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Pomelo is a large citrus fruit commonly grown in Southeast and East Asia. It has a very thick peel, which is typically discarded, resulting in a considerable amount of food waste. In a new study published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign researchers explore ways to utilize waste pomelo-peel biomass to develop tools that can power small electric devices and monitor biomechanical motions.

There are two main parts of the pomelo peel—a thin outer layer and a thick, white inner layer. The white part is soft and feels like a sponge when you push on it. Some people have used pomelo peels to extract compounds for essential oils or pectin, but we wanted to take advantage of the natural porous, spongy structure of the peel.

If we can upcycle the peel to higher-value products instead of simply throwing it away, we can not only reduce waste from pomelo production, consumption, and juice making, but also create more value from food and agricultural waste, said study co-author Yi-Cheng Wang, an assistant professor in the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, part of the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at Illinois.

I have my own introduction to quantum mechanics course that you can check out on Brilliant! First 30 days are free and 20% off the annual premium subscription when you use our link ➜ https://brilliant.org/sabine.

Physicists have a lot of questions about our universe. Here’s one more to add to the list: Why is it so asymmetrical? New research has confirmed an anomaly named the Hemispherical Power Asymmetry, which states that the cosmic microwave background has more fluctuations in one side of the universe than the other. The weirdest part about this is that no one even has a theory for why this might be the case.

Paper: https://arxiv.org/abs/2411.

This video comes with a quiz which you can take here: https://quizwithit.com/start_thequiz/.… Check out my new quiz app ➜ http://quizwithit.com/ 💌 Support me on Donorbox ➜ https://donorbox.org/swtg 📝 Transcripts and written news on Substack ➜ https://sciencewtg.substack.com/ 👉 Transcript with links to references on Patreon ➜ / sabine 📩 Free weekly science newsletter ➜ https://sabinehossenfelder.com/newsle… 👂 Audio only podcast ➜ https://open.spotify.com/show/0MkNfXl… 🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜ / @sabinehossenfelder 🖼️ On instagram ➜ / sciencewtg #science #sciencenews #physics.

🤓 Check out my new quiz app ➜ http://quizwithit.com/
💌 Support me on Donorbox ➜ https://donorbox.org/swtg.
📝 Transcripts and written news on Substack ➜ https://sciencewtg.substack.com/
👉 Transcript with links to references on Patreon ➜ / sabine.
📩 Free weekly science newsletter ➜ https://sabinehossenfelder.com/newsle
👂 Audio only podcast ➜ https://open.spotify.com/show/0MkNfXl
🔗 Join this channel to get access to perks ➜
/ @sabinehossenfelder.
🖼️ On instagram ➜ / sciencewtg.

#science #sciencenews #physics

A breakthrough simulation reveals how magnetars form and evolve, solving a key mystery about their magnetic origins.

Magnetars are a rare type of neutron star.

A neutron star is the collapsed core of a large (between 10 and 29 solar masses) star. Neutron stars are the smallest and densest stars known to exist. Though neutron stars typically have a radius on the order of just 10 — 20 kilometers (6 — 12 miles), they can have masses of about 1.3 — 2.5 that of the Sun.

A battery that’s safer and cheaper than lithium-ion while offering comparable energy density? That sounds like a pipe dream. But such a battery is in fact in the works, using a chemistry of renewables to store over 220 Wh/kg. Singaporean startup Flint believes it has the formula for the most sustainable battery the world has ever seen, capable of replacing lithium for applications like EV power and grid storage. Maybe that is a dream. Or maybe it’s the revolutionary eco-optimized battery of the near-future.

A fully sustainable paper battery that can be recycled and dropped in compost at the end of its life cycle sounds too good to be true. It kicks off a major cynicism alert, and the questions flow like water through a burst dam.

Does it offer such low capacity as to be useless for anything outside a laboratory? No, Flint estimates energy density at 226 Wh/kg, which falls comfortably within the range of existing lithium tech.

Combustion engines, the engines in gas-powered cars, only use a quarter of the fuel’s potential energy while the rest is lost as heat through exhaust.

Now, a study published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces demonstrates how to convert exhaust heat into electricity. The researchers present a prototype thermoelectric generator system that could reduce fuel consumption and carbon dioxide emissions—an opportunity for improving sustainable energy initiatives in a rapidly changing world.

Fuel inefficiency contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and underscores the need for innovative waste-heat recovery systems. Heat-recovery systems, called thermoelectric systems, use semiconductor materials to convert heat into electricity based on a temperature difference.

WCTU CLEVELAND 13 — A new study suggests that faster-than-light travel, once thought to be purely science fiction, may be achievable sooner than expected through the concept of warp drive, challenging Einstein’s Theory of Relativity. This breakthrough builds on the Alcubierre drive model proposed in 1994, which theorizes that a spacecraft could travel faster than light by contracting space-time ahead of it while expanding space-time behind it.

The idea was first introduced by Mexican theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre, who suggested that a space-time bubble could allow for faster-than-light travel without violating the laws of physics. However, his model was initially dismissed due to its extreme energy requirements.

Joseph Agnew, a researcher from the University of Alabama, has been re-evaluating the mathematical foundations of Alcubierre’s theory. “If you fulfill all the energy requirements, they can’t prove that it doesn’t work,” Agnew stated in a university press release. His work has rekindled interest in the feasibility of warp drive by focusing on the possibility of warping space-time around a craft.

The year one hundred two thousand twenty-three. A giant meteorite the size of Pluto is approaching the Solar System. It flies straight to Earth. But as the meteorite crosses Saturn’s orbit, a swarm of miner probes approaches it. The scan revealed no minerals on the object, so the searches returned with nothing.
Meanwhile, the Space Security Center in Alaska military personnel are setting up a laser. The Solar System witnesses a sudden flare and nothing remains of the dwarf-sized meteorite. Now, unless hydrogen miners on Jupiter post videos of another annihilation on social media… This is what the world will look like when humanity finally becomes a Type Two civilization on the Kardashev scale. We’ll have almost infinite energy reserves, the ability to prepare for interstellar flights, or to instantly destroy any threat. But will humanity really be safe? And what can ruin a Type Two civilization?

#eldddir_space #eldddir_earth #eldddir_homo #eldddir_animals.
#eldddir_disaster #eldddir_ocean #eldddir_bombs #eldddir_future #eldddir_tech #eldddir_jupiter #eldddir_mars #eldddir_spacex #eldddir_rockets

Researchers at the University of Bayreuth present novel electrospun nonwovens in Science Advances that exhibit an unusual combination of high electrical conductivity and extremely low thermal conductivity.

The nonwovens represent a breakthrough in : it has been possible to decouple electrical and based on a simple-to-implement material concept. The nonwovens are made of carbon and silicon-based ceramic via electrospinning process and are attractive for technological applications, for example, in and electronics. They can be manufactured and processed cost-effectively on an industrial scale.

Normally, is associated with , and goes with low electrical conductivity. However, in many high-tech industries, there is growing interest in multifunctional materials that that combine good electric with low thermal transport.