Lifeboat Foundation

Claims that a devastating Thermobaric weapon was used during Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have prompted calls for an investigation for violations of the Geneva Convention.

TOKYO, Feb 28 (Reuters) — Panasonic Corp (6752.T) said on Monday it will begin mass production of a new lithium-ion battery for Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) before the end of March 2024 at a plant in Japan.

Unveiled by the Japanese company in October, the 4,680 format (46 millimetres wide and 80 millimetres tall) battery is around five times bigger than those currently supplied to Tesla, meaning the U.S. electric vehicle (EV) maker will be able to lower production costs.

The new powerpack is also expected to improve vehicle range, which could help Tesla lure more drivers to EVs.

Feb 28 (Reuters) — A U.S. tribunal overseeing patent disputes ruled on Monday that patents on the breakthrough gene-editing technology known as CRISPR belong to Harvard University and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office’s decision is a defeat for the University of California, Berkeley; the University of Vienna and Nobel Prize-winning researcher Emmanuelle Charpentier.

Harvard’s and MIT’s Broad Institute, which obtained the first CRISPR patent in 2014 and later obtained related patents, said the decision confirmed its patents were properly issued.

Biologists have discovered the largest bacterium ever found, with a single cell measuring a mammoth 2 cm (0.8 in) long. Visible to the naked eye, this new species has some bizarre characteristics that make it like a missing link in the evolution of complex cells like those in humans.

Most species of bacteria measure between one and five micrometers long, but the biggest previously known was Thiomargarita namibiensis, which tops out at 750 micrometers or 0.75 mm. But this newly identified species blows everything else out of the water – its average length is a whopping 9,000 micrometers (0.9 cm/0.4 in), with the largest recorded specimen reaching 2 cm. This single cell is longer than your everyday housefly.

This gigantic size completely upends the accepted scientific understanding of how big bacteria could possibly get. It was long believed that the size of bacteria was limited by the distance that the molecules they exchange with their environment could travel. If nutrients can’t make the journey from their membrane to their interior, and if toxins can’t do the reverse trip, the organism wouldn’t be viable.

After a burst lit up their telescope “like a Christmas tree,” astronomers were able to finally track down the source of these cosmic oddities.