Reuters reports that the US Department of Energy was hacked last month and a trove of employee information was lost to the cyber intruders. The hack was revealed in a letter obtained by Reuters, which was sent to employees on Friday. The DOE claims no confidential information was lost in the attack. More »
The U.S. Dept. of Energy has big plans. They want batteries that are five times more powerful than what we’ve got today, and they want them to be five times cheaper. All that in just five years. It’s a tall order, but they’ve got a plan: recreate the Manhattan Project. More »
Researchers at the University of California San Diego have devised new algorithms that can cut lithium-ion battery charge times in half, help cells run more efficiently and potentially cut production costs by 25 percent. Rather than tracking battery behavior and health with the traditional technique of monitoring current and voltage, the team’s mathematical models estimate where lithium ions are within cells for more precise data. With the added insight, the team can more accurately gauge battery longevity and control charging efficiency. The group was awarded $460,000 from the Department of Energy’s ARPA-E research arm to further develop the algorithm and accompanying tech with automotive firm Bosch and battery manufacturer Cobasys, which both received the remainder of a $9.6 million grant. Wondering if the solution will ever find its way out of the lab? According to co-lead researcher Scott Moura, it’ll see practical use: “This technology is going into products that people will actually use.”
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Researchers create algorithms that help lithium-ion batteries charge two times faster originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 04 Oct 2012 23:07:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Science and music, many would say opposite sides of the same coin. Unless you’re DOE biologist Peter Larsen at the Argonne National Laboratory, who would probably argue your legal tender has been double-headed all along. While Larsen is more likely to be studying the intricacies of microbes than Miles Davis, his latest work puts the two of them closer than ever before. Faced with the task of studying vast amounts of microbial data gathered from the English Channel, the biologist explored alternative ways of making sense of it all. While he could have made a spiffy set of charts, Larsen claims that there are certain parameters, like sunlight and temperature, that give the data a structure that lends itself to musical representation.
While classical music might seem the typical choice, due to the irregular nature of the data, the result is more free-form jazz, yet still surprisingly musical. If you were wondering if there is something particularly groovy about the microbes in the English Channel, there isn’t. Larsen and his colleagues used a similar idea in previous work looking at the relationship between a plant and a fungus. This isn’t the first time data has been “sonified,” but these processes that might initially seem to have no relation to music, rhythm and melody, actually highlight the patterns in natural phenomena. Want to get down to the microbial beat? You can hear a sample at the more coverage link.
[Image Credit: Argonne National Laboratory]
Microbial music: Using sound to represent data from the deep blue sea originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 02 Oct 2012 12:38:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Solar may be the green energy source that’s been hogging the headlines lately, but there are other fossil-fuel free ways that can help meet society’s electrical needs. One of these is tidal power, and the US is set to start harnessing the ocean’s electricity-generating potential this summer with the TidGen Cobscook Bay project — the first such commercial project in the States. Located just off the coast of Eastport, Maine, turbines will be placed in 50-100 feet deep water to take advantage of the 100 billion tons of water that flow in and out of Cobscook Bay each day. When the project goes live, it’ll feed into the public power grid and generate enough juice to power between 75 and 100 homes, and the plan is to eventually install enough turbines to generate 3MW of power — which should cover the needs of over 1,000 homes and businesses. There’s more info, plus plenty of political self-congratulation in the source below.
US launches first commercial tidal power project this summer, Maine to reap moon’s gravitational benefits originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 25 Jul 2012 23:10:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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Sick and tired of waiting around for some exascale computing? So’s the Department of Energy. The agency has offered up a $12.4 million contract to NVIDIA as part of its FastForward program, an attempt help speed up exascale development. The chipmaker will be using the two-year contract to help develop architecture for an exascale computer that operates at a “reasonable power level,” in order to “advance the frontiers of science.” Possible implications for exascale computing include the study of climate change, development of efficient engines, the search for disease cures, according to NVIDIA — not to mention “reasons of national security and economic competitiveness.”
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NVIDIA scores $12.4 million contract from the DOE to help FastForward exascale computing originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 16 Jul 2012 13:11:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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