Rechargeable batteries are a technology that has been with us for well over a century, and which is undergoing a huge quantity of research into improved energy density for both mobile and alternative energy projects. But the commonly used chemistries all come with their own hazards, be they chemical contamination, fire risk, or even cost due to finite resources. A HardwareX paper from a team at the University of Idaho attempts to address some of those concerns, with an open-source rechargeable battery featuring electrode chemistry involving iron on both of its sides. This has the promise of a much cheaper construction without the poisonous heavy metal of a lead-acid cell or the expense and fire hazard of a lithium one.
A diagram of the all-iron cell.
The chemistry of this cell is split into two by an ion-exchange membrane, iron (II) chloride is the electrolyte on the anode side where iron is oxidised to iron 2+ ions, and Iron (III) chloride on the cathode where iron is reduced to iron hydroxide. The result is a cell with a low potential of only abut 0.6V, but at a claimed material cost of only $0.10 per kWh Wh of stored energy. The cells will never compete on storage capacity or weight, but this cost makes them attractive for fixed installations.
It’s encouraging to see open-source projects coming through from HardwareX, we noted its launch back in 2016.
Microfluidics is the manipulation and study of sub-microscopic liters of fluids. Technologies that utilise microfluidics are found in many multidisciplinary fields ranging from engineering to biology. Experiments can be performed on a device roughly of the size of a dollar coin, reducing the amount of reagents used, wastes produced, and the overall costs. Experiments can be conducted precisely at microscale levels, offering reduced reaction times and improved control over the reaction conditions.
Current gold standard for the fabrication of microfluidic devices is soft lithography, where elastomeric materials are casted on a mold fabricated in a cleanroom. Despite multiple desirable characteristics to fabricate microfluidic channels, however, soft lithography is a manual process that is difficult to automate. Typically, soft lithography has a design-to-prototype cycle of a few days.
3D printing emerged as an attractive alternative to soft lithography. Not only can 3D printers turn design into actual working prototypes in the order of hours, recent introduction of low-cost 3D printers make 3D printing more accessible in general to researchers. Current 3D printing technologies for the fabrication of microfluidic devices have a few limitations, namely;
available materials for 3D printing (e.g. optical transparency, flexibility, biocompatibility),
achievable dimensions of microchannels by commercial 3D printers,
integration of 3D printed microfluidics with functional materials or substrates.
To overcome these challenges, researchers from the Singapore University of Technology and Design’s (SUTD) Soft Fluidics Lab have developed an alternative method to apply 3D printing for the fabrication of microchannels. The researchers applied direct ink writing (DIW) 3D printing of fast-curing silicone sealant to fabricate microfluidic devices rapidly on various substrates (e.g. glass, plastic, and membranes). The design of fluidic channels is determined by the patterned silicone sealant, while the top and bottom transparent substrates serve to seal the channels. The use of transparent substrates allows the researchers to image the channel using a microscope. This method also permits the fabrication of microfluidic channels that are dynamically tunable in dimensions, which served as small channels as well as tunable flow resistors.
“By controlling the distance between the top and bottom substrates, we were able to precisely reduce the channel width up to around 30 microns. This lateral dimension of the channels would be difficult to obtain if commercially available 3D printers were employed,” said lead author Terry Ching, a graduate student from SUTD’s Engineering Product Development pillar.
“Our approach to apply DIW 3D printing allows direct patterning of microchannels essentially on any flat substrate” said Assistant Professor Michinao Hashimoto, the principal investigator of the project.
The team also demonstrated the ease of patterning of silicone barriers directly on an off-the-shelf printed circuit board (PCB), immediately integrating electrodes into the microchannels that would function as real-time flow sensors. Rapid integration of semi-permeable membranes to microchannels for culturing Keratinocyte cells was demonstrated.
Tern lets you access the internet anytime, anywhere via 4G connectivity without changing your phone plan.
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As the world is becoming increasingly dependent on the internet, you’re no longer faced with the problem of finding a way to go online when you’re in a foreign country. In fact, it’s become even harder now to decide the method in which you wish to stay connected. You either have to do research on the best local sim card to purchase (which you won’t get to use later on) or find a portable WiFi network that offers the best value for your money. Both options entail doing hours of research and spending a ton of cash — cash that you could have allotted elsewhere, say, your accommodation.
Tern is a low-cost and reliable internet solution that lets you stay connected anywhere without changing your current phone plan. With the device, you can access the internet anytime, anywhere via 4G connectivity. It delivers a 480-hour battery standby time to let you stay online for extended periods, and it enables you to share up to eight devices at the same time. And with numerous packages available — costing as low as 20 cents per day — you’re free to choose your preferred service provider and whichever deal fits your budget.
With the recent announcement of the Note10, it was obvious the previous generation’s price would drop substantially. And it just did, as the Note9 is now as low as $745 for the 128GB version, or $805 for the 512GB one. These are unlocked US versions, so you don’t have to worry about carrier compatibility or warranty.
Considering the Note9 cost about $1,000 when it came out, this is a substantial markdown. Unfortunately, only the Lavender versions are this cheap, with the 128GB variant selling for $745, and the 512GB for $805. Considering the relatively small price gap between the two, the one with the most storage makes more sense.
If you’re not into purple, the 128GB version costs $800 in black and blue, but I’d recommend going for the 512GB one if you want the latter, since it’s only $20 more expensive. However, if you wanted the black Note9 with 512GB of internal storage, you’re out of luck, as this particular version isn’t discounted, and is still selling for $1,050.
The Note9 is still a very capable phone, with its 6.4″ Super AMOLED display, S Pen, Snapdragon 845 processor, 8GB of RAM (on the 512GB model), 4,000mAh battery, dual rear cameras, and IP68 certification. If you want to know more about its differences with the Note10, check out our comparison post to find out more.
In this 2017 GDC talk, Square Enix’s Adelle Bueno presents a workflow for character skin detail texturing that allows for a detailed representation of a variety of unique pore types without ruining your production schedule.
Bueno explained how this character workflow draws inspiration from production techniques already in regular use by environment teams, which require high quality on a relatively low memory budget.
She also walked through some key features of the process that deal with the unique nature of skin, enabling extreme close-ups of skin detail and significantly reducing artist sculpting time while still allowing the necessary control, flexibility, and creativity in the character texturing process.
In addition to this presentation, the GDC Vault and its accompanying YouTube channel offers numerous other free videos, audio recordings, and slides from many of the recent Game Developers Conference events, and the service offers even more members-only content for GDC Vault subscribers.
Those who purchased All Access passes to recent events like GDC or VRDC already have full access to GDC Vault, and interested parties can apply for the individual subscription via a GDC Vault subscription page. Group subscriptions are also available: game-related schools and development studios who sign up for GDC Vault Studio Subscriptions can receive access for their entire office or company by contacting staff via the GDC Vault group subscription page.
A low-cost intervention aimed at fostering a growth mindset in students gave the students more confidence in their entrepreneurship abilities and helped them persist when challenges arose.
“The finding is valuable because efficacy, or confidence in one’s abilities, and perseverance are powerful motivators and are critical for career development in entrepreneurship,” says Jeff Pollack, second author of a paper on the work and an associate professor of entrepreneurship at North Carolina State University.
“Growth mindsets — the belief that human attributes are malleable — help students to flourish,” says Jeni Burnette, lead author of the paper and an associate professor of psychology at NC State. “For this study, we focused on fostering a growth mindset of entrepreneurship — the idea that everyone can improve their entrepreneurship ability.”
For the study, researchers worked with 238 undergraduate students. One group of 120 students received three growth mindset video modules focused on the idea that, with time, effort and energy, individuals can improve their entrepreneurship ability. A control group of 118 students watched three video modules that focused on misconceptions about entrepreneurship.
The study found that the growth mindset intervention did not directly or indirectly affect the classroom performance of students.
However, in post-intervention surveys, the researchers found that students who received the growth mindset intervention, relative to the control, reported greater entrepreneurial self-efficacy, such as confidence in their ability to identify new business opportunities and create new products. The growth mindset intervention also fostered greater persistence. Specifically, students reported continuing to pursue an entrepreneurial idea as part of a class project, even after encountering a challenge.
Additionally, self-efficacy correlated with an increased likelihood that students would consider entrepreneurship as a field of study and as a possible career.
Effects of the intervention did not depend on the student’s gender or previous experience in the entrepreneurship field.
“This low-cost approach can be easily integrated into the classroom and is a promising tool for increasing students’ motivation in entrepreneurship above and beyond simply learning about the field,” Burnette says.
Almost every weekend this year, I’ve ended up at the movies. In a relentless news environment, it’s nice to head over to the local multiplex, plop down, and turn off the rest of the world for a couple of hours. Sadly, I’ve noticed a disturbing trend: Even there, before the greatest spectacle that Hollywood can provide, people can’t stay off their fucking phones.
At a recent showing of John Wick: Chapter 3 – Parabellum, for instance, I watched a man come in halfway through the movie and immediately pull out his phone. As Keanu Reeves used everything from a library book to a goddamn horse to fight through one of the most violent ballets ever performed, this jabroni was browsing Reddit on a brightness setting I can only imagine is called “Hydrogen Bomb Test.”
And that’s not all! Just minutes later, a woman entered the theater actively talking on her phone. “Mm-hmm, yeah, okay. You don’t say? Well, I should really go,” she said. “I’m in a movie theater right now.” Yeah, no shit!
I wish I could say this was an isolated incident. In the last couple years, I’ve watched people become increasingly incapable of sitting through an entire movie without whipping out their phones. We’ve all paid upwards of 10 bucks to see this thing, but a significant percentage of the population can’t get to the end without reading that important text that says: “kk, c u later!”
If people were doing this discreetly, I wouldn’t mind. Unfortunately, this behavior is closely linked with a lack of basic knowledge about screen brightness. (Here’s a tip: Swipe down and pull the sun slider towards “I’m an oblivious jerk in a movie theater.”) An even more discreet way of checking your phone, by the way, is to take it outside.
Luckily for me, you, and anyone else who likes watching movies in the dark, I’ve come up with a solution: If you take out your phone in a movie theater, I’m going to ask to borrow it.
After all, it’s only fair. If what you’re looking at is so much more interesting than the movie we’ve all paid to see, the rest of us deserve a peek.
Is it a funny meme? If it’s so funny, let me check it out, too! I might even share it with my other seat neighbor, who shouldn’t be left out of the fun.
Naturally, anyone will be free to decline my request, but as long as your phone is out, I’ll be asking. Just let me borrow it, man, c’mon! And when I’m done, I’ll turn the brightness setting down, leaving it a bit less eye-catching.
Strangely, since committing myself to this course of action, I haven’t had the chance to try it. At the last few movies I’ve been to, no one has taken out their phones. Maybe other moviegoers can sense my newfound interest in their screens. Maybe they’ve rediscovered the magic of film. Maybe they just haven’t been annoying dicks.
Either way, I suggest you try it out yourself. At the very least, you’ll no longer worry about having your movie experience interrupted. When I head off to the movies these days, I look forward to the interesting emails I might read, the texts I might see, and the funny memes that—if they’re worth looking at, at all—deserved to be shared.
U.S.|Ruth Bader Ginsburg Treated for Tumor on Her Pancreas
The Supreme Court justice’s treatment lasted three weeks, according to a news release on Friday.
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Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg at a swearing-in ceremony for new American citizens in New York last year.CreditCreditChang W. Lee/The New York Times
Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg underwent treatment for a malignant tumor discovered on her pancreas, according to a news release issued by the Supreme Court on Friday.
“The tumor was treated definitively and there is no evidence of disease elsewhere in the body,” the statement said.
The abnormality was first discovered in early July after a routine blood test, according to the statement. A biopsy conducted on July 31 at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center in New York City confirmed a localized malignant tumor.
“Justice Ginsburg will continue to have periodic blood tests and scans,” the statement said. “No further treatment is needed at this time.”
The health of the 86-year-old justice, the senior member of the court’s four-member liberal wing, has been a subject of concern.
In December, surgeons removed two malignant nodules from Justice Ginsburg’s left lung. The court described that surgery as successful, and said then that she was cancer free. After missing two weeks of arguments in January, she returned to work in February.
She was also treated for colon cancer in 1999, but she did not miss a day on the bench.
Justice Ginsberg’s career as the second female justice appointed to the Supreme Court, and her overall fortitude, have inspired books (“Notorious RBG: The Life and Times of Ruth Bader Ginsburg”), a major motion picture, a documentary and merchandise, including a pin resembling the collar she wears when writing a dissenting opinion.
Justice Ginsburg has repeatedly vowed to stay on the court as long she is of sound mind and body. In a 2013 interview with The New York Times, she said she loved her work and intended to continue “as long as I can do the job full-steam, and that, at my age, is not predictable.”
Pancreatic cancer accounts for about 3 percent of all cancers in the U.S., and about 7 percent of all cancer deaths.
Some 56,770 Americans will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer in 2019; about 45,750 will die of it, according to the American Cancer Society.
For three weeks this August, Justice Ginsberg underwent focused radiation treatment, and a bile duct stent was placed, according to the court’s statement.
Dr. Diane Simeone, director of pancreatic cancer at NYU Langone’s Perlmutter Cancer Center, said the preferred treatment for a localized tumor is surgery to remove it, but said she was not familiar with the details of this particular case. Radiation “is not typically given as first-line treatment for a newly diagnosed pancreatic cancer,” she said.
“The question is: Where does this fit in the big picture?” Dr. Simeone said. “She had a pancreatic cancer resectioned about a decade ago. Is this a second primary tumor? Is this a local recurrence? Those are things that are unclear from the information we have today.”
Though pancreatic cancer has a reputation as an aggressive and fast-moving disease, Dr. Simeone said some subtypes are indolent and slow-growing. Some of them have a tendency to spread to the lungs and might have been implicated in the justice’s lung cancer.
“It’s hard to know the prognosis without knowing the true extent of the tumor,” she said. Radiation can be effective for local control but “it’s often not curative,” she said.
Other justices have had cancer while serving on the bench. In 1992, Justice John Paul Stevens underwent radiation treatment for prostate cancer. Chief Justice William H. Rehnquist’s thyroid cancer was diagnosed 11 months before his death in September 2005.
Aside from canceling an annual visit to Santa Fe, New Mexico, Justice Ginsburg has otherwise maintained an active schedule this summer, the statement said. The State University of New York at Buffalo said in a statement on Friday that it had received confirmation that she would visit on Monday as scheduled.
Last month, in an interview with NPR, Justice Ginsberg dismissed concerns about her health by recalling a long-ago comment from a senator.
“There was a senator, I think it was after my pancreatic cancer, who announced with great glee that I was going to be dead within six months,” she said. “That senator, whose name I have forgotten, is now himself dead, and I am very much alive.”
There’s good news for Americans saving for retirement: We’re getting better and better at actually doing it, according to a new survey from Bankrate.com. The percentage of people who have increased their contributions in the past year has almost doubled since 2011, with 29% increasing their contributions. Forty-six percent of respondents said they’re saving the same amount as last year.
Older millennials (age 30-38), in particular, were the demographic most likely to have increased their savings rate. “They’ve got their student debt paid off, or they’ve bought that first house, or they’ve gotten that promotion that pays more, and they’re thinking downstream” more than the earlier years of their careers, Greg McBride, chief financial analyst at Bankrate.com, said. The survey had 2,016 respondents.
You really should “get around to” adjusting your contribution
Here’s the not-so-inspiring news: 16% of people are saving less for retirement than they did last year. Many of the respondents cited other financial goals, but 12% said they simply had not “gotten around to” adjusting their contribution. Young millennials, McBride said, were the worst offenders among respondents who had let the task slide to the bottom of their to-do lists.
But young people have the most to lose by not keeping an eye on their contribution, he warned. “Because of the power of compounding interest, time is your greatest ally when saving for retirement,” McBride said. “And so there’s an urgency to contribute sooner rather than later.”
Steady progress wins this marathon, and even if you can increase your contribution by 1% this year, it’ll benefit your long-term financial health.“If you’re working and drawing a paycheck, you want to keep having that money automatically put into your retirement account,” McBride said.
But uh, about that economic forecast? Things aren’t looking so optimistic out there, but that’s no reason to start messing with your allocations when you log in to check on your contribution levels. “The biggest risk for retirement savers is getting the jitters from market volatility, and shifting the way your retirement savings is invested,” McBride said. “Volatility can actually work in your favor over the long term.”
Rob Gibson – Aug 6, 2019 / 8:42 am | Story: 262922
Photo: Contributed
Fort St John RCMP are investigating the attempted abduction of a road flagger that is alleged to have occurred on August 4th 2019 at approximately 9:30 a.m.
RCMP have learned that a dark blue van with silver striping approached a road flagger on
Highway 29 near Szoo Rd, approximately 27 kms south-west of Charlie Lake. The van came to a stop near the female flagger who was alone at the time and a caucasian male opened the van’s rear doors and attempted to pull the woman inside. The flagger struggled with the unknown male, who eventually got back in the van and took off toward Hudson’s Hope B.C. The victim did not recognize the person who tried to abduct her.
RCMP members have launched a full-scale investigation and are currently canvassing neighboring properties to speak with witnesses. They are also calling for any video surveillance that may be out there.
The vehicle is described as:
dark blue with silver striping
chrome on the front grille
barn style rear doors
The suspect is described as;
caucasian male
approximately 5’9
no accent when he spoke
‘We’re asking for anyone who was in the Charlie Lake area to try to remember if they saw a vehicle matching this description to call the RCMP’ says Sgt Joelle LaChance, A/Operations NCO of the Fort St John RCMP. ‘Your dash cam footage may be able to help us identify the suspect in this crime’.
The Ft St John RCMP are asking anyone who may have been in this area at the time of this incident and may recognize this van, the suspect or have dashcam video footage to contact the Ft St John RCMP at 250-787-8140.
