Wet coffee grounds turned into high-grade solid fuel in just 90 seconds

Atmospheric-pressure flame plasma system. Credit: Chemical Engineering Journal (2026). DOI: 10.1016/j.cej.2026.176452

A research team at the Korea Institute of Geoscience and Mineral Resources (KIGAM) has developed a technology that converts wet spent coffee grounds directly into high-quality biochar in just 90 seconds, with no drying or oil removal required. The breakthrough offers a fast, energy-efficient path to turning high-moisture organic waste into valuable fuel and carbon materials. The study, led by Dr. Taejun Park in collaboration with GodTech Co., Ltd., was published in the Chemical Engineering Journal, one of the world’s leading journals in chemical engineering.

Addressing a growing waste challenge
Every year, global coffee consumption generates more than 10 million ton...

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The Sun may not engulf Earth after all, scientists say

A new lease of life: Our planet may escape a fatal spiral into the exploding fireball of the Sun
A new lease of life: Our planet may escape a fatal spiral into the exploding fireball of the Sun.

The Earth may not be engulfed by the expanding fireball of the dying sun, which has long been assumed to be our home planet’s ultimate fate, according to scientists.

Don’t worry: This is not expected to happen for another 5 billion years, long after all life on Earth has been wiped out.

When the sun burns through all of the hydrogen in its core, it will go through two immense expansion phases: first becoming a red giant, then, when its helium is spent, an “AGB” star.

This fiery death will bring about some significant changes back here on Earth.

As the sun grows, increasing gravitational forces will pull the Earth toward it.

For the Earth and the moon, this force creates the ...

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Could AI tell you where you left your keys?

Could AI tell you where you left your keys?
MIT researchers have developed a long-term memory framework for robots that combines advanced map representations with rich descriptions of the environment. Here, a moving robot attaches detailed descriptions to the bicycles it sees as it explores. Credit: Massachusetts Institute of Technology

An auto factory worker can remember the storage bin where she left a partly assembled component the night before and quickly return to that spot to pick it up. But robots that may work side by side with her would struggle to develop and access this same type of “spatiotemporal” memory.

Now, MIT researchers have developed a long-term memory framework that allows robots to rapidly form and recall a detailed mental model of complicated, large-scale environments...

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Young stellar activity drives galactic evolution across the universe

Revealing new evidence about cosmic evolution can teach researchers how galaxies begin and grow.
Revealing new evidence about cosmic evolution can teach researchers how galaxies begin and grow.
Photo: Getty Images

Astronomers have revealed new details about how young stars shape their galactic surroundings in a new study. Researchers analyzed about 18,000 star-forming regions in nearby spiral galaxies using data from powerful instruments like the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble Space Telescope and the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, whose observations were made as part of the PHANGS survey—a collaboration aimed at better understanding galactic evolution.

They found that in normal galaxies, pressure from ionized gas drives the expansion of young star-forming regions...

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