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Slack has been hit by issues for the second time in a week. Users reported that they were unable to see images properly – while others said they were not able to get online at all. The outage will be a disruption to the many workplaces who use the app to keep up with colleagues, especially with the rise of remote working. The problems happened during the working day in the UK and US. The technical issues came just days after another outage at the app, last week. Those problems were more significant, and users around the world were unable to sign on or send messages. This time around, the problems did not appear to be affecting all users and for most they were more limited in their scope. Slack’s official status page was updated on Wednesday to indicate that users “may be experiencing issues loading threads, admin pages and images”. It said it was investigating the issue. Tracking website Down Detector saw a huge spike in the number of people reporting issues. It was unclear if the problems were limited to specific platforms or locations. Slack says that it has more than 200,000 paid customers, which includes 77 of the Fortune 100. Those companies include some of the US’s biggest firms including Target, Uber, Expedia and Airbnb. Read More Slack has stopped working Google warns Gmail users they could be about to lose their account Hundreds of years after it was discovered, one material could change the world

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A Texas startup has made a major breakthrough towards achieving next-generation geothermal power after using oil drilling technology to tap the renewable energy source. Houston-based Fervo Energy successfully completed a trial of the system, which saw a drill plunge 2.3km (7,700 feet) into the Earth’s surface in order to pump water into them. Heated by high temperatures deep underground, the water was then pumped back to the surface where turbines converted the heat into electricity. The 30-day well test produced record-breaking power output for an enhanced geothermal system of 3.5 megawatts of electric production – enough to power more than 2,500 homes. “By applying drilling technology from the oil and gas industry, we have proven that we can produce 24/7 carbon-free energy resources in new geographies across the world,” said Tim Latimer, co-founder and chief executive of Fervo Energy. “The incredible results we share today are the product of many years of dedicated work and commitment from Fervo employees and industry partners.” One of these partners is Google, who signed an agreement in 2021 to develop the technology to provide carbon-free energy for its Cloud region in Las Vegas. Current geothermal energy production is mostly limited to locations near tectonic plates, such as Iceland, where magma close to the Earth’s surface is easier to reach. The latest feat marks a key milestone towards Fervo Energy’s plans to construct a 400MW project using its next-generation geothermal technology, which is expected to be online by 2028. “Power systems modelling confirms that geothermal can be a critical player in a fully decarbonised grid,” said Jesse Jenkins, an assistant professor and leader of the Zero-carbon Energy systems Research and Optimisation (ZERO) lab at Princeton University. “Fervo’s successful commercial pilot takes next-generation geothermal technology from the realm of models into the real world and starts us on a path to unlock geothermal’s full potential.” Read More Scientists invent double-sided solar panel that generates vastly more electricity ‘It is electrifyingly exciting’: How Britain could be freed from fossil fuels forever

Researchers funded by the US Air Force are developing a new type of device that can invite comparisons to a weapon used by a Batman villain. Scientists, including Patrick Hopkins from the University of Virginia in the US, are working on a new device to be used for on-demand surface cooling for electronics inside spacecraft and high-altitude jets. The device may seem similar to the freeze gun used by Batman villain Mr Freeze to “ice” his enemies. “A lot of electronics on board heat up, but they have no way to cool down,” said Dr Hopkins, whose lab has been granted $750,000 over three years to develop the technology. On Earth, electronics in military craft can rely on nature to cool themselves, but in space, this may be a challenge, scientists said. Citing an example, researchers said the Navy uses ocean water in its liquid cooling systems while flying jets can rely on air that is dense enough to help keep components chilled. “With the Air Force and Space Force, you’re in space, which is a vacuum, or you’re in the upper atmosphere, where there’s very little air that can cool,” Dr Hopkins said. “So what happens is your electronics keep getting hotter and hotter and hotter. And you can’t bring a payload of coolant onboard because that’s going to increase the weight, and you lose efficiency,” he explained. In such extra-terrestrial environments, a jet of plasma, the fourth and most common state of matter in the universe, can be used in the interior of a craft. “This plasma jet is like a laser beam; it’s like a lightning bolt. It can be extremely localized,” Dr Hopkins explained. One of the strange qualities of plasma is that while it can reach temperatures as hot as the surface of the Sun, it chills before heating when it strikes a surface. In the new research, published recently in the journal ACS Nano, scientists fired a purple jet of plasma generated from helium through a hollow needle encased in ceramic, targeting a gold-plated surface. When researchers turned on the plasma, they could measure temperature immediately at the point where the plasma hit, and could see that the surface cooled first and then heated up. “We were just puzzled at some level about why this was happening, because it kept happening over and over,” Dr Hopkins said. “And there was no information for us to pull from because no prior literature has been able to measure the temperature change with the precision that we have. No one’s been able to do it so quickly,” he said. The strange surface-cooling phenomenon, according to scientists, was the result of blasting an ultra-thin, hard-to-see surface layer, composed of carbon and water molecules. Researchers compare this to a similar process that happens when cool water evaporates off of our skin after a swim. “Evaporation of water molecules on the body requires energy; it takes energy from body, and that’s why you feel cold. In this case, the plasma rips off the absorbed species, energy is released, and that’s what cools,” the researchers explained. Using the method, scientists could reduce the temperature of the setup by several degrees for a few microseconds. While this may not be dramatic, they said it is enough to make a difference in some electronic devices. Now, thanks to the Air Force grant, researchers are looking at how variations on their original design might improve the apparatus. “Since the plasma is composed of a variety of different particles, changing the type of gas used will allow us to see how each one of these particles impact material properties,” researchers said. Read More Scientists discover 3,000-year-old arrowhead made of ‘alien’ iron Carcinogens found at nuclear missile sites as reports of hundreds of cancers surface India’s moon rover confirms sulphur and detects several other elements near the lunar south pole China’s ‘government-approved’ AI chatbot says Taiwan invasion likely Russian cyber-attacks ‘relentless’ as threat of WW3 grows, expert warns How new bike technology could help cyclists tell drivers not to crash into them

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