Lifeboat Foundation

Earth’s magnetic poles are just experiencing a “soft spot” that will probably disappear in a few hundred years.

In new research, scientists walk back the popular idea that Earth’s magnetic poles will flip at some point soon—an event that would occur for the first time in tens of thousands of years. And while it wouldn’t be the end of the world by any means, it would complicate a lot of things for us. All of that means it’s good news that we likely won’t see a flip for at least a few hundred more years.

In the new paper, published last week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, researchers from Lund University in Sweden and Oregon State University identify some of Earth’s current magnetic anomalies and position them in the larger context of the last 9,000 years. Amazingly, we have pretty complete magnetic field data over that entire period. But to understand what’s going on, first we should take a crash course in Earth’s magnetic field.

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A University of Minnesota Twin Cities-led research team has solved a longstanding mystery surrounding strontium titanate, an unusual metal oxide that can be an insulator, a semiconductor, or a metal. The research provides insight for future applications of this material to electronic devices and data storage.

The paper is published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

When an insulator like strontium titanate is placed between oppositely charged metal plates, the electric field between the plates causes the negatively charged electrons and the positive nuclei to line up in the direction of the field. This orderly lining up of electrons and nuclei is resisted by thermal vibrations, and the degree of order is measured by a fundamental quantity called the dielectric constant. At low temperature, where the thermal vibrations are weak, the dielectric constant is larger.

Kaizen Clean Energy (KCE) and ZincFive have come together to develop an integrated distributed energy solution for EV charging, hydrogen fueling and backup power. The new solution is said to provide the lowest delivered cost for hydrogen fueling, as well as up to 2,300 kg/day of hydrogen production, which is equivalent to 38 MWh of usable energy, in a 40-foot, movable containerized solution. It can be islanded or grid-connected, with no risk of battery thermal runaway and a small volume of hydrogen stored on site. The system integrates KCE’s hydrogen generator, ZincFive’s immediate power nickel-zinc batteries, and fuel cells from Power Cell to offer customers modular, scalable economic fueling as a service. Robert Meaney, co-founder of KCE, told pv magazine that the energy input comes from methanol. He said the system is essentially the clean version of a diesel generator. It uses the ZincFive battery for immediate demand response as the methanol-to-hydrogen system ramps up to full production over the first 15 minutes. After entering full production mode, the batteries shut off and the reformer takes over the full power demand. The system is charger agnostic and can support multiple DC fast chargers at once. KCE has started accepting pre-orders and plans to deploy a 20-foot, 150 kW solution with pilot customers in the fourth quarter of 2022.

Lightyear has launched the final design of its long-range, production-ready solar car. The model, which has been renamed “Lightyear 0,” has a Worldwide Harmonized Light Vehicle Test Procedure (WLTP) range of 625 kilometers and consumption of 10.5 kWh per 100 kilometers. However, the Dutch startup claims that a theoretical range of 695 kilometers could be achieved, with a battery pack capacity of 60 kWh. “The optimized solar roof and holistic design mean that the car can drive for weeks, even months, without charging,” the company said. Lightyear is already readying its second solar electric car, which will be available by late 2024 or early 2025.

Apart from the much-hyped AR/VR headset, Apple seems to be working on a new AR headset. According to sources, the Cupertino-based tech giant is eyeing 2024 to launch its first-ever AR glasses.

Researchers at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory have developed an upcycling approach that adds value to discarded plastics for reuse in additive manufacturing, or 3D printing. The readily adoptable, scalable method introduces a closed-loop strategy that could globally reduce plastic waste and cut carbon emissions tied to plastic production.

Results published in Science Advances detail the simple process for upcycling a commodity plastic into a more robust material compatible with industry 3D-printing methods.

The team upgraded acrylonitrile butadiene styrene, or ABS, a popular thermoplastic found in everyday objects ranging from auto parts to tennis balls to LEGO blocks. ABS is a popular feedstock for fused filament fabrication, or FFF, one of the most widely used 3D-printing methods. The upcycled version boasts enhanced strength, toughness and chemical resistance, making it attractive for FFF to meet new and higher performance applications not achievable with standard ABS.

Scientists from the Institute of Industrial Science at The University of Tokyo fabricated three-dimensional vertically formed field-effect transistors to produce high-density data storage devices by ferroelectric gate insulator and atomic-layer-deposited oxide semiconductor channel. Furthermore, by using antiferroelectric instead of ferroelectric, they found that only a tiny net charge was required to erase data, which leads to more efficient write operations. This work may allow for new, even smaller and more eco-friendly data-storage memory.

While consumer flash drives already boast huge improvements in size, capacity, and affordability over previous computer media formats in terms of storing data, new machine learning and Big Data applications continue to drive demand for innovation. In addition, mobile cloud-enabled devices and future Internet of Things nodes will require memory that is energy-efficient and small in size. However, current flash memory technologies require relatively large currents to read or write data.

Now, a team of researchers at The University of Tokyo have developed a proof-of-concept 3D stacked memory cell based on ferroelectric and antiferroelectric field-effect transistors (FETs) with atomic-layer-deposited oxide semiconductor channel. These FETs can store ones and zeros in a non-volatile manner, which means they do not require power to be supplied at all times. The vertical device structure increases information density and reduces operation energy needs. Hafnium oxide and indium oxide layers were deposited in a vertical trench structure. Ferroelectric materials have electric dipoles that are most stable when aligned in the same direction. Ferroelectric Hafnium Oxide spontaneously enables the vertical alignment of the dipoles. Information is stored by the degree of polarization in the ferroelectric layer, which can be read by the system owing to changes in electrical resistance.

Within 10 years people may be able to have a intelligent online version of themselves.

A detailed analysis of the composition and motion of more than 500 stars has revealed conclusive evidence of an ancient collision between Andromeda and a neighboring galaxy. The findings, which improve our understanding of the events that shape galaxy evolution, were presented by Carnegie’s Ivanna Escala Monday at the meeting of the American Astronomical Society.

Galaxies grow by accreting material from nearby objects—other galaxies and dense clumps of stars called globular clusters —often in the aftermath of a catastrophic crash. And these events leave behind relics in the form of stellar associations that astronomers call tidal features. This can include elongated streams or arcing shells moving around the surviving galaxy. Studying these phenomena can help us understand a galaxy’s history and the forces that shaped its appearance and makeup.

“The remnants of each crash can be identified by studying the movement of the stars and their chemical compositions. Together this information serves as a kind of fingerprint that identifies stars that joined a galaxy in a collision,” Escala explained.

Over the years, Masset, B.C., master carver Jaalen Edenshaw has advocated for clean energy use on the archipelago, a region that is disconnected from B.C. Hydro’s main electricity grid and mainly reliant on diesel.

Since last October, the Haida carver has been teaming up with brother Gwaai to carve a totem pole in honour of Kaay’ahl Laanas hereditary chief Watson Price (Gaahlaay) at a workshop in Masset powered by 18 solar panels that can generate as much as 40 kWh of electricity a day — enough to fully charge a small electric car.

Edenshaw, a member of the Ts’aahl Eagle Clan, is renowned for his traditional creations, including masks, canoes, and 13-metre high red cedar totem poles that are on display in galleries around the world.