Carlos José Báez experienced the full brunt of Hurricane Maria when it made landfall in Puerto Rico as

Scientists have discovered a way to store the Sun’s energy in rocks and convert the heat into electricity. Using an approach called concentrated solar power, a team of researchers from Tanzania found that certain granite and soapstones could store solar heat at a sufficiently high density to serve as a primitive form of battery. Thermal energy storage has been touted as a low-cost way of storing and harvesting energy from the Sun, even when it’s no longer shining. Last year, scientists from Sweden and China came up with a way to store solar energy for nearly two decades using an ultra-thin chip, which serves as a thermoelectric generator. The innovative system could technically be integrated into electronics, however it remains too costly to implement at scale. By contrast, the granite and soapstone samples offer a low cost and readily available method of storing solar energy, the researchers said. “Using rocks as a storage medium offers the potential of affordability due to the abundance and low cost of rocks,” the researchers noted in a paper outlining their findings. “An air-rock bed has low investment cost, high reliability and efficiency, is environmentally friendly, and does not require the use of heat exchangers.” The rock bed captures and collects solar thermal energy up to 600 °C, which is then used to boil liquid into steam that powers a generator turbine to produce electricity. The results were detailed in a study, titled ‘Experimental Investigation of Soapstone and Granite Rocks as Energy-Storage Materials for Concentrated Solar Power Generation and Solar Drying Technology’, published by the American Chemical Society. Other thermal energy storage systems have focussed on salt and water, with researchers at Eindhoven University of Technology unveiling a heat battery last year that they claim could work at scale. Rather than capturing heat from the Sun, the system instead collects industrial residual heat. “While the potential is great, we have also seen many great potential technologies that have not made it,” the scientists said at the time. “So we’re going to keep our feet on the ground and take this one step at a time.” Read More Scientists break world record for solar power window material Scientists smash world record for solar power window material Nasa holds urgent meeting about sightings of UFOs Opinion: The real reason companies are warning that AI is as bad as nuclear war

Due to billion-dollar losses in technical development, DAZN will stream Paul and Diaz's boxing match in virtual reality using Meta's Stadium platform

The finding was confirmed when the property owner broke out in a rash.

An influential Silicon Valley presence for more than a decade, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is emerging as the tech titan of the AI age, riding the wave of ChatGPT, the...

The Apple iPhone is one of the most popular mobile devices in the world, but the company has issued a new danger warning to users that could help save lives. Popular among those particularly in the West, iPhones are prevalent in most people’s everyday lives, ever since the first one was released in June 2007. However, Apple has issued a stark warning for those who leave them charging overnight, highlighting a risk of fire, electrocution and injury. The warning by Apple comes under its updated user guide under the article titled, “Important safety information for iPhone” in which it is warned that charging phones over long periods poses a risk. It read: “Use common sense to avoid situations where your skin is in contact with a device, its power adapter, or a wireless charger when it’s operating or connected to a power source for long periods of time. “For example, don’t sleep on a device, power adapter, or wireless charger, or place them under a blanket, pillow, or your body, when it’s connected to a power source. “Keep your iPhone, the power adapter, and any wireless charger in a well-ventilated area when in use or charging. Take special care if you have a physical condition that affects your ability to detect heat against the body.” The company confirmed consumers can use “‘Made for iPhone’ or other third-party cables” that are compliant with relevant safety regulations. But, it added: “Other adapters may not meet applicable safety standards, and charging with such adapters could pose a risk of death or injury.” Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

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Occidental Petroleum Corp. has agreed to partner with the top oil producer in the United Arab Emirates to

TL;DR: As of Sept. 11, the 3-in-1 Fast Data Transfer and Charging Multi-Cable is on

Minuscule traces of metal from space junk that's designed to be disposable are invisibly polluting the Earth's atmosphere, a new study has found. In recent times, spacecrafts launched into space have been designed so that they fall out of orbit and fall back down to Earth after their intended use. So instead of the materials crashing on land, they can burn up in the upper atmosphere. Although the debris of rockets and satellites burn up when re-entering the planet's atmosphere, the consequences of metal vapour being left behind currently remain unknown. But given the amount of space exploration taking place, the amount of metal vapour is expected to rise in the years to come. Physicist Daniel Murphy of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has led a team of researchers to investigate what effects this metal vapour could have as well as its impact over time and this study was published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, as per Science Alert. He listed "iron, silicon, and magnesium from the natural meteoric source" as the current refractory material in stratospheric particular. Murphy has warned how this composition could be affected by the metal vapour from space junk. "However, the amount of material from the reentry of upper-stage rockets and satellites is projected to increase dramatically in the next 10 to 30 years," he wrote. "As a result, the amount of aluminum in stratospheric sulfuric acid particles is expected to become comparable to or even exceed the amount of meteoric iron, with unknown consequences for inclusions and ice nucleation." To find out if metal vapour remained, Murphy and his team took and analyzed 500,000 stratospheric aerosol droplet samples to see if they had traces of spacecraft metals. Aerosols contain sulfuric acid droplets made from the oxidation of the carbonyl sulfide gas and in the atmosphere, this can appear naturally or as a pollutant. Metal and silicon traces can be found in these droplets too, acquired from meteors which vaporize upon atmospheric entry. Around 20 metals were discovered from this research, and while some metals had similar ratios to the vaporizing meteors, other metals such as lithium, aluminium, copper, and lead exceeded the anticipated amounts. Particles from vaporized spacecraft were found in 10 per cent of stratospheric aerosols over a certain size while other common spacecraft metals such as niobium and hafnium were also present. Consequently, these traces of spacecraft particles could affect how water freezes into ice in the stratosphere, and stratospheric aerosol particles could change in size. Due to more space exploration planned in an "era of rapid growth" for the industry, the researchers predict "the percentage of stratospheric sulfuric acid particles that contain aluminum and other metals from satellite reentry will be comparable to the roughly 50 per cent that now contain meteoric metals." Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

To level up fast in Fortnite OG, fans must play Fortnite Creative maps or complete in-game quests to collect as much XP as possible.

When Apple unveils its latest iPhone on Tuesday, the European Union will have left its mark on the...