A new technology has been developed to convert common seaweeds such as Kkosiraegi, which are often used in cooking, into high-quality sources for both bio-aviation fuels and energy storage devices. The results were published in the Chemical Engineering Journal.
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Daniel K. Inouye Solar Telescope, the world’s most powerful solar telescope, designed, built, and operated by the NSF National Solar Observatory (NSO), achieved a major breakthrough in solar physics by directly mapping the strength of the magnetic field in the solar corona, the outer part of the solar atmosphere that can be seen during a total eclipse. This breakthrough promises to enhance our understanding of space weather and its impact on Earth’s technology-dependent society.
The corona: the launch pad of space weather.
The Sun’s magnetic field generates regions in the Sun’s atmosphere, often rooted by sunspots, that store vast amounts of energy that fuel explosive solar storms and drive space weather. The corona, the Sun’s outer atmosphere, is a superheated realm where these magnetic mysteries unfold. Mapping coronal magnetic fields is essential to understanding and predicting space weather — and to protect our technology in Earth and space.
In a surprise revelation, Toyota has sent shockwaves throughout the automotive world with an all-new engine that melds combustion technology with the potential for zero emissions. This stealth development may transform our thinking about green energy and the future of transportation. For two decades, the world has been struggling over what the road to sustainable transport would look like, and to date, EVs have proven a front-runner. However, Toyota’s latest development puts a monkey wrench into that thinking by suggesting that a hydrogen-powered combustion engine may be what carries us into the future.
While Toyota is no stranger to innovation—it gave the world its first mass-produced hybrid, the Prius, back in 1997—it has traditionally taken a more cautious approach toward anything resembling an electric vehicle. Less conservatively speaking, the hydrogen-powered combustion engine signifies a quantum leap. This latest motor technology is based on a variant of the same 1.6-liter turbocharged three-cylinder used in its GR Corolla and GR Yaris. Instead, it relies on hydrogen, not traditional gasoline, to run the engine, making it cleaner than conventional combustion engines.
This innovative engine could also hold the key to one of the most significant challenges for the car-making industry: balancing high performance with sustainability. While electric cars take away that visceral experience from driving enthusiasts, Toyota’s hydrogen engine ensures a gasoline-powered car’s rumble, response, and mechanical integrity. The company tested it thoroughly through the grueling conditions of motorsports, including endurance events such as the Fuji 24 Hours.
While 3D printing has exploded in popularity, many of the plastic materials these printers use to create objects cannot be easily recycled.
The automatically generated parameters can replace about half of the parameters that typically must be tuned by hand. In a series of test prints with unique materials, including several renewable materials, the researchers showed that their method can consistently produce viable parameters.
This research could help to reduce the environmental impact of additive manufacturing, which typically relies on nonrecyclable polymers and resins derived from fossil fuels.
In July 2024, global temperatures reached unprecedented levels, breaking historical records with an average of 17.16°C. This extreme heat has led soil water to evaporate, leaving the vegetation and biodiversity more fragile and under stress in many regions of the world.
A theoretical analysis from researchers at Japan’s largest scientific research agency, RIKEN, suggests that intermediate energy heavy-ion collisions can give birth to the strongest electromagnetic fields ever observed.
Heavy ion collisions involve colliding large atomic nuclei at high velocities. Such collisions generate strong electric fields for a brief period, enabling scientists to study behaviors and phenomena that are otherwise remain hidden.
Physicists have observed the Zel’dovich effect in an electromagnetic system – something that was thought to be incredibly difficult to do until now. This observation, in a simplified induction generator, suggests that the effect could in fact be quite fundamental in nature.
In 1971, the Russian physicist Yakov Zel’dovich predicted that electromagnetic waves scattered by a rotating metallic cylinder should be amplified by gaining mechanical rotational energy from the cylinder. The effect, explains Marion Cromb of the University of Southampton, works as follows: waves with angular momentum – or twist – that would usually be absorbed by an object, instead become amplified by that object. However, this amplification only occurs if a specific condition is met: namely, that the object is rotating at an angular velocity that’s higher than the frequency of the incoming waves divided by the wave angular momentum number. In this specific electromagnetic experiment, this number was 1, due to spin angular momentum, but it can be larger.
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A prototype described as the world’s strongest functional structural battery has been unveiled by researchers in Sweden.
By 2023, Asp’s team had improved on this approach with a second-generation structural battery that used the same constituents, but employed an improved manufacturing method. This time, the team used an infusion technique to ensure the resin was distributed more evenly throughout the carbon fibre network.
In this incarnation, the team enhanced the battery’s negative electrode by using ultra-thin spread tow carbon fibre, where the fibres are spread into thin sheets. This approach improved both the mechanical strength and the electrical conductivity of the battery. At that stage, however, the mechanical strength of the battery was still limited by the LFP positive electrode.
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In the age of technology everywhere, we are all too familiar with the inconvenience of a dead battery. But for those relying on a wearable healthcare device to monitor glucose, reduce tremors, or even track heart function, taking time to recharge can pose a big risk.
For the first time, researchers in Carnegie Mellon University have shown that a healthcare device can be powered using body heat alone. By combining a pulse oximetry sensor with a flexible, stretchable, wearable thermoelectric energy generator composed of liquid metal, semiconductors, and 3D printed rubber, the team has introduced a promising way to address battery life concerns.
Yet despite the attraction of OAM monopoles for orbitronics, until this latest study, they have remained a theoretical dream.
Hedgehogs hide between theory and experiment.
To observe them experimentally, hope has lain with a technique known as Circular Dichroism in Angle-Resolved Photoemission Spectroscopy, or CD-ARPES, using circularly polarised X-rays from a synchrotron light source. Yet a gap between theory and experiment has in the past hindered researchers from interpreting the data. “Researchers may have had the data, but the evidence for OAM monopoles was buried in it,” says Schüler.
