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Low-cost solar-to-hydrogen cell achieves breakthrough 17.6% efficiency

Hydrogen’s impressive energy density offers some compelling advantages that could see it make a huge difference in the electric aviation and eVTOL sectors, as well as in renewable energy, where it’s a lightweight and transportable, if not particularly efficient, way to store clean energy that’s not necessarily generated where or when you need it. It’s also being pushed as a means of exporting green energy, and Japan and Korea in particular are investing heavily in the idea of a hydrogen energy economy powering everything from vehicles to homes and industry.

For this to come about in a globally positive way, it’s imperative that clean, green hydrogen production becomes cheaper, because right now, the easiest and cheapest ways to get yourself a tank full of hydrogen are things like steam reforming, which produces up to 12 times as much carbon dioxide as it does hydrogen by weight.

Green, renewable production methods are thus hot topics for researchers and industry, and a new breakthrough from scientists at the Australian National University (ANU) could make a significant contribution.

Can Covid Damage the Brain?

For three months, Chelsea Alionar has struggled with fevers, headaches, dizziness and a brain fog so intense it feels like early dementia. She came down with the worst headache of her life on March 9, then lost her sense of taste and smell. She eventually tested positive for the coronavirus. But her symptoms have been stranger, and lasted longer, than most.

“I tell the same stories repeatedly; I forget words I know,” she told me. Her fingers and toes have been numb, her vision blurry and her fatigue severe. The 37-year-old is a one of the more than 4,000 members of a Facebook support group for Covid survivors who have been ill for more than 80 days.

The more we learn about the coronavirus, the more we realize it’s not just a respiratory infection. The virus can ravage many of the body’s major organ systems, including the brain and central nervous system.

Tick-borne encephalitis outbreak linked to raw milk cheese in France

France has identified its first outbreak of tick-borne encephalitis from consumption of raw milk products, with more than 40 people affected.

The infections are linked to eating a brand of raw milk goat cheese in Ain, in the Rhone-Alpes region, between April and May this year, according to Santé publique France.

The cheese producer is GAEC des Chevrettes du Vieux Valey, based at Condamine in Haut-Bugey, Ain. It is thought ticks carrying the virus contaminated a goat, then its milk, then the cheeses, and finally consumers.

Welcome! You are invited to join a webinar: Live Webinar: MIT Professional Education’s Machine Learning: From Data to Decisions. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email about joining the webinar

Join us for an online webinar on Tuesday, June 30th at 9:30 a.m. ET with MIT faculty member and expert in machine learning, Professor Devavrat Shah.

This webinar is a way to understand the topics covered in the ‘Machine Learning: From Data to Decisions’ online course, ask questions, and get a preview of the content.


This is a 60-minute webinar with Prof. Devavrat Shah to learn more about the upcoming Machine Learning: From Data to Decisions (Online) Program, followed by a Q&A session.

Time.