• Book reviews: Jonglez ‘Secret Guides’ to Glasgow, Paris and Los Angeles

    The ongoing war in Europe has dealt another blow to a global travel industry already crippled by the Covid pandemic. Many would-be travellers, including myself, have had to put their plans on hold again (I have been planning for some time to visit my native Ukraine) and resort instead to vicarious travels using memories, imagination, maps and the internet. As well as guide books, of course. For many years, E&T has been writing about the multi-award-winning ‘Secret’ series of guide books from the international publisher Jonglez, now based in Berlin. For me, their main time-tested feature is that they are equally useful both for real travellers and for the so-called ‘armchair buccaneers’ – whether voluntary or forced. By pointing out the hidden and little- known features of towns, cities and…

  • Russian gas exodus will lower European carbon emissions, analysis suggests

    The research from DNV Energy estimates that 34 per cent of the energy mix in Europe will come from non-fossil fuel sources in 2024, two percentage points more than the pre-war forecast.  Overall, gas use is expected to drop an additional 9 per cent in 2024 compared to the pre-war model. The biggest percentage increase in alternative energy sources will be solar – up by 20 per cent in 2026.  The delayed retirement of some of the continent’s nuclear power plants is also an important component of filling the gap, DNV said. According to the research, although some coal is needed in the short term to meet Europe’s energy demand, by 2024 postponed retirements and higher nuclear utilisation will be important to cover the shortfall of natural gas.  Emission levels from energy are estimated to…

  • Artificial fingertips give robot hands human dexterity

    Typically, robot hands lack dexterity because artificial grippers do not have the fine tactile sense of the human fingertip, which is used to guide our hands as we pick up and handle objects. “Our work helps uncover how the complex internal structure of human skin creates our human sense of touch. This is an exciting development in the field of soft robotics - being able to 3D-print tactile skin could create robots that are more dexterous or significantly improve the performance of prosthetic hands by giving them an in-built sense of touch,” said Professor Lepora, a researcher from the University of Bristol. The sense of touch in the artificial fingertip was created using a 3D-printed mesh of pin-like papillae on the underside of the skin, which mimics similar structures found between the…

  • Treated plastic waste good at absorbing carbon, team finds

    The new chemical technique developed by Rice University researchers offers a potential method to turn waste plastic into an effective carbon dioxide (CO2) sorbent for industry. The Rice lab describes it as a “win-win for pressing environmental problems”. Rice chemist James Tour and Rice alumnus Wala Algozeeb, graduate student Paul Savas and postdoctoral researcher Zhe Yuan reported in the journal ACS Nano that heating plastic waste in the presence of potassium acetate produced particles with nanometre-scale pores that trap carbon dioxide molecules. These particles can remove CO2 from flue gas streams, they reported. “Experts can fit point sources of CO2 emissions like power plant exhaust stacks with this waste-plastic-derived material to remove enormous amounts of CO2 that would normally…

  • Hands-on review: Zhiyun Smooth 5 smartphone gimbal

    We've reviewed a number of Zhiyun gimbals in recent years, but that's not even the half of the Chinese firm's dizzying pace of releases, seemingly slotting a new gimbal into a specific niche every few months. If it's not an entirely new gimbal range, it'll be a refresh of an existing product, often including those with an immediate predecessor still decidedly fresh in many people's minds. Still, technology moves at a pace these days, you snooze you lose etc, so here we are checking out the Smooth 5, one up from the 4. What's new? Moving as it must in tandem with advances in smartphone capability - which in turn raises exciting new use cases for the hardware, which in its way begets heightened creative demands from users of peripherals - Zhiyun is firmly positioning the Smooth 5 as the…

  • MPs want clarity on takeover of Welsh chip fab by Chinese-state backed firm

    In July 2021, it emerged that Nexperia – a Dutch chip firm wholly owned by Shanghai-based Wingtech – had confirmed plans to acquire the UK’s largest chip producer, Newport Wafer Fab in a deal valued at £63m. Prime Minister Boris Johnson had asked the National Security Advisor to take a look at the deal after the government initially decided not to intervene, despite admitting that semiconductors are critical to the UK’s national security and wider global interests. Now, the Foreign Affairs Committee has called on the government to clarify the circumstances in which the National Security Adviser was asked to engage in the review and why Johnson asked for it to be undertaken in the first place. They also question why the review was never taken. The Committee also urged for greater clarity…

  • Fire safety pledges cost housing developers further millions after Grenfell Tower

    Development company Crest Nicholson announced today that it would be signing up to the government’s new 'Building Safety Pledge', which commits developers to new guidelines for work on potentially unsafe cladding on buildings between 36ft (11m) and 59ft (18m) high. The firm became the first builder to commit to signing the pledge to fund retrofit works on buildings over 11m in height. Levelling-up minister Michael Gove had given house builders until today, April 5, to sign the pledge. He had previously warned of dire commercial and financial consequences - including blocking planning permission and even a potential ban on trading - for any company that failed to fix historical fire safety problems, such as dangerous cladding similar to that which caused the devastating fire at Grenfell. …

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • ‘Freeze-thaw battery’ stores electricity long-term for seasonal release

    The small prototype device, developed by scientists at the US Department of Energy’s (DOE) Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, could be especially useful for storing energy from intermittent sources, like solar and wind energy. “Longer-duration energy storage technologies are important for increasing the resilience of the grid when incorporating a large amount of renewable energy,” said Imre Gyuk, director of energy storage at DOE’s Office of Electricity, which funded the work. “This research marks an important step toward a seasonal battery storage solution that overcomes the self-discharge limitations of today’s battery technologies.” Renewable sources ebb and flow with natural cycles, which can make it difficult to include them in a reliable, steady stream of electricity. In the…

  • ISS to welcome first private astronauts

    Axiom, alongside Nasa and other industry players, has hailed the launch as a “turning point” in the latest expansion of commercial space ventures, collectively referred to by insiders as the low-Earth orbit economy: “LEO economy” for short. Weather permitting, Axiom’s four-man team will lift off on Friday (8 April) at the earliest from Nasa’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. They will rise atop a Falcon 9 rocket furnished and flown by Elon Musk’s commercial space launch venture SpaceX. “It is the beginning of many beginnings for commercialising low-Earth orbit,” Axiom’s co-founder and executive chairman, Kam Ghaffarian, told Reuters in an interview. “We’re like in the early days of the internet, and we haven’t even imagined all the possibilities, all the capabilities, that we’re going to…

  • ‘At a crossroads’ to a liveable future: UN ‘file of shame’ urges rapid climate action

    The UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) science body has today released the third part of its sixth assessment report, spelling out how to cut emissions by switching to increasingly cheap renewables and fuels such as hydrogen, as well as energy efficiency, capturing carbon and planting trees. The first "code red" part of the report, released in August 2021, was considered essential in sounding the "death knell" for fossil fuels . The second part, released in February this year and which followed the intense climate deliberations at COP26, was billed as " an atlas of human suffering ". Now the third and final part of the IPCC's report starkly positions humankind as being "at a crossroads". Meeting goals agreed by countries to limit temperature rises to 1.5°C or below 2…

  • First audio recordings of Mars made by Nasa’s Perseverance rover

    The team operating its SuperCam2 instrument (pictured below) believes that the study of the soundscape of Mars could advance scientific understanding of the Red Planet. Perseverance made its first sound recording on Mars on 19 February, the day after its arrival. These sounds fall within the human audible spectrum, between 20Hz and 20kHz. Image credit: nasa Despite the recordings, Mars is thought to be very quiet, with the team mistakenly believing that the microphone was no longer working on several occasions as it failed to pick up any noise. Apart from the wind, natural sound sources are rare. The team has also been focusing on the sounds generated by the rover itself, including the shock waves produced by the impact of the SuperCam laser on rocks and flights…

  • Carbon tax on imported goods needed to stop ‘offshoring’ emissions, MPs say

    MPs on the Commons Environmental Audit Committee (CEAM) called for the tax as a way to stop domestic firms from “offshoring” their emissions. Taxes are currently imposed on carbon emissions from UK-made products. In a report, the MPs said that putting a price on imported carbon can incentivise sectors to move away from carbon-intensive practices and promote behavioural changes towards the creation of more low-carbon products. Currently, the UK’s emissions figures do not include carbon from imports, which understates the true picture of the carbon associated with UK consumption. CEAM acknowledged that the extra charges could be passed onto consumers without greater incentivisation for the development of more low-carbon products to ensure people are not adversely affected by higher prices…

  • Engineers returning to work after career break boosted by new partnership

    Aquila Nuclear Engineering, a Cyclife EDF group subsidiary, will offer a pilot STEM Returners programme at their site near Winchester, Hampshire, starting with the role of senior mechanical design engineer. The role will be open to engineers who have struggled to return to their career through standard recruitment channels. STEM Returners programmes act as a ‘returnship’, allowing candidates to be re-integrated into an inclusive environment upon their return to STEM. Annual research from STEM Returners (published as ' The STEM Returners Index ') has revealed the challenges that engineers face when looking to return to work following a career break. Recruitment bias is shown to be the main barrier to entry. The STEM Returners’ programme aims to eliminate such barriers by giving candidates…

  • View from India: UK and India synergise to foster prosperity

    India ranks 46th in the Global Innovation Index in 2021 by the World Intellectual Property Organisation, and occupies 63rd place in Age of Doing Business as per the World Bank Ease of Doing Business 2020. Several factors have made India conducive for global investments. It’s not just the diverse business landscape or the fact that the country is one of the world’s fastest growing economies. The Government of India (GoI) has chalked out policies for economic growth. A case in point is the Make in India initiative and Production Linked Incentive scheme (PLI) among others. The Ministry of Heavy Industry & Public Enterprises has rolled out an Industry 4.0 initiative titled SAMARTH Udyog Bharat 4.0. The endeavour is a step towards the creation of a sustainable ecosystem for leveraging Industry 4…

  • Hands-on review: Grell Audio TWS/1 earbuds

    The Grell TWS/1 'in-ear headphones' are the debut product from the eponymous company headed by renowned audiophile headphone designer and engineer Alex Grell. While the company may be a new name to many, Grell himself is a long established, highly regarded operator in the headphone world, having previously been the lead designer at Sennheiser. Whilst there, he helped tune and perfect some of the finest headphones ever made, including such models as the current flagship HD800S (that's a £1,400 pair of cans to you, mate). Having also worked with Swedish lifestyle audio brand Urbanista , Grell recently left Sennheiser to start his own brand, Grell Audio. Taking everything he learned from three decades in pursuit of sonic excellence, his new company's first fruit - the TWS/1, reviewed here…

  • Europe pursues unified Russian gas payment response as supply threat eases

    European capitals have been on alert for a disruption to gas imports for weeks as Putin seeks retaliation over the West sanctioning Russia for invading Ukraine. A crunch point appeared to be in the offing when Moscow issued a decree on Thursday requiring foreign buyers of Russian gas to open rouble accounts in state-run Gazprombank from Friday or else risk being cut off. The Kremlin said on Friday that it would not immediately turn off gas exports to Europe, as payments on deliveries due after April 1 come in the second half of this month and May. With weeks left before bills are due, governments in Europe - which relies on Russia for more than a third of its gas supply - were talking to their energy companies about how to pay them. “Working closely with Member States and operators…

  • Extreme air pollution hampering India’s solar electricity generation

    Atmospheric pollution reduces solar power generation because it both absorbs and scatters the Sun’s rays, as well as leaving deposits on solar panels that reduce their efficiency. A study carried out by IIT Delhi calculates that between 2001 and 2018 India lost 29 per cent of its solar energy potential as a result of atmospheric pollution - equivalent to an annual loss of £635m. As of March this year, India had only reached the halfway mark of 50 gigawatts of installed solar capacity, according to the research group, Mercom India. “Put simply, aerosols - which include fine particulate matter, dust, mist and fumes suspended in the air - significantly reduce incoming solar radiation in what we call the ‘atmospheric attenuation effect’,” said study author Sagnik Dey. “This needs to be factored…

  • Longer lasting de-icer cuts environmental impact of airports in winter

    When temperatures drop below zero, aircraft need to be doused with thousands of litres of de-icing fluids to keep them functioning. But when the plane takes off, most of the liquid has flowed off and ends up polluting freshwater streams and lakes. University of Illinois Chicago (UIC) researchers have developed an extensive family of more than 80 anti-freezing coatings, which can be easily applied to aluminium, steel, copper, glass, plastic or any industrial surface without preconditioning or expensive surface treatments. “We questioned the lifetime of the cryoprotectants and looked at new ways to increase their effectivity,” said researcher Sushant Anand. “Glycols dissolve very fast in the water and get washed away before the plane takes off, and it’s a serious problem that costs hundreds…

  • ‘Phenomenal’ live view of nesting eagles captured via camera hidden in stick

    White-tailed eagles Shona and Finn, also known as sea eagles, are incubating two eggs at their nest in the Cairngorms. A camera has been installed in a stick around three metres away from the nest and the birds’ activities are being beamed live to the Loch Garten Nature Centre at RSPB Scotland’s nature reserve at Abernethy. As eagles will often become nervous about new items or changes around their nest, all work was undertaken in autumn when it was safe to do so and the camera has been hidden in a stick to avoid unsettling them. Jess Tomes, Abernethy site manager for people at RSPB Scotland, said: “This is an enormously exciting addition to the visitor offer at the Loch Garten Nature Centre. The images we’re getting live from the nest are phenomenal and our visitors will get a very rare…

  • Diabetes patients trial ‘artificial pancreas’ on the NHS

    The device reads the patient's blood sugar levels and uses an algorithm to determine the amount of insulin that should be administered to keep the level steady. According to its developers, the technology is much more effective at managing blood sugar levels than current devices and requires far less input than at present. “Having machines monitor and deliver medication for diabetes patients sounds quite sci-fi-like, but when you think of it, technology and machines are part and parcel of how we live our lives every day,” said Professor Partha Kar, NHS national speciality adviser for diabetes. He explained the device picks up the patient’s glucose levels via a sensor under the skin, sends the reading across to a delivery system – the pump – and then the system kicks in to assess how much…

  • View from India: When design is democratised

    To put things in perspective, the desktop economy progressed into laptops and tablets, later the mobile and then the metaverse, whose thrust is on virtual 3D platforms. Understandably, product design has evolved at every stage. Design was an elaborate process in the desktop economy. Designers spent two to three months on the design that went through the beta phase before being piloted and then rolled out commercially. This was also the case with appliances such as washing machines that were designed two decades ago. The design perspective is different in the present scenario, and Alexa could be an example of that. Alexa works on voice command. The product is talking to the user. As a result, Alexa will have data about a particular user’s preferences. Being personalised in nature, improvisation…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • RRS Sir David Attenborough completes ‘ice trials’ in Antarctica

    The trials saw the polar research ship tested through the ice at every power level to measure its performance against expectations. The vessel’s captain, Ralph Stevens, said that team was “really pleased” with its performance. Stevens and his team also performed a range of manoeuvres, including reversing, turning, and impact tests going into the ice at different speeds, in icy areas of the sea around the Antarctic Peninsula and Bellinghausen Sea. The British Antarctic Survey (BAS), which operates the RRS Sir David Attenborough, said  satellite data was used to locate suitable areas of ice for the trials. According to the team, most manoeuvres were in fast ice, which is attached to the coast and not moving, allowing them to work out accurately the amount of energy needed to break the ice…

  • Sponsored: The new era of technical conferences has landed – UKEmbedded

    The UK embedded event calendar has changed dramatically in the last decade. There are fewer large “expo” style events and many smaller one-day technical conferences. The gap between these micro-events and the expo events is wide and leaves us with a huge opportunity to benefit this world-leading workforce. UKEmbedded seizes the opportunity to host a medium-sized technical conference which will be held on the 12 th  May 2022 in Coventry. The focus is on knowledge-sharing, collaboration and technical content. This strong agenda which features some of the embedded industry’s finest will be supported with an carefully profiled exhibition, and workshop-style training. Content rich agenda The day will deliver a balanced agenda covering many of the key areas affecting the embedded space at the…

  • UK greenhouse gas emissions rose 5 per cent in 2021

    However, the provisional data for 2021 reveals that climate pollution remained more than 5 per cent below 2019 levels, reflecting the ongoing impact of Covid-19 restrictions. Total greenhouse gas emissions were up 4.7 per cent in 2021 on 2020 levels, reaching 424.5 million tonnes, but were 5.2 per cent lower than 2019. Pollution from key greenhouse gas carbon dioxide was up 6.3 per cent year-on-year, with increases in all sectors, led by a 10 per cent jump in transport emissions, the statistics from the Business Department (Beis) show. Looking over the long term, greenhouse gas emissions in 2021 were 47 per cent below what they were in 1990. The biggest driver of the long-term fall in emissions is a decrease in pollution from power stations, as electricity generation shifts away from…

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