178439258
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
NPR, and others, are reporting that Coca-Cola says it will use U.S. cane sugar in a new Coke, a plan pushed by Trump.
"We're going to be bringing a Coke sweetened with U.S. cane sugar into the market this fall," Coca-Cola Chairman and CEO James Quincey said on a conference call with analysts Tuesday.
Quincey said the new offering would "complement" Coca-Cola's core portfolio of drinks, suggesting it could arrive as an alternative, rather than a replacement, for its flagship Coke product.
CNN notes that, "sugar is more expensive in the US than in many parts of the world..." — there are also quotas and tariffs on cane sugar imported into the U.S.
The Sweeteners Users Association notes that cane sugar in the U.S. is grown mainly in Florida, Louisiana and Texas — so this will be a boon to some. Sugar beets are more widely grown in California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Minnesota, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oregon, Washington and Wyoming.
178408074
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Reuters is reporting that Ukraine will let foreign arms companies test out their latest weapons on the front line of its war against Russia's invasion, Kyiv's state-backed arms investment and procurement group Brave1 said on Thursday.
Under the "Test in Ukraine" scheme, companies would send their products to Ukraine, give some online training on how to use them, then wait for Ukrainian forces to try them out and send back reports, the group said in a statement.
"It gives us understanding of what technologies are available. It gives companies understanding of what is really working on the front line," Artem Moroz, Brave1's head of investor relations, told Reuters at a defence conference in Wiesbaden, Germany.
Ukraine is betting on a budding defence industry, fueled in part by foreign investment, to fend off Russia's bigger and better-armed war machine.
178407942
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Scientists from Boston University, UC Berkeley, and Northwestern University have reported the world’s first electronic–photonic–quantum system on a chip, according to a study published in Nature Electronics.
The system combines quantum light sources and stabilizing electronics using a standard 45-nanometer semiconductor manufacturing process to produce reliable streams of correlated photon pairs (particles of light)—a key resource for emerging quantum technologies. The advance paves the way for mass-producible “quantum light factory” chips and large-scale quantum systems built from many such chips working together.
Generating quantum states of light on chip requires precisely engineered photonic devices—specifically, microring resonators (the same devices recently identified by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang as being integral to Nvidia’s future scaling of its AI compute hardware via optical interconnection). To generate streams of quantum light, in the form of correlated pairs of photons, the resonators must be tuned in sync with incoming laser light that powers each quantum light factory on the chip (and is used as fuel for the generation process). But those devices are extremely sensitive to temperature and fabrication variations which can push them out of sync and disrupt the steady generation of quantum light.
To address this challenge, the team built an integrated system that actively stabilizes quantum light sources on chip—specifically, the silicon microring resonators that generate the streams of correlated photons. Each chip contains twelve such sources operable in parallel, and each resonator must stay in sync with its incoming laser light even in the presence of temperature drift and interference from nearby devices—including the other eleven photon-pair sources on the chip.
178278162
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Interesting Engineering is reporting that Astral Systems, a UK-based private commercial fusion company, in collaboration with the University of Bristol, has claimed to have become the first firm to successfully breed tritium, a vital fusion fuel, using its own operational fusion reactor.
The milestone came during a 55-hour Deuterium-Deuterium (DD) fusion irradiation campaign conducted in March. Scientists from Astral Systems and the University of Bristol produced and detected tritium in real-time from an experimental lithium breeder blanket within Astral’s multi-state fusion reactors.
“There’s a global race to find new ways to develop more tritium than what exists in today’s world [currently about 20kg] – a huge barrier is bringing fusion energy to reality,” said Talmon Firestone, CEO and co-founder of Astral Systems.
Astral Systems’ approach uses its Multi-State Fusion (MSF) technology. The company states this will commercialize fusion power with better performance, efficiency, and lower costs than traditional reactors.
A core innovation is lattice confinement fusion (LCF), a concept first discovered by NASA in 2020. This allows Astral’s reactor to achieve solid-state fuel densities 400 million times higher than those in plasma.
The company’s reactors are designed to induce two distinct fusion reactions simultaneously from a single power input, with fusion occurring in both plasma and a solid-state lattice.
The reactor core also features an electron-screened environment. This design reduces the energy needed to overcome the Coulomb barrier between particles, which lowers required fusion temperatures by several million degrees and allows for higher performance in a compact size.
178103185
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fahrbot-bot writes:
The Cool Down is reporting that a team of chemical engineers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has invented a new process to separate crude oil components, potentially bringing forward a replacement that can cut its harmful carbon pollution by 90%.
The original technique, which uses heat to separate crude oil into gasoline, diesel, and heating oil, accounts for roughly 1% of all global energy consumption and 6% of dirty energy pollution from the carbon dioxide it releases.
"Instead of boiling mixtures to purify them, why not separate components based on shape and size?" said Zachary P. Smith, associate professor of chemical engineering at MIT and senior author of the study, as previously reported in Interesting Engineering.
The team invented a polymer membrane that divides crude oil into its various uses like a sieve. The new process follows a similar strategy used by the water industry for desalination, which uses reverse osmosis membranes and has been around since the 1970s.
The membrane excelled in lab tests. It increased the toluene concentration by 20 times in a mixture with triisopropylbenzene. It also effectively separated real industrial oil samples containing naphtha, kerosene, and diesel.
177062839
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fahrbot-bot writes:
The AP (and others) is reporting that an agency staffer at the General Services Administration (GSA) headquarters recently discovered a rectangular device on the rooftop patio attached to a wire that snaked across the roof, over the ledge and into the administrator’s window one floor below.
It didn’t take long for the employee — an IT specialist — to figure out the device was a transceiver that communicates with Elon Musk’s vast and private Starlink satellite network. Concerned that the equipment violated federal laws designed to protect public data, staffers reported the discovery to superiors and the agency’s internal watchdog.
On the GSA roof, employees found at least two transceivers, including the one with a wire running to the administrator’s office. It is not clear why the agency is using Starlink. The network provides internet service but is not generally approved for use in most government computer systems.
IT staffers, who reported the discovery to superiors, were concerned that the devices were not authorized to be used at GSA and DOGE might be utilizing them to siphon off agency data, according to internal emails obtained by the AP and a GSA employee who spoke on condition of anonymity out of fear of reprisal.
GSA’s IT staff opened an investigation to see if the terminals were a security threat, and an employee filed a complaint with the GSA’s inspector general, the emails show. The status of those probes could not be determined.
A GSA spokesman confirmed the presence of Starlink transceivers but said they were not connected “to GSA’s internal network, nor was there a security breach.”
176989267
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
Consumers’ real-world stop-and-go driving of electric vehicles benefits batteries more than the steady use simulated in almost all laboratory tests of new battery designs, according to a Stanford-SLAC study – published in Nature Energy and discussed in a Stanford Report article.
The batteries of electric vehicles subject to the normal use of real-world drivers – like heavy traffic, long highway trips, short city trips, and mostly being parked – could last about a third longer than researchers have generally forecast, according to scientists working in the SLAC-Stanford Battery Center, a joint center between Stanford University’s Precourt Institute for Energy and SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory.
This suggests that the owner of a typical EV may not need to replace the expensive battery pack or buy a new car for several additional years.
Almost always, battery scientists and engineers have tested the cycle lives of new battery designs in laboratories using a constant rate of discharge followed by recharging. They repeat this cycle rapidly many times to learn quickly if a new design is good or not for life expectancy, among other qualities. The study finds that this is not a good way to predict the life expectancy of EV batteries, especially for people who own EVs for everyday commuting.
176805911
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fahrbot-bot writes:
The Guardian (and others) is reporting that a reporter at The Atlantic was accidentally included in a group text on Signal that discussed upcoming military strikes in Yemen by National Security Advisor Mike Waltz.
Senior members of Donald Trump’s cabinet have been involved in a serious security breach while discussing secret military plans for recent US attacks on the Houthi armed group in Yemen.
In an extraordinary blunder, key figures in the Trump administration – including the vice-president, JD Vance, the defence secretary Pete Hegseth, the secretary of state, Marco Rubio, and the director of national intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard – used the commercial chat app Signal to convene and discuss plans – while also including a prominent journalist in the group.
Signal is not approved by the US government for sharing sensitive information.
Others in the chat included the Trump adviser Stephen Miller; Trump’s chief of staff, Susie Wiles; and the key Trump envoy Steve Witkoff.
The breach was revealed in an Atlantic article published on Monday by Jeffrey Goldberg, the editor of the Atlantic magazine, who discovered that he had been included in a Signal chat called “Houthi PC Small Group” and realizing that 18 other members of the group included Trump cabinet members.
Donald Trump told reporters at the White House that he was unaware of the incident, saying, “I don’t know anything about it. I’m not a big fan of the Atlantic.” [Which kind of misses the point.]
176754229
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fahrbot-bot writes:
Reuters is reporting that BYD unveiled on Monday a new platform for electric vehicles (EVs) that it said could charge EVs as quickly as it takes to pump gas and announced for the first time that it would build a charging network across China.
The so-called "super e-platform" will be capable of peak charging speeds of 1,000 kilowatts (kW), enabling cars that use it to travel 400 km (249 miles) on a 5-minute charge, founder Wang Chuanfu said at an event livestreamed from the company's Shenzhen headquarters.
Charging speeds of 1,000 kW would be twice as fast as Tesla's (TSLA.O), opens new tab superchargers whose latest version offers up to 500 kw charging speeds.
The new charging architecture will be initially available in two new EVs — Han L sedan and Tang L SUV priced from 270,000 yuan ($37,328.91) and BYD said it would build over 4,000 ultra-fast charging piles, or units, across China to match the new platform.
176646201
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
The AP reports that it obtained a database that shows that the Defense Department has flagged over 26,000 photos and online posts on its website for deletion — because the administration has determined they have some kind of correlation to DEI.
Some of the selections for deletion are concerning. The AP reports that among the images to be axed are a photo of U.S. Air Force Col. Jeannie Leavitt, the country’s first female fighter pilot, and photos of the Tuskegee Airmen, the decorated Black military pilots who served in a segregated WWII unit.
One selection is a photograph of the Enola Gay, the World War II aircraft that dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, Japan, in August 1945. Pilot Col. Paul Tibbetts Jr. named the plane after his mother, Enola Gay Tibbets.
An anonymous official who spoke to the outlet did mention that it’s not clear if the database has been finalized.
176240889
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
NBC is reporting that Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has received approval from the Labor Department to use software that could allow it to transfer vast amounts of data out of Labor’s systems, according to records seen by NBC News and interviews with two employees.
The approval for Musk’s team to use the remote-access and file-transfer software, known as PuTTY, has alarmed some of the Labor Department’s career employees. Musk, the head of DOGE, has dispatched subordinates throughout the government to radically overhaul or dismantle federal agencies with the backing of President Donald Trump.
Many of the details around DOGE’s actions have remained secret, though it has moved to gain access to large swaths of data held in the computer systems of individual agencies.
Concerns include the alleged use of artificial intelligence to analyze federal data and the alleged use of a computer server not familiar to government employees.
Transferring government data outside established protocols could have high stakes for anyone whose information is in those databases, because of the chance that more people would have access to their information than originally intended, increasing chances of a breach.
Two employees interviewed said that they considered the authorization to be a red flag because the DOGE members were new arrivals who, in their view, lacked sufficient vetting and experience for the access they were getting.
“We don’t know who they are, and we’re giving them free rein to extract whatever they want,” one employee said. “This is completely opposite of what we’d do to protect privacy.”
175688481
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
Live Science has a report about the world's first nuclear-diamond battery using carbon-14, which has a half-life of 5,700 years, to power devices.
The nuclear battery uses the reaction of a diamond placed close to a radioactive source to spontaneously produce electricity, scientists at the University of Bristol in the U.K. explained in a Dec. 4 statement. No motion — neither linear nor rotational — is required. That means no energy is needed to move a magnet through a coil or to turn an armature within a magnetic field to produce electric current, as is required in conventional power sources.
The diamond battery harvests fast-moving electrons excited by radiation, similar to how solar power uses photovoltaic cells to convert photons into electricity, the scientists said.
The researchers chose carbon-14 as the source material because it emits short-range radiation, which is quickly absorbed by any solid material — meaning there are no concerns about harm from the radiation. In addition, while carbon-14 is extremely toxic to touch or ingest, the surrounding diamond also provides maximal protection.
A single nuclear-diamond battery containing 0.04 ounce (1 gram) of carbon-14 could deliver 15 joules of electricity per day. For comparison, a standard alkaline AA battery, which weighs about 0.7 ounces (20 grams), has an energy-storage rating of 700 joules per gram. It delivers more power than the nuclear-diamond battery would in the short term, but it would be exhausted within 24 hours.
By contrast, the half-life of carbon-14 is 5,730 years, which means the battery would take that long to be depleted to 50% power. This is close to the age of the world's oldest civilization. As another point of comparison, a spacecraft powered by a carbon-14 diamond battery would reach Alpha Centauri — our nearest stellar neighbor, which is about 4.4 light-years from Earth — long before its power were significantly depleted.
The battery, which was built on a plasma deposition rig near Abingdon, Oxfordshire, in the U.K. by a team from the University of Bristol and the U.K. Atomic Energy Authority (UKAEA), has no moving parts and thus requires no maintenance, nor does it have any carbon emissions.
175652145
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
Reuters is reporting that the Trump transition team wants the incoming administration to drop a car-crash reporting requirement opposed by Elon Musk’s Tesla, according to a document seen by Reuters, a move that could cripple the government’s ability to investigate and regulate the safety of vehicles with automated-driving systems.
Musk, the world's richest person, spent more than a quarter of a billion dollars helping Trump get elected president in November. Removing the crash-disclosure provision would particularly benefit Tesla, which has reported most of the crashes – more than 1,500 – to federal safety regulators under the program. Tesla has been targeted in National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) investigations, including three stemming from the data.
The recommendation to kill the crash-reporting rule came from a transition team tasked with producing a 100-day strategy for automotive policy. The group called the measure a mandate for "excessive" data collection, the document seen by Reuters shows.
A Reuters analysis of the NHTSA crash data shows Tesla accounted for 40 out of 45 fatal crashes reported to NHTSA through Oct. 15.
In recent years, Tesla executives discussed with Musk the need to push for scrapping the crash-reporting requirement, according to one of the sources. But because Biden officials expressed enthusiasm for the program, Tesla executives ultimately concluded that they would need a change in administration to get rid of the requirements, according to the source.
175606793
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
Interesting Engineering is reporting that General Atomics Electromagnetic Systems (GA-EMS) has announced the successful completion of a 120-day irradiation testing period for its innovative SiGA nuclear fuel cladding.
This rigorous testing, conducted at the Advanced Test Reactor (ATR) at Idaho National Laboratory, was designed to evaluate the performance of SiGA cladding under extreme conditions.
The tests involved exposing unfueled SiGA cladded rods to the intense radiation environment of a pressurized water reactor. This simulated the conditions these rods would experience in a real-world nuclear power plant.
Following the 120-day trial, the SiGA rods were examined for any signs of degradation.
“SiGA cladded rods remained intact and showed no significant mass change, indicating promising performance,” said the company in a press release. This indicates that the SiGA cladding is exceptionally resistant to the damaging effects of radiation.
SiGA cladding is made from a silicon carbide (SiC) composite material. This advanced material offers significant advantages over traditional metal cladding.
It can withstand temperatures up to 1900C (3452F), far exceeding the limits of current materials. This enhanced heat resistance is crucial for improving safety margins in nuclear reactors.
Moreover, the company claims that in case of any accident, SiGA cladding is designed to maintain its integrity at temperatures where traditional cladding might fail.
This could prevent the release of radioactive materials and significantly improve overall reactor safety.
175473209
submission
fahrbot-bot writes:
Fortune reports that X user Gary Koepnick asked [Grok], "Who personally spreads the most disinformation on X?" and the service did not hesitate in pointing a finger at its creator.
"Based on various analyses, social media sentiment, and reports, Elon Musk has been identified as one of the most significant spreaders of misinformation on X since he acquired the platform," it wrote, later adding "Musk has made numerous posts that have been criticized for promoting or endorsing misinformation, especially related to political events, elections, health issues like COVID-19, and conspiracy theories. His endorsements or interactions with content from controversial figures or accounts with a history of spreading misinformation have also contributed to this perception."
The AI also pointed out that because of Musk's large number of followers and high visibility, any misinformation he posts is immediately amplified and gains legitimacy among his followers.
This, it said, "can have real-world consequences, especially during significant events like elections."
Grok did note that the definition of misinformation is somewhat subjective and often depends on the ideological stance of the reader. And it added, late in its answer, that there are many actors, bots and more that spread misinformation.
