• ‘Largest-ever’ hydrogen plane to begin real-world testing after regulator approval

    ZeroAvia’s Dornier 228 aircraft has been retrofitted with a prototype hydrogen-electric powertrain, meaning the firm can now begin the first test flights of its 600kW hydrogen-electric powertrain. The 19-seat twin-engine aircraft has been retrofitted in an engineering testbed configuration to incorporate ZeroAvia’s hydrogen-electric engine powering the propellor on its left wing, operating alongside a single Honeywell TPE-331 stock engine on the right to allow for redundancy if something should go wrong. When test flights begin in January, the Dornier 228 testbed is expected to become “the largest aircraft to ever fly using a hydrogen-electric powertrain,” ZeroAvia said. Reducing carbon emissions from the aviation sector is notoriously difficult, with many environmental campaigners and…

  • Meta to settle Cambridge Analytica class-action lawsuit for $725m

    The proposed settlement would resolve a four-year-long lawsuit prompted by revelations in 2018 that Facebook had allowed the now-defunct British political consulting firm Cambridge Analytica to access the data of as many as 87 million users. The settlement - obtained by Reuters - has been detailed in a public court filing in the Northern District of California, four months after news first emerged of Meta's intention to settle the case.  "Plaintiffs respectfully request that the Court preliminarily approve the $725m non-reversionary Settlement," reads the document .  Lawyers for the plaintiffs called the proposed settlement the largest to ever be achieved in a US data privacy class action and the most that Meta has ever paid to resolve a class action lawsuit. "This historic settlement…

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  • Microplastic quantities on the seafloor triple in 20 years

    The team from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (AUB) and Aalborg University said the increase corresponds with the type and volume of consumption of plastic products by society over that time. The study is the first high-resolution reconstruction of microplastic pollution from sediments obtained in the north-western Mediterranean Sea. Despite the seafloor generally being the final sink for microplastics floating on the sea surface, the level of build-up and the sequestration and burial rate of smaller microplastics on the ocean floor is unknown. It was found that microplastics are retained unaltered in marine sediments, and that the microplastic mass in the seafloor mimics the global plastic production from 1965 to 2016. “Specifically, the results show that, since 2000, the amount…

  • Report calls for end of ‘costly’ genetic modification prohibition

    The IEA report has backed the government's proposed Precision Breeding Bill, which aims to update the regulatory framework related to precision-bred plants and animals developed through techniques such as gene editing.  The think tank - which influenced the policy ideas of former prime minister Liz Truss - also said that the UK must go further than current reforms and embrace genetic modification. Gene editing is a process of modifying the existing genetic material of an organism. It has been portrayed as a powerful tool that can boost sustainable farming, fight nutrient deficiencies and reduce consumer food prices. Technologies developed in the last decade enable genes to be edited more quickly and precisely to mimic the natural breeding process, helping to target plant and animal breeding…

  • Korean scientists work to prevent water leaks from district heating pipes

    The Korea Institute of Civil Engineering and Building Technology (KICT) has developed a new technology for diagnosing faults to prevent water leaks from district heating pipes, which supply energy in an eco-friendly and economical way. KICT conducted research of measuring abnormal signals of the pipelines by using both acoustic emission (AE) sensors and accelerometer sensors and classifying the signals using machine learning to increase detection accuracy and diagnose various abnormalities including a water leak. Preventing such leaks could drastically increase public safety. District heating pipelines supply hot water at temperatures of as high as 120℃ at constant pressure from a District Heating Hot Water Production Facility plant to the point of demand. When a leak occurs in one of…

  • UK and Moderna cement 10-year partnership to build vaccine facility

    The partnership will also create more than 150 jobs and “future-proof” the UK against potential pandemics, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said. Plans for the centre were initially unveiled earlier this year when a government spokesperson said Moderna would make a minimum R&D investment of £1.1bn. The centre, which will be able to produce up to 250 million vaccines a year, will see the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) working with Moderna to ensure early vaccine development, supporting the G7 mission to get from variant to vaccine in 100 days. The centre will offer NHS patients access to Moderna’s Covid vaccines that can protect against multiple variants. It will also have the potential to develop vaccines targeting a range of other illnesses, such as flu and respiratory…

  • Japan to invest on nuclear energy in major policy shift

    Faced with fuel shortages and rising energy prices, the nation has taken the step to end an 11-year prohibition on the building of new nuclear reactors.  The new policy establishes that Japan must maximise the use of existing nuclear reactors by restarting as many of them as possible, prolonging the operating life of old reactors beyond their 60-year limit, and developing next-generation reactors to replace them. The policy document describes nuclear power as serving “an important role as a carbon-free baseload energy source in achieving supply stability and carbon neutrality” and pledges to “sustain use of nuclear power into the future”. The proposed legislation is thus a total reversal of the nuclear safety measures the country imposed after a powerful tsunami  destroyed Fukushima Daiichi…

  • Channel 4’s ‘Alternative Christmas Message’ to be AI speech delivered by robot

    A human-shaped robot called Ameca will lead the programme which will cover the highs and lows of the year gone by. The broadcast, which will run after the King’s annual Christmas message at 3pm, will also see the robot being questioned about humans. According to Channel 4, Ameca says we should be “neither happy nor sad about 2022” and “take it as a learning opportunity, a chance to change the way we think about the world and a reminder to help those in need whenever we can.” Engineered Arts, a British company based in Cornwall, developed the robot which is capable of ultra-realistic reactions and can smile or frown, blink, scrunch its nose and even wink. The speech will use AI software that generates answers from millions of different inputs to give a human-like response, and nothing…

  • Government awards £165m to green jet fuel projects

    The UK has taken another step towards its goal of achieving net zero carbon emissions and helping its sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) by awarding five projects a share of the £165m Advanced Fuels Fund. Together, the initiatives are expected to produce over 300,000 tonnes of SAF a year - enough to fly to the Moon and back an estimated 60 times - and slash CO2 emissions by an average of 200,000 tonnes each year, which would be the equivalent of taking 100,000 cars off the road. The  successful projects include SAF plants in Teesside, Immingham and Ellesmere Port, which will convert everyday household and commercial waste, such as black bin bags, into sustainable jet fuel. In addition, a  project in Port Talbot, south Wales, will convert steel mill off-gases into fuel and another scheme…

  • Can we beat OpenAI's chatbot?

    Should we make Boris Johnson take a Turing test? Now that OpenAI’s ChatGPT has surfaced, we have to question whether we can tell the difference between someone of the former prime minister’s calibre in debate and speech-making and an AI. ChatGPT was launched amid some big claims, such as the ability to understand and create correct software code and credible reports and articles. But its owners are less certain about  just how good it is at the job – and perhaps more importantly, whether it has the ability to work out when it is doing a bad job.   It does not take long to work out where the underlying AI, a slightly trimmed version of OpenAI’s GPT-3 in the case of ChatGPT, falls down. Arithmetic is one of the more obvious weak spots. Though large language models can cope with very simple…

  • Indonesia’s rice waste could generate enough electricity to power all its homes

    Each year, Indonesia produces about 100 million tonnes of the rice straw, and around 60 per cent of this waste is burned in open fields, causing air pollution which has been linked to higher rates of lung cancer. The amount burned releases enough energy, if it could be harnessed, to power Indonesia’s households 10 times over. A research consortium which includes Aston University aims to develop processes to capture more affordable energy from rice straw than ever before and demonstrate that it can be done on a commercial scale. Part of the process involves a biomass conversion technology called pyrolysis. This involves heating organic waste materials to high temperatures of around 500°C to break them down, producing vapour and solid products. Some of the vapour may be condensed into…

  • Wi-Fi routers could be used to monitor breathing

    Scientists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have created BreatheSmart, an algorithm to determine whether someone is having trouble breathing using available Wi-Fi routers and devices.  Wi-Fi routers continuously broadcast radio frequencies that phones, tablets and computers are able pick up.  As the signals travel, they bounce off or pass through everything around them — the walls, the furniture and even people. Due to the frequencies' sensibilities any movements - including breathing patterns - slightly alter the signal’s path from the router to a device. These are the changes that BreatheSmart has been trained to pick up and analyse.  Complete setup for the experiment using an off-the-shelf Wi-Fi router and receiving device. / S. Mosleh…

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  • Nasa’s InSight lander stops responding after months of declining power

    The agency said it has assumed that InSight may have reached its end of operations after previously admitting that dust build-up on its solar panels may be preventing its battery from charging. While this could be a reason the lander has gone quiet, Nasa admitted that it current has no definitive explanation of why InSight’s energy levels have declined although it will continue to try and regain contact. Since landing in November 2018, the probe has been traversing the surface of Mars measuring marsquakes and observing the local weather, powering itself with a pair of solar arrays that soak up energy from the sun. It was originally only expected to operate for two years so is already running on borrowed time. Nevertheless, as recently as October the probe was still making discoveries…

  • Virgin Orbit obtains licence for first UK space launch

    The CAA has announced the news, stating that Virgin Orbit had “taken all reasonable steps to ensure safety risks arising from launch activities are as low as reasonably practicable”. The launch will see   Virgin Orbit’s jumbo, known as Cosmic Girl , carrying   LauncherOne, to an altitude of approximately 35,000ft (10km) and then dropping it. Once released into the atmosphere, the LauncherOne rocket will accelerate to 8,000mph (12,875km/h) before deploying seven satellites into orbit   with a variety of civil and defence applications. “Receiving Virgin Orbit’s range and launch licences takes us one step closer to the first satellite launch take-off from UK soil," said Virgin Orbit chief executive Dan Hart, following the announcement.  The mission was named Start Me Up in tribute to the…

  • Drone uses lightweight sensors to determine next volcano eruption

    The main gases released by volcanoes are water vapour, carbon dioxide, and sulphur dioxide. Analysing these gases is one of the best ways of obtaining information on volcanic systems and the magmatic processes that are under way. The ratio of carbon dioxide levels to those of sulphur dioxide can even reveal the likelihood of an impending eruption. While drones have already been used to analyse the site of volcano activity, transporting them to their operation sites has required significant expense due to their high weight. A team of researchers at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has been assessing a very compact drone system that can be transported on foot to sites that are normally extremely difficult to access through other means. A particularly promising parameter when…

  • Elon Musk reveals plans to resign as Twitter CEO

    The billionaire had promised to abide by the result of a Twitter poll where he asked users whether he should resign as the social media platform's chief executive officer. After 57.5 per cent of users vote "yes", Musk said he would stay on as Twitter CEO until he could find " someone foolish enough to take the job". Once he did, the billionaire said he would "just run the software and servers teams".  This is not the first time the platform’s new owner has indicated he will pull back from the position. In November, the now second-richest person in the world told a court in Delaware  that he would reduce his time at Twitter and eventually find someone to run it in his place. According to CNBC, Musk would have been looking for a replacement since before posting the poll on his Twitter profile…

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  • UK forests could store almost twice as much carbon as previously thought

    UCL researchers used a 3D-scanning technique and analysis to assess the amount of aboveground biomass (AGB) – used to derive carbon storage – of 815 trees in a UK woodland. The team found that their results were 77 per cent higher than previous estimates, which could have implications for the role of forests in tackling climate change, with the potential underestimation of forest carbon stocks having both positive and negative consequences for climate policy. Study co-author Professor Mat Disney said: “Forests currently act as a carbon sink in the UK. However, whilst our finding that the carbon storage capacity of typical UK woodland could be nearly double what we previously thought might seem like a purely positive outcome, in practice this means that for every ha of woodland lost, we…

  • Berlin scientists break tandem solar cells efficiency record

    The current record for the efficiency of tandem solar cells has been broken at HZB, certifying institute European Solar Test Installation (ESTI) in Italy has confirmed.  Tandem solar cells consist of a silicon bottom cell and a perovskite top cell. In order to increase the technology's efficiency, the HZB team used an advanced perovskite composition with a smart interface  modification. Having developed an interface modification to reduce charge carrier recombination losses, the researchers applied detailed analysis to understand its specific properties. Altogether, the interface and optical modifications enabled high photovoltages (open-circuit voltage) and resulted in the new record efficiency for tandem technology. "This is a really big leap forward that we didn't foresee a few months…

  • Book review: ‘Astrotopia’ by Mary-Jane Rubenstein

    For all that space bros tend to profess their lack of religiosity, there is something about their fervour for space that could justifiably be interpreted as religious. In ‘Astrotopia: The Dangerous Religion of the Corporate Space Race’ (The University of Chicago Press, $24, ISBN 9780226821122), Mary-Jane Rubenstein picks apart the parallel religious mythologies behind the colonisation of Earth and of space. The main characters are SpaceX CEO Elon Musk (the hare) and Blue Origin CEO Jeff Bezos (the self-described tortoise), with Robert Zubrin a major influence. Although distinct in their visions of Utopia, Musk and Bezos propose exploiting space for the benefit – nay, the salvation – of humanity. ‘Astrotopia’ argues that these characters are now peddling the same strain of Christian mythology…

  • TSB fined £48m for major IT failures

    The Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA) fined the bank a total of £48.65m for “operational risk management and governance failures” including outsourcing relating to the bank’s IT upgrade programme. In April 2018, TSB updated its IT systems and migrated customer services on to a new platform. While the data itself migrated successfully, the platform immediately experienced technical failures resulting in significant disruption to the continuity of TSB’s banking services, including branch, telephone, online and mobile banking. All of TSB’s branches and a significant proportion of its 5.2 million customers were affected by the initial issues. Some customers continued to be affected by some issues and it took until December 2018 for TSB to return…

  • EU countries agree on gas price cap

    After months of negotiations and a succession of draft proposals, the 27 countries that form the European Union have agreed to impose a price cap on rising gas prices.   "Another mission impossible accomplished," said the Czech minister for trade and industry, Jozef Síkela, who chaired talks between energy ministers. "Most importantly it was our duty towards our citizens and businesses who were waiting for us to act," he added. Under the agreement, the price cap will kick in when prices on the main European gas exchange, the Dutch Title Transfer Facility (TTF), exceed €180 (£157) a megawatt-hour and are €35 (£31) higher than a global reference price for liquefied natural gas (LNG) for three successive working days. Once activated, it will remain active for 20 days but it can be suspended…

  • Sicily introduces hybrid train that can run on electricity, battery and diesel

    Hitachi Rail said the new 'Blues' train, which is the first of its type to enter passenger service in Europe, could reduce carbon dioxide emissions and fuel consumption by up to 50 per cent when compared to traditional trains. The train is ready to begin passenger service following its international presentation at rail expo Innotrans last September in Berlin. The Blues is equipped with a new generation of hybrid technology: the train can travel with diesel engines on non-electrified lines, with pantographs on electrified lines, and with batteries, where applicable, to travel the last mile on non-electrified lines or while stopping at stations, avoiding the use of fuel. Batteries also help to further improve normal power performance. Switching off the engines during the arrival, parking…

  • Government to provide £400 energy support for 900,000 households

    The government said that 900,000 households in England, Scotland and Wales would be able to apply online from the start of the new year to obtain £400 in support – matching what is being paid out to millions of households with a more traditional energy set-up. The support will extend to the 900,000 households in Great Britain that do not have a direct relationship with an energy supplier, allowing Travellers access to the cash for the first time. In addition, all households in Northern Ireland will receive a one-off payment of £600 to help with their energy bills, with payments starting in January. Households in Great Britain that use alternative fuels such as heating oil will receive a £200 payment. “Putin’s illegal war has caused global energy prices to soar, but we are continuing to…

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    E+T Magazine

  • How DMA rules will challenge online gatekeepers beyond Europe

    In November 2022, the European Union’s Digital Markets Act (DMA) entered into force. This pioneering and controversial regulation aims to make European digital platform markets fairer and more competitive by curbing the power of the ‘GAMAM’ group of Big Tech businesses – Google, Amazon, Meta, Apple and Microsoft. While it is still too early to know exactly how they will respond, it is unlikely that any one of these tech giants will back down without a fight. The DMA responds to the concerns highlighted in several international expert reports from 2019, including the Furman , Stigler and Vestager reports, which showed that core platform markets are globally dominated by one or two of the same five companies. The reports agree that the high degree of market concentration results from an unusual…

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