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(Phys.org)—A quartet of researchers has boldly proposed the addition of six new particles to the standard model to explain five enduring problems. In their paper published in the journal Physical Review Letters, Guillermo Ballesteros with Université Paris Saclay, Javier Redondo with Universidad de Zaragoza, Andreas Ringwald with Max-Planck-Institut für Physik and Carlos Tamarit with Durham University describe the six particles they would like to add and why.

The standard theory is, of course, a model that has been developed over the past half-century by physicists to describe how the universe works, and includes such things as the electromagnetic, strong and weak interactions, and also describes what are believed to be the particles that play a role in it all. To date, the theory lists 17 and has stood up against rigorous testing, but it still does not include explanations for what are considered to be some fundamental things.

The researchers are quick to point out that they are not proposing any new physics. Instead, they have assembled what they believe are the most promising theories regarding several problems with the and their possible solutions, and have put them together as an outline of sorts for research moving forward.

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Gets too advanced for me, but still interesting.

As the world transitions to a low-carbon energy future, near-term, large-scale deployment of solar power will be critical to mitigating climate change by midcentury. Climate scientists estimate that the world will need 10 terawatts (TW) or more of solar power by 2030—at least 50 times the level deployed today. At the MIT Photovoltaics Research Laboratory (PVLab), teams are working both to define what’s needed to get there and to help make it happen. “Our job is to figure out how to reach a minimum of 10 TW in an economically and environmentally sustainable way through technology innovation,” says Tonio Buonassisi, associate professor of mechanical engineering and lab director.

Their analyses outline a daunting challenge. First they calculated the growth rate of solar required to achieve 10 TW by 2030 and the minimum sustainable price that would elicit that growth without help from subsidies. Current technology is clearly not up to the task. “It would take between $1 trillion and $4 trillion of additional debt to just push current technology into the marketplace to do the job, and that’d be hard,” says Buonassisi. So what needs to change?

Using models that combine technological and economic variables, the researchers determined that three changes are required: reduce the cost of modules by 50 percent, increase the conversion efficiency of modules (the fraction of solar energy they convert into electricity) by 50 percent, and decrease the cost of building new factories by 70 percent. Getting all of that to happen quickly enough—within five years—will require near-term policies to incentivize deployment plus a major push on technological innovation to reduce costs so that government support can decrease over time.

Continue reading “Mechanical engineers leading effort to detect defects that reduce efficiency” | >

OMG? Are we going to have super cheap electric vehicles in a few years that charge in a few seconds/minutes?

I hope so! This is very exciting.

Australia has supercapacitors made from graphene oxide. They can can store as much energy per kilogram as a lithium battery, but charges in minutes, or even seconds, and uses carbon instead of expensive lithium.

Large-scale production of the graphene that would be needed to produce these high-performance supercapacitors was once unachievable.

Continue reading “Graphene oxide supercapacitor commercial prototype targeted within 2 years” | >

For those scientists that know creativity is important.

Seemingly countless self-help books and seminars tell you to tap into the right side of your brain to stimulate creativity. But forget the “right-brain” myth — a new study suggests it’s how well the two brain hemispheres communicate that sets highly creative people apart.

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An interaction between two proteins enables cancer cells to use the physical forces of healthy cells to start spreading to other parts of the body.

The finding by researchers from the Francis Crick Institute in London and the Institute for Bioengineering of Catalonia (IBEC) in Barcelona is published in the journal Nature Cell Biology.

The process by which cancer cells separate from the original tumour to form new tumours in other organs or tissues of the body is called metastasis, and it is responsible for the majority of deaths in patients with cancer.

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In Brief

  • Canada is spending millions to ensure all citizens have access to home internet with download speeds of at least 50Mbps and upload speeds of 10Mbps in the next 10 to 15 years.
  • At a time when so many things we used to do in person or via a physical medium are done digitally, living without the internet inherently puts a person at a disadvantage.

Canada is making some major moves to ensure that every citizen in the country has access to fast broadband speeds. The Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) announced this week that it was setting up a fund of $750 million available over the next five years to expand internet access.

The CRTC is implementing a standard of universal availability of home internet with download speeds of at least 50Mbps and upload speeds of 10Mbps with the option of unlimited data. In doing so, the Canadian government is declaring that broadband internet is a basic telecommunications service, akin to phone service.

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