This could revolutionize the way solar panels are produced on Earth and in space. The solar panel manufacturing process also releases oxygen as a by-product, which could be used by future astronauts to create breathable environments in space.

The Luxembourg-based startup Maana Electric will soon be testing its TerraBox, a fully automated factory the size of several shipping containers that takes sand and produces solar panels. The company aims to send these small warehouse container-like boxes, capable of building solar panels using only electricity and sand as inputs, to the deserts of the Earth, in order to contribute to the fight against climate change.

If all goes according to the plans, the technology could reach the Moon, Mars, and beyond as well to help future space colonies meet their energy needs. The TerraBox fits within shipping containers, allowing the mini-factories to be transported to deserts across the globe and produce clean, renewable energy.

In addition to contributing to the fight against climate change, this potentially revolutionary product could also help reduce the dependence of renewable energy operators on China, which manufactures the majority of the world’s photovoltaic solar panels.

The future of energy storage is getting better. Welcome salt batteries! cheaper & more abundant than lithium!

It is claimed to have an energy density of up to 160 Wh/kg, which is a far cry from the density offered by lithium batteries of up to 285 Wh/kg, but is nothing to sneeze at in the world of sodium batteries. It can also be charged to 80 percent capacity in 15 minutes at room temperature, and maintain 90 percent of its capacity in temperatures of-20 °C (−4 °F).

A cheap and abundant material like salt might have plenty to offer the world of science, and one field where it could have game-changing effects is battery chemistry. Leveraging salt could help us avoid much of the cost and difficulty in sourcing scarcer lithium, and Chinese giant CATL is looking to lead the charge by launching its first commercial sodium-ion battery.

Like lithium batteries that power smartphones, laptops and much of the modern world, sodium batteries also shuttle ions between two electrodes as the device is charged and discharged. But sodium ions present a few problems that lithium ions don’t. The ions are larger in size and are prone to creating impurities that can cut the battery life short. In addition, they don’t offer anywhere near the energy density of tried and trusted lithium.

Researchers have put forward some promising solutions to these problems of late. Some have leant on extra salt to make the batteries go the distance, some have incorporated thin layers of copper to boost their performance, and others have managed to pack high energy densities into the industry standard 18650 format.

Researchers have created an unusual new alloy made up of not two, but five different metals, and put it to work as a catalyst. The new material is two-dimensional, and was able to convert carbon dioxide into carbon monoxide effectively, potentially helping to turn the greenhouse gas into fuels.

The new alloy belongs to a class of materials called transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs), which are, as the name suggests, made up of combinations of transition metals and chalcogens. Extremely thin films of TMDCs have recently shown promise in a range of electronic and optical devices, but researchers on the new study wondered if they could also be used as catalysts for chemical reactions.

The thinking goes that because reactions occur on the surface of a catalyst, materials with high surface areas will be more effective catalysts. And as sheets only a few atoms thick, TMDCs are almost nothing but surface area.

This Stone Predates the Sun.

Recent analysis of a stone found in the Libyan Desert Glass area of southwest Egypt, has sparked debate and a rethink of the current consensus on the formation of the solar system.

In a study, due to be published next month, a team of international researchers announced the resulting analysis of a stone that was subsequently named Hypatia after the ancient female astronomer of Alexandria.

Utilizing techniques from electron scanning microscopy, to proton induce X-ray emission and micro-Raman spectroscopy – the results revealed compounds not found anywhere on our planet, solar system or any known meteorite. As well, a lack of silicates was found which sets it apart from interplanetary dust particles and all known cometary material. Previous analysis of noble gas and nitrogen isotope studies suggest an extraterrestrial origin, which along with these new results strongly suggests a pre-solar origin and could indicate a high degree of heterogeneity in the solar nebula.

The Yara Birkeland, the world’s first net-zero, battery-powered autonomous container ship, is undergoing further preparations for autonomous operation and a late 2021 launch.

The Norwegian ship Yara Birkeland, the world’s first net-zero, battery-powered autonomous container ship, is looking at a late 2021 launch.

Researchers have found that graphene-enhanced hard drives can store data at ten times the density of existing HDDs.

By leveraging the wonder material graphene, a group at the University of Cambridge is claiming an advance in data storage that resembles more of a leap than a step forward. The new design unlocks higher operating temperatures for hard disk drives (HDDs) and with it, unprecedented data density, which the team says represents a ten-fold increase on current technologies.

In a HDD, data is written onto fast-spinning platters by a moving magnetic head. Special layers called carbon-based overcoats (COCs) protect these platters from mechanical damage and corrosion during operation, though these can only perform within a certain temperature range and also take up a lot of space.

The Cambridge researchers were able to replace the COCs used in commercial HDDs with between one and four layers of graphene, a material that is a single layer of carbon atoms with incredible strength and flexibility, among other highly-valued properties. The thinness of the graphene enabled significant space savings but also outperformed current COCs in preventing mechanical wear, reduced corrosion by 2.5 times and also offered a two-fold reduction in friction.

When attacked by chemotherapy, all cancer cells have the ability to start hibernating in order to wait out the threat, finds new research.

Researchers discover that cancer cells go into hibernation to avoid chemotherapy effects.

Balls.

That delightful saying about men thinking with their nether regions has gained a new meaning. A new study has found an unnerving lot of similarities between men’s brains and the innards of their scrotums.

All cells on Earth are made of phospholipid membranes. Now astronomers have found the component molecules in interstellar space.

One potential explanation is that the Earth was seeded from space with the building blocks for life. The idea is that space is filled with clouds of gas and dust that contain all the organic molecules necessary for life.

Indeed, astronomers have observed these buildings blocks in interstellar gas clouds. They can see amino acids, the precursors of proteins and the machinery of life. They can also see the precursors of ribonucleotides, molecules that can store information in the form of DNA.

But there is another crucial component for life – molecules that can form membranes capable of encapsulating and protecting the molecules of life in compartments called protocells. On Earth, the membranes of all cells are made of molecules called phospholipids. But these have never been observed in space. Until now.

Horrifying 1914-horsepower AWD system, 0–60 mph will take just 1.85 seconds, and the quarter-mile will take about 8.6 seconds – faster than anything that’s come before.

Rimac is leaving behind the “C_Two” pre-production moniker and charging forward with the production-ready Nevera, a next-level electric hypercar that makes us ask, do we really want to go that fast? Rimac’s latest battery-wired endeavor rockets drivers from 0 to 60 mph in a bowel-loosening 1.85 seconds before flirting with world-record levels of pure, unfiltered speed. The high-tech wonder-car with seven-figure price tag also comes stuffed bumper to bumper with the latest tech, including AI-powered driver-performance assistance, steer-by-wire and second-gen torque vectoring.

Rimac has finally ditched the eyesore Concept_One/Two naming structure for a model name that befits a €2-million electric hypercar. The company explains that “Nevera” comes from the thunderous, high-voltage world of meteorology, a colloquialism that references a sudden and unexpected Mediterranean storm ripping across the Adriatic Sea off the Croatian coast. It’s not hard to see how that name fits like a glove around a bleeding-edge megacar built to rip across asphalt in a way human drivers may or may not be prepared for.

“This is it. This is the car I had in mind when I embarked on the ‘impossible’ journey 10 years ago,” Rimac founder and CEO Mate Rimac proclaims. “When we first revealed the C_Two, we set our targets extremely high. There was nothing else that could even come close to matching the car’s cutting-edge electric powertrain and extreme performance. But for us, that was only the starting point.”