Lifeboat Foundation

Munich-based residential vanadium redox flow battery start-up VoltStorage has secured another $7 million from investors including the Bayern Kapital subsidiary of the development bank of Bavaria; family investment house Korys; the EU-backed EIT Innoenergy, New Jersey-based venture capital fund and seed investor SOSV and Zurich power company Energie 360.

The firm claims its flow battery system can complete more than 10,000 charge cycles without any effect on capacity and says its electrolyte is a recyclable, non-flammable vanadium solution. VoltStorage’s modular unit reportedly offers a continuous power rating of 1.5 kW and nominal energy of 6.2 kWh. The unit comes with a ten-year warranty.

More than 20 flow battery chemistries, including zinc-bromine, zinc-iron, zinc-cerium and magnesium-vanadium have been studied with vanadium redox the closest to wide commercialization. Vanadium, the dominant cost in the electrolyte, is a metal mined in Russia, China and South Africa although there are reserves in the U.S. and Canada. It is used predominantly as a steel additive. Flow battery manufacturers include Washington-based UET, Montana’s Vizn, California-based Primus, Japan’s Sumitomo, Anglo-Canadian Invinity Energy Systems – formed after the recent merger of California’s Avalon and U.K.-based redT – and Form Energy.

A report from Google’s Project Zero also looks at 2019 zero-day statistics and draws some interesting conclusions.

A study from researchers at KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology) is providing new insights into a cellular energy pathway that has been linked to longer lifespan. The research, conducted in human cells and roundworms, raises the prospect of anti-aging therapeutics that can extend lifespan by activating this pathway.

AMPK (adenosine monophosphate-activated protein kinase) is an enzyme that acts as a metabolic master switch. It has been described as a “magic bullet” protein, conferring broad beneficial health effects, from improving cardiovascular health to extending lifespan. It is activated in response to low cellular energy levels, as is often seen during exercise or periods of caloric restriction.

An increasing volume of study has found activating AMPK in animal models leads to notable increases in lifespan, prompting a surge in research investigating this enzyme.

SAN CARLOS, Calif., Feb. 19, 2020 /PRNewswire/ — ZAP Surgical Systems, Inc. today announced an agreement with Bonifatius Hospital in Lingen, Germany to acquire ZAP-X® stereotactic radiosurgery (SRS) technology.

SRS is a well-known and effective procedure for non-invasively treating select brain tumors and brain metastases. However, significant acquisition and radiation shielding costs of historical SRS systems have limited widespread access to this potentially life-saving therapy. Consequently, scarce availability of SRS treatment has remained heavily concentrated in large urban hospitals.

Nobody can shoot a bullet through a banana in such a way that the skin is perforated but the banana remains intact. However, on the level of individual atomic layers, researchers at TU Wien (Vienna) have now achieved such a feat—they developed a nano-structuring method with which certain layers of material can be perforated extremely precisely and others left completely untouched, even though the projectile penetrates all layers. This is made possible with the help of highly charged ions. They can be used to selectively process the surfaces of novel 2-D material systems, for example, to anchor certain metals on them, which can then serve as catalysts. The new method has now been published in the journal ACS Nano.

New materials from ultra-thin layers

Materials that are composed of several ultra-thin layers are regarded as an exciting new field of materials research. The high-performance material graphene, which consists of only a single layer of carbon atoms, has been used in many new thin-film materials with promising new properties.

Stop living in the stone age and switch over to the laser razor to get the closest shave of your life. This revolutionary razor forgoes the traditional steel blade in favor of a high-tech laser that provides an incredibly close shave with no irritation.

$189.

Toilet paper hoarders, this one’s for you.

Vacuum toilets are flush toilets that use suction for the removal of faeces and urine resulting in a minimal requirement of water (0.5 to 1.5 litres). Vacuum toilets provide the same level of comfort as traditional flush toilets and they help saving costs due to the minimised amount of flush water. Due to the fact that the effluent has a high organic matter content, vacuum toilets are specifically adapted for the use in combination with separate greywater and blackwater treatment; or aerobic digestion treatment for biogas production. Vacuum toilet systems are applicable both in large and small buildings, trains, ships and airplanes.

SpaceX asks FCC for license expansion after 700,000 people register interest.