Lifeboat Foundation

The future of cities as seen by architects and urban planners. Future cities: Urban planners get creative | DW DocumentaryYOUTUBE.COMFuture cities: Urban planners get creative | DW Documentary.

Will the cities of the future be climate neutral? Might they also be able to actively filter carbon dioxide out of the air? Futurologist Vincente Guallarte thinks so. In fact, he says, our cities will soon be able to absorb CO₂, just like trees do.

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Is the Ira Rubinoff Director of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI https://www.si.edu/about/bios/joshua-tewksbury), part of the Smithsonian Institution, the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex. He oversees more than 400 employees, with an annual budget of $35 million. Headquartered in Panama City, Panama, with field sites around the world, STRI furthers the understanding and public awareness of tropical biodiversity and its importance to human welfare. In addition to its resident scientists and support staff, STRI’s facilities are used annually by some 1,400 visiting scientists, pre-and postdoctoral fellows and interns from around the world.

Dr. Tewksbury is an ecologist with more than two decades of research in conservation and biodiversity, as well as nearly a decade of executive leadership experience at international research institutes.

Continue reading “Dr. Joshua Tewksbury, Ph.D. — Director, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute (STRI)” »

Rechargeable lithium-ion batteries power smartphones, electric vehicles and storage for solar and wind energy, among other technologies.

They descend from another technology, the lithium-metal battery, that hasn’t been developed or adopted as broadly. There’s a reason for that: While lithium-metal batteries have the potential to hold about double the energy that lithium-ion batteries can, they also present a far greater risk of catching fire or even exploding.

Now, a study by members of the California NanoSystems Institute at UCLA reveals a fundamental discovery that could lead to safer lithium-metal batteries that outperform today’s lithium-ion batteries. The research was published today in the journal Nature.

Elon Musk took over control of the company at a crucial moment.

Canadian architecture studio Atelier l’Abri has built a series of A-Frame buildings for the Farouche Tremblant agrotourism site in Québec’s Mon-Tremblant National Park, which were designed to “recede in the landscape”.

Intending to celebrate and showcase the surrounding untamed woodlands, Atelier l’Abri created a cafe, farm and four rental micro–cabins that act as a basecamp for visitors wanting to explore the nearby Devil’s River and its valley.

Sitting among the wild terrain, the four small rental cabins have steep-pitched roofs clad in cedar shingles that extend to the ground to form sloping walls.

Transforming cars that go from tearing up the tarmac to soaring through the skies at the touch of a button. It sounds like science fiction, but that might be the future we’re looking at, as America’s regulatory body for commercial flight and transportation, the Federal Aviation Administration, certified to test a bona fide flying car.

The vehicle — which has a flying range of around 177km on a full charge — is the brainchild of Alef Automotive, a Californian startup backed by high-profile venture capitalist Tim Draper (whose other seed investments include Tesla and SpaceX).

Transparent electronic devices could have numerous valuable real-world applications. Among other things, they could enable the creation of new optical devices, smart gear or wearables, invisible solar panels and integrated communication systems.

Researchers at Xidian University, Southeast University and Wuhan University of Technology recently developed new, highly promising, transparent metadevices based on quasi-one-dimensional surface plasmon polariton (quasi-1D SPP) structures. These devices, introduced in a paper published in Nature Electronics, could be used to develop optically and radiofrequency transparent wireless communication systems and other promising technologies.

“Transparent and invisible electronic device is a fascinating goal that scientists and engineers are enthusiastically pursuing,” Prof. Bian Wu, one of the researchers who carried out the study, told Tech Xplore. “Currently, transparent electronics typically rely on the intrinsic properties of optically conductive materials, which are not radiofrequency transparent and have low operating efficiency. SSPs can be used to concentrate, channel and enhance energy. However, the use of SPPs in the development of optical and radiofrequency transparency remains blank.”

What specific changes can we expect in the exterior and interior of the 2024 Tesla Model Y Juniper? When exactly will the Model Y refresh be released? Will there be any improvements in the battery and technology of the Model Y?

As the electric vehicle market continues to thrive, Tesla remains at the top of the EV ladder with its models staying in the top selling charts. Among its impressive lineup, the Model Y stands out as a tough rival shaping the whole EV market in its favor.

With the upcoming release of the 2024 Tesla Model Y Project Juniper and Model 3 Project Highland, as we discussed in our recent posts, Tesla is aiming to redefine the electric SUV segment even further. This highly anticipated refresh promises exciting changes to both the interior and exterior of the popular Model Y.

MIT researchers have discovered that when you mix cement and carbon black with water, the resulting concrete self-assembles into an energy-storing supercapacitor that can put out enough juice to power a home or fast-charge electric cars.

We’ve written before about the idea of using concrete for energy storage – back in 2021, a team from the Chalmers University of Technology showed how useful amounts of electrical energy could be stored in concrete poured around carbon fiber mesh electrodes, with mixed-in carbon fibers to add conductivity.

MIT’s discovery appears to take things to the next level, since it does away with the need to lay mesh electrodes into the concrete, and instead allows the carbon black to form its own connected electrode structures as part of the curing process.