New material could generate an infinite amount of energy from the coldness of space
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Earth has an energy shortage, apparently, and now we have yet another way to produce infinite clean energy forever. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. The obvious drawback of solar panels, despite the continuous sound of efficiency records being...
World first as Chinese scientists use plasma to create tiny sci-fi light sabres
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our ability to create and control plasma in new science fiction like ways improves so too does our ability to create new sci fi devices. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. The world of science fiction is quickly...
World’s first batteryless bluetooth sensor harvests energy from the air
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF IOT devices will be crippled if they all need batteries to run, but by harvesting energy from the air we can place sensors anywhere and everywhere. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. Semiconductor firm Wiliot has demonstrated the first ever...
Google secretly spent $10million on a 4 year Cold Fusion experiment
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Cold Fusion is thought to be impossible, but if it isn’t it would change the world, so Google went to try and discover it. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. The journal Nature last week revealed the results of a 4-year, $10...
NASA’s green rocket fuel is less harmful to the environment, and can be FedEx’d
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As access to space gets cheaper we’re sending more rockets up today than ever before, and the fuel they use has a massive environmental impact. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. When I talk about Elon Musk’s vision for...
New Lithium Metal batteries beat out LiOn to power drones for longer
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As investment flows into new battery tech Lithium Ion suddenly has a whole host of new competitors to contend with. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. It’s easy to be jaded by new battery news, after all, there’s a...
BIG unveil Oceanix their floating city concept backed by the UN
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the Earth’s population grows, and as climate change threatens to displace hundreds of millions of people the UN are now seriously considering building floating cities. Interested in the future and want to experience even more?! eXplore More. In the future it’s not just NASA...
First of a kind material lets solar panels generate electricity from snow
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our knowledge of materials and how they behave improves we can generate electricity from almost anything. Scientists have announced that they’ve developed a first of its kind material that generates electricity from nothing other than, wait for it… snow. Based upon the principles...
Scientists bring 28,000 year old woolly mammoth cells back to life
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Many scientists see de-extinction, as well as immortality and re-incarnation, as a mystery we simply haven’t solved yet. In a world rife with movie plotlines about bringing extinct animals back from the dead, and actual scientists thinking about actually doing it, scientists in Osaka,...
Major 3D printing advance boosts LiON battery capacities by over 400 percent
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As our ability to 3D print objects at the nano scale improves it gives us the ability to create dramatically better batteries with huge surface areas. Scientists from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) and Missouri University of Science and Technology have used 3D Printing to produce high capacity Lithium...
Breakthrough process lets researchers turn Carbon Dioxide back into Coal
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Climate change is getting harder to solve, and the effects are getting more severe so we need new ways to tackle it. Scientists from the Melbourne based RMIT University have announced they’ve developed a new technique using “a liquid metal electrolysis method to convert...
Scientists create a liquid fuel that can store the Sun’s energy for 18 years
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As the number of solar energy installations increase storing the energy they produce, so it can be released to the grid when the Sun goes in, is still holding the industry back from world domination. Recently renewable energy became the cheapest form of energy...
All new UK homes will be off the gas grid by 2025 says UK government
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As countries try to hit their emissions targets fossil fuels are under fire, now the UK government is calling time on domestic gas supplies. Connecting new homes to the UK’s gas grid could be banned after 2025 as the UK government, just like many...
Paper based bio-battery uses bacteria to power the internet of things
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The Internet of Things relies of billions of sensors to work, but only a handful of these sensors can be powered with traditional batteries, so new alternatives are needed. In remote parts of the world, access to batteries for diagnostic devices, medical equipment and...
Dutch firm unveils the world’s first autonomous self-balancing energy grid for EV’s
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF New powerful technologies are letting us revolutionise how we generate and deliver electricity, and autonomous, self-balancing energy grids are now a thing. A little while ago I wrote about the US Department of Energy’s plans to create the world’s first autonomous energy grid, but...
India wants to turn its beaches into fuel for Thorium Reactors
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Thorium reactors produce thousands times less radioactive waste than their nuclear counterparts, and are much safer, but the technology is taking a long time to take off. The tropical beaches of India probably bring to mind sun-dappled palms, fiery fish curries and dreadlocked backpackers,...
China reveals plans to build a space based solar power plant by 2025
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to collect solar energy in space and beam it back down to base stations on Earth is a very efficient way to harvest it, and we have the technology. Let’s face it humanity uses a lot of energy, and while solar power here on...
Batteries are passé as researchers use ambient sound to charge smartphones
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Being able to use sound to charge our gadgets is a revolutionary idea, and it’s made possible thanks to advances in Nanomanufacturing. This could be the greatest power discovery for mobiles, ever. Apparently. So say researchers at Queen Mary University London (QMUL) in the...
Shooting lasers at drones helps DARPA keep them airborne forever
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As more companies field drones one of their biggest hurdles is keeping them airborne for long periods of time, DARPA’s latest program hopes to solve that. DARPA, the bleeding edge research arm of the US Military that’s bought and bringing you everything from conscious robots and autonomous...
Scientists find a way to turn the internet into the world’s largest earthquake detection system
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF There are hundreds of thousands of earthquakes a year, and a new detection system could help save lives. The internet isn’t your phone. It’s not Instagram, YouTube, or Netflix. Behind those screens the internet is actually a sprawling network of hundreds of undersea fiber optic...
