Newsworthy Science
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Do you think China will claim it?
Chinese company claims it's built batteries so dense they can power electric airplanes
The world’s top EV battery maker, China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), announced on Wednesday a battery it believes boasts sufficient energy density to power electric airplanes.
The 500 Wh/kg battery was launched at Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition, also known as Auto Shanghai, with a promise that the company can mass produce the technology “in a short period of time,” or reportedly, later this year.
The Chinese company claims it achieves such high density by incorporating condensed matter technology and new materials that make the system more conductive and thus more efficient at transporting energy.
In this case, that specifically includes highly conductive biomimetic condensed electrolytes that create a miniscule micron-level net structure. The semi-solid-state battery also incorporates new anode and separator materials and cathode materials with ultra-high energy density.
The 500 Wh/kg battery represents a step change for CATL. It’s first gen sodium-ion battery from 2021 boasted an energy density of 160 Wh/kg. It’s 2022 Qilin battery was 255 Wh/kg, which CATL claimed could power an electric vehicle for 1,000 kilometers on a single charge. Most lithium-ion batteries currently have a typical energy density of around 260 to 270 Wh/kg.
Liquid fuels such as petrol boast density of around 12,000 Wh/kg. So even though CATL's latest could catalyze electric planes, they're not going to power vehicles on the scale of a 747 or A380 anytime soon!
The Register spoke to Dr Rachid Yazami inventor of the graphite anode, a key component that enabled lithium-ion battery tech. According to Yazami, batteries are tricky systems and must pass dozens of tests before being approved for any application, more particularly in transportation.
“We should ask CATL to share tests data, including high and low temperature performances, cycle life, calendar life, charging time, safety, and costs,” said Yazami.
The world’s top EV battery maker, China's Contemporary Amperex Technology Co. Limited (CATL), announced on Wednesday a battery it believes boasts sufficient energy density to power electric airplanes.
The 500 Wh/kg battery was launched at Shanghai International Automobile Industry Exhibition, also known as Auto Shanghai, with a promise that the company can mass produce the technology “in a short period of time,” or reportedly, later this year.
The Chinese company claims it achieves such high density by incorporating condensed matter technology and new materials that make the system more conductive and thus more efficient at transporting energy.
In this case, that specifically includes highly conductive biomimetic condensed electrolytes that create a miniscule micron-level net structure. The semi-solid-state battery also incorporates new anode and separator materials and cathode materials with ultra-high energy density.
The 500 Wh/kg battery represents a step change for CATL. It’s first gen sodium-ion battery from 2021 boasted an energy density of 160 Wh/kg. It’s 2022 Qilin battery was 255 Wh/kg, which CATL claimed could power an electric vehicle for 1,000 kilometers on a single charge. Most lithium-ion batteries currently have a typical energy density of around 260 to 270 Wh/kg.
Liquid fuels such as petrol boast density of around 12,000 Wh/kg. So even though CATL's latest could catalyze electric planes, they're not going to power vehicles on the scale of a 747 or A380 anytime soon!
The Register spoke to Dr Rachid Yazami inventor of the graphite anode, a key component that enabled lithium-ion battery tech. According to Yazami, batteries are tricky systems and must pass dozens of tests before being approved for any application, more particularly in transportation.
“We should ask CATL to share tests data, including high and low temperature performances, cycle life, calendar life, charging time, safety, and costs,” said Yazami.
Pot gives biology's favourite worms the munchies too
Experiments with C. elegans suggest that the mechanism by which cannabis affects appetite evolved 500 million years ago.
Roundworms exposed to cannabis chemicals get the ‘munchies’ — a persistent hunger for tasty food — just like people do, a study has found. When under the influence, Caenorhabditis elegans worms choose to feed for longer than normal, and show a stronger preference for their favourite high-quality foods over less nutritious options.
The study, published on 20 April in Current Biology, suggests that the mechanism by which cannabis affects appetite evolved more than 500 million years ago, when the evolutionary paths of C. elegans and humans diverged. This commonality across the animal kingdom suggests that C. elegans could be used to study how cannabis affects the human nervous system.
The research group already specialized in food-choice assays that involve putting C. elegans in a T-shaped maze containing two food options and observing which the worms choose to approach. To investigate the behavioural effects of cannabinoids, the researchers immersed the worms in a solution of the endocannabinoid anandamide before placing them in the maze.
How it may work:
AEA binds to NPR-19 on a neuron upstream of AWC, releasing dense-core vesicle release containing neuromodulators. These neuromodulators increase AWC’s activation in response to superior food removal and, conversely, decreases AWC’s activation in response to inferior food removal. As AWC causes worm attraction to and retention in food patches, this bidirectional modulation leads to increased aggregation of worms on superior food and decreased aggregation on inferior food.
Experiments with C. elegans suggest that the mechanism by which cannabis affects appetite evolved 500 million years ago.
Roundworms exposed to cannabis chemicals get the ‘munchies’ — a persistent hunger for tasty food — just like people do, a study has found. When under the influence, Caenorhabditis elegans worms choose to feed for longer than normal, and show a stronger preference for their favourite high-quality foods over less nutritious options.
The study, published on 20 April in Current Biology, suggests that the mechanism by which cannabis affects appetite evolved more than 500 million years ago, when the evolutionary paths of C. elegans and humans diverged. This commonality across the animal kingdom suggests that C. elegans could be used to study how cannabis affects the human nervous system.
The research group already specialized in food-choice assays that involve putting C. elegans in a T-shaped maze containing two food options and observing which the worms choose to approach. To investigate the behavioural effects of cannabinoids, the researchers immersed the worms in a solution of the endocannabinoid anandamide before placing them in the maze.
How it may work:
AEA binds to NPR-19 on a neuron upstream of AWC, releasing dense-core vesicle release containing neuromodulators. These neuromodulators increase AWC’s activation in response to superior food removal and, conversely, decreases AWC’s activation in response to inferior food removal. As AWC causes worm attraction to and retention in food patches, this bidirectional modulation leads to increased aggregation of worms on superior food and decreased aggregation on inferior food.
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EgonSpengler
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NPR, 21 April 2023 - "Life expectancy improves for Black people who live near Black doctors, new study finds"
Stat, 14 April 2023 - "In counties with more Black doctors, Black people live longer, ‘astonishing’ study finds"
Journal of the American Medical Society, 14 April 2023 - "Black Representation in the Primary Care Physician Workforce and Its Association With Population Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the US"
I believe there's a case about race-based affirmative action in college admissions before the US Supreme Court right now. Gosh, I wonder how they're likely to rule..?
Stat, 14 April 2023 - "In counties with more Black doctors, Black people live longer, ‘astonishing’ study finds"
Journal of the American Medical Society, 14 April 2023 - "Black Representation in the Primary Care Physician Workforce and Its Association With Population Life Expectancy and Mortality Rates in the US"
Stat said:
I believe there's a case about race-based affirmative action in college admissions before the US Supreme Court right now. Gosh, I wonder how they're likely to rule..?
I wonder whether the share of black doctors is mostly a proxy to the share of wealth owned by the black people in that county.
Eye wateringly expensive Alzheimer’s drugs actually seem to work against the disease
When they were approved it was on the basis of plaque reduction only, not improvement of clinical signs. I among others criticized this decision. However it seems they really do work, though they are a bit dangerous. Lecanemab is estimated to cost $26 500 per year,
They are pretty expensive, I cannot see everyone getting them in all but the very richest countries. This is from a cost/benefit analysis from last year, before this latest data came out:
When they were approved it was on the basis of plaque reduction only, not improvement of clinical signs. I among others criticized this decision. However it seems they really do work, though they are a bit dangerous. Lecanemab is estimated to cost $26 500 per year,
For the second time, an experimental drug has been shown to reduce the cognitive decline associated with Alzheimer's disease.
Like lecanemab, donanemab targets amyloid protein, which is believed to cause dementia by accumulating in the brain and damaging neurons. The trial results provide strong evidence that amyloid is a key driver of Alzheimer's disease, says Jeffrey Cummings, a neuroscientist at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. “These are transformative in an enormously important way from a scientific point of view,” he adds. “They're terrific.”
But Marsel Mesulam, a neurologist at Northwestern University in Chicago is more cautious. “The results that are described are extremely significant and impressive, but clinically their significance is doubtful,” he says, adding that the modest effect suggests factors other than amyloid contribute to Alzheimer's disease progression. “We’re heading to a new era, there's room to cheer, but it’s an era that should make us all very sober realizing that there will be no single magic bullet.”
Like lecanemab, donanemab targets amyloid protein, which is believed to cause dementia by accumulating in the brain and damaging neurons. The trial results provide strong evidence that amyloid is a key driver of Alzheimer's disease, says Jeffrey Cummings, a neuroscientist at the University of Nevada Las Vegas. “These are transformative in an enormously important way from a scientific point of view,” he adds. “They're terrific.”
But Marsel Mesulam, a neurologist at Northwestern University in Chicago is more cautious. “The results that are described are extremely significant and impressive, but clinically their significance is doubtful,” he says, adding that the modest effect suggests factors other than amyloid contribute to Alzheimer's disease progression. “We’re heading to a new era, there's room to cheer, but it’s an era that should make us all very sober realizing that there will be no single magic bullet.”
They are pretty expensive, I cannot see everyone getting them in all but the very richest countries. This is from a cost/benefit analysis from last year, before this latest data came out:
Lifetime QALYs increased by 0.133 with aducanumab and 0.408 with donanemab. Total health care sector and societal costs increased by $130 100 and $127 800, respectively, with aducanumab and by $78 700 and $71 600, respectively, with donanemab, driven largely by drug costs ($119 000 for aducanumab and $44 600 for donanemab). Health care sector and societal ICERs relative to standard care were $981 000/QALY and $964 000/QALY, respectively, for aducanumab and $193 000/QALY and $176 000/QALY, respectively, for donanemab. In sensitivity analysis, aducanumab's value-based price remained less than $50 000/y, even when assuming a 90% reduction in disease progression. Donanemab's value-based price surpassed $50 000/y once its efficacy exceeded 50%.
The biggest Schrödinger’s cat ever
A sliver of a sapphire crystal close to half the mass of an eyelash has been put in a ‘cat state’: a state of quantum superposition in which its atoms move in two directions at once. This is reminiscent of Schrödinger’s cat, a thought experiment that illustrates quantum superposition by means of a feline that appears to be simultaneously dead and alive until it is observed. The sapphire cat is more than 100 trillion times the mass of the molecules previously put in cat states. “We’ve reached a new regime where quantum mechanics apparently does work,” says physicist and study co-author Yiwen Chu.
A sliver of a sapphire crystal close to half the mass of an eyelash has been put in a ‘cat state’: a state of quantum superposition in which its atoms move in two directions at once. This is reminiscent of Schrödinger’s cat, a thought experiment that illustrates quantum superposition by means of a feline that appears to be simultaneously dead and alive until it is observed. The sapphire cat is more than 100 trillion times the mass of the molecules previously put in cat states. “We’ve reached a new regime where quantum mechanics apparently does work,” says physicist and study co-author Yiwen Chu.
Simply awesome!
How thought itself can drive tumour growth
I have to admit I have not got my head around it. For a change the write up is paywalled and the primary literature is open access, but I have not put in the time and effort to really figure out exactly what that clickbait headline means.
Fig. 1: High-grade gliomas remodel long-range functional neural circuits.
Fig. 4: Intratumoural connectivity in patients with high-grade glioma is correlated with survival and TSP-1.
I have to admit I have not got my head around it. For a change the write up is paywalled and the primary literature is open access, but I have not put in the time and effort to really figure out exactly what that clickbait headline means.
Few effective treatments are available for a common and universally fatal type of adult brain tumour called a malignant glioma. Although these tumours exist exclusively in the central nervous system, the interactions between malignant glioma cells and the 86 billion neurons in the human brain are poorly understood. This is particularly relevant because most people with the disease develop progressive cognitive decline that robs them of quality of life during their final months.
Writing in Nature, Krishna et al. show that malignant gliomas can grow by modifying brain circuitry, thus taking cognitive function away from their host and ultimately leading to death. These insights might lead to fundamentally new approaches to glioma treatment and provide a means of limiting cognitive decline in affected individuals.
Writing in Nature, Krishna et al. show that malignant gliomas can grow by modifying brain circuitry, thus taking cognitive function away from their host and ultimately leading to death. These insights might lead to fundamentally new approaches to glioma treatment and provide a means of limiting cognitive decline in affected individuals.
Fig. 1: High-grade gliomas remodel long-range functional neural circuits.
Fig. 4: Intratumoural connectivity in patients with high-grade glioma is correlated with survival and TSP-1.
Narz
keeping it real
So what are the practical applications for such a technology?The biggest Schrödinger’s cat ever
A sliver of a sapphire crystal close to half the mass of an eyelash has been put in a ‘cat state’: a state of quantum superposition in which its atoms move in two directions at once. This is reminiscent of Schrödinger’s cat, a thought experiment that illustrates quantum superposition by means of a feline that appears to be simultaneously dead and alive until it is observed. The sapphire cat is more than 100 trillion times the mass of the molecules previously put in cat states. “We’ve reached a new regime where quantum mechanics apparently does work,” says physicist and study co-author Yiwen Chu.
My reading of this is that neural activity in the region of the tumor enhances tumor growth (and tumor growth enhances neural activity in the region). So if the patients is using that region of their brain by thinking about something for which it is responsible for, they do in some way enhance tumor growth.How thought itself can drive tumour growth
I have to admit I have not got my head around it. For a change the write up is paywalled and the primary literature is open access, but I have not put in the time and effort to really figure out exactly what that clickbait headline means.
Few effective treatments are available for a common and universally fatal type of adult brain tumour called a malignant glioma. Although these tumours exist exclusively in the central nervous system, the interactions between malignant glioma cells and the 86 billion neurons in the human brain are poorly understood. This is particularly relevant because most people with the disease develop progressive cognitive decline that robs them of quality of life during their final months.Writing in Nature, Krishna et al. show that malignant gliomas can grow by modifying brain circuitry, thus taking cognitive function away from their host and ultimately leading to death. These insights might lead to fundamentally new approaches to glioma treatment and provide a means of limiting cognitive decline in affected individuals.
Fig. 1: High-grade gliomas remodel long-range functional neural circuits.
Fig. 4: Intratumoural connectivity in patients with high-grade glioma is correlated with survival and TSP-1.
You could use such a technology for quantum information processing, but I fail to see why you would choose this technology over others for that.
More likely would be applications as very sensitive measurement sensor. Tiny vibrations might change this quantum state in a measurable way, so you could pick up these tiny vibrations.
Seeing quantum effects in non quantum environments enhances our understanding of them and makes what can seem magical and unreal to many, a part of our physical world.
What do you mean with non-quantum environment? You would be hard-pressed to find any environment, where quantum effects are not involved in some way. In any case, I am pretty sure that the sample has been cooled to millikelvin temperatures. At that temperature, anything is a quantum environment.
What we see around us every day is surely driven by quantum events everywhere, but for the most part we engage our brains at the quantum level. The more that quantum stuff can be directly related or tied to the chemistry and physics most of us are familiar with, the better. I see it as similar to when microscopes gave us our first looks at very tiny things we never dreamed were there doing things. "Normal" reality changes and we get closer to grasping our world as a dynamic and ongoing interaction quarks and their friends.
Is the unicellular / multicellular divide different types? If so, we have demonstrated evolution between types in the lab.
I may well have my YEC law wrong, but is it not supposed to be impossible to get evolution between types? Can there be a larger divide, at least with the eukaryotes, than between single and multi cellular organisms? Well, we have got a yeast to evolve multicellularity in 600 generations.
While early multicellular lineages necessarily started out as relatively simple groups of cells, little is known about how they became Darwinian entities capable of sustained multicellular evolution. Here we investigate this with a multicellularity long-term evolution experiment, selecting for larger group size in the snowflake yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) model system. Given the historical importance of oxygen limitation, our ongoing experiment consists of three metabolic treatments—anaerobic, obligately aerobic and mixotrophic yeast. After 600 rounds of selection, snowflake yeast in the anaerobic treatment group evolved to be macroscopic, becoming around 2 × 104 times larger (approximately mm scale) and about 104-fold more biophysically tough, while retaining a clonal multicellular life cycle. This occurred through biophysical adaptation—evolution of increasingly elongate cells that initially reduced the strain of cellular packing and then facilitated branch entanglements that enabled groups of cells to stay together even after many cellular bonds fracture. By contrast, snowflake yeast competing for low oxygen remained microscopic, evolving to be only around sixfold larger, underscoring the critical role of oxygen levels in the evolution of multicellular size. Together, this research provides unique insights into an ongoing evolutionary transition in individuality, showing how simple groups of cells overcome fundamental biophysical limitations through gradual, yet sustained, multicellular evolution.
I may well have my YEC law wrong, but is it not supposed to be impossible to get evolution between types? Can there be a larger divide, at least with the eukaryotes, than between single and multi cellular organisms? Well, we have got a yeast to evolve multicellularity in 600 generations.
While early multicellular lineages necessarily started out as relatively simple groups of cells, little is known about how they became Darwinian entities capable of sustained multicellular evolution. Here we investigate this with a multicellularity long-term evolution experiment, selecting for larger group size in the snowflake yeast (Saccharomyces cerevisiae) model system. Given the historical importance of oxygen limitation, our ongoing experiment consists of three metabolic treatments—anaerobic, obligately aerobic and mixotrophic yeast. After 600 rounds of selection, snowflake yeast in the anaerobic treatment group evolved to be macroscopic, becoming around 2 × 104 times larger (approximately mm scale) and about 104-fold more biophysically tough, while retaining a clonal multicellular life cycle. This occurred through biophysical adaptation—evolution of increasingly elongate cells that initially reduced the strain of cellular packing and then facilitated branch entanglements that enabled groups of cells to stay together even after many cellular bonds fracture. By contrast, snowflake yeast competing for low oxygen remained microscopic, evolving to be only around sixfold larger, underscoring the critical role of oxygen levels in the evolution of multicellular size. Together, this research provides unique insights into an ongoing evolutionary transition in individuality, showing how simple groups of cells overcome fundamental biophysical limitations through gradual, yet sustained, multicellular evolution.
Marla_Singer
United in diversity
Our only direct perception of quantum physics is limited to emerging phenomenons that are usually described by Newton's laws of physics. As such, many aspects of quantum physics such as entanglement and (in that above case) superposition are very difficult to understand beyond pure conceptual abstractions. So yeah, making them emerge at something close to our scale is absolutely incredible.
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As far as I can tell, the only YEC law when it comes to science is "God is right and so is my interpretation of him".
Mysterious sounds in stratosphere: Aliens or Whales?
Solar-powered balloons floating in the stratosphere have recorded low-frequency sounds of mysterious origin.
“When we started flying balloons years ago, we didn’t really know what we’d hear,” says Daniel Bowman at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. “We learned how to identify sounds from explosions, meteor crashes, aircraft, thunderstorms and cities. But virtually every time we send balloons up, we find sounds that we cannot identify.”
Bowman and his colleagues measured infrasound signals – sounds with a frequency so low they are inaudible to human ears – using solar-powered balloons floating 20 kilometres high.
The researchers built balloons about 7 metres wide and made of thin plastic. They filled the balloons with charcoal powder, which heats up in bright sunlight and makes the balloon float. Unlike weather balloons, which rise until they pop, these DIY solar-powered balloons coasted in the stratosphere for hours, carrying infrasound sensors over hundreds of kilometres. The researchers deployed more than 50 balloons over the course of seven years starting in 2016.
The data they collected showed that the stratosphere sounds quite different than the surface of Earth. On the ground, infrasound sensors pick up signals that have been deflected by winds on their way down, but the balloons floated above those winds – they recorded signatures of turbulence in other parts of the atmosphere, and infrasonic sounds of marine storms. However, Bowman says that many infrasound signals from the stratosphere didn’t have an obvious origin. He presented the work at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Chicago, Illinois, on 11 May.
These mysterious signals could be related to types of atmospheric turbulence that have never been recorded before, but infrasounds in the stratosphere have only rarely been explored before so it is hard to make educated guesses, says Bowman.
He says one of the first balloon studies of this kind was a US Army Air Forces experiment code-named Project Mogul, which sought to detect infrasound signals of nuclear weapons tests in the Soviet Union in the 1940s. One of Project Mogul’s balloons crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, which brought the top secret programme into the public eye. The cover-up to conceal the balloon’s purpose sparked UFO conspiracies, and most of the data from consequent balloon flights, ending in the 1960s, were kept classified, says Bowman.
The research team inflating a solar balloon with infrasound sensors attached
Solar-powered balloons floating in the stratosphere have recorded low-frequency sounds of mysterious origin.
“When we started flying balloons years ago, we didn’t really know what we’d hear,” says Daniel Bowman at Sandia National Laboratories in New Mexico. “We learned how to identify sounds from explosions, meteor crashes, aircraft, thunderstorms and cities. But virtually every time we send balloons up, we find sounds that we cannot identify.”
Bowman and his colleagues measured infrasound signals – sounds with a frequency so low they are inaudible to human ears – using solar-powered balloons floating 20 kilometres high.
The researchers built balloons about 7 metres wide and made of thin plastic. They filled the balloons with charcoal powder, which heats up in bright sunlight and makes the balloon float. Unlike weather balloons, which rise until they pop, these DIY solar-powered balloons coasted in the stratosphere for hours, carrying infrasound sensors over hundreds of kilometres. The researchers deployed more than 50 balloons over the course of seven years starting in 2016.
The data they collected showed that the stratosphere sounds quite different than the surface of Earth. On the ground, infrasound sensors pick up signals that have been deflected by winds on their way down, but the balloons floated above those winds – they recorded signatures of turbulence in other parts of the atmosphere, and infrasonic sounds of marine storms. However, Bowman says that many infrasound signals from the stratosphere didn’t have an obvious origin. He presented the work at a meeting of the Acoustical Society of America in Chicago, Illinois, on 11 May.
These mysterious signals could be related to types of atmospheric turbulence that have never been recorded before, but infrasounds in the stratosphere have only rarely been explored before so it is hard to make educated guesses, says Bowman.
He says one of the first balloon studies of this kind was a US Army Air Forces experiment code-named Project Mogul, which sought to detect infrasound signals of nuclear weapons tests in the Soviet Union in the 1940s. One of Project Mogul’s balloons crashed in Roswell, New Mexico, which brought the top secret programme into the public eye. The cover-up to conceal the balloon’s purpose sparked UFO conspiracies, and most of the data from consequent balloon flights, ending in the 1960s, were kept classified, says Bowman.
The research team inflating a solar balloon with infrasound sensors attached
Roswell NM is not amused!
www.history.com
What Really Happened at Roswell? | HISTORY
Behind the rumors of America's most infamous UFO incident
www.history.com
