It's been nearly a year since Elon Musk revealed his intention to electrify the world’s roads with buses and trucks in addition to Tesla’s passenger cars. He hasn’t said much about the 18-wheeler—a proper unveil is set for September—except that it will use same motors as the upcoming Model 3, and that it would, of course, disrupt an industry that generates one quarter of US transportation-related greenhouse gas emissions.
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A brave new world for coral reefs
The future of the world’s coral reefs hangs in the balance, but it is not too late to save them, according to a major study published today in the prestigious journal, Nature.
USGS Finds 28 Types of Cyanobacteria in Florida Algal Bloom
A new U.S. Geological Survey study that looked at the extensive harmful algal bloom that plagued Florida last year found far more types of cyanobacteria present than previously known.
Ultra-stable perovskite solar cell remains stable for over a year
Perovskite solar cells promise cheaper and efficient solar energy, with enormous potential for commercialization. But even though they have been shown to achieve over 22% power-conversion efficiency, their operational stability still fails market requirements. Despite a number of proposed solutions in fabrication technology, this issue has continued to undercut whatever incremental increases in efficiency have been achieved. EPFL scientists have now built a low-cost, ultra-stable perovskite solar cell that has operated for more than a year without loss in performance (11.2%). The work is published in Nature Communications.
Professor proposes using artificial intelligence to predict aquatic ecosystem health
Lassonde School of Engineering Professor Usman Khan‘s research on the measurement of aquatic ecosystem health has been published in the journal Water.
In the paper, Khan proposes an approach based on artificial intelligence to predict dissolved oxygen in an urban river environment.
Geoscientific evidence for subglacial lakes
During the last glacial period – when the ice in the Antarctic was far thicker and extended further offshore than it does today – it has been speculated that subglacial lakes existed beneath it. An international team of researchers has now successfully sampled the metre-thick sediment layers left behind by these lakes contemporary on the seafloor. This is the outcome of a study by Gerhard Kuhn and colleagues, which was published today in the journal Nature Communications.