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Aug 6, 2024
Mars likely had cold and icy past, new study finds
Posted by Natalie Chan in categories: climatology, evolution, space
A new study finds clues lurking in the Red Planetâs soil. The question of whether Mars ever supported life has captivated the imagination of scientists and the public for decades. Central to the discovery is gaining insight into the past climate of Earthâs neighbor: was the planet warm and wet, with seas and rivers much like those found on our own planet? Or was it frigid and icy, and therefore potentially less prone to supporting life as we know it? A new study finds evidence to support the latter by identifying similarities between soils found on Mars and those of Canadaâs Newfoundland, a cold subarctic climate.
The study, published July 7th in Communications Earth and Environment, looked for soils on Earth with comparable materials to Marsâ Gale Crater. Scientists often use soil to depict environmental history, as the minerals present can tell the story of landscape evolution through time. Understanding more about how these materials formed could help answer long-standing questions about historical conditions on the red planet. The soils and rocks of Gale Crater provide a record of Marsâ climate between 3 and 4 billion years ago, during a time of relatively abundant water on the planet â and the same time period that saw life first appear on Earth.
âGale Crater is a paleo lakebed â there was obviously water present. But what were the environmental conditions when the water was there?â says Anthony Feldman, a soil scientist and geomorphologist now at DRI. âWeâre never going to find a direct analog to the Martian surface, because conditions are so different between Mars and Earth. But we can look at trends under terrestrial conditions and use those to try to extrapolate to Martian questions.â
Aug 6, 2024
Could High-Temperature Single Crystals enable Electric Vehicles capable of Traveling up to One Million Km?
Posted by Natalie Chan in categories: chemistry, particle physics, sustainability, transportation
Lithium (Li) secondary batteries, commonly used in electric vehicles, store energy by converting electrical energy to chemical energy and generating electricity to release chemical energy to electrical energy through the movement of Li-ions between a cathode and an anode. These secondary batteries mainly use nickel (Ni) cathode materials due to their high lithium-ion storage capacity. Traditional nickel-based materials have a polycrystalline morphology composed of many tiny crystals which can undergo structural degradation during charging and discharging, significantly reducing their lifespan.
One approach to addressing this issue is to produce the cathode material in a âsingle-crystalâ form. Creating nickel-based cathode materials as single large particles, or âsingle crystals,â can enhance their structural and chemical stability and durability. It is known that single-crystal materials are synthesized at high temperatures and become rigid. However, the exact process of hardening during synthesis and the specific conditions under which this occurs remain unclear.
To improve the durability of nickel cathode materials for electric vehicles, the researchers focused on identifying a specific temperature, referred to as the âcritical temperature,â at which high-quality single-crystal materials are synthesized. They investigated various synthesis temperatures to determine the optimal conditions for forming single crystals in synthesis of a nickel-based cathode material (N884). The team systematically observed the impact of temperature on the materialâs capacity and long-term performance.
Aug 6, 2024
What the âbackground noise of the universeâ tells us about spacetimeâs origins
Posted by Paul Battista in category: cosmology
The Big Bang: The moment when our universe â everything in existence â beganâŠRight? Turns out, itâs not quite that simple. Today, when scientists talk about the Big Bang, they mean a period of time â closer to an era than to a specific moment. Host Regina Barber talks with two cosmologists about the cosmic microwave background, its implications for the universeâs origins and the discovery that started it all. Interested in more space science? Email us at [email protected].
Aug 6, 2024
Quantum algorithm for photovoltaic maximum power point tracking
Posted by Shailesh Prasad in categories: energy, information science, quantum physics
They also found that, although the power achieved by the conventional PSO algorithm was approximately 0.15% higher than that attained by the QPSO algorithm under the same conditions, the QPSO was able to beat the conventional PSO in more challenging conditions.
âSpecifically, the quantum algorithm generates 3.33% more power in higher temperature tests and 0.89% more power in partial shading tests,â they emphasized. âAdditionally, the quantum algorithm displays lower duty cycles, with a reduction of 3.9% in normal operating conditions, 0.162% in high-temperature tests, and 0.54% in partial shading tests.â
Aug 6, 2024
Second patient receives the Neuralink implant
Posted by Liliana Alfair in categories: biotech/medical, computing, Elon Musk, neuroscience
Elon Musk says his startup Neuralink has implanted a brain chip into a second patient and plans to perform another eight trials later this year.
Almost half the electrodes are working⊠for now.
Aug 6, 2024
AI Helps Decode the Language of DNA
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, robotics/AI
DNA contains foundational information needed to sustain life. Understanding how this information is stored and organized has been one of the greatest scientific challenges of the last century.
With GROVER, a new large language model trained on human DNA, researchers could now attempt to decode the complex information hidden in our genome.
Aug 6, 2024
How to watch Cygnus dock at the ISS early on Tuesday
Posted by Genevieve Klien in category: space
Northrop Grummanâs Cygnus spacecraft is about to dock with the International Space Station on its 21st resupply mission.
Aug 6, 2024
Scientists Discover Fossil Chromosomes in 52,000-Year-Old Woolly Mammoth Which Could Help De-Extinct the Species
Posted by Genevieve Klien in categories: biotech/medical, evolution, genetics
Chromosomes are threadlike structures composed entirely of DNA that reside in the cells of all living things. Each one of these biological databanks contains a wealth of genetic information that scientists can use to glean insights into the history and evolution of life on Earth. Normally, the remains of dead creatures degrade over time, causing DNA to fragment. Most ancient animal DNA discovered to date has been incomplete, often comprised of fewer than 100 base pairs out of the billions that once made up the full sequence of the organism.
However, the 52,000-year-old skin sample at the heart of this research was taken from behind the ear of a mammoth discovered in Northern Siberia in 2018. An intensive analysis of the sample revealed the presence of complete fossil chromosomes. These chromosomes, each measuring billionths of a meter in length, had seemingly been frozen in a glass-like state for tens of thousands of years. Knowing the shape of an organismâs chromosomes can help researchers to assemble entire DNA sequences of extinct creatures, a task previously deemed nearly impossible due to DNA degradation over time.
âThis is a new type of fossil, and its scale dwarfs that of individual ancient DNA fragments â a million times more sequence,â explained Erez Lieberman Aiden, a corresponding author on the study and director of the Center for Genome Architecture at the Baylor College of Medicine.