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Category: energy – Page 2

Narcissism and its role in sexually motivated serial killers

Researchers at the University of Bamberg have traced a darkly intricate form of narcissism in sexually motivated male serial killers, reporting that many offenders combine brittle sensitivity with a craving for admiration and dominance leans on the killers’ own words from confessions and interrogations rather than psychiatric labels alone.

Serial killers have fascinated and frightened audiences for centuries, with media portrayals ranging from monstrous to romanticized. According to the FBI’s Serial Murder Symposium, serial murder involves the unlawful killing of two or more victims by the same offender in separate events.

For decades, many police and forensic teams have grouped serial killers into categories by motive: visionary killers driven by psychosis and hallucinations, thrill killers who pursue excitement and pleasure through killing, mission-oriented offenders who believe they must eliminate specific groups, power/control killers who seek total dominance over their victims, often including sexual abuse, and those whose crimes revolve around lust.

China’s 1-second film speeds rapid charge for EVs, high-power lasers

Chinese scientists claim to have reported a major jump in capacitor manufacturing earlier this month. The group has cut the production time for dielectric energy storage parts to one second.

The announcement has drawn widespread attention because it points to fast, stable energy storage for advanced defense systems and electric vehicles.

The team used a flash annealing method that heats and cools material at a rate of about 1,832°F (1,000°C) per second. This speed allows crystal films to form on a silicon wafer in a single step. Other techniques require far more time and can take from 3 minutes to 1 hour, depending on the film quality.

The “Impossible” LED: Cambridge Team Successfully Powers Insulating Nanoparticles

Scientists have discovered how to electrically power insulating nanoparticles using molecular antennas, creating exceptionally pure near-infrared LEDs with wide-ranging potential. A newly developed approach uses “molecular antennas” to direct electrical energy into nanoparticles that normally can

Light is born from the vacuum: laser modeling confirms a quantum physics prediction

Physicists from Oxford and Lisbon have run a full 3D, time-resolved simulation showing that empty space can act like a nonlinear medium. Their model finds that three intense laser pulses make photons rebound and forge a fourth beam, echoing a long-standing prediction from quantum electrodynamics.

Classical physics treats vacuum as an absence. Quantum theory disagrees. The vacuum teems with flickering pairs of virtual electrons and positrons that borrow energy briefly and vanish. Strong electromagnetic fields can polarize those pairs. That tiny response turns “nothing” into a medium with a faint optical nonlinearity.

When three high-power laser pulses cross at the right angles and frequencies, quantum electrodynamics (QED) predicts four-wave mixing in vacuum. The combined fields nudge virtual pairs, which then mediate photon‑photon scattering. A new, phase‑matched beam should appear with a frequency and direction dictated by the input pulses.

Wedding cake contains edible chocolate batteries that power candles

This isn’t your normal wedding cake. The gummy bears on top can dance, their heads and arms moving thanks to injections of air through a pneumatic system, and the LED candles at the bottom are powered by batteries made out of chocolate. Such edible electronics have been proposed as a solution to electronic waste. The cake was unveiled at Expo 2025 in Osaka, Japan, on 13 April.

This kid-friendly 3D printing pen makes edible candy sculptures

3Doodler, known for its 3D-printing pens, has announced a kid-friendly version of its Chef 3D pen that prints with candy instead of plastic filament. The new 3Doodler Candy, arriving later this year, swaps a power cord for a 45-minute rechargeable battery and uses gluten-free vegan isomalt capsules instead of sugar.

The candy comes out of the pen at 45 degrees Fahrenheit, so it’s safe for kids aged six and up to use.

Lab-grown diamond coatings shown to prevent mineral scale in industrial pipes

In industrial pipes, mineral deposits build up the way limescale collects inside a kettle ⎯ only on a far larger and more expensive scale. Mineral scaling is a major issue in water and energy systems, where it slows flow, strains equipment and drives up costs.

A new study by Rice University engineers shows that lab-grown diamond coatings could resolve the issue, providing an alternative to chemical additives and mechanical cleaning, both of which offer only temporary relief and carry environmental or operational downsides.

“Because of these limitations, there is growing interest in materials that can naturally resist scale formation without constant intervention,” said Xiang Zhang, assistant research professor of materials science and nanoengineering and a first author on the study alongside Rice postdoctoral researcher Yifan Zhu. “Our work addresses this urgent need by identifying a coating material that can ‘stay clean’ on its own.”

Nature-inspired hydrogel offers power-free thermal management

The poplar (Populus alba) has a unique survival strategy: when exposed to hot and dry conditions, it curls its leaves to expose the ventral surface, reflecting sunlight, and at night, the moisture condensed on the leaf surface releases latent heat to prevent frost damage. Plants have evolved such intricate mechanisms in response to dynamic environmental fluctuations in diurnal and seasonal temperature cycles, light intensity, and humidity, but there have been few instances of realizing such a sophisticated thermal management system with artificial materials.

Now, a KAIST research team has developed an artificial material that mimics the thermal management strategy of the poplar leaf, significantly increasing the applicability of power-free, self-regulating thermal management technology in applications such as building facades, roofs, and temporary shelters. The paper is published in the journal Advanced Materials.

The research team led by Professor Young Min Song of the School of Electrical Engineering, in collaboration with Professor Dae-Hyeong Kim’s team at Seoul National University, has developed a flexible hydrogel-based “Latent-Radiative Thermostat (LRT)” that mimics the natural heat regulation strategy of the poplar leaf.

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