Scientists have developed a new material that could charge batteries in seconds instead of hours, removing the need for plugging-in and recharging mobile devices as well as addressing one of the major issues holding back the electric vehicle market. Researchers from Drexel University in Philadelphia in the US, have combined the properties of supercapacitors — which store and release energy in large bursts — with those of traditional batteries with large storage capacities by using a material called MXene, a flat nanomaterial that resembles a sandwich: consisting of oxide 'bread' with an electrically conductive carbon and metal 'filling' stacked on top of each other like Pringles. The scientists changed the structure of the Mien by combining it with a hydrogel, turning it into something that looks more like Swiss cheese, allowing the ions to flow freely, which is necessary for a battery to store energy. To find out more check out Entering the Fast Lane — MXene Electrodes Push Charging Rate Limits in Energy Storage.
T. rex was no Usain Bolt
Scientists have placed an upper limit on the speed of Tyrannosaurus rex, suggesting that it could have taken quick steps with ts long limbs, but would not have been able to break into a sprint and chase down a jeep as seen in Jurassic Park. Researchers from the University of Manchester in the UK created a detailed computer model based on a T. rex specimen discovered in 1987 called BHI 3033, or Stan to his pals, which uses multibody system dynamics that looks at connected solid objects to analyse the bends and twists applied to different parts of a skeleton. They found that speeds above 17 miles (around 28 kilometres) per hour would have pushed the limits on Stan's bones. For comparison, average human walking speed is around 3mph (4.8km/h), jogging speed is around 5-6mph (8-9km/h), and Usain Bolt can run 100m at roughly 24mph (38km/h). To find out more check out Investigating the running abilities of Tyrannosaurus rex using stress-constrained multibody dynamic analysis.
Carbon sequestration could get much faster
New research has demonstrated a way to increase the speed at which carbon from the atmosphere can be locked-up in water or rocks — called carbon sequestration — 500 times faster, and could massively speed-up how we address our warming planet. Researchers from the California Institute of Technology and the University of Southern California looked in to how the oceans naturally absorb carbon dioxide — currently there is about 50 times as much carbon dioxide in the oceans is in the atmosphere. Although carbon dioxide naturally passes between air and water, and vice versa, winds across the ocean surface and turbulence underwater help more of that carbon dioxide to get locked in the seas. The carbon eventually sinks to the bottom to be locked-up as calcium carbonate sediment. Meanwhile, increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere makes the oceans more acidic — the mechanism that is killing coral reefs by dissolving their calcium carbonate shells. How quickly the coral dissolves, however, is currently not well understood because the chemistry is different in seawater than on dry land, so the researchers focussed on this chemical reaction in their study. To find out more go to Key to Speeding Up Carbon Sequestration Discovered.
Celebrating the life of Maryam Mirzakhani
Last Friday, Maryam Mirzakhani, a Stanford professor of mathematics and the only woman to win the prestigious Fields Medal in Mathematics, died at the age of 40 after a long battle with breast cancer. As people around the globe grieve the loss of this talented mathematician, Maryam's life stands as an inspiration for young girls and boys from all walks of life the world over. Her calm exterior and warm smile, hid the hard life she and her family experienced living through the hard economic and social transformations after the Iran revolution in 1979, as well as the eight years of the Iran-Iraq war that followed. Although Maryam originally wanted to be a writer, she found an even greater joy in how rewarding it felt to solve mathematical problems. "The beauty of mathematics only shows itself to more patient followers," she once said. To read more about the life and achievements of this remarkable woman go to Maryam Mirzakhani, Stanford mathematician and Fields Medal winner, dies.
Where are they?
We live at the edge of the Milky Way Galaxy, which is home to between 100 billion and 400 billion stars, each potentially orbited by planets. There are probably at least two trillion other galaxies like ours in the observable universe, each one populated by trillions of planets orbiting hundreds of billions of stars. So, even if planets that are capable of supporting life are rare, and just 0.1 percent of them exist (around a million planets), there should be intelligent life somewhere in the universe. This conundrum prompted Nobel Prize-winning physicist Enrico Fermi to ask: "Where are they?" and has become known as the Fermi paradox. One answer to the question is the "Great Filter" hypothesis, which posits that before intelligent life has the opportunity to escape the bounds of its original planet, it hits some sort of wall. Some scientists believe climate change could be that wall for us, eventually leading to our extinction before contact with alien lifeforms can be made. To find out more go to The reason some scientists think we've never found aliens implies humans could go extinct sooner than we realise.
Increasing temperatures could make flying more frustrating
Extreme heat from the impacts of climate change could cause disruptions to nearly half of the long-haul flights at some of the world's busiest airports by the end of the century, according to researchers at Columbia University. High temperatures can shut down flights in two ways: under extreme temperatures of 49 degrees Celsius (120 Fahrenheit), regional planes can't take off at all, because regional aircraft are only tested up to 47.8°C (118°F); and for a plane to get off the ground, the lift pushing up the plane must be greater than the weight of the plane, warmer air has less lift force, so the warmer the air, the lighter the plane has to be for takeoff. There are only three ways for a plane to lose weight: fuel, cargo and passengers. The study looked at five major aircraft at 19 of the world's busiest airports, and concluded that 10 to 30 percent of flights scheduled for takeoff in the heat of the day will need to reduce their weight by an average of 315.5 Kg (700 pounds), roughly three passengers and their luggage. To find out more go to The impacts of rising temperatures on aircraft takeoff performance.
Have fewer offspring and reduce your carbon footprint
As the world struggles to limit global warming to below 2°C, new research from scientists at Lund University in Sweden and the University of British Columbia in Canada, have identified a range of lifestyle choices with the greatest potential to reduce your greenhouse gas emissions. By assessing 39 peer-reviewed studies, government reports and online tools, they picked lifestyle choices promoted to reduce our carbon footprints, and then ran estimates on how impactful these actions really are if you live in the developed world. According to their analysis, the top four actions that would reduce an individual's carbon footprint are: ditch your car, avoid airplane travel, switch to a plant-based diet and, most radically, have fewer children. To find out more go to The climate mitigation gap: education and government recommendations miss the most effective individual actions.
Drink coffee, live longer
Two studies involving more than 700,000 people have found that the more coffee the participants consumed, the less likely they were to die an early death from a number of diseases, including cancer, diabetes, and heart disease. The studies, published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine, found that decaf coffee also offered the same health benefits. In the larger of the two studies, researchers analysed data from a study that tracked over 520,000 people from 10 European countries over an average of 16.4 years, finding that the more coffee those participants consumed, the lower their risk of death. In the top 25 percent of drinkers, who consumed three or more cups a day, women were 7 percent less likely to die early compared with people who avoid coffee, compared with 12 percent for men. To find out more go to Coffee Drinking and Mortality in 10 European Countries: A Multinational Cohort Study.
Unexpected benefit of rising carbon dioxide more likely driven by water
One of the unexpected benefit from increasing carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere is that plants might use less water as well as avoiding the damaging effects of drought. By closing the pores of the stomata on their leaves, plants take less water from the soil out through the plant and into the air. Taking in more carbon dioxide, plants can then close their stomata earlier, losing less water than they would otherwise. The process has been tested in cold temperate ecosystems, such as the grasslands of the Northern United States, but little research has been conducted in warm, dry ecosystems that cover much of the world in the tropical, subtropical and dry temperate regions including most of Australia. Researchers from Australia and the UK tested the theory on Australian grass species, finding that it is the presence of water that controls whether plants open their stomata more and not because of the extra carbon dioxide in the air. The results are the opposite of what scientists expected to find based on experiments from international research and is another example of the importance of tailored experiments specific to Australia’s unique ecosystems. To find out more go to Water availability affects seasonal CO2-induced photosynthetic enhancement in herbaceous species in a periodically dry woodland.
Glowing corals
To protect algae that live within them and provide much of their sustenance, corals living in shallow waters fluoresce to protect the algae from damaging ultraviolet radiation, producing proteins that act as sunblock. But corals that live in deep, dark waters, away from the damaging sunlight, also fluoresce when there is no need to protect themselves. This has puzzled biologists for some time, until researchers from the University of Southampton figured out that deep-sea corals fluoresce for the opposite reason, but also to benefit the algae. The algae, which need to photosynthesise to survive, are too deep for the sun's rays to reach them, but the corals have used their fluorescing to produce their own sunlight in the near-darkness of the deep oceans, providing the algae with the required light for photosynthesis to occur. To find out more go to Deep water corals glow in the dark to survive.