Using less power than a lightbulb. A team of engineers at the University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) has developed a relatively low-cost “artificial leaf” that can capture carbon dioxide at rates 100 times faster than existing systems, bringing us one step closer to the goal of engineering the process of photosynthesis by which plants convert sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide into energy.
Nuclear waste can be very harmful to humans and the ecosystem. Watch how it’s handled in our video.
Nuclear power could be essential to weaning the world off fossil fuels.
Nuclear power is a powerful form of energy that allows us to produce clean electricity. However, the waste it produces is difficult to tackle and is often the reason nuclear power has not become as popular as perhaps it should be. It is estimated that there are currently around 370,000 tonnes of spent nuclear fuel in temporary storage around the world, according to the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Now, the Swedish government has just approved a plan by Swedish nuclear fuel and waste management company SKB to develop a storage facility that will keep the country’s spent and highly radioactive nuclear fuel safe for the next 100,000 years.
The ultimate goal, still years away, is to generate power the way the sun generates heat, by smooshing hydrogen atoms so close to each other that they combine into helium, which releases torrents of energy.
A team of more than 100 scientists published the results of four experiments that achieved what is known as a burning plasma in Wednesday’s journal Nature. With those results, along with preliminary results announced last August from follow-up experiments, scientists say they are on the threshold of an even bigger advance: ignition. That’s when the fuel can continue to “burn” on its own and produce more energy than what’s needed to spark the initial reaction.
NASA has completed the first test of the works on lowering the volume of supersonic flights in an effort to lift the ban on commercial supersonic flights, NASA’s Glenn Research Center announced.
The sonic booms happen when the merge of shock waves, created by breaking the sound barrier at the speed of 767 mph (1,235 kph). The huge amount of sound energy, approximately 110 decibels, generated by sonic booms sounds like thunderclaps or explosions and can be heard from 30 miles (48 km) away, which is why supersonic commercial flights are banned by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). physicists confirm that they have achieved a stage in nuclear fusion called “burning plasma”.
A research team led by scientists from City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has recently designed a structured thermal armor (STA) that achieves efficient liquid cooling even over 1,000°C, fundamentally solving a 266-year-old challenge presented by the Leidenfrost effect. This breakthrough can be applied in aero and space engines, as well as improve the safety and reliability of next-generation nuclear reactors.
The research has been led by Professor Wang Zuankai from CityU’s Department of Mechanical Engineering (MNE), Professor David Quéré from the PSL Research University, France, and Professor Yu Jihong, Director of the International Center of Future Science, Jilin University and Senior Fellow of the Hong Kong Institute for Advanced Study at CityU.
The findings were published in the latest issue of the highly prestigious scientific journal Nature.
The United States military has a long record of being at the forefront of humankind’s technological achievements. For example, it was the U.S. Navy in the 1940s, led by Admiral Rickover, who pioneered the use of nuclear power as a propulsion device, and that eventually led to nuclear power plants for civilian use. Today, the military again leads the charge into the future with their innovations in robotics and their many applications across the entire infrastructure of the organization. We will talk about MAARS, Robobee, DOGO, SAFFiR and Gladiator!
#bostondynamics #bostondynamicsrobot #robotics.
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China’s artificial sun reached 158 million degrees Fahrenheit for 17 minutes and 36 seconds. (Image Credit: Wikimedia Commons)
China set a ground-breaking record with its “artificial sun,” which superheated plasma to temperatures five times hotter than the sun. The Experimental Advanced Superconducting Tokamak (EAST) nuclear fusion reactor reached 158 million degrees Fahrenheit for 1,056 seconds (17 minutes, 36 seconds). This latest breakthrough brings the country one step closer toward its goal for unlimited clean fusion energy.
China’s EAST surpassed France’s Tore Supra tokamak record, set in 2003 when it superheated plasma in its coiling loop to identical temperatures for 390 seconds. Also, in May 2021, EAST set another record by running at 216 million F for 101 seconds. The fusion reactor achieved a peak temperature of 288 million Fahrenheit for 20 seconds during this experiment. In comparison, the sun’s core reaches approximately 27 million Fahrenheit.
MIT team develops steerable soft thread-like robot capable of navigating tiny blood vessels
Snake robots are among the most familiar type of mechanical device for working in confined spaces. Flexible, tubular robots have been used for applications such as working in the interior of nuclear reactors, water distribution systems and inside the human body to aid surgery. The MIT team, mechanical engineers affiliated to the institution’s Institute for Soldier Nanotechnologies, have downsized the snake paradigm to the scale of a thread half a millimetre in diameter, which can be remotely controlled by magnetic fields to worm its way through the convoluted blood vessels of the brain to deliver clot-busting drugs or devices to break up and remove the blockage. Such robots have the potential to quickly treat a stroke and prevent damage to the brain, the team claims.