Science and Technology: News & Views

[nrj]

NASA satellite reveals new black hole info

COLLEGE PARK, Md., May 26 (UPI) -- NASA says data from its Swift satellite have helped astronomers determine why only about one percent of supermassive black holes emit vast amounts of energy.

Space agency scientists said the new data confirm black holes "light up" when galaxies collide, and the findings might offer insight into the future behavior of the black hole in our own Milky Way galaxy.

The scientists said intense emission from galaxy centers, or nuclei, arises near a supermassive black hole containing between a million and a billion times the sun's mass. Giving off as much as 10 billion times the sun's energy, some of the active galactic nuclei include quasars and blazars.

"Theorists have shown that the violence in galaxy mergers can feed a galaxy's central black hole," said Michael Koss, the study's lead author and a graduate student at the University of Maryland. "The study elegantly explains how the black holes switched on."


Source

 

[sorcerer]

Indigenous Kaiga nuclear power plant KGS-1 sets a world record, puts India as a front runner
Presently, there are 21 reactors under different stage of construction, including 4 Units at Kudankulam with Russian collaboration and 1 fast breeder reactor augmenting the total installed capacity to 22,480 MW by 2031-32.

https://www.financialexpress.com/de...-record-puts-india-as-a-front-runner/1411623/

 

[Holy Triad]

Google announces the Pixel 4 will have FaceID, radar-powered gestures
The Pixel 4 is getting a full face unlock package with cameras and IR sensors.

Soli, or "Motion Sense" as it's being called in the Pixel 4, is powered by radar. Google's Advanced Technology and Projects team (ATAP) has been working on shrinking down radar into a tiny chip for the last five years. As originally pitched, Soli was capable of detecting a number of fine hand gestures, like tapping your thumb and index finger together for a virtual button press or rubbing the two fingers together to scroll or turn a virtual dial.


Wow, a smaller/portable tr system...

 

[sorcerer]

Researchers Develop New Way to Turn Polymers into Battery Components Using Microwaves

Researchers at Purdue University, in collaboration with researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology and Tufts University, have developed a technique to turn polymers into components for batteries using microwave radiation.

“We use an ultrafast microwave irradiation process to turn PET, or polyethylene terephthalate, flakes into disodium terephthalate, and use that as battery anode material,” said Vilas Pol, an associate professor of chemical engineering at the Purdue Research Foundation Office of Technology Commercialization.

The paper stated that with the aid of this ultrafast microwave irradiation process, they were able to produce disodium terephthalate waste PET flakes within 2 minutes. The explained that they tried the approach with both lithium-ion and sodium-ion battery cells.

Lithium-ion batteries are some of the most commonly used types of batteries used in electronic devices and vehicles. They are usually smaller, lighter, and more compact in size compared to alternatives like lead-acid or nickel-based batteries. They also require much lower maintenance compared to other types of batteries.



Sodium-ion battery cells, on the other hand, have been seeing a rise in popularity thanks to the fact that sodium is more widely and easily available compared to lithium. They work like lithium-ion batteries, but they do not use cobalt-based electrodes. Cobalt is also expensive, and its mining process has been shrouded by controversy in the past.

Recently, Japanese researchers announced the development of a new electrode material that could make lithium batteries cheaper, more stable, and capable of holding more charge for longer periods. The research paper explained that while researchers have previously managed to improve the charge-holding capacity of lithium batteries, they have not been able to improve the amount of charge the batteries can disperse in a useful way.

Purdue University researchers have also come up with a new thermodynamic formula, which reveals that bifacial cells make the double-sided panels generate 15% to 20% more electricity than the conventional monofacial cells on one-sided solar modules. An increasing number of companies are now moving towards two-sided solar modules, which can convert sunlight reflected from the ground, and more electricity could be generated.

Researchers Develop New Way to Turn Polymers into Battery Components Using Microwaves - Mercom India

Researchers at Purdue University, in collaboration with researchers from the Indian Institute of Technology and Tufts University, have developed a technique to turn polymers into components for...

mercomindia.com