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Categories: Energy: Batteries, Paleontology: Fossils
Published Indigenous Ashaninka DNA helps geneticists write new chapters of pre-colonial history in South America


Geneticists have written new chapters in the reconstruction of pre-colonial Americas history after using DNA from the indigenous Ashaninka people from Amazonian Peru. They have discovered previously unexpected levels of genetic variation in this group and uncovered a strong hint that these people were involved in a South-to-North migration that led to the transition from an archaic to ceramic culture in the Caribbean islands.
Published 3D internal structure of rechargeable batteries revealed


Researchers have pioneered a technique to observe the 3D internal structure of rechargeable batteries. This opens up a wide range of areas for the new technique from energy storage and chemical engineering to biomedical applications.
Published 3D battery imaging reveals the secret real-time life of lithium metal cells


Innovative battery researchers have cracked the code to creating real-time 3D images of the promising but temperamental lithium metal battery as it cycles. A team has succeeded in observing how the lithium metal in the cell behaves as it charges and discharges. The new method may contribute to batteries with higher capacity and increased safety in our future cars and devices.
Published Paleontologists flip the script on anemone fossils


Billions of sea anemones adorn the bottom of the Earth's oceans -- yet they are among the rarest of fossils because their squishy bodies lack easily fossilized hard parts. Now a team of paleontologists has discovered that countless sea anemone fossils have been hiding in plain sight for nearly 50 years. It turns out that fossils long-interpreted as jellyfish were anemones. To do so, a team of scientists has simply turned the ancient animals upside down.
Published Electric vehicle batteries could get big boost with new polymer coating


Scientists have developed a polymer coating that could enable longer lasting, more powerful lithium-ion batteries for electric vehicles. The advance opens up a new approach to developing EV batteries that are more affordable and easy to manufacture.
Published Controlling electric double layer dynamics for next generation all-solid-state batteries


Development of all-solid-state batteries is crucial to achieve carbon neutrality. However, their high surface resistance causes these batteries to have low output, limiting their applications. To this end, researchers have employed a novel technique to investigate and modulate electric double layer dynamics at the solid/solid electrolyte interface. The researchers demonstrate unprecedented control of response speed by over two orders of magnitude, a major steppingstone towards realization of commercial all-solid-state batteries.
Published Extreme fast charging capability in lithium-ion batteries


Lithium-ion batteries dominate among energy storage devices and are the battery of choice for the electric vehicle industry. Improving battery performance is a constant impetus to current research in this field. Towards this end, a group of researchers has synthesized a lithium borate-type aqueous polyelectrolyte binder for graphite anodes. Their new binder helped improve Li-ion diffusion and lower impedance compared to conventional batteries.
Published Jurassic shark: Shark from the Jurassic period was already highly evolved


Cartilaginous fish have changed much more in the course of their evolutionary history than previously believed. Evidence for this thesis has been provided by new fossils of a ray-like shark, Protospinax annectans, which demonstrate that sharks were already highly evolved in the Late Jurassic.
Published Ancient proteins offer new clues about origin of life on Earth



By simulating early Earth conditions in the lab, researchers have found that without specific amino acids, ancient proteins would not have known how to evolve into everything alive on the planet today -- including plants, animals, and humans.
Published Clues about the Northeast's past and future climate from plant fossils


A team of researchers is working to understand the details of the climate for the eastern portion of the United States from the Miocene, which unfortunately is a blank spot on paleo-climate maps. New findings suggest the future climate will be very close to the warmer, wetter, and more homogeneous climate similar to conditions experienced 5 million years ago.
Published Insect bite marks show first fossil evidence for plants' leaves folding up at night


Plants can move in ways that might surprise you. Some of them even show 'sleep movements,' folding or raising their leaves each night before opening them again the next day. Now, researchers offer convincing evidence for these nightly movements, also known as foliar nyctinasty, in fossil plants that lived more than 250 million years ago.
Published New design for lithium-air battery could offer much longer driving range compared with the lithium-ion battery


Scientists have built and tested for a thousand cycles a lithium-air battery design that could one day be powering cars, domestic airplanes, long-haul trucks and more. Its energy storage capacity greatly surpasses that possible with lithium-ion batteries.
Published Early Cretaceous shift in the global carbon cycle affected both land and sea


Geologists doing fieldwork in southeastern Utah's Cedar Mountain Formation found carbon isotope evidence that the site, though on land, experienced the same early Cretaceous carbon-cycle change recorded in marine sedimentary rocks in Europe. This ancient carbon-cycle phenomenon, known as the 'Weissert Event' was driven by large, sustained volcanic eruptions in the Southern Hemisphere that greatly increased carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and produced significant greenhouse climate effects over a prolonged time.
Published Ramping up domestic graphite production could aid the green energy transition


Given the growing importance of graphite in energy storage technologies, a team of esearchers has conducted a study exploring ways to reduce reliance on imports of the in high-demand mineral, which powers everything from electric vehicles (EVs) to cell phones.
Published New technology turns smartphones into RFID readers, saving costs and reducing waste


Imagine you can open your fridge, open an app on your phone and immediately know which items are expiring within a few days. This is one of the applications that a new technology would enable.
Published Researchers solve a 150-year-old mystery: Aetosaur find involves juveniles


Aetosaurs had a small head and a crocodile-like body. The land dwellers were up to six meters long and widely distributed geographically. They died out about 204 million years ago, at the end of the Triassic. In Germany, an assemblage of 24 Aetosaurus ferratus individuals, only between 20 and 82 centimeters long, was discovered in 1877. Since then, scientists have been puzzling over whether they were juveniles or small adults. A team has now solved the mystery: Bone examination of two specimens shows that they are juveniles.
Published Fossil discovery reveals complex ecosystems existed on Earth much earlier than previously thought



About 250 million years ago, the Permian-Triassic mass extinction killed over 80 per cent of the planet's species. In the aftermath, scientists believe that life on earth was dominated by simple species for up to 10 million years before more complex ecosystems could evolve. Now this longstanding theory is being challenged by a team of international researchers.
Published Novel microscope developed to design better high-performance batteries


A research team has developed an operando reflection interference microscope (RIM) that provides a better understanding of how batteries work, which has significant implications for the next generation of batteries.
Published Beyond lithium: A promising cathode material for magnesium rechargeable batteries


Magnesium is a promising candidate as an energy carrier for next-generation batteries. However, the cycling performance and capacity of magnesium batteries need to improve if they are to replace lithium-ion batteries. To this end, a research team focused on a novel cathode material with a spinel structure. Following extensive characterization and electrochemical performance experiments, they have found a specific composition that could open doors to high-performance magnesium rechargeable batteries.
Published Controllable 'defects' improve performance of lithium-ion batteries


Some defects can be good. A new study shows that laser-induced defects in lithium-ion battery materials improve the performance of the battery.