Using a unique combination of materials, scientists have overcome many of the current barriers to developing lithium-air batteries, a new study reports. Lithium-air batteries could theoretically give electric cars the same range as gasoline ones without requiring excessively heavy battery packs, but several major pitfalls have stopped this battery model from meeting its potential. The battery's design involves a lithium metal negative electrode, a non-aqueous electrolyte, and a positive electrode that work in concert.
Tech
Scientists have developed a working laboratory demonstrator of a lithium-oxygen battery which has very high energy density, is more than 90% efficient, and, to date, can be recharged more than 2000 times, showing how several of the problems holding back the development of these devices could be solved.
Despite rhetoric that pits "anti-vaxxers" versus "pro-vaxxers," most new parents probably qualify as vaccine-neutral--that is, they passively accept rather than actively demand vaccination. Unless there is an active threat of polio or whooping cough, they have to remind themselves that injecting their crying infant with disease antigens is a good thing.
You're in Manhattan's Times Square, running late for dinner at Le Cirque, on East 58th St. You open the Uber app on your smartphone, hoping a car from the now ubiquitous ride-sharing service is nearby, only to discover that you'll have to pay 1.5 times the base rate for the ride.
PITTSBURGH--3-D printers typically produce hard plastic objects, but researchers at Carnegie Mellon University have found a way to produce hair-like strands, fibers and bristles using a common, low-cost printer.
The technique for producing 3-D-printed hair is similar to - and inspired by - the way that gossamer plastic strands are extruded when a person uses a hot glue gun.
"You just squirt a little bit of material and pull away," said Gierad Laput, a Ph.D. student in Carnegie Mellon's Human-Computer Interaction Institute (HCII). "It's a very simple idea, really."
COLUMBUS, Ohio--Engineers at The Ohio State University have developed a new welding technique that consumes 80 percent less energy than a common welding technique, yet creates bonds that are 50 percent stronger.
The new technique could have a huge impact on the auto industry, which is poised to offer new cars which combine traditional heavy steel parts with lighter, alternative metals to reduce vehicle weight.
A team of researchers led by the University of Surrey assessed how Delhi's landscape, weather, energy consumption culture, and growing urban population combines to elevate concentrations of air pollutants, including ultrafine particles, the most harmful to human health.
Deployment of renewable energy is expanding all over the world. There is high competition between alternative land uses, and conflicts over limited land are likely to emerge between biodiversity conservation and expanded deployment of renewable energy.
Anyone who's taken a picture of birthday candles being blown out or a selfie during a romantic candlelit dinner knows how disappointing it is when the photo comes out dark and grainy.
Using complementary microscopy and spectroscopy techniques, researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) say they have solved the structure of lithium- and manganese-rich transition metal oxides, a potentially game-changing battery material and the subject of intense debate in the decade since it was discovered.
Resembling swallows but more closely related to hummingbirds, swifts have unique migratory behavior, roosting for days at a time in chimneys or hollow trees along their migratory route in groups of hundreds or thousands of individuals. Little is known about whether groups that travel and roost together during migration are all from the same wintering site or are made up of individuals from across their winter range.
A team of NASA-funded scientists has solved an enduring mystery from the Apollo missions to the moon - the origin of organic matter found in lunar samples returned to Earth. Samples of the lunar soil brought back by the Apollo astronauts contain low levels of organic matter in the form of amino acids. Certain amino acids are the building blocks of proteins, essential molecules used by life to build structures like hair and skin and to regulate chemical reactions.
New York, NY--October28, 2015--In creating what looks to be a simple children's musical instrument--a xylophone with keys in the shape of zoo animals--computer scientists at Columbia Engineering, Harvard, and MIT have demonstrated that sound can be controlled by 3D-printing shapes. They designed an optimization algorithm and used computational methods and digital fabrication to control acoustic properties--both sound and vibration--by altering the shape of 2D and 3D objects.
TAMPA, Fla (Oct. 28, 2015) - Researchers from the University of South Florida College of Engineering have proposed a new form of computing that uses circular nanomagnets to solve quadratic optimization problems orders of magnitude faster than that of a conventional computer.
A wide range of application domains can be potentially accelerated through this research such as finding patterns in social media, error-correcting codes to Big Data and biosciences.
In a classic eureka moment, a team of physicists led by The City College of New York and including Herriot-Watt University and Corning Incorporated is showing how beams from ordinary laser pointers mimic quantum entanglement with the potential of doubling the data speed of laser communication.