rethink robotics

Solid Energy touts lithium metal electrodes to safely boost lithium ion battery energy density by up to 40% and could lower costs by half to about $130 per kilowatt hour

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A new MIT spinoff company, SolidEnergy says it has materials that can increase the amount of energy that lithium-ion batteries store by 30 percent or more and lower costs enough to make electric vehicles affordable. SolidEnergy replaces the graphite electrode used in conventional lithium-ion batteries with a high-energy lithium-metal one. That’s been tried before, but …

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Chinese Satellites provides bandwidth for US drones and US dependence on Chinese Satellites could grow

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U.S. troops operating on the African continent are now using the recently-launched Chinese Apstar-7 satellite to keep in touch and share information. Every new drone feed and every new soldier with a satellite radio creates more appetite for bandwidth — an appetite the military can’t hope to fill with military spacecraft alone. To try to …

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Canada approved China’s takeover of Nexen Oil but will Block future foreign takeovers

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Canada approved China’s biggest ever foreign takeover on Friday, the $15.1 billion bid from CNOOC Ltd for energy company Nexen Inc., but drew a line in the sand against future buys by state-owned enterprises. “To be blunt, Canadians have not spent years reducing the ownership of sectors of the economy by our own governments, only …

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New atomic-layer electrodeposition method yields surprising results

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A new method for creating very thin layers of materials at the atomic scale, reported in the latest issue of the journal Science, could “unlock an important new technology” for creating nanomaterials, according to nanomaterials expert Dr. Jay A. Switzer of Missouri University of Science and Technology in the journal. This illustration depicts how atomic-layer …

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Improved Understanding of Rydberg atoms could lead to scalable quantum information systems

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Physicists at the Max Planck Institute of Quantum Optics in Garching near Munich, have now gained fundamental insights into a particular kind of atomic ensemble – a so-called Rydberg gas – that might play a role in the future design of a quantum computer. They observed how “super atoms” formed in the gas and ordered …

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Max Planck Institute develops neural event-triggered functional magnetic resonance imaging

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Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Biological Cybernetics have now developed a novel multimodal methodology called “neural event-triggered functional magnetic resonance imaging” (NET-fMRI) and presented the very first results obtained using it in experiments with both anesthetized and awake, behaving monkeys. The new methodology uses multiple-contact electrodes in combination with functional magnetic resonance imaging …

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Dynamically evolving the design of metals in response to stress like aircraft wing that get stronger

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Cars that change color at the push of a button; metals that strengthen with use; buildings that harness energy from the wind … research into designing structural materials that are both responsive and functional is shifting such ideas from the realm of fantasy to reality. Associate Professor Christopher Hutchinson of the Department of Materials Engineering …

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