• The bigger picture: Boeing 747 rocket launcher

    Earlier this month, the historic first attempt to launch satellites from British soil reached space, but ultimately fell short of reaching its target orbit . On 9 January, after taking off from the runway at Spaceport Cornwall – located in Newquay Airport – and travelling to the designated drop zone, Cosmic Girl, the customised former Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747-400 N744VG that serves as the LauncherOne rocket system’s carrier aircraft, successfully released the rocket from a pylon under its wing. The rocket ignited its engines, going hypersonic and successfully reaching space. The flight then continued through successful stage separation and ignition of the second stage. However, during the firing of the rocket’s second-stage engine and with the rocket travelling at a speed of more than…

  • View from India: PM connects with economists ahead of Budget

    “Amid Amrit Kaal looking forward to discussions on Motion of Thanks on the President’s Address, Union Budget & other items,” tweeted Pralhad Joshi, Union minister of parliamentary affairs. The Budget Session 2023 of Parliament is expected to begin on January 31 and will continue until April 6 2022. A total of 27 sittings are expected in a total of over 66 days, with the usual recess. The session will start with an address by President Droupadi Murmu to the joint sitting of the Lok Sabha and Rajya Sabha in the Central Hall of Parliament. What is interesting is that Modi stressed the need to enhance the presence of women in the workforce, urging the public and private sector to come forward and synergise for their benefit. Modi also lauded India’s digital story. Equally noteworthy is the…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Japan to release water from Fukushima plant into the ocean

    The Japanese government has said it will start releasing contaminated water from the nuclear power plant devastated by a tsunami in 2011, into the Pacific Ocean sometime “around this spring or summer”. The plan has been endorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), but the government said it would wait for "a comprehensive report" by the UN watchdog before the release.  In March 2011, a large undersea quake off the coast of Japan triggered a massive tsunami . At the time, three of the six nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant were in operation. When the huge waves flooded the backup generators, the cooling systems failed, causing the reactors to go into meltdown.   Every day, the plant produces 100m³ of contaminated water, which is a mixture of groundwater…

  • Hands-on review: Blueair DustMagnet 5240i

    The 5240i is the middle-sized device in Blueair’s range of three DustMagnet air purifiers. It’s compact, like a small side table, at 52x22x22cm. You could easily pop a houseplant on it. Or sit it next to the sofa and leave the remote control and a cuppa on it. Just be careful with the cuppa or when watering the plant. As the name suggests, it collects dust as well as allergens, germs, pollen and pet dander. Tech features include voice and app control, and even geofencing, so it saves energy when no one is home. This model is designed to completely filter the air in a 48m² room every 30 minutes. That’s a large room: it can do a more typical 20m² room every 12.5 minutes. Its clean air delivery rate (CADR) is 226 m³ per hour for dust, 232m³/h for smoke and 238m³/h for pollen. Below it in…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Gadgets: Blueair DustMagnet, Viofo A139 Pro dashcam, Garmin Tacx Neo bike and more

    Blueair DustMagnet 5240i Swedish, high-performance air purification with a furniture-style design. It collects dust as well as allergens, germs, pollen and pet dander. Techie features include voice and app control and even geofencing, so it saves energy when no-one is home. From £329 blueair.com Viofo A139 Pro 3CH Viofo’s first 4K three-channel, three-camera dashcam. Record front-facing footage in superb 4K HDR resolution, picking up numberplates, plus HD rear footage and HD Carpool Karaoke-style interior footage. The cameras connect wirelessly, so the Viofo can record all three at once. £352 viofo.com Doro Tablet and Watch An Android tablet...

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Letters to the editor: volume 18, issue 1

    Can we ever achieve a zero-waste economy? Reading the article ‘Is Chemical Recycling Greenwashing?’ in the December 2022 issue of E&T, I wondered why landfilling plastic waste does not qualify as a method of carbon capture. If plastics are made ultimately from hydrocarbons and if they last for millions of years in the environment, as is so often the complaint of green campaigners, then why not make a virtue of it? I dutifully recycle because it reduces my waste-collection bill and by now I have internalised the habit and its innate ‘goodness’. However, I long ago realised that it means I am also donating my time and some of my money to the cause as I wash the items in hot water and detergent to clean them first. I also fear that much of what I recycle ends up in developing nations and eventually…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Why 2023 promises great expectations in a value-driven EV market

    It may still seem as if electric vehicles (EVs) have made little progress in the wider market, with reports showing only two models in the list of the UK’s top-selling cars for 2022. Based on data from the Society of Motor Manufacturers and Traders (SMMT), this could be the result of different factors that are currently affecting the automotive industry, including rising inflation and cost of raw materials. With the cost-of-living crisis also influencing consumers’ approach when shopping for a new car, what can EV manufacturers do to differentiate their offerings and win market share in 2023? The public are are more aware of EVs than ever before, driven partly by rising fuel costs and their own response to the climate crisis, and many are now looking to switch their internal combustion engine…

  • Royal Mail hit by Russia-linked cyber attack

    Royal Mail has been unable to send letters and parcels overseas since Wednesday (11 January) due to a ransomware attack that affected its computer systems.  The organisation has advised people not to try to send international letters and parcels until the issue is resolved. The attack has been claimed by L ockBit, a hacker group widely thought to have close links to Russia. According to The Telegraph, the group was able to get the p rinters at a Royal Mail distribution site near Belfast in Northern Ireland to start printing ransom notes that threatened to publish the stolen information online. The note said: “Lockbit Black Ransomware. Your data are stolen and encrypted.” The back office system affected is the one used by Royal Mail to prepare mail for despatch abroad, and to track and…

  • 2025 gas boiler ban proposed in UK government’s net zero review

    Tory MP Chris Skidmore, the chair of the Net Zero Review, was tasked by the Liz Truss administration in September last year to develop recommendations on how the UK could improve its net-zero efforts. It includes energy efficiency proposals that would ensure that all homes sold by 2033 would be able to demonstrate an EPC rating of at least C. It also proposes a 10-year plan to ensure heat pumps become more widespread throughout the UK and the banning of new gas boiler installations from 2025. A new infrastructure strategy should be implemented by 2025 that supports adaptation for new green energy sources such as hydrogen and other liquid and gaseous fuels, the report recommends. It also suggests a series of tax incentives to encourage businesses to invest in decarbonisation, including…

  • Renewables industry calls for grid investment as delays threaten net zero

    Speaking in front of a cross party group of MPs this week, Chis Hewett, chief executive of Solar Energy UK, said investment in the transmission grid “is in the interest of the consumer, businesses and the taxpayer”. He added that the UK must invest in the grid “to get renewables into the system as soon as we possibly can because that’s the cheapest power and that will bring everyone’s’ bills down”. In written evidence to the Environmental Audit Committee (EAC), the solar trade body said it had received extensive reports of solar projects being delayed – sometimes into the 2030s – because distribution network operators (DNOs) could not connect them. Solar Energy UK said it knew of more than 40 projects and 3.5GW of capacity which had been impacted or delayed by grid connection problems,…

  • Europe’s largest rare earth deposit found in Sweden

    Swedish government-owned LKAB has found a deposit containing over a million tonnes of rare earth oxides in the Artic region of Sweden.  The deposit has been hailed as "decisive" for the green transition, given the expected rise in demand for electric vehicles and wind turbines, which depend on these materials for their manufacture. “This is the largest known deposit of rare earth elements in our part of the world, and it could become a significant building block for producing the critical raw materials that are absolutely crucial to enable the green transition,” said LKAB chief executive Jan Mostrom. “Without mines, there can be no electric vehicles.” Europe’s largest deposit of rare earth metals is located in the Kiruna area / LKAB Image credit: LKAB Rare

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Survey shows STEM skills still in short supply

    As the sluggish post-pandemic rebound combines with the economic drag of rising inflation, the Brexit hangover and a global energy crisis, the engineering employment market should be a perfect storm. And yet, salaries in the technology sector are continuing to rise, while on the job market demand for tech talent is outstripping supply. Almost half of filled vacancies are ‘ghosted’ by candidates receiving better offers, and six-figure salaries are becoming commonplace. Also, the same personnel increasingly want to work remotely. This picture is drawn using findings from online technology talent recruitment consultant hackajob, whose inaugural annual Marketplace Monitor presents an analysis of thousands of jobs based in the UK (including global remote hires) in an effort to understand technical…

  • Smart appliances become hacking risk due to poor update policies

    The firm analysed products including washing machines, dishwashers, televisions, smartphones, printers and smartwatches and found that hardly any brands came close to matching expected lifespans with their smart update policies. The failure to update their cyber defences also leaves some of the products open to hacking, Which? warned. Many brands were found to not give any guarantees, meaning consumers were unaware how long their appliance would be supported upon purchase. Appliances with smart home integration typically cost more than their non-smart counterparts – for example, a smart dishwasher costs on average nearly £300 more upfront, at £746 versus £455 119 product brands were surveyed about their update support policies and it was found that in most cases, the support period…

  • Back Story: Grazia Vittadini, ‘There is so much room for the heart in STEM’

    Shini Somara: What was your path into aviation and aerospace? Grazia Vittadini: My career path hasn’t quite followed a straight line, there were plenty of zigzags, but I have always loved aeroplanes, even as a child. Later on, I had a motorcycle, which I kept dismantling, rebuilding and optimising. I actually wanted to be a jet fighter pilot at that time, but the Italian Air Force didn’t allow women to fly. I applied nonetheless and, of course, was rejected. The unfairness of this prompted me to promise myself that if I couldn’t fly planes, then I was going to build them instead. That’s what brought me to aerospace engineering at the Politecnico di Milano, where I specialised in aerodynamics. Subsequently, I followed the professional opportunities which presented themselves and, after two…

  • Ocular lens could detect early-stage Alzheimer's

    The team is based at the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM) in collaboration with Yonsei University.  The lens is considered Korea's first smart intraocular lens technology, capable of diagnosing Alzheimer's, a degenerative brain disease, at its early stages. It works by being inserted into the eye to detect biomarkers for Alzheimer's disease, as well as other neurological and degenerative brain diseases.  To detect these biomarkers, the researchers focused on the characteristics of the eye, which is directly connected to the brain. They developed an implantable biosensing system by mounting a bioresponsive hydrogel-based sensing module capable of detecting various biomarkers on an intraocular lens to express a signal in a moiré pattern. When the hydrogel pattern reacted…

  • EV makers and suppliers must prepare for a more contentious world

    The innovative world of automotive manufacturing could be about to get a lot more contentious due to disruption led by electric vehicles, lower barriers to entry and the divergence of global supply chains. Established automakers and leading OEMs could end up losing ground to agile new entrants if they fail to adequately prepare. The global automotive industry is undergoing a period of rapid technological and manufacturing transformation. Electrification, digitalisation, autonomy and connectivity are reducing the dominance of established OEMs and introducing greater uncertainty about the shape of the industry, particularly in the fast-growing EV market. The emergence of new technologies has encouraged a number of start-ups and non-traditional players to enter the market. Changes in the technological…

  • Fossil fuels firms should pay to have their emissions cleaned, study says

    Requiring fossil fuel companies to pay to clean up their carbon emissions could help curb dangerous global warming at a relatively affordable cost, a group of scientists from Oxford, the US and the Netherlands have suggested.  To do this, the firms should be required to offset emissions from all fossil fuels extracted or imported into a region, country or bloc by storing the same amount of carbon back underground. “The technology exists – what has always been lacking is effective policy,” said Myles Allen, a professor of geosystems science at the University of Oxford and one of the scientists behind the proposal. “The failure has been policy, not technology – we know how to do this.” The approach already exists in other areas such as plastic packaging or electrical goods, where firms…

  • Thousands of US flights grounded over database mishap

    As of last night, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was still trying to determine the root cause of the 'Notice to Air Missions' (NOTAM) system outage. NOTAM is used to alert aircraft pilots of potential hazards along a flight route or at a location that could affect the flight. It includes data on a raft of different hazards such as rocket launches; flights by important people, such as heads of state; closed runways; military exercises, and a whole host of other events which could disrupt a flight. “Our preliminary work has traced the outage to a damaged database file,” the FAA said. “At this time, there is no evidence of a cyber-attack.” A senior official briefed on the internal review told ABC News that an engineer “replaced one file with another” without realising the mistake…

  • Satellite data detects hidden waste sites leaking into waterways

    Every year, millions of metric tons of plastic waste end up in oceans, harming hundreds of species and their ecosystems. Most of this waste comes from land-based sources that leak into watersheds. Writing in the journal Plos One, researchers said that efforts to address this issue require better understanding of where people dispose of waste on land. Current resources to detect and monitor such sites - both official sites and informal or illegal ones - are lacking. In recent years, the use of computational tools such as neural networks have been used to analyse satellite data to get a greater understanding of the Earth’s surface. Researcher Caleb Kruse, of Earthrise Media, California, developed a new system of neural networks to analyse data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel…

  • Are Big Tech hiring or firing?

    Redundancies are an inevitable consequence of tough economic times. Some 70 per cent of business costs are typically spent on staff, so it makes sense that people are the first to go when cutbacks are being made. It came as no surprise, then, that as the current economic crisis came starkly into view, news of layoffs began trickling in. What was surprising, and somewhat unprecedented, was just how far those mass layoffs would spread. And how even the likes of Big Tech would not be immune to this trend. At the time of writing, the number of tech job cuts worldwide in 2022 has exceeded 142,000, and 85,000 of those have come from the US, according to layoffs.fyi and Crunchbase figures. Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Netflix and Google, known under the acronym FAANG, have each responded to the downturn…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • James Webb Telescope gives insights into the formation of the first stars

    The image shows a young cluster of stars named NGC 346, which is located  the Small Magellanic Cloud (SMC), a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way more than 200,000 light-years from Earth. NGC 346 is interesting to astronomers because it resembles the conditions of the early universe when the majority of stars formed.  For this reason, a stronomers believe studying this region could help shed light on how the first stars formed during the “cosmic noon”, which is only two or three billion years after the Big Bang. "We're seeing the building blocks, not only of stars but also potentially of planets," said Guido De Marchi, of the European Space Agency, and a co-investigator on the research team. “And since the Small Magellanic Cloud has a similar environment to galaxies during cosmic noon,…

  • Engineering skills crisis: a multi-pronged problem

    When it comes to determining whether the UK has enough engineers to do the jobs it needs, there is no shortage of surveys that suggest it has to do a lot more to get them. Based on data from the British Chambers of Commerce, the Open University concluded in June 2022 that almost 90 per cent of large employers and more than two-thirds of small and medium-sized enterprises are facing skills shortages. The majority of employers said the shortages are piling pressure on staff and reducing output and profitability. In engineering specifically, the 2021 Skills Survey conducted by the IET found two-thirds of those questioned reported gaps they were having trouble filling. Even before the Covid-19 pandemic hit, there were clear shortages according to several bodies and that has grown worse in the…

    E+T Magazine
    E+T Magazine

  • Hands-on review: Zhiyun Smooth 5S smartphone gimbal

    Twelve months is a long time in Zhiyun World. The Smooth 5S – launched late last year – is the Chinese brand's successor to the Smooth 5 , which itself had been released towards the end of 2021 to replace the Smooth 4. And so it goes. The annual cycle of rebirth and renewal continues with the Smooth 5S. As a smartphone gimbal, the 5S is Smooth by name, smooth by nature. Smooth as in silky. With updated algorithms controlling the steel motors, it has the mechanical chops to cope with today's Pro Max monster phones – although the bigger the phone, the tighter the fit. If your phone is at the outer limits of size and weight, you will be Max-ing the envelope of what is possible. Available in either a striking white or smokey-grey colourway (we tested the more subtle/sober grey), the overall…

  • View from India: Research to improve daily lives

    The frontiers of research could probably reach a higher realm with some doses of encouragement. The research fraternity requires funding to work on solutions for the betterment of people. The UN’s 'Sustainable Development Goals' (SDG) are a universal call to action to end poverty, protect the planet and improve the lives and prospects of everyone, everywhere. “To realise this goal, we need to encourage researchers by creating opportunities and a befitting environment for them to work. Besides political support, the financial investment should increase,” said S. Gopalakrishnan, president of the Board of Trustees, Infosys Science Foundation, and co-founder of Infosys Ltd, speaking at the 2022 Infosys Prize Ceremony. Private-public-philanthropic collaboration could lead to improved funding…

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