Category: The Future

How does a Graphene battery compare to Lithium-ion battery

Tech-savvies believe that we’d genuinely be futuristic when we have easy access to Graphene batteries. A battery may sound like a simple thing to many, but Graphene batteries could change the game forever.

Scientists say that Graphene batteries will genuinely create a futuristic society where your devices can run up to days and weeks without charging.

A Graphene Battery in a nutshell

Packed together in a honeycomb structure, graphene is a carbon atom composition that has a thick two-dimensional atomic layer. The 2D structure of this composition allows graphene to be highly flexible, stalwart, and light in weight, as well as offer exceptional electrical and thermal conductivity that is even better than that of copper – an element that is known to be most conducive.

Graphene battery vs your regular battery 

The battery that we use in our portable devices is made with lithium-ion, also known as Li-ion. A lithium-ion battery has a similar structure to a graphene battery. Both the batteries have two conductive plates coated in an electrolyte solution, but the characteristics of both batteries differ on a considerable margin.

As mentioned earlier, graphene’s electrical and heat conductivity is higher than the most conducive element copper. Thus, it’s conductivity surpasses that of Lithium-ion as well. As a result, a device can be charged a lot faster as current travels more quickly. This high conductivity also extends the life span of a battery as they cool down faster.

A regular battery’s charging rate doesn’t remain consistent throughout its lifetime. A lithium-ion battery starts faster, tires out, and then delivers slower current, reducing the rate of charging. On the other hand, a Graphene battery offers linear charging rates, which means that this type of battery doesn’t tire out.

“Graphene batteries can make batteries charge faster and dissipate heat more effectively. This has big implications. It means power tools don’t overheat as quickly. It means home appliances serve families better, and for longer. And it eventually means [electric cars] can charge faster.” Chip Breitenkamp, VP of business development at the graphene battery company said.

Most importantly, Graphene batteries are safe. The incidents of smartphones burning up, overheating, and damage due to overcharging are overly familiar. Users can avoid these unfortunate events by opting for Graphene Batteries instead. There’s virtually no chance of overheating Graphene batteries as they are more robust than lithium-ion ones.

A Rare Commodity – Water Makes It To WSJ Futures Commodity

Water is all set to join the expensive commodities on earth like gold and oil on Wallstreet futures commodity. In an unexpected turn of events, water now sits next to the rare-valued items. 

 

Wallstreet futures commodity is a separate section where people in the relevant fields can bet on the price and worth of an item in the future. Earlier, rarities such as gold, copper, and diamonds acquired several spots. However, with water running scarce in many parts of the world, the Wallstreet Journal has added this to their futures commodity. 

 

This addition will allow the farmers, investors, and municipalities to bet on the worth of water in future. As water becomes a rare commodity for many, investors took this opportunity to bet on it by adding it to futures rare materials. CME Group launched the contract, which is tied to $1.1 B of California spot water market, according to Bloomsburg. 

 

The contracts were laid out in September, whereas the trading began on December 7. During the month of September, when the contract was initially laid out, California was experiencing high temperatures, long drought and scarcity of water. The deficiency of water in a developed country only hinted at more dangers to come across the world. 

 

Netizens are raging over Wallstreet journals’ addition of water into their betting services, as it may have a significant impact on prices of water in future. For example, in dry areas where water may be expensive during summers, people can offset the cost on futures commodity to reset the rates of water. However, this can work the other way around as well in order to reduce rates of water.

 

Patrick Wolf, the lead product developer with Nasdaq Global indexes, told CNN that this could be used for a good cause as well, as the contract will bring transparency to market pricing whenever water became scarce. 

 

“California has long periods of dry conditions followed by short periods of very wet conditions. And that affects the price a lot,” Patrick Wolf said. 

 

A report revealed by food and agriculture organization confirmed that around 1.2 B people in the world are experiencing a high level of water shortage. Another report confirmed the scarcity by revealing that the availability of freshwater resources per person has decreased by more than 20% in the past twenty years. 

 

“Climate change, droughts, population growth, and pollution are likely to make water scarcity issues and pricing a hot topic for years to come,” RBC Capital Markets managing director and analyst Deane Dray told Bloomsberg. 

 

Despite the rage and anger, it is a moment of truth of human beings. Water is becoming increasingly scarce in different parts of the world due to repetitive droughts, dry weather due to global warming, and heat. As the earth is ageing, the impact of human activities is speeding up the process of natural damage to the Earth, resulting in droughts and bad weather conditions.

 

Touching the VR world with gloves on

The world of virtual reality is becoming more real each day. Most recently, researchers from Cornell University have created a glove that makes touching through VR a reality.

Technological developments in 2020 are firing on all cylinders. There is something new coming up each day, but nobody thought that virtual reality could get any more real than it already is.

Researchers disagree. They are making VR more immersive.

With new developments in VR, you could actually pick up an object and feel it in your hands. Thanks to Cornell University researchers who have designed a sensor that tracks the movement of your hands. The primary purpose of this development is to make virtual reality more tactical and immersive as users can slide on this glove, and feel the objects.

Fibre-optic sensors on Cornell Researchers’ Glove

Many scientists and researchers have been trying to add a physical experience to a somewhat robotic world. All of their experiments included either haptic sensors or mechanical wires. This one particular creation of Cornell researchers has stretchable fibre optic sensors that sit on top of your hand like a spider web.

Silica-based distributed fibre-optic sensor (DFOS) systems are a renowned tool for sensing stress, pressure, vibration, warmth, and moisture. This glove has a stretchable fibre-optic sensor that extends to the length of your fingers, with tips lit up with LED lights. The current framework is pretty simple with bands wrapped around fingers, a battery attached on the wrist, Bluetooth and some basic circuits.

Sensors on these gloves bend with the movement of fingers, making the whole experience as closer to reality as it can get. It may sound impressive, but this feature is not the hero of the show. It is the fibre optics that allow the user to feel the force, pressure, and stress caused by the movements.

“Right now, sensing is done mostly by vision. We hardly ever measure touch in real life. This skin is a way to allow ourselves and machines to measure tactile interactions in a way that we currently use the cameras in our phones. It’s using vision to measure touch. This is the most convenient and practical way to do it in a scalable way.” Lead researcher Rob Shepherd said.

A VR glove may sound fun, but it can serve a much essential purpose. Researchers believe that fibre optic glove will make soft robots more efficient. Machines and robots can contribute more than ever to the advancement of the world through VR.

The creators are currently developing the product further and analyzing how it can help in the world of medicine, physical therapy, and sports.

Space Life Underground

Just a few years ago we used to wonder what was inside the core of the Earth that kept spinning and rotating around the axis. What was it that the Earth was made from? Through expeditions, research, and more it was found that it was lava. Similarly now, scientists have said that they can find out what is beneath the surface of the moon and even Mars. However, it will be very technically challenging.

Scientists from Harvard have claimed that they have found a way to see whether or not there is life living underground on Mars. They believe that drilling down to the center would be worth the effort if they were to find proof of life.

The teams of scientists at the Astrophysics department believe that only finding water on the surface of the plant is not enough, there needs to be more thorough research done. This drilling expedition will help with that, and the human race may finally be able to find evidence of life on another planet.

They believe that the climate on the surface of Mars and the moon could indicate life or pre-existing life that can only be found through drilling and digging deep within. Even though these searches will be challenging and will require a lot more progress in technological, they still cannot be ruled out as impossible.

Scientists claim that for a liquid to exist on a surface or within a planet, there is a certain atmosphere that is required and that a finite pressure is maintained. If this were to not happen, there would be no existence of liquid on that surface. This is why they believe that there could be sub-surface lakes in Mars as the upper layer can exert the right amount of pressure leading to the existence of liquid.

Life could be thriving beneath the surface even though the exterior of the planet does not seem provide livable conditions. By digging where higher temperatures could be found and drilling through geological material, they may be able to figure out the existence of life.

The team is so enthusiastic that they believe that within the decade there could be some work done on this and the process can at least begin. They believe robots and other AI will be digging deep in space to find the concept of life on another planet.

Mushroom Clothing

Most of us like the idea of going environmentally friendly. However, clothing is never one of our focal points. We keep focus on food, shelter, and even water, but never on what we wear. Going green is not an easy job especially when it comes to your clothing and still being able to dress the way you want. This is because there are not many options available on the market and those are can be overpriced.

There is now a new collaboration between Adidas and Lululemon and they have begun to acquire suitable and environmentally friendly fabric that will not only look chic and modern, but also help save the world at the same time. A start-up called Bolt fabrics has begun to create a special kind of fiber which is made up of mycelium, which is a threadlike root of a mushroom which creates a sort of faux leather or vegan leather material.

Some of the most well-known and most followed brands all over the world have decided to partner with Bolt for their fabric. The two names included in this list are Adidas and Lululemon. They have invested a lot of money in the company just to create hundreds of millions of square yards of the sustainable fabric. The first few products that are made from this material are due to go on sale sometime next year.

To create the fabric, the creators grow mushrooms over a bed of sawdust for approximately 10 days. The results of that are that the mushroom root can be dyed, colored, and shaped just like real leather. The process is also much faster than obtaining real leather and is much easier too.

They believe that this fabric has the same supple and warmth that a natural leather does. Through this natural feeling, the company aims to get more and more famous brands involved. This is because using leather was always questioned. People always believed that using leather was cruel to animals and many even protested against it. However, the look that leather could achieve was incomparable, until now.

With brands like Adidas trying to be as environmentally friendly, for example, creating sneakers from seaweed, this fabric created from mushrooms will help boost their message as well as help them attain sales due to the appearance of the fabric.

If big brands like Lululemon and Adidas come forth and sign with the company, chances are that many other brands that are smaller in size or larger in nature will also be interested. This is because all these brands like to compete with one another and being environmentally friendly has now become a trend most brands want to follow as it sells.

Hacking Dreams

What if you could hack into another person’s dreams and find out what they like, or what if doctors could hack into a PTSD patient’s dreams to see how to find a way to fix it? Hacking into dreams seems like a very interesting concept, however, it also seems very far-fetched. Can it be a reality or is it just a faux rumor being spread around?

A group of researchers at MIT Dream Lab, which was launched in 2017, has developed a device that can help you hack into dreams. In reality, it is a device that needs to be worn and it interacts with your dreams in various ways. This includes giving you a sense of control over your dream.

The goal behind developing this device was to prove to the world that dreams are not just useless gibberish we experience while we sleep, rather that they hold some sort of meaning and importance. They also wanted to show that dreams can easily be changed, influenced, and modified according to will at ease.

On average we spend a third of our life asleep. The researchers at MIT believe that we could structure this time better and modify it to benefit us in the future. The device is called Dormio and it is created with so many sensors that they can detect the type of sleep that has been induced and the state of sleep a person is in. When the wearer of the device goes into a hypnagogic state of sleep, where he or she is between consciousness and sub-consciousness, the device begins to play an audio cue that has been pre-set, usually just a word.

Researchers believe hypnagogic imagery or hypnagogic hallucinations are very common in the state of consciousness where one is moving between sleep and wakefulness. Some have reported having vivid auditory and visual hallucinations.

The workings of this device were shown through an experimental study conducted by Dream Lab which consisted of 50 people who were given the audio cue of the tiger within their state of hypnagogic sleep. They all ended up having a tiger in their dream.

A similar device was created previously by a member of Dream Lab which relied on smell rather than relying on audio cues. It was targeted for that part of sleep where the body begins to heal and regenerate. In this test, they used smells to consolidate the idea.