Lifeboat Foundation

If we’re going to get better at powering the planet with renewable energy, we need to get better at finding ways of efficiently storing that energy until it’s needed – and scientists have identified a particular material that could give us exactly that.

The material is known as a metal-organic framework (MOF), in which carbon-based molecules form structures by linking metal ions. Crucially, MOFs are porous, so they can form composite materials with other small molecules.

That’s what the team did here, adding molecules of the light-absorbing compound azobenzene. The finished composite material was able to store energy from ultraviolet light for at least four months at room temperature before releasing it again – a big improvement over the days or weeks that most light-responsive materials can manage.

Electric cars from Toyota are coming! 😃

Toyota may have mastered the art of the solid-state battery. Get the details in here.

Reptiles having their annual nap are the latest roadblock to Tesla’s progress in Berlin, but a local court said the carmaker can carry on.

Once running at full capacity by the end of next year, its creators say, the facility will be able to generate a ton of food. Produce can be harvested up to 15 times a year without needing any soil or daylight.

Automated robots will be used to both plant seeds and check in on them later as well.

Nordic Harvest envisions that other massive facilities like it could have a major impact on the global fresh food supply. In fact, vertical farms covering an area of 20 soccer fields could grow enough greens for the entirety of Denmark, the startup argues, as reported by Fast Company.

Human civilization wouldn’t be where it is today if we hadn’t domesticated animals to be either loyal and cuddly or dumb and tasty. Now, researchers in Australia have discovered what they claim is the very first example of an animal domesticating another animal – a fish species found to recruit tiny shrimp to help tend their algae farms.

It’s believed that humans first domesticated the wolf around 15,000 years ago to help us hunt, and later for companionship. Over the following millennia, we added goats, pigs, sheep and cattle for food and materials. And almost every plant we eat looks nothing like their original wild counterparts, having been honed for thousands of years at our hands to be bigger, hardier, tastier, more nutritious or easier to grow, harvest and eat.

So far, the only other organisms known to domesticate others have been insects – for example ants farm aphids, protecting them from predators in exchange for the sweet sticky goo they excrete. But the behavior has never been observed in other vertebrate species before.

This may come in handy if you live in a traffic riddled city. 😃

This is Triggo, a lightweight and fully-electric micro car that has an innovative suspension design that enables its front wheels to retract and allow the driver easily pass through traffic jams just like a motorcycle.

Crops will grow in stacks 14 layers high and will use more than 20,000 LED lights. Robots on wheels will deliver seeds to the growing shelves.

During Battery Day, Tesla unveiled a number of advances that will further enhance the company’s electric vehicles, lower their cost, and dramatically improve the ownership experience. One very important improvement is silicon, which the company will use in the anode of the battery cell. Tesla silicon opens the door to.

Watch Elon Musk at the WSJ CEO Council Summit talk about future plans for Tesla and SpaceX. Musk also reveals why he moved to Texas and shares his advice for business leaders.

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