Lifeboat Foundation

France is deploying two Rafale fighter jets and a naval frigate in the eastern Mediterranean because of tensions between Greece and Turkey.

French President Emmanuel Macron has urged Turkey to halt oil and gas exploration in disputed waters in the area. A Turkish survey ship began such a mission on Monday, angering Greece.

Mr Macron told Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis that the French military would monitor the situation.

The UK, US and Canada say state-backed hackers tried to steal coronavirus vaccine research.

A global research team has been able to transform brackish water and seawater into safe, clean drinking water in less than 30 minutes using metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) and sunlight.

In a discovery that could provide potable water for millions of people across the world, researchers were not only able to filter harmful particles from water and generate 139.5L of clean water per kilogram of MOF per day, but also perform this task in a more energy-efficient manner than current desalination practices.

The World Health Organization suggests good quality drinking water should have a total dissolved solid (TDS) of 600 parts per million (ppm). Researchers were able to achieve a TDS of 500 ppm in just 30 minutes and regenerate the MOF for reuse in four minutes under sunlight.

Fired brick is a universal building material, produced by thousand-year-old technology, that throughout history has seldom served any other purpose. Here, we develop a scalable, cost-effective and versatile chemical synthesis using a fired brick to control oxidative radical polymerization and deposition of a nanofibrillar coating of the conducting polymer poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT). A fired brick’s open microstructure, mechanical robustness and ~8 wt% α-Fe₂O₃ content afford an ideal substrate for developing electrochemical PEDOT electrodes and stationary supercapacitors that readily stack into modules. Five-minute epoxy serves as a waterproof case enabling the operation of our supercapacitors while submerged underwater and a gel electrolyte extends cycling stability to 10,000 cycles with ~90% capacitance retention.

Most of the time, a material’s color stems from its chemical properties. Different atoms and molecules absorb different wavelengths of light; the remaining wavelengths are the “intrinsic colors” that we perceive when they are reflected back to our eyes.

So-called “structural color” works differently; it’s a property of physics, not chemistry. Microscopic patterns on some surfaces reflect light in such a way that different wavelengths collide and interfere with one another. For example, a peacock’s feathers are made of transparent protein fibers that have no intrinsic color themselves, yet we see shifting, iridescent blue, green and purple hues because of the nanoscale structures on their surfaces.

As we become more adept at manipulating structure at the smallest scales, however, these two types of color can combine in even more surprising ways. Penn Engineers have now developed a system of nanoscale semiconductor strips that uses structural color interactions to eliminate the strips’ intrinsic color entirely.

Scientists at Stockholm University have discovered that water can exhibit a similar behavior to that of a liquid crystal when illuminated with laser light. This effect originates by the alignment of water molecules, which exhibit a mixture of low- and high-density domains that are more or less prone to alignment. The results, reported in Physics Review Letters, are based on a combination of experimental studies using X-ray lasers and molecular simulations.

Liquid crystals were considered a mere scientific curiosity when they were first discovered in 1888. Over 100 years later, they are one of the most widely used technologies, present in digital displays (LCDs) of watches, TVs and computer screens. Liquid crystals work by applying an electric field, which makes the neighboring molecules of a liquid align, in a way that resembles a crystal. Water too can be distorted towards a liquid crystal, when illuminated with laser light. It is known that the electric field of the laser can align the water molecules for less than a billionth of a second. Can this discovery have future technological applications?

An international team of researchers at the Physics Department of Stockholm University carried out experiments at Japan’s X-ray Free-electron laser SACLA and probed for the first time the dynamics of transiently oriented molecules using X-ray pulses. This technique, relies on aligning the molecules with a laser pulse (with wavelength λ = 800 nm) and probing the alignment with X-ray pulses, which allow to see in real time the changes in the structure on a molecular level. By varying the time between the laser and the X-ray pulses, the researchers were able to resolve the aligned state, which lives only for 160 fs.

Israel says the attack was thwarted, but a cybersecurity firm says it was successful. Some officials fear that classified data stolen by North Korea could be shared with Iran.

COSTA MESA, Calif. – Health experts say around half of American adults are overweight or obese. While excessive body weight is linked to a number of serious health conditions, including diabetes and heart disease, a new study reveals it can also reduce blood flow to the brain. Researchers warn this can put overweight individuals at great risk for Alzheimer’s disease.

The study examines brain blood flow in 17,721 adults between 18 and 94. To do this, researchers use a brain imaging technique known as single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT).

SPECT is a technique in which doctors inject a radioactive tracer into a patient’s blood and then use a special camera to look at the flow of blood. Participants were then split into five categories: underweight, normal weight, overweight, obese, and morbidly obese — to examine blood flow in each of their brains. The brain scan data reveals lower blood flow across virtually all brain regions as body weight increases.

Tesla’s highly-anticipated Battery Day is still several weeks away, but CEO Elon Musk appears to have started posting cryptic teasers about some of the innovations that would be introduced at the event. Based on a recent post on Twitter, it appears that Tesla’s Plaid Model S, and perhaps even the Plaid Model X, may be unveiled at Battery Day.

Ever the internet’s resident meme lord, Elon Musk recently posted a photo of Herbert Ruggles Tarlek, Jr., a character on the television situation comedy WKRP in Cincinnati, which ran from 1978 to 1982. The character was noted for his loud plaid suits, which were usually dominated by bold colors and patterns. Musk’s tweet noted that “One day soon, I will wear this outfit.”