Earlier this year, a robot completed a half-marathon in Beijing in just under 2 hours and 40 minutes. That’s slower than the human winner, who clocked in at just over an hour — but it’s still a remarkable feat. Many recreational runners would be proud of that time. The robot kept its pace for more … Read more
A recently concluded experimental campaign at the Wendelstein 7-X stellarator at the Max Planck Institute for Plasma Physics (IPP) in Greifswald, Germany has smashed previous fusion records and set a new benchmark for reactor performances. Nuclear fusion offers a tantalizing promise of unlimited clean energy. By smashing together isotopes (or different versions) of hydrogen at … Read more
Scientists say they’ve created a battery that can stretch and bend without losing power. The discovery paves the way for wearable technology, smart medical devices, and robots with human-like movements. “The texture is a bit like toothpaste,” senior author Aiman Rahmanudin, an assistant professor at Linköping University in Sweden, said in a statement. “The material … Read more
The burning of fossil fuels — coal, oil and gas — propelled humanity into the industrial revolution, remaking civilization in its wake. Gasoline powers many of the cars we drive; coal and natural gas are central to global energy. But if aliens were building their own society, would they have to go down the same … Read more
For the first time, scientists have observed water molecules splitting in real time to form hydrogen and oxygen. And right before they split, the molecules did something completely unexpected: They flipped 180 degrees. This micro acrobatic stunt takes energy, which offers a crucial explanation for why splitting water takes more energy than theoretical calculations suggested. … Read more
Researchers have synthesized highly durable solar cells made from perovskite — a common crystal structure (in its natural form a calcium titanium oxide mineral) — in a breakthrough that could revolutionize the solar industry. Solar power is the fastest-growing energy technology and plays a key role in cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Solar power converts sunlight … Read more
Stephen Hawking’s most famous theory about black holes has just been given a sinister update — one that proclaims that everything in the universe is doomed to evaporate. In 1974, Hawking proposed that black holes eventually evaporate by losing what’s now known as Hawking radiation — a gradual draining of energy in the form of … Read more
Global warming has trapped an explosive amount of energy in Earth’s atmosphere in the past half century — the equivalent of about 25 billion atomic bombs, a new study finds. In the paper, published April 17 in the journal Earth System Science Data, an international group of researchers estimated that, between 1971 and 2020, around … Read more
Scientists studying a cousin of the bacteria responsible for tuberculosis and leprosy have discovered an enzyme that converts hydrogen into electricity, and they think it could be used to create a new, clean source of energy literally from thin air. The enzyme, which has been named Huc, is used by the bacterium Mycobacterium smegmatis to … Read more
A new method of artificial photosynthesis could get humans one step closer to using the machinery of plants to make fuels. The new system is 10 times more efficient than previous synthetic photosynthesis methods. While natural photosynthesis allows plants to turn carbon dioxide (CO2) and water into carbohydrates using the power of the sun, the … Read more
