Researchers say they’ve cracked the code to a cobalt-free high-energy lithium-ion battery, eliminating the cobalt and opening the door to reducing the costs of producing batteries while boosting performance in some ways.

For decades, researchers have looked for ways to eliminate cobalt from the high-energy batteries that power electronic devices, due to its high cost and the human rights ramifications of its mining. But past attempts haven’t lived up to the performance standards of batteries with cobalt.

Researchers from the Cockrell School of Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin say they’ve cracked the code to a cobalt-free high-energy lithium-ion battery, eliminating the cobalt and opening th...

ESA/NASA mission returns first data, snaps closest pictures of the Sun. The first images from Solar Orbiter, a new Sun-observing mission by ESA and NASA, have revealed omnipresent miniature solar flares, dubbed ‘campfires’, near the surface of our closest star.

According to the scientists behind the mission, seeing phenomena that were not observable in detail before hints at the enormous potential of Solar Orbiter, which has only just finished its early phase of technical verification known as commissioning.

“These are only the first images and we can already see interesting new phenomena,” says Da...

Combining Western diet and antibiotic use is a pre- IBD risk factor. UC Davis researchers have found that combining a Western-style high-fat diet with antibiotic use significantly increases the risk of developing pre-inflammatory bowel disease (pre-IBD). The study, published July 14 in Cell Host and Microbe, suggests that this combination shutsdown the mitochondria in cells of the colon lining, leading to gut inflammation.

Irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) affects approximately 11% of people worldwide. It is characterized by recurring episodes of abdominal pain, bloating and changes in bowel habits...

Mechanical control and modulation of light on a silicon chip could enhance lidar. Researchers have built a way that lidar could achieve higher-resolution detection of nearby fast-moving objects through mechanical control and modulation of light on a silicon chip.

A self-driving car has a hard time recognizing the difference between a toddler and a brown bag that suddenly appears into view because of limitations in how it senses objects using lidar.

The autonomous vehicle industry is exploring “frequency modulated continuous wave” (FMCW) lidar to solve this problem...