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Science Archive

Archives for May 2024

Thomas Ricker
Thomas Ricker
EcoFlow brings 800W of charging power to vanlife.

The $599 Alternator Charger sits between the starter battery on your RV, van, or truck and the giant EcoFlow battery you use to power your work and play when off the grid. It charges at a rate of 1kWh for every 1.3 hours of driving and can also be used to maintain and jump start the starter battery if needed.

Justine Calma
Justine Calma
A surge in fraudulent research papers is shutting down scientific journals.

Wiley, a publishing company that’s more than 200 years old, is shuttering 19 journals today, the Wall Street Journal reports. Wiley has reportedly had to retract more than 11,300 papers recently “that appeared compromised” as generative AI makes it easier for paper mills to peddle fake research.

The mission to retrieve a Mars sample is running into turbulence

NASA’s Mars Sample Return mission is already running over budget and behind schedule. But it may also be our best chance of finding extraterrestrial life.

Georgina Torbet
Justine Calma
Justine Calma
The US doesn’t have enough power lines.

AI, EVs, and Joe Biden’s push for domestic manufacturing are putting more pressure on aging power grids. The nation also needs double the transmission capacity to meet Biden’s goal of 100 percent carbon pollution-free electricity.

To get more transmission lines up, FERC just overhauled rules for new projects — including a mandate that grid operators start anticipating energy needs at least 20 years in advance.

Justine Calma
Justine Calma
“Why are they making us the dumping ground for the rest of the country?”

More residents across the US are asking that question about carbon dioxide, The Washington Post reports, as technologies that capture CO2 from smokestacks become more popular with companies that want to claim they’re fighting climate change. All that captured carbon dioxide has to go somewhere, and concerns are growing about the safety of new CO2 pipelines and underground storage wells.

Umar Shakir
Umar Shakir
Environmental protestors rush Tesla’s Berlin Gigafactory.

The group of 800 demonstrators accused Tesla of environmental harm, citing mining lithium for EV batteries. The group is said to want to stop the factory’s expansion. CEO Elon Musk said it’s “fishy,” and called them dumb. In March, the factory shut down temporarily after an arson attack.

Justine Calma
Justine Calma
Neuralink’s first implant in a human started to detach from the patient’s brain.

The implant is a coin-shaped chip embedded into the skull with threads that reach into the brain.

In the weeks following the surgery, a number of threads retracted from the brain

That limited how much data it could collect, but Neuralink found a workaround by making its algorithm more sensitive. The Elon Musk company wrote about the problem in a blog after The Wall Street Journal asked about the issue.