Lifeboat Foundation

Disruptive innovations in technology, such as humanoid robots and electric vehicles, will lead to significant changes in labor, economy, and society, posing both opportunities and challenges for the future Questions to inspire discussion What are the predictions about the future of electric vehicles? —Tony Seba and hi.

“This study has given us an historical picture of how the emerging modern reef responded to huge environmental stress,” said Dr. Jody Webster.

What events caused the Great Barrier Reef to become what it is today, specifically over the course of the last six to eight thousand years, or just after the last Ice Age? This is what a recent study published in Quaternary Science Reviews hopes to address as a team of international researchers conducted an in-depth scientific analysis on various aspects of the Great Barrier Reef to ascertain the environmental factors that contributed to the Reef’s present conditions. This study holds the potential to help scientists better understand how reefs evolve over time and the environment’s role in their evolution.

For the study, the researchers drilled almost two dozen coral samples and analyzed them using a variety of methods, including computer tomography, scanning electron microscopy, and X-ray diffraction to ascertain yearly growth patterns within the coral samples. In the end, they determined that environmental factors, including increased water temperatures, ocean turbulence, and rising sea levels, led to increased nutrients, which contributed to the growth of the Great Barrier Reef, and is consistent with previous studies.

Continue reading “Historical Perspective: The Dynamic Birth of the Modern Great Barrier Reef” »

Explore the latest breakthroughs in science with us! From the mind-boggling discovery of the Big Ring in space to revolutionary advancements in battery technology, get ready to be amazed!

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Perovskites are among the most researched topics in materials science. Recently, a research team led by Prof. LOH Kian Ping, Chair Professor of Materials Physics and Chemistry and Global STEM Professor of the Department of Applied Physics of The Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU), Dr Kathy LENG, Assistant Professor of the same department, together with Dr Hwa Seob CHOI, Postdoctoral Research Fellow and the first author of the research paper, has solved an age-old challenge to synthesise all-organic two-dimensional perovskites, extending the field into the exciting realm of materials. This breakthrough opens up a new field of 2D all-organic perovskites, which holds promise for both fundamental science and potential applications.

This research was published in the journal Science (“Molecularly thin, two-dimensional all-organic perovskites”).

Perovskites are named after their structural resemblance to the mineral calcium titanate perovskite, and are well known for their fascinating properties that can be applied in wide-ranging fields such as solar cells, lighting and catalysis. With a fundamental chemical formula of ABX 3, perovskites possess the ability to be finely tuned by adjusting the A and B cations as well as the X anion, paving the way for the development of high-performance materials.

Neoplants has bioengineered a houseplant that uses bacteria to remove indoor air pollution from your home.

A Birmingham researcher has developed a new high-throughput device that produces libraries of nanomaterials using sustainable mechanochemical approaches.

Dr. Jason Stafford from the University’s School of Engineering invented the platform to create highly controllable reaction conditions and reduce the substantial amount of time researchers spend generating materials in the laboratory.

The benchtop device is a fully automated unit that can be programmed for parallel synthesis to produce a series of novel materials made in subtly different ways, so creating a library of advanced materials or product formulations for further testing and optimization.

As a greenhouse gas, carbon dioxide (CO₂) contributes to climate change as it accumulates in the atmosphere. One way to reduce the amount of unwanted CO₂ in the atmosphere is to convert the gas into a useful carbon product that can be used to generate valuable compounds.

The number of electric vehicles (EVs) exported from Germany rose sharply in 2023, meaning that EVs accounted for about one quarter of all car exports that year, the country’s statistical office Destatis has said.

The country exported about 786,000 fully electric cars for a total value of roughly €36 billion ($A61.8 billion) – an increase of 58 per cent compared to 2022.

The most important destinations for EVs produced in Germany were the Netherlands, the UK and Belgium, Destatis added. Imports of EVs to Germany climbed about 23 percent to 446,000 units, with more than a quarter coming from China.

A fusion reactor in southern France, called WEST, just achieved an important milestone that brings us one step closer to clean, sustainable, nearly limitless energy.

Scientists at New Jersey’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory, who collaborated on the project, announced today that the device created a super-hot material called a plasma that reached 90 million degrees Fahrenheit (50 million degrees Celsius) for 6 straight minutes.

The ultimate goal is to sustain a super-hot plasma for many hours, but 6 minutes is a new world record for a device like WEST. Other nuclear reactors similar to WEST have created hotter plasmas, but they haven’t lasted as long.