Energy Storage: Lithium from Supervolcanoes?
August 27th, 2017Cobalt is a much more serious blocker than lithium.
Via: Smithsonian:
There’s no doubt that in coming years, we’re going to need a lot of lithium. The growing market of electric automobiles, plus new household energy storage and large-scale battery farms, and the current lack of any technology better for storage than lithium ion batteries, puts the future of energy storage in the hands of just a few places around the world where the alkali metal is extracted.
Earlier this decade, researchers from the University of Michigan projected the growth in demand for lithium up until the year 2100. It’s a lot—likely somewhere between 12 million and 20 million metric tons—but those same scientists, as well as others, at the USGS and elsewhere, have estimated that global deposits well exceed those numbers. The issue is not the presence of lithium on Earth, then, but being able to get at it. Most of what we use currently comes from just a few sources, mostly in Chile and Australia, which produce 75 percent of the lithium the world uses, and also by Argentina and China, according to USGS research from 2016.
Looking to solve this problem, Stanford geologists went in search of new sources of the metal. They knew it originates in volcanic rock, and so they went to the biggest volcanoes they could find: Supervolcanoes, which appear not as a mountain with a hole in it, but a big, wide, cauldron-shaped caldera where a large-scale eruption happened millions of years ago. There, they saw high concentrations of lithium contained in a type of volcanic clay called hectorite. Geologists already knew generally that lithium came from volcanic rocks, but the team from Stanford was able to measure it in unexpected locations and quantities opening up a wider range of potential sites.
Elon Musk’s Boring Company Wins Approval to Dig a Two-Mile Test Tunnel in California
August 25th, 2017Via: The Verge:
The City Council in Hawthorne, California voted four to one last night in favor of a plan from Elon Musk’s Boring Company to dig a two-mile-long underground test tunnel. The Boring Company, which operates from SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne outside Los Angeles, had until now only dug into and under its own private property. But the newly-approved extension will stretch beyond the company’s property line, with the tunnel running 44 feet below the public roads and utilities that surround SpaceX headquarters.
This test tunnel is just that — a dry run that will make sure the most basic parts of the Boring Company’s plans actually work. The planned route doesn’t go under any privately-owned residential or commercial property aside from what SpaceX already owns, according to the company. When the test tunnel is finished, the city can request that the Boring Company either fill it with concrete slurry or soil.
Most Americans Live Paycheck to Paycheck
August 24th, 2017Via: CNBC:
No matter how much you earn, getting by is still a struggle for most people these days.
Seventy-eight percent of full-time workers said they live paycheck to paycheck, up from 75 percent last year, according to a recent report from CareerBuilder.
Overall, 71 percent of all U.S. workers said they’re now in debt, up from 68 percent a year ago, CareerBuilder said.
While 46 percent said their debt is manageable, 56 percent said they were in over their heads. About 56 percent also save $100 or less each month, according to CareerBuilder.
Bill Gates and Richard Branson Back Startup That Grows ‘Clean Meat’
August 23rd, 2017haha oh sure!
Via: Bloomberg:
Cargill Inc., one of the largest global agricultural companies, has joined Bill Gates and other business giants to invest in a nascent technology to make meat from self-producing animal cells amid rising consumer demand for protein that’s less reliant on feed, land and water.
Memphis Meats, which produces beef, chicken and duck directly from animal cells without raising and slaughtering livestock or poultry, raised $17 million from investors including Cargill, Gates and billionaire Richard Branson, according to a statement Tuesday on the San Francisco-based startup’s website. The fundraising round was led by venture-capital firm DFJ, which has previously backed several social-minded retail startups.
“I’m thrilled to have invested in Memphis Meats,” Branson said in an email in response to questions from Bloomberg News. “I believe that in 30 years or so we will no longer need to kill any animals and that all meat will either be clean or plant-based, taste the same and also be much healthier for everyone.”
A Glut Has Used-Car Depreciation Accelerating
August 22nd, 2017Via: Bloomberg:
Car sales in the U.S. have been rising for seven consecutive years now, and it’s denting the value of whatever is currently parked in your garage or driveway. With so many new cars rolling out of dealerships lots and instantly becoming used cars, the secondary market is glutted and the pace of depreciation is rapidly accelerating.
…
The average used car lost 17 percent of its value in the past 12 months, dropping from $18,400 to $15,300, according to data from Black Book, an auto analytics company. That annual depreciation figure has been increasing steadily, too. The average used car today depreciates nearly twice as fast at it did in 2014, when the annual rate was just 9.5 percent.
Magneto-Thermal Genetic Deep Brain Stimulation of Motor Behaviors in Awake, Freely Moving Mice
August 21st, 2017Via: eLIFE:
Establishing how neurocircuit activation causes particular behaviors requires modulating the activity of specific neurons. Here, we demonstrate that magnetothermal genetic stimulation provides tetherless deep brain activation sufficient to evoke motor behavior in awake mice. The approach uses alternating magnetic fields to heat superparamagnetic nanoparticles on the neuronal membrane. Neurons heat-sensitized by expressing TRPV1 are activated with magnetic field application. Magnetothermal genetic stimulation in the motor cortex evoked ambulation, deep brain stimulation in the striatum caused rotation around the body-axis, and stimulation near the ridge between ventral and dorsal striatum caused freezing-of-gait. The duration of the behavior correlated tightly with field application. This approach provides genetically and spatially targetable, repeatable and temporarily precise activation of deep-brain circuits without need for surgical implantation of any device.
Killer Robots: Experts Warn of ‘Third Revolution in Warfare’
August 21st, 2017I was warning about this 15 years ago. Nowadays, I’m more into yawning and wondering why the mushroom clouds haven’t gone up yet.
Via: BBC:
More than 100 leading robotics experts are urging the United Nations to take action in order to prevent the development of “killer robots”.
In a letter to the organisation, artificial intelligence (AI) leaders, including billionaire Elon Musk, warn of “a third revolution in warfare”.
The letter says “lethal autonomous” technology is a “Pandora’s box”, adding that time is of the essence.
The 116 experts are calling for a ban on the use of AI in managing weaponry.
“Once developed, they will permit armed conflict to be fought at a scale greater than ever, and at timescales faster than humans can comprehend,” the letter says.
“These can be weapons of terror, weapons that despots and terrorists use against innocent populations, and weapons hacked to behave in undesirable ways,” it adds.
There is an urgent tone to the message from the technology leaders, who warn that “we do not have long to act”.
“Once this Pandora’s box is opened, it will be hard to close.”
Journalist Who Helped Expose Jimmy Savile Dies After Stroke
August 21st, 2017Via: BBC:
Ex-BBC News correspondent Liz MacKean has died after suffering a stroke.
MacKean, 52, worked for the corporation for more than 20 years but left in 2013 amid a row over the decision to shelve her investigation for Newsnight about disgraced DJ Jimmy Savile.
She began her career at BBC Hereford and Worcester, before presenting on Breakfast and reporting from Northern Ireland and Scotland.
MacKean went on to make films for Channel 4’s Dispatches programme.
BBC director of news James Harding paid tribute to MacKean, saying she had earned a reputation as a “remarkably tenacious and resourceful reporter”.
“In Northern Ireland, she won the trust of all sides and produced some of the most insightful and hard-hitting reporting of the conflict,” he said.
“It was as an investigative reporter that she really shone, shining a light on issues from the dumping of toxic waste off the African coast to Jimmy Savile, the story for which she is probably best known.”
The mother-of-two studied at Manchester University and gained a post-graduate diploma in broadcast journalism before joining the BBC.
MacKean’s story about the child abuse committed by Jimmy Savile was dropped by Newsnight in 2011. But the investigation with producer Meirion Jones was later recognised by the London Press Club with a scoop of the year award.
Eclipse
August 21st, 2017I think the past few days have been the lightest posting period in fifteen years of running Cryptogon. People are wondering if I’m still alive.
By the time I’ve read through 10 million headlines about Trump, the statues and the sign wavers, it starts to seem like not much is happening. I think that I need to turn up the filters like I did in the olden days.
In any event, enjoy some eclipse coverage while I fire up my feed filters…
Via: Guardian:
Some parts of US to be shrouded in darkness as moon passes in front of sun.
More: All the Live Streams You Need to Watch Today’s Total Solar Eclipse
CIA ‘Torture Psychologists’ Avoid Trial with Secret Settlement
August 18th, 2017Via: AFP:
Two psychologists who helped design the CIA’s post-9/11 interrogation program settled a lawsuit Thursday by detainees alleging they were illegally tortured.
The secret settlement in the suit, brought on behalf of two living ex-detainees and one who died of hypothermia after brutal questioning in US custody, avoided what would have been the first public trial of the Central Intelligence Agency’s use of torture on suspected Al-Qaeda members.
But it also allowed the two psychologists who supplied the CIA with “coercive” interrogation techniques, James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen, to maintain that they personally had nothing to do with the use of waterboarding, extreme stress positions and beatings on detainees.
