Discarded food scraps, stray branches, seashells and many other natural materials are key ingredients in a system that can pull drinkable water out of thin air
Category: sustainability – Page 21
SpaceX’s Mars Breakthrough — What No One’s Talking About!
SpaceX is making significant progress towards establishing a human presence on Mars, with a major contract, advancements in technology, and plans for infrastructure development, potentially giving them a lead over competitors and raising questions about the future of space exploration and ownership ##
## Questions to inspire discussion.
Mars Exploration and Infrastructure.
🚀 Q: What is SpaceX’s breakthrough in Mars exploration? A: SpaceX’s Starship secured its first paying customer for Mars payloads: the Italian Space Agency, in a deal worth hundreds of millions of dollars.
🔬 Q: What experiments will the Italian Space Agency conduct on Mars? A: The payload includes plant growth, radiation, and local climate monitoring experiments, collecting data during the 6-month flight and on Mars’ surface.
🤖 Q: How will robots assist in Mars exploration? A: SpaceX plans to send 1,000–2,000 Optimus robots to Mars to fix rovers, run experiments, maintain equipment, and scout locations for future missions.
OpenAI’s GPT-5 Flop, AI’s Unlimited Market, China’s Big Advantage, Rise in Socialism, Housing Crisis
Questions to inspire discussion.
📊 Q: How did GPT-5 perform compared to GPT-4? A: GPT-5 was narrowly ahead of GPT-4 in artificial analysis, but GPT-4 was significantly better in “humanity’s last exam” and RKGI2, which measures tasks relatively easy for humans but hard for AIs.
🌐 Q: What is the key architectural improvement in GPT-5? A: GPT-5 has a multimodal architecture that can self-select the underlying model for a task, providing a simple, clean interface without users needing to understand technical details.
AI industry growth and economic impact.
💰 Q: How much is being invested in the AI industry annually? A: The AI industry is experiencing astronomical growth, with hundreds of billions of dollars being deployed annually, and a projected trillion dollars in the next 5 years on data centers and AI infrastructure.
📈 Q: Are there already economic returns on AI investments? A: Economic returns on AI investments are already evident, with companies like Meta and Microsoft reporting significant revenue growth and productivity gains.
New physical model aims to boost energy storage research
Engineers rely on computational tools to develop new energy storage technologies, which are critical for capitalizing on sustainable energy sources and powering electric vehicles and other devices. Researchers have now developed a new classical physics model that captures one of the most complex aspects of energy storage research—the dynamic nonequilibrium processes that throw chemical, mechanical and physical aspects of energy storage materials out of balance when they are charging or discharging energy.
The new Chen-Huang Nonequilibrium Phasex Transformation (NExT) Model was developed by Hongjiang Chen, a former Ph.D. student at NC State, in conjunction with his advisor, Hsiao-Ying Shadow Huang, who is an associate professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at the university. A paper on the work, “Energy Change Pathways in Electrodes during Nonequilibrium Processes,” is published in The Journal of Physical Chemistry C.
But what are “nonequilibrium processes”? Why are they important? And why would you want to translate those processes into mathematical formulae? We talked with Huang to learn more.
Major climate-GDP study under review after facing challenge
A blockbuster study published in top science journal Nature last year warned that unchecked climate change could slash global GDP by a staggering 62% by century’s end, setting off alarm bells among financial institutions worldwide.
But a re-analysis by Stanford University researchers in California, released Wednesday, challenges that conclusion—finding the projected hit to be about three times smaller and broadly in line with earlier estimates, after excluding an anomalous result tied to Uzbekistan.
The saga may culminate in a rare retraction, with Nature telling AFP it will have “further information to share soon”—a move that would almost certainly be seized upon by climate-change skeptics.
A dual ion beam tests new steel under fusion energy-producing conditions
A new class of advanced steels needs more fine-tuning before use in system components for fusion energy—a more sustainable alternative to fission that combines two light atoms rather than splitting one heavy atom. The alloy, a type of reduced activation ferritic/martensitic or RAFM steel, contains billions of nanoscale particles of titanium carbide meant to absorb radiation and trap helium produced by fusion within a single component.
When subjected to radiation damage and helium concentrations representative of fusion, the titanium-carbide precipitates initially helped trap helium but later dissolved under high damage levels. After dissolving, the alloy swelled as it was no longer able to disperse and trap helium, which could compromise fusion energy system components.
The first-of-its-kind systematic investigation led by University of Michigan engineers was published in Acta Materialia and the Journal of Nuclear Materials in a series of three papers.
Vibration energy harvesting by ferrofluids in external magnetic fields
The development of wearable electronics and the current era of big data requires the sustainable power supply of numerous distributed sensors. In this paper, we designed and experimentally studied an energy harvester based on ferrofluid sloshing. The harvester contains a horizontally positioned cylindrical vial, half-filled with a ferrofluid exposed to a magnetic field. The vial is excited by a laboratory shaker and the induced voltage in a nearby coil is measured under increasing and decreasing shaking rates. Five ferrofluid samples are involved in the study, yielding the dependence of the electromotive force on the ferrofluid magnetization of saturation. The energy harvesting by ferrofluid sloshing is investigated in various magnetic field configurations. It is found that the most effective magnetic field configuration for the energy harvesting is characterized by the field intensity perpendicular to the axis of the vial motion and gravity. The harvested electric power linearly increases with the ferrofluid magnetization of saturation. The electromotive force generated by each ferrofluid is found identical for measurements in acceleration and deceleration mode. A significant reduction in the induced voltage is observed in a stronger magnetic field. The magneto-viscous effect and partial immobilization of the ferrofluid in the stronger magnetic field is considered. The magneto-viscous effect is documented by a supplementing experiment. The results extend knowledge on energy harvesting by ferrofluid sloshing and may pave the way to applications of ferrofluid energy harvesters for mechanical excitations with changing directions in regard to the magnetic field induction.
Rajnak, M., Kurimsky, J., Paulovicova, K. et al. Vibration energy harvesting by ferrofluids in external magnetic fields. Sci Rep 15, 26,701 (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-025-12490-w.
Squeezed perovskite layers show improved light-handling capabilities
Perovskite is a rising star in the field of materials science. The mineral is a cheaper, more efficient alternative to existing photovoltaic materials like silicon, a semiconductor used in solar cells. Now, new research has shown that applying pressure to the material can alter and fine-tune its structures—and thus properties—for a variety of applications.
Using the Canadian Light Source (CLS) at the University of Saskatchewan, a team of researchers observed in real time what happened when they “squeezed” a special type of perovskite between two diamonds. 2D hybrid perovskite is made up of alternating organic and inorganic layers. It’s the interaction between these layers, says Dr. Yang Song, professor of chemistry at Western University, that determines how the material absorbs, emits, or controls light.
The research team found that applying pressure significantly increased the material’s photoluminescence, making it brighter, which Song says hints at potential applications in LED lighting. The team also observed a continuous change in its color from green to yellow to red. “So you can tune the color.” Being able to observe changes to the material as they happen using ultrabright synchrotron light was critical to their research, said Song.
Protein condensate sequesters synaptic vesicles at the release site
Message transfer from brain cell to brain cell is key to information processing, learning and forming memories. The bubbles, synaptic vesicles, are housed within the synapse — the connection point where brain cells communicate. In typical synapses within the brains of mammals, 300 synaptic vesicles are clustered together in the intersection between any two brain cells, but only a few of these vesicles are used for such message transfer, researchers say. Pinpointing how a synapse knows which vesicles to use has long been a target of research by those who study the biology and chemistry of thought.
In an effort to better understand the operation of these synaptic vesicles, the team designed a study that first focused on endocytosis, a process in which brain cells recycle synaptic vesicles after they are used for neuronal communication.
Already aware of intersectin’s general role in endocytosis and neuronal communication, the scientists genetically engineered mice to lack the gene that codes for intersectin. However, and somewhat to their surprise, the lead says removing the protein did not appear to halt endocytosis in brain cells.
The research team refocused their experiments, taking a closer look at the synaptic vesicles themselves.
Using a high-resolution fluorescence microscope to observe where intersectin is in a synapse, the researchers found it in between vesicles that are used for neuronal communication and those that are not, as if they are physically separating the two.
To further understand the role of intersectin at this location, they used an electron microscope to visualize synaptic vesicles in action across one billionth of a meter. In all the nerve cells from mice lacking this protein, the scientists say synaptic vesicles close to the membrane were absent from the release zone of the synapse, the place where the bubbles would discharge to nearby neurons.
“This suggested that intersectin regulates release, rather than recycling, of these vesicles at this location of the synapse,” says the author.