#proton batteries

[spacenutspod]

SpaceTime Series 27 Episode 152 *Martian Dust Storms: A New Understanding A groundbreaking study reveals the triggers behind Mars' infamous planet-wide dust storms. Researchers from the University of Colorado Boulder suggest that relatively warm and sunny days could initiate these massive storms. Presented at the American Geophysical Union's 2024 meeting, the findings could pave the way for forecasting Martian weather, similar to Earth meteorology. Understanding these storms is crucial, as they pose significant challenges to Mars missions by affecting rovers and landers. *Discovery of New Dark Comets Astronomers have doubled the known population of dark comets, discovering seven more of these enigmatic celestial bodies. These objects, which resemble asteroids but behave like comets, are categorized into two groups based on their orbits and reflectivity. The study, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, explores their potential role in delivering vital materials to Earth, such as water. *Space Weather's Impact on National Security As technology advances, space weather events pose an increasing threat to national security assets. Geomagnetic storms, part of the Sun's 11-year cycle, can disrupt satellites, power grids, and communications. Johns Hopkins researchers are developing models and tools to predict and mitigate these impacts, emphasizing the importance of understanding space weather to protect critical infrastructure. 00:00 This is Space Time Series 27, Episode 152 for broadcast on 18 December 2024 00:47 New study could help predict extreme weather events on Mars 04:34 Astronomers have detected seven more dark comets, doubling the number 08:26 Scientists are working on new research projects to protect national security assets from space weather 12:35 Are we prepared for a catastrophic solar storm? The dangers of a solar eruption come in three phases 16:24 The gap between our health span and lifespan is getting wider globally 19:51 Apple have just released their new 18.2 AI suite just in time for Christmas 21:40 Google has launched its own AI assistant called Gemini 2.0 www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com www.bitesz.com 🌏 Get Our Exclusive NordVPN deal here ➼ www.bitesz.com/nordvpn. Enjoy incredible discounts and bonuses! Plus, it’s risk-free with Nord’s 30-day money-back guarantee! ✌ Check out our newest sponsor - Old Glory - Iconic Music and Sports Merch and now with official NASA merchandise. Well worth a look... Become a supporter of this Podcast for as little as $3 per month and access commercial-free episodes plus bonuses: https://www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com/about ✍️ Episode References American Geophysical Union https://www.agu.org/ University of Colorado Boulder https://www.colorado.edu/ NASA Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter https://mars.nasa.gov/mro/ The Martian (2015 Film) https://www.imdb.com/title/tt3659388/ Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences https://www.pnas.org/ Michigan State University https://msu.edu/ Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory https://www.jhuapl.edu/ Nature Journal https://www.nature.com/ University of New South Wales https://www.unsw.edu.au/ Angavande Shemi Journal https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/15213773 Apple AI https://www.apple.com/ Google Gemini 2.0 AI https://blog.google/products/ai/ Space Time with Stuart Gary Gary https://spacetimewithstuartgary.com/ Tech Advice Life https://techadvice.life/

[cheaphousespending]

The Idea: A cheap proton battery for storing solar energy that does not rely on scarce natural resources

Engineers in Melbourne are vying for pole position in the global race to make a cheap rechargeable battery for storing solar energy that does not rely on scarce natural resources. Their latest experimental ‘proton battery’ could one day be developed to power homes, vehicles and devices – without the end-of-life environmental challenges of lithium-ion batteries. RMIT University has patented the…

[wirewitchviolet]

How a Computer Works - Part 1 (Components)

I am about to teach you on a real fundamental, connecting up electronic components level, how a computer actually works. Before I get into the meat of this though (you can just skip down below the fold if you don't care), here's the reasons I'm sitting doing so in this format:

Like a decade or two ago, companies Facebook pushed this whole "pivot to video" idea on the whole internet with some completely faked data, convincing everyone that everything had to be a video, and we need to start pushing back against that. Especially for stuff like complex explanations of things or instructions, it's much more efficient to just explain things clearly in text, maybe with some visual aids, so people can easily search, scan, and skip around between sections. It's also a hell of a lot easier to host things long term, and you can even print out a text based explainer and not need a computer to read it, keep it on a desk, highlight it, etc.

People are so clueless about how computers actually work that they start really thinking like it's all magical. Even programmers. Aside from how proper knowledge lets you get more out of them, this leads to people spouting off total nonsense about "teaching sand to think" or "everything is just 1s and 0s" or "this 'AI' a con artist who was trying to sell me NFTs a month ago probably really is an amazing creative thinking machine that can do everything he says!"

We used to have this cultural value going where it was expected that if you owned something and used it day to day, you'd have enough basic knowledge of how it worked that if it stopped working you could open it up, see what was wrong, and maybe fix it on your own, or maybe even put one together again from scratch, and that's obviously worth bringing back.

I'm personally working on a totally bonkers DIY project and I'd like to hype up like-minded people for when it gets farther along.

So all that said, have a standard reminder that I am completely reliant on Patreon donations to survive, keep updating this blog, and ideally start getting some PCBs and chips and a nice oscilloscope to get that mystery project off the ground.

Electricity probably doesn't work like how you were taught (and my explanation shouldn't be trusted too far either).

I remember, growing up, hearing all sorts of things about electricity having this sort of magical ability to always find the shortest possible path to where it needs to get, flowing like water, and a bunch of other things that are kind of useful for explaining how a Faraday cage or a lightning rod works, and not conflicting with how simple electronics will have a battery and then a single line of wire going through like a switch and a light bulb or whatever back to the other end of the battery.

If you had this idea drilled into your head hard enough, you might end up thinking that if we have a wire hooked to the negative end of a battery stretching off to the east, and another wire stretching off to the east from the positive end, and we bridge between the two in several places with an LED or something soldered to both ends, only the westernmost one is going to light up, because hey, the shortest path is the one that turns off as quickly as possible to connect to the other side, right? Well turns out no, all three are going to light up, because that "shortest path" thing is a total misunderstanding.

Here's how it actually works, roughly. If you took basic high school chemistry, you learned about how the periodic table is set up, right? A given atom, normally, has whatever number of protons in the core, and the same number of electrons, whipping all over around it, being attracted to those protons but repelled by each other, and there's particular counts of electrons which are super chill with that arrangement so we put those elements in the same column as each other, and then as you count up from those, you get the elements between those either have some electrons that don't fit all tight packed in the tight orbit and just kinda hang out all wide and lonely and "want to" buddy up with another atom that has more room, up to the half full column that can kinda go either way, then as we approach the next happy number they "want to" have a little more company to get right to that cozy tight packed number, and when you have "extra" electrons and "missing" electrons other atoms kinda cozy up and share so they hit those good noble gas counts.

I'm sure real experts want to scream at me for both that and this, but this is basically how electricity works. You have a big pile of something at the "positive" end that's "missing electrons" (for the above reason or maybe actually ionized so they really aren't there), and a "negative" end that's got spares. Then you make wires out of stuff from those middle of the road elements that have awkward electron counts and don't mind buddying up (and also high melting points and some other handy qualities) and you hook those in there. And the electron clouds on all the atoms in the wire get kinda pulled towards the positive side because there's more room over there, but if they full on leave their nucleus needs more electron pals, so yeah neighbors get pulled over, and the whole wire connected to the positive bit ends up with a positive charge to it, and the whole wire on the negative bit is negatively charged, and so yeah, anywhere you bridge the gap between the two, the electrons are pretty stoked about balancing out these two big awkward compromises and they'll start conga lining over to balance things out, and while they're at it they'll light up lights or shake speakers or spin motors or activate electromagnets or whatever other rad things you've worked out how to make happen with a live electric current.

Insulators, Resistors, Waves, and Capacitors

Oh and we typically surround these wires made of things that are super happy about sharing electrons around with materials that are very much "I'm good, thanks," but this isn't an all or nothing system and there's stuff you can connect between the positive and negative ends of things that still pass the current along, but only so much so fast. We use those to make resistors, and those are handy because sometimes you don't want to put all the juice you have through something because it would damage it, and having a resistor anywhere along a path you're putting current through puts a cap on that flow, and also sometimes you might want a wire connected to positive or negative with a really strong resistor so it'll have SOME sort of default charge, but if we get a free(r) flowing connection attached to that wire somewhere else that opens sometimes, screw that little trickle going one way, we're leaning everyone the other way for now.

The other thing with electricity is is that the flow here isn't a basic yes/no thing. How enthusiastically those electrons are getting pulled depends on the difference in charge at the positive and negative ends, and also if you're running super long wires then even if they conduct real good, having all that space to spread along is going to kinda slow things to a trickle, AND the whole thing is kinda going to have some inherent bounciness to it both because we're dealing with electrons whipping and spinning all over and because, since it's a property that's actually useful for a lot of things we do with electricity, the power coming out of the wall has this intentional wobbly nature because we've actually got this ridiculous spinny thing going on that's constantly flip flopping which prong of the socket is positive and which is negative and point is we get these sine waves of strength by default, and they kinda flop over if we're going really far.

Of course there's also a lot of times when you really want to not have your current flow flickering on and off all the time, but hey fortunately one of the first neat little electronic components we ever worked out are capacitors... and look, I'm going to be straight with you. I don't really get capacitors, but the basic idea is you've got two wires that go to big wide plates, and between those you have something that doesn't conduct the electricity normally, but they're so close the electromagnetic fields are like vibing, and then if you disconnect them from the flow they were almost conducting and/or they get charged to their limit, they just can't deal with being so charged up and they'll bridge their own gap and let it out. So basically you give them electricity to hold onto for a bit then pass along, and various sizes of them are super handy if you want to have a delay between throwing a switch and having things start doing their thing, or keeping stuff going after you break a connection, or you make a little branching path where one branch connects all regular and the other goes through a capacitor, and the electricity which is coming in in little pulses effectively comes out as a relatively steady stream because every time it'd cut out the capacity lets its charge go.

We don't just have switches, we have potentiometers.

OK, so... all of the above is just sort of about having a current and maybe worrying about how strong it is, but other than explaining how you can just kinda have main power rails running all over, and just hook stuff across them all willy-nilly rather than being forced to put everything in one big line, but still, all you can do with that is turn the whole thing on and off by breaking the circuit. Incidentally, switches, buttons, keys, and anything else you use to control the behavior of any electronic device really are just physically touching loose wires together or pulling them apart... well wait no, not all, this is a good bit to know.

None of this is actually pass/fail, really, there's wave amplitudes and how big a difference we have between the all. So when you have like, a volume knob, that's a potentiometer, which is a simple little thing where you've got your wire, it's going through a resistor, and then we have another wire we're scraping back and forth along the resistor, using a knob, usually, and the idea is the current only has to go through X percent of the resistor to get to the wire you're moving, which proportionately reduces the resistance. So you have like a 20 volt current, you've got a resistor that'll drop that down to 5 or so, but then you move this other wire down along and you've got this whole dynamic range and you can fine tune it to 15 or 10 or whatever coming down that wire. And what's nice about this again, what's actually coming down the wire is this wobbily wave of current, it's not really just "on" or "off, and as you add resistance, the wobble stays the same, it's just the peaks and valleys get closer to being just flat. Which is great if you're making, say, a knob to control volume, or brightness, or anything you want variable intensity in really.

Hey hey, it's a relay!

Again, a lot of the earliest stuff people did with electronics was really dependent on that analog wobbly waveform angle. Particularly for reproducing sound, and particularly the signals of a telegraph. Those had to travel down wires for absurd distances, and as previously stated, when you do that the signal is going to eventually decay to nothing. But then someone came up with this really basic idea where every so often along those super long wires, you set something up that takes the old signal and uses it to start a new one. They called them relays, because you know, it's like a relay race.

If you know how an electromagnet works (something about the field generated when you coil a bunch of copper wire around an iron core and run an electric current through it), a relay is super simple. You've got an electromagnet in the first circuit you're running, presumably right by where it's going to hit the big charged endpoint, and that magnetically pulls a tab of metal that's acting as a switch on a new circuit. As long as you've got enough juice left to activate the magnet, you slam that switch and voom you've got all the voltage you can generate on the new line.

Relays don't get used too much in other stuff, being unpopular at the time for not being all analog and wobbily (slamming that switch back and forth IS going to be a very binary on or off sorta thing), and they make this loud clacking noise that's actually just super cool to hear in devices that do use them (pinball machines are one of the main surviving use cases I believe) but could be annoying in some cases. What's also neat is that they're a logical AND gate. That is, if you have current flowing into the magnet, AND you have current flowing into the new wire up to the switch, you have it flowing out through the far side of the switch, but if either of those isn't true, nothing happens. Logic gates, to get ahead of myself a bit, are kinda the whole thing with computers, but we still need the rest of them. So for these purposes, relays re only neat if it's the most power and space efficient AND gate you have access to.

Oh and come to think of it, there's no reason we need to have that magnet closing the circuit when it's doing its thing. We could have it closed by default and yank it open by the magnet. Hey, now we're inverting whatever we're getting on the first wire! Neat!

Relay computers clack too loud! Gimme vacuum tubes!

So... let's take a look at the other main thing people used electricity for before coming up with the whole computer thing, our old friend the light bulb! Now I already touched a bit on the whole wacky alternating current thing, and I think this is actually one of the cases that eventually lead to it being adopted so widely, but the earliest light bulbs tended to just use normal direct current, where again, you've got the positive end and the negative end, and we just take a little filament of whatever we have handy that glows when you run enough of a current through it, and we put that in a big glass bulb and pump out all the air we can, because if we don't, the oxygen in there is probably going to change that from glowing a bit to straight up catching on fire and burning immediately.

But, we have a new weird little problem, because of the physics behind that glowing. Making something hot, on a molecular level, is just kinda adding energy to the system so everything jitters around more violently, and if you get something hot enough that it glows, you're getting it all twitchy enough for tinier particles to just fly the hell off it. Specifically photons, that's the light bit, but also hey, remember, electrons are just kinda free moving and whipping all over looking for their naked proton pals... and hey, inside this big glass bulb, we've got that other end of the wire with the more positive charge to it. Why bother wandering up this whole coily filament when we're in a vacuum and there's nothing to get in the way if we just leap straight over that gap? So... they do that, and they're coming in fast and on elliptical approaches and all, so a bunch of electrons overshoot and smack into the glass on the far side, and now one side of every light bulb is getting all gross and burnt from that and turning all brown and we can't have that.

So again, part of the fix is we switched to alternating current so it's at least splitting those wild jumps up to either side, but before that, someone tried to solve this by just... kinda putting a backboard in there. Stick a big metal plate on the end of another wire in the bulb connected to a positive charge, and now OK, all those maverick electrons smack into here and aren't messing up the glass, but also hey, this is a neat little thing. Those electrons are making that hop because they're all hot and bothered. If we're not heating up the plate they're jumping to, and there's no real reason we'd want to, then if we had a negative signal over on that side... nothing would happen. Electrons aren't getting all antsy and jumping back.

So now we have a diode! The name comes because we have two (di-) electrodes (-ode) we care about in the bulb (we're just kind of ignoring the negative one), and it's a one way street for our circuit. That's useful for a lot of stuff, like not having electricity flow backwards through complex systems and mess things up, converting AC to DC (when it flips, current won't flow through the diode so we lop off the bottom of the wave, and hey, we can do that thing with capacitors to release their current during those cutoffs, and if we're clever we can get a pretty steady high).

More electrodes! More electrodes!

So a bit after someone worked out this whole vacuum tube diode thing, someone went hey, what if it was a triode? So, let's stick another electrode in there, and this one just kinda curves around in the middle, just kinda making a grate or a mesh grid, between our hot always flowing filament and that catch plate we're keeping positively charged when it's doing stuff. Well this works in a neat way. If there's a negative charge on it, it's going to be pushing back on those electrons jumping over, and if there's a positive charge on it, it's going to help pull those electrons over (it's all thin, so they're going to shoot right past it, especially if there's way more of a positive charge over on the plate... and here's the super cool part- This is an analog thing. If we have a relatively big negative charge, it's going to repel everything, if it's a relatively big positive, it's going to pull a ton across, if it's right in the middle, it's like it wasn't even in there, and you can have tiny charges for all the gradients in between.

We don't need a huge charge for any of this though, because we're just helping or hindering the big jump from the high voltage stuff, and huh, weren't we doing this whole weak current controlling a strong current thing before with the relay? We were! And this is doing the same thing! Except now we're doing it all analog style, not slapping switch with a magnet, and we can make those wavy currents peak higher or lower and cool, now we can have phone lines boost over long distances too, and make volume knobs, and all that good stuff.

The relay version of this had that cool trick though where you could flip the output. Can we still flip the output? We sure can, we just need some other toys in the mix. See we keep talking about positive charges and negative charges at the ends of our circuits, but these are relative things. I mentioned way back when how you can use resistors to throttle how much of a current we've got, so you can run two wires to that grid in the triode. One connects to a negative charge and the other positive, with resistors on both those lines, and a switch that can break the connection on the positive end. If the positive is disconnected, we've got a negative charge on the grid, since it's all we've got, but if we connect it, and the resistor to the negative end really limits flow, we're positive in the section the grid's in. And over on the side with the collecting plate, we branch off with another resistor setup so the negative charge on that side is normally the only viable connection for a positive, but when we flip the grid to positive, we're jumping across the gap in the vacuum tube, and that's a big open flow so we'll just take those electrons instead of the ones that have to squeeze through a tight resistor to get there.

That explanation is probably a bit hard to follow because I'm over here trying to explain it based on how the electrons are actually getting pulled around. In the world of electronics everyone decided to just pretend the flow is going the other way because it makes stuff easier to follow. So pretend we have magical positrons that go the other way and if they have nothing better to do they go down the path where we have all the fun stuff further down the circuit lighting lights and all that even though it's a tight squeeze through a resistor, because there's a yucky double negative in the triode and that's worse, but we have the switch rigged up to make that a nice positive go signal to the resistance free promised land with a bonus booster to cut across, so we're just gonna go that way when the grid signal's connected.

Oh and you can make other sorts of logic circuits or double up on them in a single tube if you add more grids and such, which we did for a while, but not really relevant these days.

Cool history lesson but I know there's no relays or vacuum tubes in my computer.

Right, so the above things are how we used to make computers, but they were super bulky, and you'd have to deal with how relays are super loud and kinda slow, and vacuum tubes need a big power draw and get hot. What we use instead of either of those these days are transistors. See after spending a good number of years working out all this circuit flow stuff with vacuum tubes we eventually focused on how the real important thing in all of this is how with the right materials you can make a little juncture where current flows between a positive and negative charge if a third wire going in there is also positively charged, but if it's negatively charged we're pulling over. And turns out there is a WAY more efficient way of doing that if you take a chunk of good ol' middle of the electron road silicon, and just kinda lightly paint the side of it with just the tiniest amount of positive leaning and negative leaning elements on the sides.

Really transistors don't require understanding anything new past the large number of topics already covered here, they're just more compact about it. Positive leaning bit, negative leaning bit, wildcard in the middle, like a vacuum tube. Based on the concepts of pulling electrons around from chemistry, like a circuit in general. The control wire in the middle kinda works in just a pass-fail sort of way, like a relay. They're just really nice compared to the older alternatives because they don't make noise or have moving parts to wear down, you don't have to run enough current through them for metal to start glowing and the whole room to heat up, and you can make them small. Absurdly small. Like... need an electron microscope to see them small.

And of course you can also make an inverter super tiny like that, and a diode (while you're at it you can use special materials or phosphors to make them light emitting, go LEDs!) and resistors can get pretty damn small if you just use less of a more resistant material, capacitors I think have a limit to how tiny you can get, practically, but yeah, you now know enough of the basic fundamentals of how computers work to throw some logic gates together. We've covered how a relay, triode, or transistor function as an AND gate. An OR gate is super easy, you just stick diodes on two wires so you don't have messy backflow then connect them together and lead off there. If you can get your head around wiring up an inverter (AKA NOT), hey, stick one after an AND to get a NAND, or an OR to get a NOR. You can work out XOR and XNOR from there right? Just build 4 NANDs, pass input A into gates 1 and 2, B into 2 and 3, 2's output into 1 and 3, 1 and 3's output into 4 for a XOR, use NORs instead for a XNOR. That's all of them right? So now just build a ton of those and arrange them into a computer. It's all logic and math from there.

Oh right. It's... an absurd amount of logic and math, and I can only fit so many words in a blog post. So we'll have to go all...

CONTINUED IN PART 2!

Meanwhile, again, if you can spare some cash I'd really appreciate it.

[fandomnerd9602]

Melody reaches out and takes Y/N’s hand…

Melody: (gasps) it’s been so long since I could hold someone’s hand.

Y/N: helps being a ghost (winks)

Phoebe’s proton pack short circuits…

Phoebe: battery’s out

Y/N: allow me

Y/N powers up the pack with a simple touch…

Y/N: radiation. terrible way to die. Makes for great afterlife power tho.

Melody; h-how long can you stay?

Y/N: however long you want me to.

Melody smiles, finally someone to hold hands with…

For @konstantin609

[cambriancrew]

It's, scientifically speaking, not actually a theory, as theories contain a hypothesis that can be tested and proven, and structural dissociation can neither be properly tested for nor proven.

The proper scientific term for what it is, is a model. It explains things, the same way models of atomic structure explain the way atoms are set up.

But the same way pictures of an atom with the protons and neutrons clustered together in the middle with rings of electrons on the outside doesn't fully explain everything about atoms nor does it fully explain every kind of atomic and subatomic particle, neither does the structural dissociation model fully explain everything about every kind of system. Two of the three authors of The Haunted Self, the book on structural dissociation, have said explicitly that their model only pertains to dissociation and divisions of the personality in terms of trauma, and that dissociation even to the point of divisions of the personality like in structural dissociation occur in other contexts.

It's a useful model. But when people start trying to treat it like a real scientific theory that's been tested and proven, and try to force an understanding based on it in contexts it was never meant to explain, it falls short.

The theory of structural dissociation is a scientific theory

There is a difference between a scientific theory and a random person just coming up with something. Please learn this. A scientific theory has to be proven with research and evidence. Why do people seem to think it is just a random theory that some guy just decided to make up one day?

[mariacallous]

Launched between August and September 1977, Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 are the oldest and most distant probes built that are still active. They are also the only probes to have left our solar system and venture into the wider expanses of space. The secret to their long life? Nuclear power. But at some point, their mission will end.

The Voyagers began as planetary missions. Their goal was to carry out the so-called Planetary Grand Tour—that is, to visit the four outer planets of the solar system through a series of flyovers. Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune all got a new face thanks to the probes’ robotic cameras and their many scientific instruments.

The icy giants Uranus and Neptune, in particular, were studied for the first and only time in history by Voyager 2, while successful observations of Jupiter and Saturn were the basis for subsequent interplanetary missions to these worlds, such as Galileo, Juno, and Cassini-Huygens. Voyager 1, on the other hand, had Titan—Saturn’s largest moon and one of the most intriguing satellites in the outer solar system—as its primary target.

Once the Voyagers’ planetary journeys were over, it was possible to begin a new mission phase. After their last planetary stops, both probes reached escape velocity for the solar system, allowing them to be released from the sun’s gravity. Since 2012 for Voyager 1, and 2018 for Voyager 2, they have become interstellar. We know this because after those dates, sensors on the probes showed that charged particles from the sun became less numerous and energetic than those detected from the galactic environment. This was a golden opportunity to study the boundaries of the solar system and the environment outside of it.

The Secret to a Long Life

Reaching such a distance is only possible with the right energy source. Many probes use solar panels, but if they move too far from the sun, they become useless (the farthest probe that uses them is the Juno probe orbiting Jupiter). The secret of the Voyagers lies in their atomic hearts: both are equipped with three radioisotope thermoelectric generators, or RTGs—small power generators that can produce power directly on board. Each RTG contains 24 plutonium-238 oxide spheres with a total mass of 4.5 kilograms.

Plutonium-238 is an unstable isotope, which means it undergoes radioactive decay. The plutonium atoms in the RTGs release alpha particles—comprising two protons and two neutrons—and these hit the RTG canister, heating it up. The heat is then converted into electricity.

But as time passes, the plutonium on board is depleted, and so the RTGs produce less and less energy. The Voyagers are therefore slowly dying. Nuclear batteries have a maximum lifespan of 60 years.

In order to conserve the probes’ remaining energy, the mission team is gradually shutting down the various instruments on the probes that are still active. For example, in October, Voyager 2’s plasma science instrument—which measures electrically charged atoms passing the probe—was turned off; the same device on Voyager 1 was turned off in 2007 due to a malfunction. These instruments were used to study charged particles in the sun’s magnetic field, and it is precisely this detector in 2018 that determined that Voyager 2 had exited the heliosphere and become interstellar.

Four active instruments remain, including a magnetometer as well as other instruments used to study the galactic environment, with its cosmic rays and interstellar magnetic field. But these are in their last years. In the next decade—it’s hard to say exactly when—the batteries of both probes will be drained forever.

[reasonsforhope]

"It may sound surprising, but when times are tough and there is no other food available, some soil bacteria can consume traces of hydrogen in the air as an energy source.

In fact, bacteria remove a staggering 70 million tonnes of hydrogen yearly from the atmosphere, a process that literally shapes the composition of the air we breathe.

We have isolated an enzyme that enables some bacteria to consume hydrogen and extract energy from it, and found it can produce an electric current directly when exposed to even minute amounts of hydrogen.

As we report in a new paper in Nature, the enzyme may have considerable potential to power small, sustainable air-powered devices in future.

Bacterial genes contain the secret for turning air into electricity

Prompted by this discovery, we analysed the genetic code of a soil bacterium called Mycobacterium smegmatis, which consumes hydrogen from air.

Written into these genes is the blueprint for producing the molecular machine responsible for consuming hydrogen and converting it into energy for the bacterium. This machine is an enzyme called a “hydrogenase”, and we named it Huc for short.

Hydrogen is the simplest molecule, made of two positively charged protons held together by a bond formed by two negatively charged electrons. Huc breaks this bond, the protons part ways, and the electrons are released...

The molecular blueprint for extracting hydrogen from air

With Huc isolated, we set about studying it in earnest, to discover what exactly the enzyme is capable of. How can it turn the hydrogen in the air into a sustainable source of electricity?

Remarkably, we found that even when isolated from the bacteria, Huc can consume hydrogen at concentrations far lower even than the tiny traces in the air. In fact, Huc still consumed whiffs of hydrogen too faint to be detected by our gas chromatograph, a highly sensitive instrument we use to measure gas concentrations...

Enzymes could use air to power the devices of tomorrow

It’s early days for this research, and several technical challenges need to be overcome to realise the potential of Huc.

For one thing, we will need to significantly increase the scale of Huc production. In the lab we produce Huc in milligram quantities, but we want to scale this up to grams and ultimately kilograms.

However, our work demonstrates that Huc functions like a “natural battery” producing a sustained electrical current from air or added hydrogen.

As a result, Huc has considerable potential in developing small, sustainable air-powered devices as an alternative to solar power.

The amount of energy provided by hydrogen in the air would be small, but likely sufficient to power a biometric monitor, clock, LED globe or simple computer. With more hydrogen, Huc produces more electricity and could potentially power larger devices.

Another application would be the development of Huc-based bioelectric sensors for detecting hydrogen, which could be incredibly sensitive. Huc could be invaluable for detecting leaks in the infrastructure of our burgeoning hydrogen economy or in a medical setting.

In short, this research shows how a fundamental discovery about how bacteria in soils feed themselves can lead to a reimagining of the chemistry of life. Ultimately it may also lead to the development of technologies for the future."

-via The Conversation, March 8, 2023. Article written by the authors of the study.

[villafordefeatedvillains]

Still thinking about this. I'm convinced that Tumblr as a whole lied to us about how sour it is. The most sour part was the scum on the top created by the sour powder, and even then it was only a pleasant and tingly sour. To be honest the worst part was that the Airheads got soggy.

Battery Acid Spaghetti isn't even that sour?? Tried it like 30 minutes ago. Sure, it's Potion of Tummy Hurt. But it's not super sour. Maybe we've had too many Warheads and can no longer taste sour correctly. Hash Tag built different.

[probablyfunrpgideas]

Idea: give your players a ghostbuster trap they can use on their supernatural foes! This could be good in almost any game, whether it’s D&D or Monster of the Week (you must find a way to weaken or harm the monster first with an appropriate process like silver bullets, a stake to the heart, or making them count spilled beans). Feel free to add additional flavor and decide if magic or technology makes it work! Adding nonlethal options to combat is always interesting - catching a monster should be easier than killing it, but then the GM can reuse them when they escape from monster containment!

Here’s how the players can use this item: After your target is weakened, you can lock on by making a check to hit it with a ray from your proton pack. Then, decide whether to trap it or hold on. Your allies can assist by locking on with their own proton packs, and whoever makes the check to trap the monster gets a bonus for each additional ray that’s locked on. The roll to trap the monster should be some kind of contest of will, so the power of friendship can apply. If you fail, however, the monster breaks free and acts immediately.

If a PC invented the ghost trap, have them pick two of these options (if they rolled really well when designing it, pick three): the trap works without unreliable batteries, the trap holds more than one ghost at once, the trap is usable without hours of training, OR the trap can’t be used against you or your friends.

[spacetimewithstuartgary]

Wednesday SpaceTime 20241218 Series 27 Episode 152

How those infamous Martian dust storms can engulf an entire planet

In a new study has begun to unravel the mystery of those massive planet wide dust storms which often blanket the entire Martian surface.

Astronomers discover more dark comets

The first dark comet—a celestial object that looks like an asteroid but moves through space like a comet—was discovered less than two years ago. Soon after, another six were found.  Now astronomers have detected seven more, doubling the number of known dark comets.

How space weather events affect national security assets

Scientists are working on new research projects to help protect major national security assets from threat of space weather.

The Science Report

People are living longer, but the gap between good health and lifespan is getting wider.

Google's new quantum error correction chip.

A step closer to a rechargeable proton battery.

Alex on Tech: New AI updates from Apple and Google

SpaceTime covers the latest news in astronomy & space sciences.

The show is available every Monday, Wednesday and Friday through Apple Podcasts (itunes), Stitcher, Google Podcast, Pocketcasts, SoundCloud, Bitez.com, YouTube, your favourite podcast download provider, and from www.spacetimewithstuartgary.com

SpaceTime is also broadcast through the National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio and on both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

SpaceTime daily news blog: http://spacetimewithstuartgary.tumblr.com/

SpaceTime facebook: www.facebook.com/spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime Instagram @spacetimewithstuartgary

SpaceTime twitter feed @stuartgary

SpaceTime YouTube: @SpaceTimewithStuartGary

SpaceTime -- A brief history

SpaceTime is Australia’s most popular and respected astronomy and space science news program – averaging over two million downloads every year. We’re also number five in the United States.  The show reports on the latest stories and discoveries making news in astronomy, space flight, and science.  SpaceTime features weekly interviews with leading Australian scientists about their research.  The show began life in 1995 as ‘StarStuff’ on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s (ABC) NewsRadio network.  Award winning investigative reporter Stuart Gary created the program during more than fifteen years as NewsRadio’s evening anchor and Science Editor.  Gary’s always loved science. He studied astronomy at university and was invited to undertake a PHD in astrophysics, but instead focused on his career in journalism and radio broadcasting. Gary’s radio career stretches back some 34 years including 26 at the ABC. He worked as an announcer and music DJ in commercial radio, before becoming a journalist and eventually joining ABC News and Current Affairs. He was part of the team that set up ABC NewsRadio and became one of its first on air presenters. When asked to put his science background to use, Gary developed StarStuff which he wrote, produced and hosted, consistently achieving 9 per cent of the national Australian radio audience based on the ABC’s Nielsen ratings survey figures for the five major Australian metro markets: Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide, and Perth.  The StarStuff podcast was published on line by ABC Science -- achieving over 1.3 million downloads annually.  However, after some 20 years, the show finally wrapped up in December 2015 following ABC funding cuts, and a redirection of available finances to increase sports and horse racing coverage.  Rather than continue with the ABC, Gary resigned so that he could keep the show going independently.  StarStuff was rebranded as “SpaceTime”, with the first episode being broadcast in February 2016.  Over the years, SpaceTime has grown, more than doubling its former ABC audience numbers and expanding to include new segments such as the Science Report -- which provides a wrap of general science news, weekly skeptical science features, special reports looking at the latest computer and technology news, and Skywatch – which provides a monthly guide to the night skies. The show is published three times weekly (every Monday, Wednesday and Friday) and available from the United States National Science Foundation on Science Zone Radio, and through both i-heart Radio and Tune-In Radio.

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Semimetal-induced covalency achieves high-efficiency electrocatalysis for platinum intermetallic compounds

Compared with other types of batteries, proton exchange membrane fuel cells have the advantages of high discharge power and no pollution, which is also an important carrier for hydrogen energy conversion and utilization. Platinum intermetallic compounds play an important role as electrocatalysts in a series of energy and environmental technologies such as proton exchange membrane fuel cells. However, the process for synthesis of platinum intermetallic compounds needs to be reorganized into ordered Pt–M metal bonds driven by high temperature (~600°C), which usually has great side effects on the structure of the catalyst, such as the uneven distribution of size, morphology, composition and structure, which further affects the performance of the catalyst and batteries. In response to this challenge, Professor Changzheng Wu's group at the University of Science and Technology of China introduced semimetal atoms, such as Ge, Sb, Te into the synthesis process of platinum-based intermetallic compounds. The research is published in the journal National Science Review.

Read more.

[ii-evil-confessions]

Come n find me then mister battery anon <33 Electrons like u are the reason my poor baby running this blog were enslaved <33

- Paid Time On Proton!!

GENUINELY SHUT THE FUCK UP.

[best-element-poll]

(the 2 most voted elements will continue onto round 2!)

More info about each element (and propaganda for the ones I like) under the cut. pleeeeeeeeease read some of them at least the one about francium

(disclaimer: these are based off short wikipedia reads and my crumbling high school chemistry knowledge. correct me if I'm wrong about anything.)

HYDROGEN: Hydrogen is the lightest element (consisting of only one proton and one electron). It is also the most abundant element in the universe, it's a gas (at room temperature) and it can explode. It's also quite representative of acids, having the (Arrhenius) definition of an acid straight up saying that it has to dissociate in water to form H+ ions. It's also quite an efficient fuel. Hydrogen is anywhere and Hydrogen is everywhere. If you like explosions, sour beverages, or acid in general, consider voting Hydrogen!

LITHIUM: Lithium, under standard conditions, is by far the least dense metal and the least dense solid element! You may primarily know him from your phone's Lithium-ion batteries. There are Lithium-based drugs used to treat mental illnesses. You can throw a block of lithium in water and it will make a really big explosion. The metal is soft and silvery. I'm running out of things to say about him. If you like batteries vote Lithium? (edit: just realised lithium is used for batteries, and batteries are connected to robotics and engineering. if you like robots and cool mechanical stuff vote lithium!)

SODIUM: You must know him from table salt. That's actually NaCl, his best known involvement. There are many more very important and very commonplace compounds that involve sodium, such as baking soda (NaHCO3) and sodium hydroxide (NaOH) (that's probably the most famous base?). It's also very important to the human body (you shouldn't eat more than 2300mg a day). If you've ever used table salt or baking soda while cooking, consider voting Sodium!

POTASSIUM: Their name was based on the word potash, which was based on an early and easy way of obtaining potassium, from putting ash in a pot, adding water, heating, and evaporating the solution. It's used in a lot of fertilisers because it's an essential plant nutrient. It's also involved in a ton of important compounds: KOH (a strong base), KNO3 (often used as salt bridges in electrochemical cells), K2CrO7 (an oxidising agent often used in organic synthesis), and K2CrO4 (I don't know what this one does). If you have ever eaten food from fertilisers consider voting Potassium!

RUBIDIUM: Rubidium compounds are sometimes used in fireworks to give them a purple color. They've also got a cool name, based on the latin rubidius, for deep red (the color of its emission spectrum). I'll be real, I don't really know much about them beyond that, but that is one cool name. Vote for Rubidium if you like cool names.

CAESIUM: Caesium is used in the definition for a second, meaning that an entire SI unit is based on it! A second can be defined as "the duration of 9,192,631,770 cycles of microwave light absorbed or emitted by the hyperfine transition of caesium-133 atoms in their ground state undisturbed by external fields". It was also discovered from mineral water. Did you know that they had to use 44000 liters of water to find her? If you've ever experienced time or had a conception of it in terms of units, consider voting Caesium!!!

FRANCIUM!!!: Caesium... TWO! It's sad that no one will probably read this far but this is my favourite element in this poll. This element is characterised by instability. Her longest half-life is 22 minutes. Her entire existence was conjoint with Caesium before they discovered that she was her own element. She has never been seen. They literally never confirmed what color she is. She was born in a wet cardboard box all alone. Through the hands of different scientists, she was going to be named after Russia, Virginia, or Moldavia at different points in time. At one point the name catium was proposed (for "cation", since she was believed to be the most electropositive cation), but was rejected because it sounded like a cat element. Which is so fucking sad. We could've had cat element but we ended up with France element. That's right she's also named after France. Just tragic fascinating existence overall. Also isn't it just insane that her half-life is only 22 minutes? Dude, you don't get it, the most of her that's ever existed in one place is a mere 300000 atoms. She's here and she's gone. What the hell.

The charm of Francium can be summarised by the wise words of my good friend Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart:

[starlightlightning]

Woke up, saw the proton kissing while glitching post, and immediately remembered the time i put a battery in my mouth and got shocked from it.

Decided that's a thing Elesa does as a stim sometimes (when no one is looking because thats embarrassing).

Shes basically a joltik.

[table-cat-games]

Another round of Ghostbusters modding!

I dedicated some time to modding the Hasbro proton pack. The pack was crowdfunded on their platform called Haslab and was modeled after the proton pack scene in Ghostbusters Afterlife.

They did a pretty good job on it except for a few things. The primary thing that bothered me about it is that it used D cell batteries instead of a modern solution that is rechargeable.

The solution was cracking it open and installing a battery myself.

Now it's accessible from a little side door.

At the same time I also installed a keep alive kit which you can use to keep the proton pack running almost indefinitely as you walk around with it on. Otherwise it shuts off after 3 minutes.

That's it right there, it's super tiny.

Next up was replacing the lens on the power level doodad. The frosted looked really bad in my opinion so I got a more clear blue one.

I can only do one video per post, so you'll see it in action at the end.

They also have some stuff that looks really fake like molded rubber tape or clamps that are molded rubber. I covered up a lot of the faky stuff with actual electrical tape or clamps.

Also this guy on YouTube did this interesting thing with little bits of wires to give it a little more authenticity, so I did that too.

And while I love Ghostbusters afterlife I wasn't super in love with the modified pack in that film, so I toned it down a little bit.

In the final image You can see that I took these little fake copper wire things and removed them. I covered up the holes at the top with a sticker and at the bottom with just some electric tape. Not the most elegant solution but it works for me.

And here's the final result for now. There's only two more things on the list for this pack: 1. Replace the yellowish wireloom cover. 2. Replace the really dirty ribbon cable. 3. Replace the fake tape on the handle of the neutrona wand.

[catgirlbraincell]

Stellaris Fleet Advice from some Catgirl Thing

Because apparently I'm competent at this sort of thing? Learn from me at your own risk. I am not an expert I just like the funny space boats.

Ships! These aren't the best ships, but they're the ones I know about and use.

Anti-mining corvette: Interceptor core, 3 lasers, 2 shields, 1 armor, swarm tactics, any addon. These specifically counter ancient mining drones, since mining drones use lasers and have no shields.

Shield-popping corvette: Interceptor core, 3 autocannons, 3 armor, swarm tacticcs, any addon. These are garbage on their own, since they basically only damage shields. Great for use with proton/neutron torpedoes.

Torpedo boat (FFK): Missile boat core, 1 autocannon, 1 torpedo, 2 armor, 1 shield, torpedo tactics, stealth or afterburner addon. These should only really be used on their own in max-size fleets. Never take these into combat against anything smaller than a cruiser, and expect losses against carrier-type battleships.

Guided missile frigate (FFG): Missile boat core, 1 missile, 1 proton/neutron torpdeo, 2 shields, 1 armor, artillery tactics, any addon. These should be used with shield-popping corvettes, and are useless without them. I have never tried this ship in practice, though it should work perfectly.

Guided missile destroyer (DDG): Gunboat bow, interceptor stern, 1 swarm missile, 4 missiles, any armor layout, artillery tactics, any addons. These are great to combine with missile-based carriers or cruisers, as some additional expendable firepower. I have never *not* lost a DDG in a fight involving them.

Destroyer Escort (DE): Picket bow, picket stern, 3 point-defense, 2 lasers, shield-heavy layout, picket tactics, any addons. These guard your larger ships from missiles, and are very capable in denying a missile-centric enemy. Anyone using armor-only expendable corvettes or frigates will find their fleet in ruins from a few of these, but do keep in mind that you need a lot of these to do much good. I usually put a few of these in any group of large ships, and they really do only last one or two fights before they're gone.

Destroyer (DD): Gunship bow, gunship stern, all lasers, any armor layout, line tactics, any addons. These are entirely capable of swarming enemies and melting armor, but do mind that you need a lot of them. Ideal for early-game or if you're broke on alloys. Must be used with either shield-popping corvettes or heavy cruisers.

Light Cruiser (CL): Broadside bow, broadside core, broadside stern, all lasers, any armor layout, line tactics, any addons. These are bigger, more expensive DDs. More suited for use with BBs than with CAs.

Light Missile Cruiser (CLG): Torpedo bow, torpedo core, broadside stern, all proton/neutron torpedoes, missiles, and swarm missiles, any armor layout, artillery tactics, any addons. These must be used with something to pop shields, whether that's anti-shield corvettes, CAs, or BBs. The normal/swarm missiles exist to overwhelm enemy point defense. Due to the large amount of missiles, these work well with DDGs and CVs.

Heavy Cruiser (CA): Artillery bow, artillery core, broadside stern, all mass drivers, any armor layout, artillery tactics, any addons. These should never be used with anything larger than cruisers, and they should always be used with something to damage armor. Goes great with DDs and CLGs

Battleship (BB): Artillery bow, artillery core, artillery stern, all mass drivers (or all kinetic batteries), any armor layout, artillery tactics, any addons. These are just bigger CAs, and it is always worth the upgrade. Do keep in mind that these have a minimum range, and you will be easy to overwhelm if FFKs or corvettes get too close. DEs are recommended if you like not losing your precious battleships. Goes great with CLGs, CLs, and DDs.

Carrier (CV): Hangar bow, carrier core, broadside stern. All P slots should be point defense, all S slots should be missiles, all M slots should be swarm missiles, and all H slots should be strike aircraft. Any armor layout, carrier tactics, any addons. These pierce all shields, but are weak against point defense. Overwhelm enemy point defense with the help of a few CLGs and/or a lot of DDGs, and make sure you have some DEs to screen out any strike aircraft or frigates, as those are incredibly dangerous to ships of this size.

Some archaeoweaponry is just better than stock stuff. If you have the improved stuff, use it. It's good. I've never tried titans, though in theory they're just larger battleships, so they could be supported by a BL instead of a CL, though I did not say how to make a BL here because I've never successfully used one. I was going to make a guide on how to assemble these ships into fleets, but I think I listed that sort of thing under each ship.

@slimegirllover