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| by KSNV NEWS 3, LAS VEGAS.


RENO (AP) — A battery recycling company founded by a former executive at Tesla Inc. broke ground on 100 acres (40 hectares) of land at an industrial park near Reno as part of its expansion plan.

Redwood Materials, which was founded in Nevada in 2017, is expecting its operations to continue growing with a boost in used battery packs from older electric vehicles, the Reno-Gazette Journal reported.

As a result, the company plans to expand its facilities and increase its workforce from just over 100 employees to more than 600 in the next couple of years. In addition to the acquisition at the Tahoe-Reno Industrial Center, the company is also undertaking a major project in Carson City to expand its 150000-square-foot facility (13935-square-meter) to 550000 square feet (51000 square meters) within the next two years.

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory engineers have designed a new kind of laser-driven semiconductor switch that can theoretically achieve higher speeds at higher voltages than existing photoconductive devices. If the device could be realized, it could be miniaturized and incorporated into satellites to enable communication systems beyond 5G, potentially transferring more data at a faster rate and over longer distances, according to researchers. Credit: LLNL

Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) engineers have designed a new kind of laser-driven semiconductor switch that can theoretically achieve higher speeds at higher voltages than existing photoconductive devices. The development of such a device could enable next-generation satellite communication systems capable of transferring more data at a faster rate, and over longer distances, according to the research team.

Scientists at LLNL and the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (UIUC) reported on the design and simulation of the novel photoconductive device in a paper published in the IEEE Journal of the Electron Devices Society. The device utilizes a high-powered laser to generate an electron charge cloud in the base material gallium nitride while under extreme electric fields.

Engineers from ETH Zurich in Switzerland and the Max Planck Institute in Germany built a small quadrupedal robot meant to leap around on the surface of the Moon, much like the Apollo astronauts did half a century ago.

Now SpaceBok, named after the bounding springbok antelope, is getting a Mars upgrade — on the Red Planet, it will have to weather much stronger gravity than on the Moon and face more treacherous terrain, as Wired reports.

The concept is a strong one. If it were to ever land on Mars, a walking robot could explore terrain that has so far been off limits to wheeled rovers — and maybe even the planet’s mysterious caves.

The SLS moon rocket for Artemis 1 is all stacked up.


CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. — NASA is one step closer to the moon. The space agency’s next megarocket, the Space Launch System (SLS) is coming together ahead of its first planned launch later this year.

The behemoth’s core stage arrived at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center, via barge on April 27, before rolling into the massive Vehicle Assembly Building (VAB), its home until launch.

Bismuth has been around for thousands of years, yet it’s only been used in a handful of applications — and mostly to treat stomach ailments. But as the world looks for cleaner and safer energy, bismuth might soon become the star of the heavy metals family.

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