Lifeboat Foundation

Russian scientists have synthesized a new ultra-hard material containing scandium and carbon. It consists of polymerized fullerene molecules with scandium and carbon atoms inside. The work paves the way for future studies of fullerene-based ultra-hard materials, making them a potential candidate for use in photovoltaic and optical devices, elements of nanoelectronics and optoelectronics, biomedical engineering as high-performance contrast agents, etc. The research study was published in the journal Carbon.

The discovery of new, all-carbon molecules known as fullerenes almost forty years ago was a revolutionary breakthrough that paved the way for fullerene nanotechnology. Fullerenes have a spherical shape made of pentagons and hexagons that resembles a soccer ball, and a cavity within the carbon frame of fullerene molecules can accommodate a variety of atoms.

The Space Force has assumed command of a new unit that will be focused on keeping an eye out for foreign threats in space, but it comes as Congress is warning the small service branch that it has to prepare to slow its growth.

Delta 18 and the brand-new National Space Intelligence Center were officially commissioned late last month at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio. It will be staffed by nearly 350 civilian and military personnel.

Delta 18’s mission is to “deliver critical intelligence on threat systems, foreign intentions, and activities in the space domain to support national leaders, allies, partners and joint war fighters,” according to a press release.

The invasion of Ukraine has prompted militaries to update their arsenals—and Silicon Valley stands to capitalize.

Lithium Ion-based batteries are among the most effective and widely used battery technologies. However, the batteries’ electrolytes mainly contain organic carbonated solvents, which are considered highly flammable with a narrow temperature window. To ensure that they don’t catch fire while operating at extreme temperatures, engineers must design safer electrolytes that are not only non-flammable, but also able to operate at a wide temperature range.

Researchers in the University of California San Diego’s Shirley Meng group and at the Army Research Laboratory have recently developed new liquefied gas electrolytes that could be used to produce lithium-metal batteries that can operate safely from-60 to 55 ^o C. These electrolytes have a unique structure, outlined in a paper published in Nature Energy, which make them capable of extinguishing fire.

“The liquefied gas electrolyte (LGE) was firstly conceptualized by our research group in a paper published in Science in 2017 and has been developed over five years,” Yijie Yin, one of the researchers who are working in this field from Prof. Meng’s lab, told TechXplore. “It consists of a variety of fluorocarbon gases, that when put under pressure, liquefies to form a chemically stable, low-freezing point, low-cost electrolyte.”

American official Bill Nelson says Chinese astronauts are learning how to destroy other countries’ satellites.

The U.S. announced on Friday a new $820 million Ukraine military aid that includes the National Advanced Surface-to-Air Missile System (NASAMS). The Pentagon contract denotes the start of a contracting process for a significant amount of equipment, including four more counter-artillery radars and up to 150,000 rounds of 155mm artillery ammunition, through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative.

NASAMS can be quite an unpleasant adversary for tactical aircraft (possibly with the exception of the Su-57), helicopters, drones, subsonic cruise missiles (Caliber, Kh-101, 9M728). Against high-speed targets (from Oniks to Kinzhal) the benefit of this system seems doubtful.

5/— Dmitry Stefanovich (@KomissarWhipla) July 1, 2022

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Science fiction amazes us with futuristic technology and weapons, but many like the laser pistol, raygun, or lightsaber seem high-tech versions of old tech. Are such weapons possible and if so, could they have a role in future warfare?

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Aircrafts transport people, ship goods, and perform military operations, but the petroleum-based fuels that power them are in short supply. In research publishing on June 30 in the journal Joule, researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley Lab have found a way to generate an alternative jet fuel by harvesting an unusual carbon molecule produced by the metabolic process of bacteria commonly found in soil.

“In chemistry, everything that requires energy to make will release energy when it’s broken,” says lead author Pablo Cruz-Morales, a microbiologist at DTU Biosustain, part of the Technical University of Denmark. When petroleum jet fuel is ignited, it releases a tremendous amount of energy, and the scientists at the Keasling Lab at the Lawrence Berkeley Laboratory thought there must be a way to replicate this without waiting millions of years for new fossil fuels to form.

Jay Keasling, a chemical engineer at University of California, Berkeley, approached Cruz-Morales, who was a postdoc in his lab at the time, to see if he could synthesize a tricky molecule that has the potential to produce a lot of energy. “Keasling told me: it’s gonna be an explosive idea,” says Cruz-Morales.