottles containing nanobots that can grow cars on the front lawn, colonies on the Moon and Mars – and all in a society that hasn’t changed much since 1960, except it’s a bit nicer.
A robot pilot is learning to fly. It has passed its pilot’s test and flown its first plane, but it has also had its first mishap too.
Unlike a traditional autopilot, the ROBOpilot Unmanned Aircraft Conversion System literally takes the controls, pressing on foot pedals and handling the yoke using robotic arms. It reads the dials and meters with a computer vision system.
The video uploaded by Logan LeGrand today shows a modified 2019 Toyota Corolla hatchback easily maintaining its 40 mph speed throughout a heavy downpour.
If you’ve ever been wakened by the roar of a freight train – or waited at a level crossing for one to trundle by – you’ll be glad to know that these noisy vehicles have a new and potentially life-saving purpose: predicting earthquakes. As Hamish Johnston explains on this week’s podcast, freight trains generate surprisingly strong seismic waves, and changes in the velocity of these waves is an early sign of hazardous earthquake activity. Researchers in France, Belgium and the US studied the rumblings of freight trains running through California’s Coachella Valley and found that they could, in principle, be used to monitor the nearby San Jacinto fault.
Next on the podcast is Chris Monroe, an atomic physicist and quantum technologist whose start-up firm, Ion Q, is developing a quantum computer that uses trapped ions as qubits. In an interview with Physics World’s industry editor Margaret Harris, Monroe explains how Ion Q’s technology differs from classical computers, and describes how trapped ions execute quantum gates.
The third segment of the podcast focuses on the persistent lack of diversity in physics. In an interview, Jess Wade, a physicist at Imperial College London, discusses the scientific impact of this poor diversity and suggests ways to make the field more welcoming to members of underrepresented groups. Afterwards, our features editor Sarah Tesh, who commissioned Wade and Maryam Zarainghalam to write about this topic in the August issue of Physics World, talks about the portraits of white male scientists that adorn walls in many physics departments. These so-called “dude walls” honour important historical figures, but they also send out subtle signals about what a “great” physicist looks like.
