Lifeboat Foundation

Jan 9 (Reuters) — Microsoft (MSFT.O) has worked with a U.S. national laboratory to use artificial intelligence to rapidly identify a material that could mean producing batteries that require 70% less lithium than now, the company said on Tuesday.

The replacement of much of the lithium with sodium, a common element found in table salt, still needs extensive evaluation by scientists at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) in Richland, Washington to determine whether it will be suitable for mass production.

“Something that could have taken years, we did in two weeks,” Jason Zander, an executive vice president at Microsoft, told Reuters. “That’s the part we’re most excited about. … We just picked one problem. There are thousands of problems to go solve, and it’s applicable to all of them.”

Using a spectral synthesis code designed to simulate conditions in interstellar matter, astronomers have explored a faint tidal disruption event (TDE) designated iPTF16fnl. Results of the study, published Dec. 29 on the pre-print server arXiv, deliver important insights into the properties of this TDE.

TDEs are astronomical phenomena that occur when a star passes close enough to a supermassive black hole and is pulled apart by the black hole’s tidal forces, causing the process of disruption. Such tidally-disrupted stellar debris starts raining down on the black hole and radiation emerges from the innermost region of accreting debris, which is an indicator of the presence of a TDE. All in all, the debris stream-stream collision causes an energy dissipation, which may lead to the formation of an accretion disk.

Therefore, TDEs are perceived by astronomers as potentially important probes of strong gravity and accretion physics, providing answers about the formation and evolution of supermassive black holes.

After a decade studying thousands of supernovae, astronomers are still perplexed by the enigma that led Einstein to his ‘greatest mistake’

Scientists overcame a limitation in graphene to harness the material as a working semiconductor at terahertz frequencies with 10 times the mobility of silicon.

As climate change continues to ravage the planet, coastal cities are at the highest risk due to coastal flooding attributed to sea level rise. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, approximately 127 million people in the United States alone live in coastal counties, or almost 40 percent of the entire population. Therefore, steps to protect coastal communities are of the utmost importance to mitigate the long-term impacts of climate change.

Strengthening coastal defenses from rising seas levels is what a groundbreaking study known as the PIONEER project, which is funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, hopes to address as scientists estimate coastal sea levels in the United States will experience the same sea level rise by 2050 that was experienced between 1920 and 2020, between 0.82 to 0.98 inches (0.25 to 0.30 meters).

“This is an interesting study because it combines, probably for the first time, the interactions for the effect of the water flooding on soils and, subsequently, on shoreline protective structures,” said Dr. Sherif Abdelaziz, who is an associate professor in the Charles E. Via, Jr. Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and one of many collaborators on the PIONEER project. “We will be able to assess how all these factors interact together so we can better design our shoreline protective structures to sustain the increasing intensity of waves and floods.”

Honda Zero includes two concepts: the sleek, sedan-like Saloon, and a boxier big-booty van-thing called the Space-Hub.

Honda announced a new global electric vehicle series, dubbed Honda Zero, presenting it as an antidote to the recent trend of “thick, heavy” EVs seen on the road today.

Honda released two concepts for its new Honda Zero series.

The Wi-Fi Alliance has started certifying Wi-Fi 7 devices to make sure they’re up to snuff and work well together.

The Wi-Fi Alliance is now officially certifying devices that support Wi-Fi 7, the next generation of wireless home internet.

Buying a Wi-Fi 7 device or router now is just a plan for the future.

Continue reading “Wi-Fi’s next big upgrade is officially here” »

Who do you trust on the Internet?

A better question might be: is trust even possible on the Internet?

And by extension: is trust possible anywhere in media?

Continue reading “MIT CSAIL Team Looks At Building Trust On The Internet” »

In the course of changing the world, people leave things behind.

MIT Curator Reveals the ‘Secrets of the Pyramids’