Japan, Korea develop prototype nuclear batteries

The uranium battery concept (Image: JAEA)The Japan Atomic Energy Agency has developed what it says is the world's first "uranium rechargeable battery" and that tests have verified its performance in charging and discharging. Meanwhile, South Korean researchers have developed a prototype betavoltaic battery powered by the carbon-14 isotope.The uranium storage battery utilises depleted uranium (DU) as the negative electrode active material and iron as the positive one, the Japan Atomic Energy Agency (JAEA) said. The single-cell voltage of the prototype uranium rechargeable battery is 1.3 volts, which is close to that of a common alkaline battery (1.5 volts).The battery was charged and discharged 10 times, and the performance of the battery was almost unchanged, indicating relatively stable cycling characteristics."To utilise DU as a new resource, the concept of rechargeable batteries using uranium as an active material was proposed in the early 2000s," JAEA noted. "However, no studies were reporting the specific performance of the assembled uranium rechargeable batteries."It added: "If uranium rechargeable batteries are increased in capacity and put to practical use, the large amount of DU stored in Japan will become a new resource for output controls in the electricity supply grid derived from renewable energy, thereby contributing...

Read More........→June 25, 2025

World's first baby born via AI-powered IVF system in Mexico

A baby has been born following a form of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) largely carried out by a machine, in what researchers say is a world first.The development could signal a major shift in how fertility treatments are performed, The Express Tribune reported.The machine, developed by New York-based biotech firm Conceivable Life Sciences, was used to complete 23 critical steps of a procedure known as intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI). A human operator supervised the process remotely via livestream, initiating each step with the press of a button."This level of automation could reduce the chance of human error and fatigue affecting the outcomes," said Jacques Cohen, co-founder of the company and an expert in assisted reproduction.In ICSI, a single sperm is injected directly into an egg, a technique often used when male infertility is involved. However, the manual nature of the process requires extreme precision and concentration, making it prone to errors.To test the automated system, researchers recruited a couple struggling with infertility. The male partner's sperm had limited motility, and the female partner received donor eggs due to ovulatory issues.Of the eight donor eggs, five were fertilised using the automated system, and three through conventional manual ICSI. All eight developed into embryos. An AI model then evaluated...

Read More........→June 19, 2025

World's First Diamond Battery Could Power Spacecraft and Pacemakers for Thousands of Years

GNN-created imageAn invention from the UK features diamonds in the first-ever application of the gemstone in battery technology.Promising to last thousands of years, the microwatt power sources are seen as the perfect solution to devices in environments where neither changing batteries nor carrying around extras are options.Developed by the University of Bristol in partnership with the UK Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), the battery contains a radioactive isotope of carbon called carbon-14.Isotopes are forms of chemical elements with the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. Some are stable, but those that aren’t are radioactive and emit radiation as they decay.In the battery, a radioactive carbon-14 isotope is encased inside a shell of diamond, the hardest substance known to man.“Diamond batteries offer a safe, sustainable way to provide continuous microwatt levels of power. They are an emerging technology that use a manufactured diamond to safely encase small amounts of carbon-14,” said Sarah Clark, the director of Tritium Fuel Cycle at the (UKAEA), in a statement.Electricity via the battery is generated in a way similar to a solar panel through the betavoltaic effect—harnessing the electrons emitted by the carbon-14 and captured by the diamond matrix.Carbon-14 has a half-life of about 5,700 years, meaning...

Read More........→June 10, 2025

World’s Smallest Pacemaker is Made for Newborns, Activated by Light, and Requires No Surgery

World’s smallest pacemaker next to a grain of rice – Credit: John Rogers / Northwestern University press releaseNorthwestern University engineers have developed a pacemaker so small that it can fit inside the tip of a syringe and be non-invasively injected into the body, according to a new study published in Nature.Although it can work with hearts of all sizes, the pacemaker is particularly well-suited to the tiny, fragile hearts of newborn babies with congenital heart defects.A pacemaker is an implantable device that helps maintain an even heart rate, either because the heart’s natural cardiac pacemaker provides an inadequate or irregular heartbeat, or because there is a block in the heart’s electrical conduction system.Smaller than a single grain of rice, the pacemaker is paired with a small, soft, flexible, wireless, wearable device that mounts onto a patient’s chest to control pacing. When the wearable device detects an irregular heartbeat, it automatically shines a light to activate the pacemaker.These short light pulses, which penetrate through the patient’s skin, breastbone, and muscles, control the pacing.Designed for patients who only need temporary pacing, the pacemaker simply dissolves after it’s no longer needed. All the pacemaker’s components are biocompatible, so they naturally dissolve into the body’s biofluids, bypassing...

Read More........→April 09, 2025

World’s Oldest Bird Gives Birth to Yet Another Chick–at Nearly 74 Years Old

Wisdom – USFWS / SWNSThe world’s oldest known bird has returned to her home island to hatch yet another chick, at nearly 74 years old.Named Wisdom, the Laysan albatross has been spotted this month caring for her youngster on Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge in the Pacific Ocean.Like others of her species, Wisdom returns to the same nesting site each year to reunite with her mate and if able, lay one egg.For decades, park officials in the Hawaiian Archipelago observed Wisdom doing this with the same partner (named Akeakamai), but that bird has not been seen for several years, which caused Wisdom to begin courtship dances with other males last year.The spry septuagenarian is estimated to have produced 50-60 eggs in her lifetime, successfully fledging as many as 30 chicks, according to the expert staff at the refuge 1,300 miles northwest of Honolulu.Albatross parents share the responsibility of feeding their young by taking turns hunting while the other stays at the nest to watch over the chick.“So when Wisdom returns to the nest (it’s) her partner’s turn to go hunt for squid, fish and crustaceans,” said a statement from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service–Pacific Region.Biologists first identified and banded Wisdom in 1956 after she laid an egg. They determined her estimated age from that event 69 years ago, because the large...

Read More........→March 08, 2025

Countries Are Breathing the Cleanest Air in Centuries and Offer Lessons to the Rest of Us

An article at Our World in Data recently explored trends in air quality across a selection of high and middle-income countries, and found that not only is the West breathing better air than at perhaps any point since urbanization, but that developing nations likely won’t need 100 years or more to arrive at similar outcomes.Published by Hannah Ritchie, the article focuses on two kinds of gases emitted from industrial activity: sulfur dioxide (SO2) and nitrogen oxide (NOx). Both enter the air we breathe from the burning of fossil fuels—coal in particular—while the latter is emitted mostly from internal combustion engines.Bad air quality is responsible for millions of lost life years worldwide from respiratory problems, cardiovascular issues, and neurological disease—all of which can develop and become exasperated under prolonged exposure to air pollutants.UK sulphur dioxide emissions – credit Community Emissions Data System (CEDS) 2024, CC BY license.As seen in this chart, emissions of SO2 have just dipped under levels seen at the earliest periods of British industrialization. Before this, city and town air quality would have been badly tainted through emissions of wood smoke, so it’s safe to assume that 2022 marked the best British air in many centuries, not just the last two.SO2 enters the ambient air primarily in urban environments...

Read More........→March 06, 2025

First major chunk breaks off world's biggest iceberg

PARIS - An enormous chunk has broken off the world's largest iceberg, in a possible first sign the behemoth from Antarctica could be crumbling.The colossal iceberg -- which is more than twice the size of Greater London and weighs nearly one trillion tonnes -- had largely stayed intact since it started slowly moving north in 2020.It has been drifting toward the remote island of South Georgia in the South Atlantic, raising the prospect it could run aground in shallower water and disrupt feeding for baby penguins and seals.But a chunk about 19 kilometres (12 miles) long has cleaved off, said Andrew Meijers from the British Antarctic Survey, who encountered the iceberg in late 2023 and has tracked its fate via satellite ever since."This is definitely the first significant clear slice of the iceberg that's appeared," the physical oceanographer told AFP.Soledad Tiranti, a glaciologist currently on an Argentinian exploration voyage in the Antarctic, also told AFP that a section had "broken" away.The jagged piece has an area of roughly 80 square kilometres (31 square miles) -- huge in its own right, but just a fraction of the approximately 3360 square kilometres that remained.Meijers said icebergs were full of deep fractures, and although this monumental specimen had shrunk over time and lost a much smaller piece, it had "held together...

Read More........→February 06, 2025

Giant Millipede Lost to Science for a Century Rediscovered in Madagascar with 20 More Species in World-First Expedition

Spirostreptus sculptus (Photo by Dmitry Telnov/NHM London, UK)It may be the very definition of a creepy crawly, but this species of giant millipede was a major discovery for a recent scientific expedition to Madagascar.Not seen in 126 years, it was part of a bevy of species identified by scientists among the trees and waterfalls in a remote section of the largest forest on the island, called Makira.The expedition was part of Re:wild’s Search for Lost Species program, on the progress of which GNN has reported substantially over the last four years. It included teams of scientists and conservationists from 4 different organizations, as well as local guides.Different specialized team members were searching for mammals, fish, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and invertebrates that have not had a documented sighting in at least a decade or more, but are not assessed as extinct by the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species. The full team, which numbered more than 30 people, searched Makira for several weeks in September 2023 and spent several months analyzing their results.“In the past the Search for Lost Species has primarily looked for one or two species on each expedition, but there are now 4,300 species that we know of around the world that have not been documented in a decade or more,” said Christina Biggs, lost species officer for Re:wild,...

Read More........→December 30, 2024

‘Unseen world’: researchers capture fascinating footage of the world’s smallest penguins in a bid to save them

Diane Colombelli-Négrel, Flinders UniversityOn Granite Island off South Australia, a colony of little penguins is fighting to survive. About two decades ago, the penguins numbered 1,600 adults – now there are just 30. It is important for scientists to monitor and study this little penguin colony, to observe their behaviours and stop their numbers from declining. In our latest research project, my colleagues and I captured footage of the penguins over several breeding seasons, as part of a study into their parenting behaviours. It provides a fascinating behind-the-scenes glimpse into the unseen world of these vulnerable birds. So let’s take a look at what Granite Island’s little penguins get up to when humans aren’t watching. The world’s tiniest penguin Little penguins (Eudyptula novaehollandiae) are the world’s smallest penguin species. They typically grow to about 35 centimetres and weigh an average 1.2 kilograms. They live in coastal waters in Tasmania and southern Australia – including on Granite Island, about 100 kilometres south of Adelaide. The island is connected to the mainland by a causeway, and draws up to 800,000 visitors a year. The stark decline in little penguin numbers on Granite Island is due to several factors. They include predators such as fur seals and foxes, changing environmental conditions, declines...

Read More........→December 24, 2024

World's oldest known wild bird is expecting again, aged 74

LOS ANGELES - Parenting can be tough, even for the young and energetic, but one elderly albatross is about to go through it all again -- at the ripe old (and apparently record-setting) age of 74.Wisdom, a Laysan Albatross, is one of millions of the huge seabirds that return to Midway Atoll, near Hawaii, every year to nest.Wildlife experts say for decades she was doing this with the same partner -- the birds are known to be monogamous -- and has laid over 50 eggs in her lifetime.But her partner has not been seen for years, and Wisdom has recently begun to flirt with other males.On this year's visit, she has produced an egg that her new partner is helping her to incubate."We are optimistic that the egg will hatch," said Jonathan Plissner, supervisory wildlife biologist at Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge.Photographs and video provided by the US Fish and Wildlife Service show the proud parents-to-be apparently chattering to their egg before the male sits on it.Wisdom was identified and tagged when she laid her first egg at the refuge in 1956, when she would have been at least five years old -- the point Laysan Albatrosses reach sexual maturity.That means by the end of the month, Wisdom will be at least 74 years old, and could be several years beyond that, making her the oldest known wild bird in the world.Laysan Albatrosses can...

Read More........→December 13, 2024

New Zealand scientists dissect world's rarest whale

WELLINGTON - New Zealand scientists on Monday began dissecting a whale considered the rarest in the world, a species so elusive that only seven specimens have ever been documented.The dead spade-toothed whale washed ashore on New Zealand's South Island earlier this year, offering a chance to study a deep-sea mammal that has never been seen alive.Measuring five metres long, the whale was winched off the beach in July and has sat in a special freezer since.Whale expert Anton van Helden said it was the first time scientists had been able to dissect a complete spade-toothed specimen, which belongs to the family of beaked whales."This is a remarkable and globally significant opportunity," he said.The week-long dissection will help to fill in gaps about the whale's behaviour, its diet, and even its basic anatomy."Beaked whales are the most enigmatic group of large mammals on the planet," said Van Helden."They are deep divers that are rarely seen at sea, which presents real challenges for researching these marine animals."This one is the rarest of the rare - only the seventh specimen known from anywhere in the world, and the first opportunity we have had to undertake a dissection like this."New Zealand's conservation department said the spade-toothed whale was the "rarest whale in the world".The species was first described in 1874 from...

Read More........→December 11, 2024

World’s Largest Genome Discovered in a Tiny Fern: ‘Breaks all records’

A group of small fork ferns – credit Pol Fernandez, released via iScienceOn the island of New Caledonia, a simple, unassuming species of fern has been identified as having the longest genome of any living organism known.It is 50 times longer than a human’s, 7% longer than the previous world record-holding species for longest genome, and 20% longer than the record-holding animal.Compared to 23 pairs of chromosomes in every human cell, the tiny fern contains 416—and if unraveled, would climb higher than Big Ben in London’s Westminster.Questions abound, as does admiration for the majesty and mysteries of biological life.“Compared to other organisms, plants are incredibly diverse when viewed at the DNA level, and that should make us pause to think about their intrinsic value in the wider picture of global biodiversity,” said Dr. Ilia Leitch, Senior Research Leader at the Royal Botanical Gardens, Kew.“This discovery also raises many new and exciting questions about the upper limits of what is biologically possible, and we hope to solve these mysteries one day.”Tmesipteris oblanceolata is a species of New Caledonian fork fern that grows on the ground or out of rotting tree trunks. A team from Kew and the Institut Botànic de Barcelona traveled to New Caledoina’s largest island of Grand Terre to collect this species for study.20,000 species...

Read More........→December 09, 2024

India’s CO2 emissions account 8pc of global total, to rise by 4.6pc in 2024: Report

New Delhi, (IANS): India accounts for per cent of the global total carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, and it is expected to increase by 4.6 per cent in 2024, according to a new report released on Wednesday, ahead of the UN climate conference in Baku, Azerbaijan.The report by Global Carbon Project, involving an international team of more than 120 scientists, showed that global carbon emissions from fossil fuels have reached a record high in 2024 -- 37.4 billion tonnes in 2024, up 0.8 per cent from 2023 levels.The report led by the University of Exeter showed “there is ‘no sign’ that the world has reached a peak in fossil CO2 emissions”. This is despite the urgent need to cut emissions to slow climate change.It showed that emissions from coal are expected to rise by 0.2 per cent; oil by 0.9 per cent; and gas by 2.4 per cent.China’s emissions -- which account for 32 per cent of the global total -- are projected to marginally increase by 0.2 per cent, while US emissions (which account for 13 per cent of the global total) are projected to decrease by 0.6 per cent.Notably, emissions from the European Union (accounting for 7 per cent of the global total) will decrease by 3.8 per cent.Emissions in the rest of the world (accounting for 38 per cent of the global total) are projected to increase by 1.1 per cent, said the report, published in...

Read More........→December 02, 2024

Scientists Discover ‘World’s Largest’ Coral –the Size of 5 Tennis Courts

Courtesy of Manu San Félix / National Geographic Pristine Seas (cropped)On an expedition to the Solomon Islands, divers affiliated with National Geographic have found the world’s largest single coral colony ever recorded.It’s longer than the largest blue whale. At 34 meters (111 feet) in length, and with a width of 32 (105) meters, it could sit corner to corner across 5 tennis courts.Experts believe it has been growing for between 300 and 500 years.The mammoth coral was discovered by scientists from National Geographic’s Pristine Seas Initiative, which aims to gather scientific data to inform conservation measures in places where marine life is bountiful. During an expedition to the Three Sisters island group in the Makira-Ulawa Province of Solomon Islands, they thought at first its massive shadow under the water was a shipwreck.“At a time where we can observe every square inch of the land with satellites and drones, the ocean below the surface continues to hold mysteries like this one,” said National Geographic explorer in residence Enric Sala. “It was like finding the world’s tallest tree.”Sala hopes the coral and its presentation—agonizingly short of being able to feature at the sixteenth annual conference of the parties to the Convention on Biodiversity, (COP16)—will nevertheless help spur future marine protection by demonstrating...

Read More........→November 28, 2024

Climate change a challenge for our global food systems: WHO

New Delhi, (IANS) Climate change is a challenge for the global food system, said Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, Director General, at the World Health Organisation (WHO) on Friday.In a video message to the second Global Food Regulators Summit in Delhi, the WHO chief highlighted the important role of national food regulators in harmonising regulatory policies for the world.In addition to climate change, “population growth, new technologies, globalisation, and industrialisation" are other increasing challenges to the global food systems, Ghebreyesus said.Further, he said food regulators also play a critical role in combating unsafe food, which causes 600 million cases of foodborne diseases and 4,20,000 deaths annually.He also lamented that 70 per cent of fatalities from unsafe food occur among children under five."The food regulator community has a critical role to play in addressing these global challenges," Ghebreyesus said.Meanwhile, stressing the need for innovative regulatory solutions, Dr Samuel Godefroy, President, the International Union of Food Science and Technology (IUFoST) stated that food science is vital for human survival.He also applauded FSSAI for its contribution to strengthening the global food regulatory network.Steve Wearne, Chairperson, Codex appreciated India’s significant investment in Codex and food safety...

Read More........→September 24, 2024

World will likely temporarily pass 1.5C climate limit by 2028: UN

BRUSSELS - Humanity now faces an 80 percent chance that Earth's temperatures will at least temporarily exceed the key 1.5-degree Celsius mark during the next five years, the UN predicted Wednesday.The 2015 Paris climate accords, which set the ambitious target of limiting the world to a temperature increase of 1.5 C over pre-industrial levels, meant to refer "to long-term temperature increases over decades, not over one to five years", the UN's World Meteorological Organization said.The report came alongside another by the EU's Copernicus Climate Change Service announcing that last month was the hottest May on record, pointing to human-induced climate change -- and spurring UN chief Antonio Guterres to compare humanity's impact on the world to "the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs".The chance of temporarily exceeding the limit in the next five years ahead has been rising steadily since 2015, when such a chance was estimated to be close to zero, the UN's weather and climate agency noted."There is an 80 percent likelihood that the annual average global temperature will temporarily exceed 1.5C above pre-industrial levels for at least one of the next five years," WMO said.In 2023, the risk of temporarily breaching the limit within five years was estimated at 66 percent.Already, dramatic climate shifts have begun taking a heavy toll...

Read More........→July 04, 2024

Climate scientists are trusted globally, just not as much as other scientists – here’s why

Omid Ghasemi, UNSW Sydney and Ben Newell, UNSW SydneySocieties increasingly rely on scientists to guide decisions in times of uncertainty, from pandemic outbreaks to the rise of artificial intelligence. Addressing climate change is no different. For governments wanting to introduce ambitious climate policies, public trust in climate scientists is pivotal, because it can determine whether voters support or resist those efforts. So do people trust climate scientists, and what affects levels of trust? Our new study shows climate scientists are less trusted than other types of scientists globally. But there are profound variations in this trust gap between countries, and within them. Finding ways to increase trust in climate scientists is crucial if the world is to implement effective policies to avert dangerous global warming. Examining trust in science We collaborated with an international team of researchers to analyse data from one of the largest cross-national surveys of public attitudes toward science. The dataset includes responses from nearly 70,000 people across 68 countries. It offers a rare global snapshot of how people perceive scientists in general, and climate scientists in particular. Each of these people rated their trust in climate scientists on a five-point scale, with a five indicating very high trust and a...

Read More........→June 04, 2024