In a new interview, MIT researcher Rizwan Virk told Digital Trends that, in his estimation, we’re probably living in a simulation.
“I would say it’s somewhere between 50 and 100 percent,” he told the site. “I think it’s more likely that we’re in simulation than not.”
Electrochemical energy systems—processes by which electrical energy is converted to chemical energy—are at the heart of establishing more efficient generation and storage of intermittent energy from renewable sources in fuel cells and batteries.
The powerhouse substances known as catalysts, which are used to accelerate chemical reactions, are key players in these systems. The size and efficiency of fuel cells, for example, could greatly benefit from using high-performance catalysts.
Producing better catalysts is easier said than done, however. A catalyst’s usefulness is partially based on the amount and quality of its active sites, due to the sites’ specific geometry and electronic properties. Engineering these sites can be an arduous, inefficient process.
Continue reading “Researchers provide new method to boost clean energy research” »
A common species of freshwater green algae is capable of removing certain endocrine disrupting chemicals (EDCs) from wastewater, according to new research from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Las Vegas.
EDCs are natural hormones and can also be found in many plastics and pharmaceuticals. They are known to be harmful to wildlife, and to humans in large concentrations, resulting in negative health effects such as lowered fertility and increased incidence of certain cancers. They have been found in trace amounts (parts per trillion to parts per billion) in treated wastewater, and also have been detected in water samples collected from Lake Mead.
In a new study published in the journal Environmental Pollution, DRI researchers Xuelian Bai, Ph.D., and Kumud Acharya, Ph.D., explore the potential for use of a species of freshwater green algae called Nannochloris to remove EDCs from treated wastewater.
Continue reading “Researchers remove harmful hormones from Las Vegas wastewater using green algae” »
Circa 2017
The Matrix, the first episode, was a fun movie. But as a description for reality? Please.
Continue reading “‘Great’ Minds Think Universe Is a Computer Program” »
European scientists looking for some of the oldest ice on the planet have homed in on a particular spot in Antarctica, where they will drill more than 1.5 miles (2.7 kilometers) below the surface of the ice.
Over the next five years, the “Beyond EPICA-Oldest Ice” mission will work at a remote location known as “Little Dome C” to start drilling for ice up to 1.5 million years old, the team announced today (April 9) at the meeting of the European Geosciences Union in Vienna, Austria.
“Ice cores are unique for geosciences because they are an archive of the paleo-atmosphere,” said Beyond EPICA’s coordinator Olaf Eisen of the Alfred Wegener Institute in Germany. [Antarctica: The Ice-Covered Bottom of the World (Photos)].
Continue reading “The Oldest Ice on Earth May Be Hiding 1.5 Miles Beneath Antarctica” »
Back in the late 1990s, a traveler from Lebanon to London would have noticed something interesting about telecommunications in the two countries, while many people in Lebanon owned a mobile phone, London was still accustomed to using red telephone boxes to make calls on the run. What caused such a difference? During the Lebanese Civil War, all landline infrastructures were destroyed, and the Lebanese leapfrogged to owning mobile phones. Fast-forward 20 years to today and one can see a similar pattern in many developing countries, where landlines and personal computers are bypassed for mobile internet. 5G is going to make that shift even more dramatic and in many other similar areas, technology is enabling us to bypass existing infrastructure and to rethink the way things are made.
Manufacturing cars is highly efficient and in most 21st century facilities you hardly see any people. Everything is done by robots on a moving assembly line. But it makes you wonder if such a factory setup would make sense for new product categories, which in the beginning are a novelty at best? For example, flying cars or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles ( UAV). The questions we should be asking: How are we going to do it cost-effectively and with similar automation as automotive factories? And can Additive Manufacturing help these novel product categories excel, cut costs and completely skip the assembly line altogether? Just like when Henry Ford created the first moving assembly line back in 1913, it was then a necessity for industrial production to take place. If we wish to cut costs, simplify assembly, reduce factory footprints and part counts, Additive Manufacturing starts becoming a necessity and as a result, we can start questioning the 100-year-old assembly line.
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Forget large arrays of sensors and radars. Forget hard-coded road rules. British startup Wayve taught a car to teach itself to drive, and using only some cameras, a sat-nav and 20 hours’ worth of experience, it’s already driving itself short distances on unfamiliar UK roads.
Plants are naturally amazing little machines – so giving them a bionic leg-up could unlock a whole new range of abilities. Now a team of researchers from the University of Melbourne has developed a new way to turn plants into nanomaterial factories, which could allow them to act as chemical sensors or even allow them to survive in harsh environments, such as in space or on Mars.
Designed by Hong Seonghwan, Lee Hyungtaek, Lee Taekkyung, and Song Yoojin, Median AMB is a median ambulance concept that responds to traffic accidents on highways. Due to the location, there are more likely serious injuries compared to those standard roads, however, when congestion occurs, it can be difficult for ambulance to arrive on time. This concept ambulance is designed to use highway’s media strip, in this way, it will arrive quickly without the need to stop to save most crucial minute.
Median AMB rides median strip as its track, so regardless the traffic, it can reach the accident site for quick rescue task. It returns to the tollgate and transfers patient to the waiting ambulance. It’s a smart system where patients can go to the hospital quickly for further treatments.
Continue reading “Median AMB – Median Ambulance Rides Highway’s Median Strip As The Track” »
