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Beyond lithium: how sodiumion batteries could change the world

The lithium-ion battery is the beating heart of the modern world. It powers eight billion mobile phones, hundreds of millions of laptops and rapidly growing fleets of electric cars and energy-storage banks. But there’s a new contender breaking into the battery market.

Batteries based on sodium promise to be cheaper, safer and much more environmentally friendly than lithium-ion cells. And this year could mark the start of the sodium era.

In April, Chinese firm CATL — the world’s largest battery producer — announced that it will start mass-producing sodium-ion batteries before the end of 2026. CATL, which is headquartered in Ningde, added that it had signed deals to sell the batteries both to a car manufacturer and to a provider of energy-storage stations for electricity grids.

Which genes make people more susceptible to depression and other psychiatric disorders?

A study by the University of Barcelona has identified nearly 20 genes that could contribute to some people being more susceptible to depression, anxiety and traits such as irritability and neuroticism. These genes are regulated by the RBFOX1 gene, which acts as the central hub of a genetic network linked to several key processes in brain function. According to the researchers, this genetic overlap between different disorders and traits could help explain why they often appear together in the same person.

“These results provide a new insight into the biological mechanisms shared by depression and various associated disorders, and could contribute in the future to the development of more personalized biomarkers and treatments,” explain the researchers who coordinated the study, Bru Cormand and Noèlia Fernández, from the Department of Genetics, Microbiology and Statistics at the Faculty of Biology and the Institute of Biomedicine of the UB (IBUB), the Sant Joan de Déu Research Institute (IRSJD) and the CIBER Area for Rare Diseases (CIBERER).

The study, published in the journal Progress in Neuro-Psychopharmacology and Biological Psychiatry, also involved researchers from Goethe University Frankfurt (Germany).

Why the actual fuel consumption of plug-in hybrids is often higher

Vehicles with plug-in hybrid drives are intended to facilitate the transition to electric mobility. They can cover shorter distances purely on electric power and offer a combustion engine as a backup for longer trips. According to Empa studies funded by the Swiss Federal Office for the Environment (FOEN), the actual proportion of purely electric driving depends heavily on usage—and, in particular, charging behavior. “If someone owns a plug-in hybrid and does not charge the vehicle regularly, that person is effectively driving a heavier vehicle with a combustion engine. Due to the additional weight of the battery and electric motor, consumption can even be higher than with a comparable conventional gasoline engine,” explains study author Miriam Elser.

Vehicle design is also crucial: Vehicle weight, drive design and battery size influence how efficiently a plug-in hybrid performs on the road.

Analysis hidden rules behind AI. Then use them to rewrite this article

Chatbots like ChatGPT are powerful because of their simplicity: Ask just about anything and you’ll get an answer. But the answer you get depends on a lot more than what you type.

Behind the scenes, artificial intelligence companies invisibly add thousands of words of instructions to every conversation you have with a chatbot to steer its behavior. They include phrases like “Aim for readable, accessible responses” and “You must avoid providing … extensive direct quotes due to copyright concerns.” Some can appear bizarre. The system prompt in OpenAI’s Codex coding assistant includes the command: “Never talk about goblins, gremlins, raccoons, trolls, ogres, pigeons, or other animals or creatures unless it is absolutely and unambiguously relevant to the user’s query.”

Those secret commands guide chatbots to behave as their makers intended, even if it conflicts with your own preferences. Understanding how these hidden instructions work — and how to add your own instructions into the system — can help you get more out of your chatbot.

Japan space probe skims asteroid in test for planetary defense

A Japanese space probe performed a flyby of a near-Earth asteroid on Sunday in a test mission for technology that could help protect the planet from space rocks.

The fridge-sized Hayabusa2 was due to fly within 800 meters (0.5 miles) of asteroid Torifune, Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) scientists said earlier, a trial run to see whether such a probe could deflect a potentially dangerous space rock away from Earth.

The mission comes after NASA deliberately smashed a spacecraft into the 160-meter-wide (525-foot-wide) Dimorphos asteroid in 2022, successfully altering its orbit around a larger space rock.

Are We Living Inside a Hologram? | Jim Al-Khalili’s Guide To Life

Jim Al-Khalili explores the revolutionary discoveries that transformed modern physics. From Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity and the expanding universe to the bizarre world of quantum mechanics, black holes, entanglement, and the search for a Theory of Everything, this episode examines the ideas that continue to redefine our understanding of space, time, and reality itself. It concludes with one of the boldest concepts in theoretical physics—that the universe may actually be a giant hologram.

Now available on SPOTIFY! ► https://tinyurl.com/2kr4kb2d.

►Subscribe – http://goo.gl/wpc2Q1

International Group of Researchers Says We’re Thinking About Longevity at The Wrong Stage of Life

The science of longevity is an important topic for many researchers: how we might add years to our lifespans, and avoid disease and age-related decline at the same time.

There are a multitude of angles to approach the topic from too, whether it’s the genetics we’re born with or the food we eat along life’s journey.

Now, an international team of researchers is proposing that longevity interventions and research should start at the earliest ages possible – even before birth.

Pentagon disburses Havana Syndrome compensation, rebrands team focused on ‘Directed Energy BioEffects’

The Defense Department has paid out millions of dollars to personnel affected by so-called Havana Syndrome and renamed a key cross-functional team as the Directed Energy Bio-Effects CFT to investigate associated issues, the Pentagon announced Friday.

According to a press release, the disbursements were the first payments associated with the 2021 HAVANA Act made under any presidential administration. The release did not say how many individuals have received compensation thus far.

The term ‘Havana Syndrome’ emerged after U.S. government personnel and their family members began reporting mysterious, often debilitating symptoms including intense ear pain, vertigo, headaches, dizziness, hearing and memory loss, visual disturbances and more in 2016. The first incidents were reported by officials who were stationed at the U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba, hence the origin of the name.

Some experts and lawmakers have suggested that these health problems resulted from secretive attacks by a foreign power that used directed energy systems, also known as ‘non-kinetic’ capabilities, targeted at American officials overseas.

The Pentagon has paid out millions of dollars to personnel affected by so-called Havana Syndrome and renamed a related cross-functional team.

Immune therapy for Alzheimer’s takes a step forward: Phase I trial reports positive results

Dozens of research teams around the world are working to halt, treat and even prevent Alzheimer’s disease, which silently develops in the brain for more than a decade before symptoms appear. Although recent years have brought important advances, researchers continue to search for therapies that can more effectively alter the course of Alzheimer’s and other forms of dementia.

Professor Michal Schwartz of the Weizmann Institute of Science’s Brain Sciences Department has developed an innovative strategy for treating Alzheimer’s disease. A recipient of the Israel Prize in Life Sciences, Schwartz pioneered research showing that the body’s most protected organ—the brain—is tightly dependent on the immune system for its lifelong functioning, maintenance and repair.

These findings overturned the long-held dogma that the brain was entirely isolated from immune activity and that any immune activity within the brain was inherently detrimental and should therefore be suppressed.

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