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It can also solve the carbon intensity problem in the construction industry.

Researchers at the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore have invented an invisible coating that can be applied to wood to make it fireproof.

Modern-day buildings are built largely using concrete, steel, and glass, which are at low risk from fires. However, the production of these materials is a carbon-intensive process. Mass-engineered timber is a solution to this problem as wood harvested from sustainably managed forests has a lower carbon footprint than steel and concrete. Additionally, it allows for faster construction at lower costs, making it the ideal component for future constructions.

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And their method is faster, cheaper, and more sustainable.

Recently, many projects have been carried out using recyclable materials for sustainability. One of these projects was implemented by the Los Angeles-based architectural startup Azure.

Azure is using recycled plastic to 3D print prefab homes. The startup is now selling many house models ranging from a backyard studio to a two-bedroom ADU.

Azure is reshaping the way we build Homes, ADUs and Backyard Studios and Sheds by bringing 3D printing technology and recycled materials together to create truly sustainable living in a modern and beautiful design.

Continue reading “Backyard Studios, ADUs & Homes” | >

Researchers from École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) have discovered that vanadium dioxide (VO2) is capable of “remembering” the entire history of previous external stimuli.

Vanadium dioxide marks the first material EPFL researchers have discovered that identified as possessing this property.

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Continue reading “Could this material have a brain?” | >

It could someday replace existing A/Cs.

The world is getting hotter by the day. It is now 1.1 degrees Celsius warmer on average than it was before the Industrial Revolution. This means that cooling, in general, has percolated into our lifestyles, almost essential for our survival.

However, the irony is as the planet warms, the technology we seek refuge in can only contribute to climate change, making the climate hotter. Room air conditioners are expected to quadruple to 4.5 billion by 2050, according to Scientific American.

Now, cooling an environment needs an enormous amount of energy.

Continue reading “How People Kept Cool Before Air Conditioners” | >

Any Xenomorph-fearing ‘Alien’ fan will tell you that sound doesn’t exist in space. The thing is, that’s not completely true.

Back in May, during black hole week, NASA released an eerie sound clip of a black hole showing that space does make a lot of noise, depending on where you look, and how you process it.

“The misconception that there is no sound in space originates because most space is a ~vacuum, providing no way for sound waves to travel. A galaxy cluster has so much gas that we’ve picked up actual sound. Here it’s amplified, and mixed with other data, to hear a black hole!”

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Unstable black holes would require a rewrite of Einstein’s gravitational theory.

An international group of scientists finally proved that slowly rotating Kerr black holes are stable, a report from Quanta Magazine

In 1963, mathematician Roy Kerr found a solution to Einstein’s equations that accurately described the spacetime around what is now known as a rotating black hole.

The solutions to Einstein’s equations that describe a spinning black hole won’t blow up, even when poked or prodded.

Continue reading “Black Holes Finally Proven Mathematically Stable” | >

Scientists in Taiwan demonstrated a new way to produce high-purity lead-iodide, as a precursor material for a perovskite solar cell. By using temperature to better control the orientation of crystals, the group was able to show much higher efficiencies when the precursor was used to fabricate a perovskite layer and subsequently a working solar cell.

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EPFL researchers have discovered that Vanadium Dioxide (VO2), a compound used in electronics, is capable of “remembering” the entire history of previous external stimuli. This is the first material to be identified as possessing this property, although there could be others.

Mohammad Samizadeh Nikoo, a Ph.D. student at EPFL’s Power and Wide-band-gap Electronics Research Laboratory (POWERlab), made a chance discovery during his research on in Vanadium Dioxide (VO2). VO2 has an insulating phase when relaxed at , and undergoes a steep insulator-to-metal transition at 68 °C, where its lattice structure changes. Classically, VO2 exhibits a : “the material reverts back to the insulating state right after removing the excitation” says Samizadeh Nikoo. For his thesis, he set out to discover how long it takes for VO2 to transition from one state to another. But his research led him down a different path: after taking hundreds of measurements, he observed a effect in the material’s structure.

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