Could High-Temperature Single Crystals enable Electric Vehicles capable of Traveling up to One Million Km?

A research team led by Professor Kyu-Young Park from the Graduate Institute of Ferrous & Eco Materials Technology and the Department of Materials Science and Engineering and Kyoung Eun Lee, a PhD candidate, and alumna Yura Kim from the Graduate Institute of Ferrous & Eco Materials Technology at Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), in collaboration with the POSCO Holdings N.EX.T Hub, has recently demonstrated a single-crystal synthesis technology that significantly extends the lifespan of cathode materials for electric vehicles. This research was published in the online edition of ACS Materials & Interfaces, an international journal in the materials science field.

Lithium (Li) secondary batteries, commonly used in electric vehicles, store energy by converting elect...

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Researchers Pinpoint Brain Cells that Delay First Bite of Food

A set of neurons identified by Scripps Research scientists influence the start of eating and drinking. Do you grab a fork and take a first bite of cake, or say no and walk away? Our motivation to eat is driven by a complex web of cells in the brain that use signals from within the body, as well as sensory information about the food in front of us, to determine our behaviors. Now, Scripps Research scientists have identified a group of neurons in a small and understudied region of the brain — the parasubthalamic nucleus (PSTN) — that controls when an animal decides to take a first bite of food.

In the study, published in Molecular Psychiatry on July 4, 2024, the team of scientists set out to selectively manipulate a group of PSTN cells that dial up their activity during periods of bi...

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A Breakthrough on the Edge: One Step Closer to Topological Quantum Computing

Researchers at the University of Cologne have achieved a significant breakthrough in quantum materials, potentially setting the stage for advancements in topological superconductivity and robust quantum computing / publication in Nature Physics.

A team of experimental physicists led by the University of Cologne have shown that it is possible to create superconducting effects in special materials known for their unique edge-only electrical properties. This discovery provides a new way to explore advanced quantum states that could be crucial for developing stable and efficient quantum computers. Their study, titled ‘Induced superconducting correlations in a quantum anomalous Hall insulator’, has been published in Nature Physics.

Superconductivity is a phenomenon where electricity ...

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The Origins of Dark Comets

Up to 60% of near-Earth objects could be dark comets, mysterious asteroids that orbit the sun in our solar system that likely contain or previously contained ice and could have been one route for delivering water to Earth, according to a University of Michigan study.

The findings suggest that asteroids in the asteroid belt, a region of the solar system roughly between Jupiter and Mars that contains much of the system’s rocky asteroids, have subsurface ice, something that has been suspected since the 1980s, according to Aster Taylor, a U-M graduate student in astronomy and lead author of the study.

The study also shows a potential pathway for delivering ice into the near-Earth solar system, according to Taylor. How Earth got its water is a longstanding question.

“We don’t know...

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