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Daimler announces upcoming electric garbage truck

Daimler has announced an upcoming new truck called eEconic, a garbage truck based on the all-electric Mercedes-Benz eActros.

The German automotive company announced the vehicle today:

“The eEconic will at first be offered in the configuration 6×2/N NLA and is mainly in demand as a waste-collection vehicle. Battery-electric trucks are very well suited for urban use in waste management due to the comparatively short and plannable daily routes of up to 100 kilometers with a high proportion of stop-and-go in inner-city traffic. With an anticipatory driving style, electrical energy can be recovered during braking to charge the battery, which further improves range and efficiency.”

Artificial Synapse That Works With Living Cells Developed at Stanford

In 2017, Stanford University researchers presented a new device that mimics the brain’s efficient and low-energy neural learning process. It was an artificial version of a synapse — the gap across which neurotransmitters travel to communicate between neurons — made from organic materials. In 2019, the researchers assembled nine of their artificial synapses together in an array, showing that they could be simultaneously programmed to mimic the parallel operation of the brain.

Now, in a paper published June 15 in Nature Materials, they have tested the first biohybrid version of their artificial synapse and demonstrated that it can communicate with living cells. Future technologies stemming from this device could function by responding directly to chemical signals from the brain. The research was conducted in collaboration with researchers at Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia (Italian Institute of Technology – IIT) in Italy and at Eindhoven University of Technology (Netherlands).

“This paper really highlights the unique strength of the materials that we use in being able to interact with living matter,” said Alberto Salleo, professor of materials science and engineering at Stanford and co-senior author of the paper. “The cells are happy sitting on the soft polymer. But the compatibility goes deeper: These materials work with the same molecules neurons use naturally.”

This Mini Ion Thruster Is Adorably Tiny

Its performance is equally microscopic, only generating anywhere between 10 to 400 micronewtons — a tiny fraction of the power of a toy rocket.

But in space, even that low amount of power can allow satellites to hold their positions, and even gradually deorbit to make sure they’re out of harm’s way and don’t become space debris.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, a European-Japanese ion thruster used for the Mercury-bound spacecraft BepiColombo broke the record for the most powerful ion thruster in 2018. Its performance tops out at a maximum combined 290 millinewtons (290,000 micronewtons).

Radioactive cloud over Europe had civilian background

A mysterious cloud containing radioactive ruthenium-106, which moved across Europe in autumn 2017, is still bothering Europe’s radiation protection entities. Although the activity concentrations were innocuous, they reached up to 100 times the levels of what had been detected over Europe in the aftermath of the Fukushima accident. Since no government had assumed responsibility, a military background could not be ruled out.

Researchers at the Leibniz University Hannover and the University of Münster (both Germany) were able to confirm that the cloud did not originate from military sources—but rather from civilian nuclear activities. Hence, the release of ruthenium from a reprocessing plant for nuclear fuels is the most conclusive scenario for explaining the incident in autumn 2017. The study has been published in the journal Nature Communications.

Destiny 2: Beyond Light – Reveal Trailer

Extreme graphics: 3.


A new power is born out of the ancient Pyramid ship above Europa’s frozen frontier, and a dark empire has risen beneath, united under the banner of the Fallen Kell of Darkness, Eramis. Join your fellow Guardians and bring down the empire at any cost – even if it means wielding the Darkness itself.
As the new threat emerges, so too does a mysterious new power – Stasis. Rooted in Darkness, Guardians will wield this new elemental power alongside Arc, Solar, and Void to dominate the battlefield. Titans, Warlocks, and Hunters each use Stasis in a different way, from slowing down foes with Stasis fields to encasing and shattering enemies with destructive might.

Pre-Order Beyond Light: bung.ie/BeyondLight

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Dive into the free-to-play world of Destiny 2 to experience responsive first-person shooter combat, explore the mysteries of our solar system, and unleash elemental abilities against powerful enemies. Create your Guardian and collect unique weapons, armor, and gear to customize your look and playstyle. Experience Destiny 2’s cinematic story alone or with friends, join other Guardians for challenging co-op missions, or compete against them in a variety of PvP modes.

Laser beams for superconductivity: Research sheds light on unexpected physical phenomena

A laser pulse, a special material, an extraordinary property which appears inexplicably. These are the main elements that emerge from a research conducted by an international team, coordinated by Michele Fabrizio and comprising Andrea Nava and Erio Tosatti from SISSA, Claudio Giannetti from the Università Cattolica di Brescia and Antoine Georges from the Collège de France. The results of their study have recently been published in the journal Nature Physics. The key element of the study is a compound of the most symmetrical molecule that exists in Nature, namely C60 bucky-ball, a spherical fullerene.

It is well known that this compound, with the chemical formula K3C60, can behave as a superconductor — that is, conduct without dissipating energy — below a critical temperature of 20 degrees Kelvin, i.e. around −253 degrees Celsius.

It has recently been discovered that K3C60 is capable of transforming into a high-temperature superconductor when struck by an extremely brief laser pulse. This material takes on superconductive properties — albeit extremely briefly — up to a temperature of −73 degrees Centigrade, almost 100 degrees above the critical equilibrium temperature. The research just published by the scientists explains the reason for this mysterious behaviour.