Lifeboat Foundation

Abandoned mine shafts like this one can be turned into giant storage batteries.

The technology uses the vertical drop in abandoned mine shafts to generate zero-emission electricity.

We’ve got a new kind of ice on the block – medium-density amorphous ice (MDA).

It’s amorphous, which means that the water molecules are in a disorganised form instead of being neatly ordered like they are in the ordinary, crystalline ice you find floating in your Scotch on the rocks…

Amorphous ice is super rare on Earth, but scientists think that it might be the main type found in the frigid environment of outer space – because ice wouldn’t have enough thermal energy there to form crystals.

The offshore wind farm is expected to lower China’s carbon dioxide emissions by 1.36 million tonnes and claims to provide more than 1.6 billion kilowatts of power annually.

China claims to have begun the construction of its first extensive offshore wind farm using 16-megawatt turbines on Saturday.

This represents a significant change from the smaller, less effective turbines that China’s offshore wind farms have often employed, claimed a report on Sunday by China Global Television Network (CGTN), a state-run media.

“If this technology finds an application in power generation, we may owe the hypersonic weapons a big ‘thank you,’” says a researcher.

A team of researchers from Beijing has created a generator “capable” of converting hot gas at hypersonic speeds into a powerful electric current.

The researchers claimed that the magnetohydrodynamics (MHD) generator yielded more than ten times the power generated in previous experiments.

Continue reading “China: New hypersonic generator ‘capable’ of powering future weapons” »

Permanent color poster-size electronic display is a reality but it comes at steep price.

In a bid to make wood stronger and lighter than glass to move towards an energy-efficient future, a team of researchers at the University of Maryland has found a new way to make wood completely transparent which they believe to be better than the previous techniques.

The paper, published in the journal Science Advances, details the making of their transparent wood which was found to be 50 times stronger than the ones made using the conventional way.

We always knew they’d power the EV revolution… if we ever learned why they short circuit. Mission accomplished.

This is the BMW electric wingsuit 2021.

BMW Group will present the first electric drive system for a wingsuit with which the centuries-old dream of flying can be realised in a completely novel way. The innovative drive module and the likewise entirely newly designed wingsuit were developed in a cooperation between BMW i, Designworks and the professional wingsuit pilot Peter Salzmann from Austria. His maiden flight with the Electrified Wingsuit by BMW i was visually captured in an elaborately staged video documentation. The spectacular film, which will be seen for the first time in the run-up to the #NEXTGen 2020, shows impressively how BMW eDrive technology is able to make a lasting change to the individual mobility experience.

Continue reading “Meet BMW Electric Wingsuit — the future of individual flying is now” »

Researchers at UCL and the University of Cambridge have discovered a new type of ice that more closely resembles liquid water than any other known ices and that may rewrite our understanding of water and its many anomalies.

The newly discovered ice is amorphous—that is, its molecules are in a disorganized form, not neatly ordered as they are in ordinary, crystalline ice. Amorphous ice, although rare on Earth, is the main type of ice found in space. That is because in the colder environment of space, ice does not have enough thermal energy to form crystals.

For the study, published in the journal Science, the research team used a process called ball milling, vigorously shaking ordinary ice together with steel balls in a jar cooled to-200 degrees Centigrade.