Electric vehicles promise to help us move away from fossil fuels, but they present a new problem: how to get enough lithium that EV batteries require (SN: 5/7/19). Materials scientist Chong Liu of the University of Chicago has some ideas. Existing technology can only extract lithium from sources with highly concentrated ions, such as solid … Ler mais
Imagine Victorian London, but its skies are filled with airplanes. Steam robots crowd the streets, mingling with people in hats and cloaks. This kind of retrofuturistic mash-up is the fantasy realm of steampunk, a genre of literature, film, and other creative media. Theoretical physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern sees her specialty, the field of quantum thermodynamics, … Ler mais
An asteroid heading toward Earth can be deflected without ever touching a spacecraft. The trick is to use X-rays to deflect the space rock, researchers report Sept. 23 Nature Physics. In laboratory experiments, scientists heated the surfaces of free-falling artificial asteroids with X-ray radiation, producing steam plumes that blew the objects away. Later computer simulations … Ler mais
Above the cloud tops, storms blow with a complex and frenetic light show of high-energy radiation. A view from a refurbished spy plane flying 20 kilometers up revealed storms glowing and flickering in gamma rays, high-energy light invisible to the eye. Ten flybys of the aircraft, NASA’s ER-2 aircraft, captured the flickering of gamma-ray bursts … Ler mais