Toggle light / dark theme

Records continue to tumble in South Australia, with solar reaching 110 pct of local demand, and wind and solar meeting an average 100pct of demand over 93 hours.


The records for wind and solar output and market share keep falling. On Monday, we reported how wind and solar peaked at a record share of 135 per cent of South Australia state demand on Saturday, and averaged more than 100 per cent of local demand over a 72 hour period.

It turns out we only just scratched the surface of the new records being posted in that state and elsewhere in Australia’s main grid over the last few days.

Solar alone delivered 110.6 per cent of South Australia’s state demand at 11.10 AEST on Sunday, smashing the previous record of 104.8 per cent set in early October, and also posted a record output of 1304.7MW at 13.00 AEST on the same day.

In this episode, I talk to world-renowned biologist David Sinclair about aging and longevity. David rejects the notion that the deterioration of health is a natural part of growing old and asserts that aging is a disease itself that we need to reverse. But how will a reset of our biological clocks affect our interactions, responses to adversity, morality, and how we live our lives? We discuss the ethical implications of limitless lifespans and also touch on the topics of death, evolution, genetics, medicine, and data tracking.

Bio.
Dr. David Sinclair is a professor in the department of genetics and co-director of the Paul F. Glenn Center for Biology of Aging Research at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of the scientific journal Aging. He is best known for his work on understanding why we age and how to slow its effects. In addition to being a co-founder of several biotechnology companies, he’s the author of the book Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To. Dr. Sinclair was listed by TIME magazine as one of the “100 most influential people in the world”.

Website: sinclair.hms.harvard.edu.

Twitter: @davidasinclair.

Topics.

00:02:26 David’s “sticky beak” personality.

A silicon device that can change skin tissue into blood vessels and nerve cells has advanced from prototype to standardized fabrication, meaning it can now be made in a consistent, reproducible way. As reported in Nature Protocols, this work, developed by researchers at the Indiana University School of Medicine, takes the device one step closer to potential use as a treatment for people with a variety of health concerns.

The technology, called tissue nanotransfection, is a non-invasive nanochip device that can reprogram tissue function by applying a harmless electric spark to deliver specific genes in a fraction of a second. In laboratory studies, the device successfully converted skin tissue into blood vessels to repair a badly injured leg. The technology is currently being used to reprogram tissue for different kinds of therapies, such as repairing brain damage caused by stroke or preventing and reversing nerve damage caused by diabetes.

SPARC is aiming to be the first experimental device to achieve an energy-positive fusion reaction. New research suggests that this goal may soon be within reach.
» Subscribe to Seeker! http://bit.ly/subscribeseeker.
» Watch more Elements! http://bit.ly/ElementsPlaylist.
» Visit our shop at http://shop.seeker.com.

With construction slated to begin in spring 2021, the team predicts it could be built within 3 to 4 years from that. Their goal is to achieve a Q factor of at least 2, basically meaning SPARC will pump out twice the energy needed to power it.

Actually, by the calculations in their papers, SPARC could possibly achieve a Q ratio of 10! But the researchers are cautious about overpromising, and are just focused on achieving the lower figure.
It’s still impressive, considering any net gain would be a first for human created controlled fusion.

Assuming it gets built along that predicted 3–4 year timeline and actually gets flipped on, there’s still several steps between SPARC and limitless clean energy.

#sparc #climatechange #fusion #technology #physics.

We’ve Long Waited for Fusion. This Reactor May Finally Deliver It—Fast.

Because leviathan black holes would never fit in a lab, Jeff Steinhauer and his research team created a mini one right here on Earth.


When something rips physics apart, you cross over into the quantum realm, a place inhabited by black holes, wormholes and other things that have been the stars of multiple sci-fi movies. What lives in the quantum realm either hasn’t been proven to exist (yet) or behaves strangely if it does exist.

Black holes often venture into that realm. With these collapsed stars — at least most of them are — being impossible to fly a spacecraft into (unless you never want to see it again), one physicist decided that the best way to get up close to them was under a literal microscope. Jeff Steinhauer wanted to know whether black holes radiate particles like the late Stephen Hawking theorized they would. Because one of these leviathans would never fit in a lab, he and his research team created one right here on Earth.

“We have to understand how we see the Hawking radiation sound waves falling in and coming out,” Steinhauer, who co-authored a study recently published in Nature Physics, told SYFY WIRE. “They should be very slight. Seeing this radiation from a real black hole is too weak and would be totally overpowered by other sources of radiation, which is why we want to see it in an analog system.”

😀


Tesla hasn’t yet shipped the Cybertruck, or the full-size Cyberquad that made a splashy debut at the introduction of its Blade Runner-esque pickup truck, but you can get a mini Cyberquad designed for the kiddos starting in 2–4 weeks if you order one right now from its website.

The Tesla “Cyberquad for Kids” is available to purchase on Tesla’s site for $1,900 — a steep price relative to your average Power Wheels, but the lowest-priced vehicle in Tesla’s existing lineup by far. And the Cyberquad’s materials are a cut above your average battery electric kid car, with a “full steel frame,” along with cushioned seating and fully adjustable suspension.

It may be the cheapest Tesla you can buy, but it’s also the most limited when it comes to range: You’ll get up to around 15 miles on a full charge, which takes five hours, according to the company. It’s also not going to break any land speed records, with a speedometer that tops out at 10 mph (which you can limit to a max of 5 mph for safety, if desired). That’s still plenty fast for a kid’s ride-on vehicle, which is probably why Tesla labels this one as designed for kids at least 8 and up, with a max weight of 150 lbs.