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Researchers build edible rechargeable battery

The IIT team has created a totally edible and rechargeable battery, which could be used in health diagnostics, food quality monitoring and edible soft robotics. Edible electronics is an emergin field that could have a great impact on the diagnosis and treatment of gastrointestinal tract diseases, as well as on food quality monitoring. One of the field's largest challenges is the development of edible power sources. The IIT research group took inspiration from the biochemical redox reactions that happen in the body. They developed a battery that utilises riboflavin (vitamin B2) as an anode and quercetin (a food supplement and ingredient) as a cathode. The researchers used a water-based electrolyte and leveraged activated charcoal to increase electrical conductivity The separator, needed…

E+T Magazine in Power Conversion
Canadian bank becomes the world’s top fossil fuel financer

The Royal Bank of Canada (RBC) has surpassed the United States' JP Morgan Chase as the largest global investor in fossil fuel projects for the first time since 2019. The Canadian bank invested $42.1bn (£33.7bn) in fossil fuel projects in 2022, according to the 'Banking on Climate Chaos' report commissioned by the Rainforest Action Network (RAN). The investment included $7.4bn (£5.9bn) for fracking projects and $4.8bn (£3.8bn) for the excavation of tar sands deposits, the report said. The report found that RBC had invested a total of $253bn (£202bn) since 2016. Canadian banks hav e provided fossil fuel companies with $862bn (£689bn) in funding, with the RAN identifying them as “the banks of last resort” for fossil fuels. Since the 2015 Paris climate agreement, the world’s 60 largest…

E+T Magazine in Air Pollution
Blockchain successors look to new forms of crypto

The blockchain bubble claimed another victim at the beginning of March. An institution on the US west coast set up, like many of its peers, to collect deposits to lend on land and property purchases, Silvergate Bank moved into what seemed to be the lucrative world of blockchain almost a decade ago. It found a business in funnelling cash between conventional currencies and a rapidly burgeoning range of cryptocurrencies. But as the FTX empire collapsed and cryptocoin values fell, the bank became another piece of collateral damage. Since the bubble’s peak, interest in non-fungible tokens (NFTs) issued on various blockchains has fallen sharply as well. The daily value of sales of NFTs on the Ethereum blockchain fell to less than $10m at the end of 2022, from a peak of close to $200m at the beginning…

E+T Magazine in Computing
EU's data regulator sets up ChatGPT task force

The European Union has taken the first significant step towards regulating generative AI tools, as it announces the creation of a bespoke ChatGPT task force. "The EDPB members discussed the recent enforcement action undertaken by the Italian data protection authority against OpenAI about the Chat GPT service," the statement said. "The EDPB decided to launch a dedicated task force to foster cooperation and to exchange information on possible enforcement actions conducted by data protection authorities." Over the last few months, AI-powered chatbots such as OpenAI's ChatGPT have seen a dramatic rise in popularity. These free tools can generate text in response to a prompt, including articles, essays, jokes and even poetry. However, governments and experts have raised concerns about…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Self-driving car system approved for use on GB motorways by government

Ford announced that it has been given the go-ahead by the government to switch on its “hands-off, eyes-on” BlueCruise Level 2 hands-free advanced driver assistance system for 2,300 miles (3,700 km) of pre-mapped motorways in England, Scotland and Wales, designated as Blue Zones. It is not yet available in Northern Ireland. The BlueCruise system can be activated to control functions such as steering, acceleration, braking and lane positioning. It is currently only available on the 2023 Ford Mustang Mach-E, a pure electric vehicle. BlueCruise operates up to a maximum speed of 80mph (130 km/h), using a combination of five radars and cameras to detect and track the position and speed of other vehicles on the road. A forward-facing camera detects lane markings and speed signs and the system…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
The eccentric engineer: The biggest kit in the world

Kit homes were pioneered in the USA by the Aladdin Company, whose ‘Readi-Cut’ houses proved popular, particularly with corporations that were spreading across the wide-open spaces of the US, who had land, but no houses to put their workforce in. Companies like DuPont built entire towns using Aladdin kits, which were cheap and easy to assemble – even by an unskilled workforce. In 1917, 252 Aladdin kits made their way to England to form ‘Austin Village’, a town for the workforce of Austin Motors then busily engaged in war work. Yet the company that really cornered the market in kit houses was Sears Roebuck. Already one of the major players in the home catalogue business, it prided itself on selling everything from knickerbockers to steel joists. Naturally, not everything sold equally well.…

E+T Magazine in History of Engineering
Scotland’s move toward a Passivhaus standard

Passivhaus is, in short, the gold standard for energy-efficient homes. According to physicist Wolfgang Feist, co-founder of the concept: “The heat losses of the building are reduced so much that it hardly needs any heating at all.” Certified houses are built with high-quality insulation, triple glazing, insulated frames, mechanical ventilation, and airtightness levels around twenty times higher than a typical UK build. These homes are so good at retaining heat that the sun, inhabitants, and household appliances fulfil most heating needs – hence ‘passive house’. The standard was developed by Feist and structural engineer Bo Adamson in the early 1990s, with the first certified homes appearing in Germany soon after. It is managed by the Darmstadt-based Passivhaus Institute, an independent non…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Engineering culture in the UK is not inclusive enough, report says

Engineering firms should work to become more inclusive if they want to attract the right talent, the organisation's report states. The research commissioned by the Academy aimed to improve understanding of how engineers perceive the current culture of the engineering profession and whether it is attracting, developing and retaining the number and diversity of engineers needed in the UK. The majority of the 1,657 engineers surveyed stated that they feel pride in their profession, with eight in ten (81 per cent) being keen to promote it as a career. Moreover, out of those that i dentified as both LGBTQ+ and Black, Asian or minority ethnic, and those with a disability and who are Black, Asian or minority ethnic, the majority agreed that diversity had improved in engineering (87 per cent…

E+T Magazine in STEM Education and Skills
Researchers build solar cells to power IoT devices

The team was able to build new sustainable solar cells for artificial intelligence-powered energy management. The research has the potential to revolutionise the way IoT devices are powered, the team said, as it could make these systems more sustainable and efficient, as well as open up new opportunities in industries such as healthcare, manufacturing and smart city development. To create the photovoltaic cells, the team used copper (II/I) electrolyte, achieving an unprecedented power conversion efficiency of 38 per cent and 1.0V open-circuit voltage at 1,000 lux (fluorescent lamp). The cells are non-toxic and environmentally friendly, setting a new standard for sustainable energy sources in ambient environments. Solar cells for IoT devices / Ella Maru Studio Image…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Book interview: ‘Beyond Data: Reclaiming Human Rights at the Dawn of the Metaverse’

“My book isn’t about data, not really,” says Elizabeth M Renieris, author of ‘Beyond Data’. “It’s about how our historical obsession with data in the context of technology governance has been problematic, and why we need a materially different approach: one less focused on data and more focused on people.” Subtitled ‘Reclaiming Human Rights at the Dawn of the Metaverse’, her book’s central argument is encapsulated in the opening sentence of the first chapter: “For more than fifty years, we have been so busy protecting data that we have largely forgotten to protect people.” Senior research associate at the University of Oxford’s Institute for Ethics in Artificial Intelligence, Renieris’ position on the current state of data legislation is that, “so long as we continue to focus on data as a…

E+T Magazine in Computing
Netvue Birdfy Feeder AI hands-on review

This high-tech bird feeder, in pastel plastic, features a wireless video camera with a rechargeable battery. It can send video clips to a phone app and there’s also a MicroSD card slot to capture footage. We tested it with the optional solar panel (around £20) and a Pro Perch Extension (around £33). After fully charging it overnight via USB-C, we set it up with the app and looked for a position outdoors. It comes with multiple mounting options. You can screw a bracket to a wall, mount it on a pole (it even comes with a cone to fend off climbing squirrels) or use a large Velcro strap to tie the bracket to a tree. The tricky part is that you need to be within (2.4GHz) Wi-Fi range. So forget positioning Birdfy at the bottom of your garden unless your garden is the size of a postage stamp.…

E+T Magazine in Sustainable Development
ESA’s Jupiter mission launch postponed due to lightning risks

ESA’s spacecraft Juice (JUpiter ICy moons Explorer) has been forced to cancel its planned liftoff due to the risk of lightning, only minutes before its scheduled take-off time. The spacecraft was meant to begin today its 8-year journey to Jupiter, to discover whether the planet's three icy moons - Callisto, Europa, and Ganymede - could support life. The spacecraft has been loaded with 10 scientific instruments, in what is the ESA’s biggest deep-space mission yet. The 6.6-billion km journey has been supported by British scientists, as well as the UK Space Agency, which has provided £9m of funding for the £1.4bn project. The next launch window has been scheduled for 1.14pm BST on Friday, April 14. Today's launch is postponed because of lightning risk. See you tomorrow! https:/…

E+T Magazine in Space
UK farmers using legal loophole to burn toxic plastic

It is estimated that UK farms produce 135,500 tonnes of contaminated ‘agriplastic’ waste each year, but according to the Chartered Institution of Wastes Management, only 20-30 per cent is reprocessed into new products. The rest is disposed of - including through illegal burning, burying and dumping - or is exported, which often involves illegal disposal, according to the EIA, an NGO that investigates and campaigns against environmental crime and abuse. The EIA's latest investigation, published today, reveals that UK farmers are continuing to burn these plastics in-situ, despite the practice being banned in England and Wales in 2006 and in Scotland since 2019. Lauren Weir, the report's author and EIA senior campaigner, said the illegal activity was due to the high costs of agriplastic…

E+T Magazine in Waste Management
US requests public comment on AI regulation

As generative AI tools such as ChatGPT continue to rise in popularity, the US government has begun considering imposing AI audits, risk assessments and other measures that could ensure the ethical use of these technologies. “There is a heightened level of concern now, given the pace of innovation, that it needs to happen responsibly,” said Alan Davidson, administrator of the National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA). “In the same way that financial audits created trust in the accuracy of financial statements for businesses, accountability mechanisms for AI can help assure that an AI system is trustworthy,” he added. The NTIA has requested the public - including both experts and consumers - to suggest measures that would help regulate the use of AI tools, including…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Intel to work with Arm on chip manufacturing compatibility

Once the biggest name in chips known as central processing units (CPUs), Intel has long seen its technological manufacturing edge blunted by rivals such as Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co Ltd (TSMC), the world leader in making chips for customers such as Apple. Intel's turnaround strategy hinges in part on opening up its factories to other chip companies, particularly those in mobile phones. It has said firms such as Qualcomm Inc are planning to use its factories for future chip designs. "There is growing demand for computing power driven by the digitisation of everything, but until now customers have had limited options for designing around the most advanced mobile technology," said Pat Gelsinger, Intel's chief executive. For its part, Arm, now owned by Japanese technology investment…

E+T Magazine in Semiconductor Technology
Dear Evil Engineer: Could I transplant a human brain into the body of a bear?

Dear Evil Engineer, Last week, a gang of kids and their dog broke into my high-security evil facility. They were eventually caught and fed to the sharks, but not before causing chaos among my guards. Four fell into the shark pool, two were killed by friendly fire, one perished from a ferocious chihuahua bite, and one fell a great height from a ramp and barely survived. That guard is being kept alive in an iron lung in my cellar, but everything below the neck resembles steak tartare and it seems he’ll never crush a skull in his bare fists ever again. I am reluctant to say goodbye to this guard. It’s not easy recruiting guards so utterly without human conscience. Would it be possible to transfer his brain into a fresh body – perhaps the body of a bear? Yours, A canny villain Dear villain…

E+T Magazine
AI ‘scientist’ re-discovers scientific equations using data

Researchers at IBM Research, Samsung AI and the University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC) have built an 'AI scientist' able to combine theory and data to discover scientific equations. The tool - dubbed 'AI-Descartes' by the researchers - aims to speed up scientific discovery by leveraging symbolic regression, which finds equations to fit data. Given basic operators, such as addition, multiplication, and division, the systems can generate hundreds to millions of candidate equations, searching for the ones that most accurately describe the relationships in the data. Using this technique, the AI tool has been able to re-discover, by itself, fundamental equations, including Kepler’s third law of planetary motion; Einstein’s relativistic time-dilation law, and Langmuir’s equation of…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation
Book review: ‘Invisibility’ by Gregory J Gbur

After millennia of storytelling about invisibility, 2006 saw the appearance of two papers which described how an object might be hidden by guiding light around it. In principle, this could render an object invisible. It was immediately nicknamed an ‘invisibility cloak’ – a nickname which, like ‘God Particle’, is just too compelling to surrender to grumbling good sense. The first experimental demonstration, which used microwaves rather than visible light, was published just months later. In ‘Invisibility: The History and Science of How Not to Be Seen’ (Yale University Press, $30, ISBN 9780300250428), physicist and author Professor Gregory J Gbur describes the developments that led to the infamous ‘invisibility cloak’ papers, and the developments since. Most of the book is dedicated to a…

E+T Magazine
Monster trains: US rail firms face heat over major environmental disaster

Rail safety in the US is being jeopardised for the sake of shareholder profit, union representatives have told E&T in the wake of February’s Ohio train derailment and environmental disaster. The unions claims that record rail profits have come at the expense of the environment, human health and the wider economy, with the rail industry moving 20 per cent less freight last year than it did in 2016. Earlier this year, a train owned by Norfolk Southern derailed in the town of East Palestine leading to the open-air burning of around 100,000 gallons (around 440,000 litres) of toxic vinyl chloride. The US Justice department, and the State of Ohio are suing Norfolk Southern, with Ohio describing the accident as one in a “long string” of derailments and hazardous material incidents involving…

E+T Magazine in Ethical Aspects
Are your AI-based software platforms becoming a legal liability?

When ChatGPT launched last year, it took the tech world by storm due to the role it can play both as a smart coding assistant and, more generally, to help speed up the writing process for people in almost any walk of life. Since then, generative AI systems for a variety of uses have gained fans the world over. However, there are some potential legal issues on the horizon. In the US, an AI-based software platform owned by Microsoft - GitHub Copilot - and OpenAI, which supplied the open-source code for training purposes, are facing a class-action lawsuit over alleged copyright infringement. The case was filed by programmer and lawyer Matthew Butterick and several anonymous members of the open-source community. On the face of it, Microsoft, Github and OpenAI appear to have a robust defence…

E+T Magazine
Robot dog joins New York police force

New York Mayor Eric Adams and NYPD Commissioner Keechant Sewell have unveiled three new innovative devices that will aim to increase security in the city's streets. The most controversial of the three is known as Digidog or Spot. The four-legged K-9 robot has been designed by Boston Dynamics to be deployed in scenarios considered too dangerous for humans such as construction sites or counterterrorism incidents. “If you have a barricaded suspect, if you have someone that’s inside a building that is armed, instead of sending police in there, you send Digidog in there,” Adams said. “So these are smart ways of using good technologies.” In addition to Digidog, NYPD will trial two other technologies: StarChase and a K-5 autonomous security robot (ASR). The former is a projectile that can…

E+T Magazine in Security in the Modern World
Electricity carbon emissions could peak in 2023 as wind and solar surge

In a new report, Ember said that wind and solar could push the world into an era of falling fossil-fuel generation and power sector emissions as early as this year. Full decarbonisation of the power sector is considered crucial for the world to reduce its emissions due to rising electricity demand and the ability for electrification to unlock other emission cuts throughout the economy. Record growth in wind and solar drove the emissions intensity of the world’s electricity to its lowest-ever level in 2022, the report states. The carbon intensity of global electricity generation fell to a record low of 436 gCO2/kWh in 2022 - the cleanest-ever electricity. Together, all clean electricity sources, which includes others renewables and nuclear, reached 39 per cent of global electricity.…

E+T Magazine in Renewable Energy
The technology of Eurovision Song Contest

The Eurovision Song Contest has always been a mammoth undertaking, but this year’s event has been a feat like no other. “We came to this four months later than would normally happen because of course while Ukraine won in 2022, it took some time to understand whether or not they would be in a position to host the contest,” says James O’Brien, executive in charge of production at BBC Studios. “Add to that the current economic climate, and the fact that the UK event industry is busier than ever, and you start to get a picture of how challenging it has been to even get out of the starting blocks.” He continues: “As soon as we had our core production team at BBC Studios, the challenge was matching the scale and ambition of the show to the venue. As expected, though, the amazing team at the BBC…

E+T Magazine
Next-gen robotic hand grasps objects with skin sensors and wrist movement

While easy for humans, grasping objects of different sizes, shapes and textures has posed a problem for robots. The new soft, 3D-printed robotic hand cannot independently move its fingers but can still carry out a range of complex movements. It was trained to grasp different objects and was able to predict whether it would drop them by using the information provided by sensors placed on its ‘skin’. This type of passive movement makes the robot far easier to control and far more energy-efficient than robots with fully motorised fingers, the researchers said. The adaptable design is envisaged to be used in the development of low-cost robots that are capable of more natural movement and can learn to grasp a wide range of objects. In the natural world, movement results from the interplay…

E+T Magazine in Research and Innovation

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