Lifeboat Foundation

AUSTIN, Texas — Researchers in the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin have built a new type of battery that combines the many benefits of existing options while eliminating their key shortcomings and saving energy.

Most batteries are composed of either solid-state electrodes, such as lithium-ion batteries for portable electronics, or liquid-state electrodes, including flow batteries for smart grids. The UT researchers have created what they call a “room-temperature all-liquid-metal battery,” which includes the best of both worlds of liquid- and solid-state batteries.

Solid-state batteries feature significant capacity for energy storage, but they typically encounter numerous problems that cause them to degrade over time and become less efficient. Liquid-state batteries can deliver energy more efficiently, without the long-term decay of sold-state devices, but they either fall short on high energy demands or require significant resources to constantly heat the electrodes and keep them molten.

In somewhere between five and ten million years, the tectonic plates that form Africa are likely to rip apart so much that it’ll eventually split the continent in two.

Within Ethiopia’s Afar region, the Arabian, Nubian, and Somali tectonic plates are slowly pulling away from each other, NBC News reports, gradually creating a vast rift — slowly forming a new ocean.

“We can see that oceanic crust is starting to form, because it’s distinctly different from continental crust in its composition and density,” University of Leeds Ph.D. student Christopher Moore told NBC.

GPS-equipped hunting dogs take a curious north-south jog, which seems to help them get their bearings.

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A traditional burning program has started on the Far South Coast following weeks of preparation, and a wait for ideal weather conditions.

Warming temperatures mean that Australia will likely continue to suffer from massive bushfires. To reduce future damage, the government must act.

Study detects the critical point between 2 liquid forms of water.

Water, so ordinary and so essential to life, acts in ways that are quite puzzling to scientists. For example, why is ice less dense than water, floating rather than sinking the way other liquids do when they freeze?

Now a new study provides strong evidence for a controversial theory that at very cold temperatures water can exist in two distinct liquid forms, one being less dense and more structured than the other.

An international team of herpetologists from Germany and Madagascar has discovered and described three new species of chameleons from the Calumma nasutum species group.

“The endemic lemurs and chameleons are of particular interest and biologists have been investigating these groups of animals intensively since the 19th century.”

On July 3 the Director General Public Relations for the Pakistani Navy shared a video of a Special Forces parade. In the background was the unmistakable outline of a submarine.