With extreme weather causing power failures in California and Texas, it’s increasingly clear that the existing power infrastructure isn’t designed for these new conditions. Past research has shown that nuclear power plants are no exception, with rising temperatures creating cooling problems for them. Now, a comprehensive analysis looking at a broader range of climate events shows that it’s not just hot weather that puts these plants at risk—it’s the full range of climate disturbances.
Heat has been one of the most direct threats, as higher temperatures mean that the natural cooling sources (rivers, oceans, lakes) are becoming less efficient heat sinks. However, this new analysis shows that hurricanes and typhoons have become the leading causes of nuclear outages, at least in North America and South and East Asia. Precautionary shutdowns for storms are routine, and so this finding is perhaps not so surprising. But other factors—like the clogging of cooling intake pipes by unusually abundant jellyfish populations—are a bit less obvious.
Overall, this latest analysis calculates that the frequency of climate-related nuclear plant outages is almost eight times higher than it was in the 1990s. The analysis also estimates that the global nuclear fleet will lose up to 1.4 percent—about 36 TWh—of its energy production in the next 40 years and up to 2.4 percent, or 61 TWh, by 2081–2100.
A robot has wowed the audience at a basketball match during the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.
The machine, which goes by the name of CUE, showed off its throwing skills during half-time of the Men’s Preliminary Round Group B game between France and the United States (which France won 83–76).
In development by Japanese company Toyota since May 2018, CUE stands 208 cm (6’ 10) tall and weighs 90 kg (200 lbs). It uses sensors on its torso to calculate the angle and distance to the basket, before using its motorised arms and knees to shoot. The whole process from lifting the ball to making the shot takes less than 15 seconds.
Papers referenced in the video: A new aging measure captures morbidity and mortality risk across diverse subpopulations from NHANES IV: A cohort study. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30596641/
Officials with battery maker Form Energy have announced the development of the Iron-Air 100-hour storage battery—a battery meant to store electricity created from renewable sources such as solar and wind. As part of their announcement, they note that their new battery is based on iron, not lithium, and thus is much less expensive to produce.
The team at Form Energy describe their new battery as a multi-day energy storage system—one that can feed electricity to the grid for approximately 100 hours at a cost that is significantly lower than lithium-ion batteries.
The basic idea behind the iron-air battery is that it takes in oxygen and then uses it to convert iron inside the battery to rust, later converting it back to iron again. Converting back and forth between iron and rust allows the energy that is stored in the battery to be stored longer than conventional batteries.
Ever since Star Wars brought podracing and flying motorcycles to the forefront of TV, it’s fair to say most people have wanted to fly one. Luckily, we truly are entering an era of flying vehicles – after all, flying cars will be raced around a track by the end of the year – and flying motorcycles are next on that list.
Jetpack Aviation’s “The Speeder” is the answer to all our sci-fi prayers. A jet turbine-powered motorcycle that looks more like a flying jet ski, this new vehicle prototype has just completed the first test flight that will enable it to go into the next stage of production.
While it isn’t necessarily the completed vehicle that took flight, the company was testing its VTOL self-stabilizing jet platform that will make the basis for their Speeder vehicle. The tests showed it could hover, turn, move in various directions, and right itself after being knocked – all incredibly difficult feats when working with four jet engines.
Arm thinks those kinds of applications may not be far away, though. In a paper published last week inNature, researchers from the company detailed a 32-bit microprocessor built directly onto a plastic substrate that promises to be both flexible and dramatically cheaper than today’s chips.
“We envisage that PlasticARM will pioneer the development of low-cost, fully flexible smart integrated systems to enable an ‘internet of everything’ consisting of the integration of more than a trillion inanimate objects over the next decade into the digital world,” they wrote.
Flexible electronics aren’t exactly new, and sensors, batteries, LEDs, antennae, and many other simpler components have all been demonstrated before. But a practical microprocessor that can carry out meaningful computations has been elusive thanks to the large number of transistors required, say the researchers.
Nir Barzilai, Albert Einstein School of Medicine. TAME Q&A: Lessons for Progress on Aging.
About Nir Barzilai: Nir Barzilai, MD, is a Professor in the Department of Endocrinology Medicine and the Department of Genetics at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. He is also the Ingeborg and Ira Leon Rennert Chair of Aging Research at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine. Dr. Barzilai is the founding director of the Institute for Aging Research at Albert Einstein College of Medicine and the Director of the Nathan Shock Center for Excellence in the Basic Biology of Aging, funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH); the center is coordinating 80 investigators and six program projects on the biology of aging. He is also the director of the Glenn Center of Excellence in the Biology of Human Aging. He is a chaired professor of medicine and of genetics and a member of the Diabetes Research Center and the divisions of endocrinology and geriatrics. Dr. Barzilai’s interests focus on several basic mechanisms in the biology of aging, including the biological effects of nutrients on extending life and the genetic determinants of life span. His team discovered many longevity gene in humans, and they further characterized the phenotype and genotype of humans with exceptional longevity through NIH awards. He also has an NIH Merit award investigating the metabolic decline that accompanies aging and its impact on longevity. Dr. Barzilai has published more than 270 peer-reviewed papers, reviews and chapters in textbooks. Dr. Barzilai serves on several editorial boards and advisory boards of pharmaceutical and start-up companies, and is a reviewer for numerous journals. A Beeson Fellow for Aging Research, Dr. Barzilai has received many other prestigious awards, including the Senior Ellison Foundation Award, the 2010 Irving S. Wright Award of Distinction in Aging Research, the NIA–Nathan Shock Award and a merit award from the NIA for his contributions in elucidating metabolic and genetic mechanisms of aging and was the 2018 recipient of the IPSEN Longevity award. He is leading the TAME (Targeting/Taming Aging with Metformin) Trial, a multi-center study to prove the concept that multi morbidities of aging can be delayed in humans and change the FDA indications to allow for next generation interventions. He is a founder of CohBar Inc. (now public company) and Medical Advisor for Life Biosciences. He is on the board of AFAR and a founding member of the Academy for Lifespan and Healthspan. He has been featured in major papers, TV programs, and documentaries (TEDx and TEDMED) and has been consulting or presented the promise for targeting aging at The Singapore Prime Minister Office, several International Banks, The Vatican, Pepsico, Milkin Institute, The Economist and Wired Magazine. His book, Age Later: Health Span, Life Span, and the New Science of Longevity, was published by St. Martin’s Press in June of 2020.
