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Magnetic control of lithium enables a safe, explosion-free ‘dream battery’

A new battery technology has been developed that delivers significantly higher energy storage—enough to alleviate EV range concerns—while lowering the risk of thermal runaway and explosion.

A research team at POSTECH has developed a next-generation hybrid anode that uses an external magnetic field to regulate lithium-ion transport, effectively suppressing dendrite growth in high-energy-density electrodes.

A POSTECH research team—led by Professor Won Bae Kim of the Department of Chemical Engineering and the Graduate School of Battery Engineering, together with Dr. Song Kyu Kang and integrated Ph.D. student Minho Kim—has introduced a “magneto-conversion” strategy that applies an external magnetic field to ferromagnetic manganese ferrite conversion-type anodes.

Safe and affordable fast-charging batteries: Multi-layered alkali metal structures open the door to energy of the future

Skoltech scientists conducted a study that advances research on future batteries. Their paper, published in Small, sheds light on recent advances in designing multilayered structures of alkali metals, such as lithium, sodium, and potassium, within carbon anode materials.

This technology has the potential to transform the energy storage market, enabling electric vehicles to charge in minutes and providing green energy with stable, safe, and affordable storage systems.

How multilayered structures improve batteries For years, ions were believed to form only single-atom layers in a battery’s carbon materials, such as graphite. In 2018, researchers used a high-precision electron microscope and discovered a new configuration with ultradense, multiatom layers of lithium forming between two sheets of graphene.

How we know Aliens will be AI

Astronomer Royal Lord Martin Rees predicts AI-Alien discovery in the next 10 years. And he thinks he can figure out whether they’ll let us live or not. Inspired by Elon Musk’s exploits (yep he’s everywhere ain’t he) me and Lord Martin go on a deep dive into the minds of AI-Aliens. Massive thank you to Lord Martin for granting me an interview and massive thanks to Rik for the brilliant soundtrack.

Support me on Patreon: / astrobiscuit.

Further reading: “The End of Astronauts” by Lord Martin Rees: https://amzn.to/3l7NqlP

Riktenstein’s album: https://riktenstein.bandcamp.com/foll… discord server: https://astrobiscuit.com/discord/ Astrobiscuit Shop: https://astrobiscuit.com/shop.

Astrobiscuit discord server: https://astrobiscuit.com/discord/

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Lessons learned in linking PROTACs from discovery to the clinic

Proteolysis targeting chimeras (PROTACs) are an emerging platform in drug discovery with the potential to unlock novel pharmacology and tackle undruggable targets. This Review highlights learnings from the first cohort of clinical-stage PROTACs, which use short, ring-rich linkers, often complemented with one basic centre, to achieve good bioavailability and metabolic stability.

Endothelial IL-36 receptor activation promotes vascular stability to limit pathological microvessel permeability in the CNS

Only a small number of barrier-enhancing factors have been discovered to specifically increase barrier integrity, enhance vessel stability, and make vessels resistant to fluid leakage. Here, Fahey et al. present DEVDIL-36β as a cytokine promoter of vascular integrity in the CNS, with barrier-enhancing properties through upregulation of junctional components.

Hacker claims to leak WIRED database with 2.3 million records

A hacker claims to have breached Condé Nast and leaked an alleged WIRED database containing more than 2.3 million subscriber records, while also warning that they plan to release up to 40 million additional records for other Condé Nast properties.

On December 20, a threat actor using the name “Lovely” leaked the database on a hacking forum, offering access for approximately $2.30 in the site’s credits system. In the post, Lovely accused Condé Nast of ignoring vulnerability reports and claimed the company failed to take security seriously.

“Condé Nast does not care about the security of their users’ data. It took us an entire month to convince them to fix the vulnerabilities on their websites,” reads a post on a hacking forum.

Heavy-tailed update distributions arise from information-driven self-organization in nonequilibrium learning

Like human decision-making under real-world constraints, artificial neural networks may balance free exploration in parameter space with task-relevant adaptation. In this study, we identify consistent signatures of criticality during neural network training and provide theoretical evidence that such scaling behavior arises naturally from information-driven self-organization: a dynamic balance between the maximum entropy principle that promotes unbiased exploration and mutual information constraint that relates updates with task objective. We numerically demonstrate that the power-law exponent of updates remains stable throughout training, supporting the presence of self-organized criticality.

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