• China drafts roadmap to boost its civilian drone industry

    The Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC) has published a detailed plan, outlining the targets the regulator wanted its unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) industry to reach by the years 2025, 2030 and 2035 in order to become the largest drone market in the world, closing the gap with the US.    The roadmap is currently open to public comment and it includes improving regulations and expanding airspace capacity for civilian UAVs, Reuters has reported. The CAAC said the plan will be open for comment until September 5 2022. The goal is to "enhance China's international competitiveness in the field of unmanned aviation as well as the country's right to speak on international civil aviation rules and standards... and reach the goal of becoming a global civil aviation power," a representative…

  • Six vital questions for the UK offshore wind sector

    Generating more electricity from offshore wind than anywhere else in the world, the UK is at the forefront of exploiting the fastest-growing source of energy. However, with an ever-more congested onshore grid, supply chains under pressure and an increasingly competitive global scene, there are several major issues that industry needs to consider as it enters the next phase of developing infrastructure. As demand increases, what will offshore-to-onshore connection look like? More than 20 years after the first offshore wind farm was installed in the UK, many of the connection points to the onshore grid are becoming saturated, so there is a question as to what shape the offshore part of the network will take. National Grid ESO has identified within the Holistic Network Design for 2030 onwards…

  • Wind turbine blades could be recycled into sweets

    Wind power is a popular form of renewable energy, but disposal becomes an issue when it’s time to replace the huge turbine blades. To tackle this, scientists have created a new composite resin suitable for making these behemoths that could later be recycled into new turbine blades or a variety of other products, including countertops, car taillights, nappies, and even gummy bears. “The beauty of our resin system is that at the end of its use cycle, we can dissolve it, and that releases it from whatever matrix it’s in so that it can be used repeatedly in an infinite loop,” said John Dorgan, a professor at Michigan State University (MSU). “That’s the goal of the circular economy.” Most wind turbine blades are made of fibreglass, and can be half the size of a football pitch. And although…

  • Liquid crystals could be used to make computers, MIT study says

    A pair of researchers have found evidence suggesting that a new kind of computer could be built based on liquid crystals rather than silicon. According to the article published in the journal Science Advances , the computer would be built using the orientation of the liquid crystal molecules - similar to those found in LCD TVs – to store data, with calculations expected to look like "ripples" through the liquid.  If successful, the computer design made by Žiga Kos  at the University of Ljubljana in Slovenia and  Jörn Dunkel at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology would provide an alternative to electronics for the building of computers. Liquid crystals consist of rod-shaped molecules that slosh around like a fluid. In the case of nematic liquid crystals, these molecules are mostly…

  • Electric vehicles could be fully charged in 10 minutes with machine learning method

    Charging the lithium-ion batteries that fuel electric vehicles is a delicate balancing act. Ideally, drivers want to power up as quickly as possible to get back on the motorway, but with current technology, speeding up the process can cause damage to the battery. When a lithium-ion battery is being charged, lithium ions migrate from one side of the device, the cathode, to the other, the anode. By making the lithium ions migrate faster, the battery is charged more quickly, but sometimes the lithium ions don’t fully move into the anode. In this situation, lithium metal can build up, and this can trigger early battery failure or cause the cathode to wear and crack. All of these issues will reduce the lifetime of the battery and the effective range of the vehicle — expensive and frustrating…

  • Book review: ‘Joined-Up Thinking’ by Hannah Critchlow

    For years, when asked to illustrate the difference between the typical Russian and British character I would contrast the English saying “Great minds think alike” with its Russian counterpart, “U durakov misli skhodiatsya” - “Fools think alike.” Now, having read the latest book by Hannah Critchlow, science outreach fellow at Magdalene College, Cambridge and one of this country’s most prominent young neuroscientists, I will never be tempted to quote that saying again. Why? Because in the excellent ‘Joined-Up Thinking’ (Hodder & Stoughton, £22, ISBN 9781529398397), Critchlow proves beyond doubt that despite appearing to contradict each other, both expressions can be regarded as a manifestation of one and the same growing phenomenon - ‘joined-up thinking’ - whereby an individual’s thinking is…

  • Britons could be rewarded for turning off appliances to help with energy crisis

    T he National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) is said to be preparing to announce a scheme in which households with smart meters could be paid for turning off high-energy appliances such as washing machines during peak times, the Sunday Times has reported.  The initiative is expected to attempt to ease the burden of rising energy costs on UK households, a s experts predict electricity costs could rise by as much as £6,000 per year for the average family from next April.  ESO is reportedly in the process of applying for Ofgem approval of the programme, which would allow households that minimise the use of appliances such as tumble dryers, dishwashers and games consoles during the peak hours of 5pm and 8pm to save up to £6 per kWh. According to The Sunday Times, the company hopes to…

  • Vehicle-to-grid system test confirms EV batteries could balance grid

    Octopus Energy Group and the National Grid Electricity System Operator (ESO) said the tests demonstrated the viability of the technology which could allow consumers to save energy and bring down their household bills. The experiment used a test environment of the ‘Balancing Mechanism’, the primary tool used by National Grid ESO to balance Britain’s electricity system in real-time. This is the first time that V2G technology has been demonstrated in the UK to show that electric vehicles can receive a direct signal from the ESO to support system balancing. In a series of initial tests run this month, Octopus charged and discharged the batteries of up to 20 electric cars from participating customers at times of grid imbalance. The tests demonstrated the potential benefit of V2G charging…

  • Robot boat maps underwater volcano in South Pacific

    The Uncrewed Surface Vessel (USV) Maxlimer is part way through mapping the opening, or caldera, of the submarine Hunga-Tonga Hunga-Ha’apai (HTHH) volcano in the South Pacific. The boat was developed by British company Sea-Kit International and is part of the second phase of the Tonga Eruption Seabed Mapping Project (TESMaP), led by New Zealand’s National Institute of Water and Atmospheric Research (Niwa) and funded by the Nippon Foundation of Japan. Data collected from the USV so far has confirmed earlier reports of continuing volcanic activity from HTHH. A winch on the boat allows instruments to be deployed at depths, reaching 300m, to collect data from the entire water column. The boat is gradually building up an elevation map of the volcano’s opening, or caldera…

  • Heat pump uptake could be boosted with stamp duty rebate, report finds

    In its ‘ Going Green ’ report, Onward said the UK will not reach net zero by 2050 unless people rapidly adopt new technologies and change their behaviours. In February, research from Wunderflats ranked the UK near the bottom of 28 European nations for having the coldest, oldest and leakiest housing stock. To accelerate energy efficiency installations, Onward suggested that any homeowner who installs a heat pump within 24 months of moving in should get a stamp duty rebate. The report found that individuals “going green” will be responsible for one-third of the changes that need to be made if the UK is to reach net zero by 2050. Of the three biggest changes needed to reach net zero – decarbonisation of the electricity supply; uptake of electric vehicles (EVs), and adoption of low-carbon…

  • Boris Johnson greenlights funding for Sizewell C nuclear plant

    Whitehall sources have confirmed the Prime Minister and Chancellor Nadhim Zahawi have given the go-ahead for the financing of the construction of the Sizewell C nuclear reactor in Suffolk.  The UK government is expected to buy a 20 per cent stake in the plant for £6bn and seek private funding to finance the remaining cost of the project, estimated at £20-30bn, although a final decision on the figures will be made early next year.  The project, mainly funded by the French energy company EDF, aims to generate about 7 per cent of the UK's electricity needs and operate for 60 years. The new plant would be built next to the existing Sizewell B, which is still generating electricity, and Sizewell A, which has been decommissioned, according to Business Secretary Kwasi Kwarteng. To date, the government…

  • Solid refrigerants help create eco-friendly cooling system

    People across the US are turning up their air conditioners to beat the summer heat. But the hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants in these products and other cooling devices are potent greenhouse gases and major drivers of climate change, experts have said. “Just installing an air conditioner or throwing one away is a huge driver of global warming,” said Adam Slavney from Harvard University. “The refrigerants used in these systems are thousands of times more potent than carbon dioxide and can accidentally leak out of systems when they are being handled or disposed of.” Traditional cooling systems such as air conditioners (A/Cs) work by causing a refrigerant to cycle between being a gas or a liquid. When the liquid becomes a gas, it expands and absorbs heat, cooling a room or the interior of a…

  • Global sulphur shortages could stop green tech revolution in its tracks

    The study from University College London finds that global demand for sulphuric acid is set to rise significantly from ‘246 to 400 million tonnes’ by 2040 - a result of more intensive agriculture and the world moving away from fossil fuels. The researchers estimate that this will result in a shortfall in annual supply of between 100 and 320 million tonnes - between 40 and 130 per cent of current supply - depending on how quickly decarbonisation occurs. A vital part of modern manufacturing, sulphuric acid is required for the production of phosphorus fertilisers that help feed the world, and for extracting rare metals from ores essential to the rapidly required green economy transition, like cobalt and nickel used in high-performance Li-ion batteries. Currently, over 80 per cent of the…

  • Researchers create chipless, wireless ‘e-skin’

    The device is able to send signals related to pulse, sweat, and ultraviolet exposure, without using bulky chips or batteries. The team’s sensor design is a form of electronic skin, or 'e-skin' – a flexible, semiconducting film that conforms to the skin like electronic Scotch tape. The heart of the sensor is an ultrathin film of gallium nitride, a material that can both produce an electrical signal in response to mechanical strain and mechanically vibrate in response to an electrical impulse. The research team's design, detailed in the journal Science, harnessed gallium nitride’s two-way piezoelectric properties for both sensing health indicators and sending the information to an external device through wireless communication. Currently, most wireless sensors communicate via embedded Bluetooth…

  • Online Safety Bill should be ‘national priority’ for next PM, NSPCC says

    The bill puts a duty on tech giants like Facebook and Google to develop systems to identify and remove illegal material, as well as deal with content that is harmful to adults and children. Ofcom would enforce this as the regulator. An open letter led by the NSPCC (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children) charity and signed by the parents of children who have been groomed expressed frustration that the long-delayed bill was held up yet again last month in its passage through parliament. Addressed to Conservative Party leadership candidates Rishi Sunak and Liz Truss, the letter states: “It was upsetting to see opponents of the bill rejoicing at this delay and calling for the legislation to be scrapped altogether. “The Online Safety Bill would begin to hold tech companies…

  • ‘Forever chemicals’ that contaminate drinking water eliminated with new process

    Known as PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances), the group of around 12,000 different chemicals are commonly found in non-stick cookware, waterproof cosmetics, firefighting foams and products that resist grease and oil. But despite their utility, they have been associated with dangerous health effects in humans, livestock and the environment. Scientists have been experimenting with many remediation technologies, but most of them require extremely high temperatures, special chemicals or ultraviolet light and sometimes produce by-products that are also harmful and require additional steps to remove. Chemists at UCLA and Northwestern University in the United States have developed a simple way to break down almost a dozen types of these nearly indestructible 'forever chemicals' at relatively…

  • Self-driving cars to hit UK roads by 2025 under government plans

    The Department for Transport (DfT) is heavily investing in self-driving vehicles, a technology that it said could "revolutionise public transport and passenger travel" and create up to 38,000 jobs and be worth £42bn.  Although s elf-driving vehicles will not be allowed on UK roads until 2025, certain models of cars, coaches and lorries with self-driving features could even be operating on motorways in the next year, the government said. Users wanting to buy these models would require a valid driving licence to drive the vehicle on other roads, while those that purchase the modes that will be used for the public transport of deliveries and allowed on UK roads by 2025, will be able to be to do so without a driving licence as they would be completely autonomous. “We want the UK to be at…

  • Summer STEM Challenge: Digital water clocks

    The clock was invented in the Stone Age when a troglodyte stuck a stick into the ground outside the cave and noticed the shadow. But when the sun doesn’t shine… you need a water clock. So, water clocks were the next invention in timepieces. In ancient Greece, water clocks called ‘clepsydra’ were used, famously to stop lawyers from arguing for too long. Water clocks and sundials are analogue clocks. But 700 years ago, the human race got around to digital clocks, clocks based around an oscillator, a pendulum, whose oscillations were counted up on gearwheels, and hands pointing at a circle of numbers. Curiously, these used the 5000BCE sexagesimal system with 60 seconds per minute, 60 minutes per hour, that we still use. But you don’t have to use pendulums – or quartz crystal oscillators. You…

  • Severe security flaws in Apple devices ‘may have been actively exploited’

    The software vulnerabilities have affected various models of the iPhone, iPad and Mac, with experts advising consumers to update their devices to secure them. Apple has said it is “aware of a report that this issue may have been actively exploited”, and has published two security reports, but it did not give details regarding who discovered the flaw or how many users were affected by it. Security experts have recommended users update their devices, particularly the ones affected:  iPhones6S and later models; several models of the iPad, including the 5th generation and later, all iPad Pro models and the iPad Air 2; and Mac computers running MacOS Monterey. Apple’s explanation of the vulnerability means a hacker could get “full admin access to the device” so that they can “execute any code…

  • Bees have changed shape due to climate change stresses, study shows

    In the new study, environmental changes have been shown to have a direct impact, such as the overuse of particular pesticides or extreme heat killing individuals, but more subtle effects have also been shown to be affecting the insects. Four species of bumblebee from the UK that were held in museum collections over the past century were analysed and evidence was found that the insects have been getting increasingly stressed. This could potentially have a knock-on impact on their health and their ability to adapt to the changing environment. The research was able to use an approach that looked at the asymmetry of their wings to determine the amount of stress the individual insects were under when they were alive. Dr Richard Gill at Imperial College London studies how human activities…

  • Plasma reactor could create oxygen on Mars

    Vasco Guerra   at the University of Lisbon, Portugal, and his colleagues have shown that   plasma can be made to vibrate in such a way that it separates carbon dioxide into its components − carbon and oxygen − in a process that could allow humans to breathe in Mars.  “Mars has very good natural conditions for the production of oxygen using plasma technology,” Guerra said. Last year, a m icrowave-size device attached to Nasa's Perseverance rover was able to convert carbon dioxide into 10 minutes of breathable oxygen using the agency’s Mars Oxygen In-Situ Resource Utilization Experiment (MOXIE). In its first activation, the MOXIE instrument produced about 5g of oxygen, equivalent to roughly 10 minutes’ worth of breathing for an astronaut, Nasa said.  Since then, scientists have been looking…

  • ISS spacewalk ended early due to battery emergency

    Expedition 67 commander Oleg Artemyev and flight engineer Denis Matveev, both of Roscosmos, were instructed by Russian flight controllers to end the spacewalk yesterday after the issue occurred. Despite the early ending, cosmonaut Oleg Artemyev still managed to complete the installation of two cameras on the European robotic arm during the spacewalk. Soon after, his spacesuit started showing abnormal battery readings. The arm is affixed to Russia's Nauka research module and will be used to remotely move equipment outside of the station. It was roughly two hours into a six-hour spacewalk when voltage levels in his spacesuit's battery began to unexpectedly drop. Mission Control-Moscow instructed him to return to the Poisk airlock to connect to the space station’s power supply. Cosmonaut…

  • Forty-five million Britons will face fuel poverty come winter, study says

    The research suggested that around 18 million families will face fuel poverty, as a consequence of rising energy costs and an inflation rate that has reached a 40-year record high. According to the study, the region hardest hit will be Northern Ireland, where 76.3 per cent of families are battling to make ends meet, followed by Scotland at 72.8 per cent, then the West Midlands (70.9 per cent) and Yorkshire and the Humber (70.6 per cent). When looking at the demographics of the affected population, the research published by the Guardian newspaper further stated that 86.4 per cent of pensioner couples will fall into fuel poverty. Single-parent households with two or more children are expected to bear the brunt at 90.4 per cent. The dire energy crisis the United Kingdom faces has led Ofgem…

  • Ultra-thin device generates ambient power through air moisture

    The device is made of a thin layer of fabric, only about 0.3mm in thickness, with sea salt, carbon ink, and a special water-absorbing gel. The team of researchers from the National University of Singapore’s (NUS) said that conventional devices that use moisture to generate energy cannot produce enough to power electrical devices, whereas their rechargeable fabric-like ‘battery’ provides higher electrical output than a conventional AA battery. The new device contains two regions of different properties to perpetually maintain a difference in water content across the regions to generate electricity and allow for electrical output for hundreds of hours. It consists of a thin layer of fabric – in this case a commercially available fabric made of wood pulp and polyester – which was coated…

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