kustar - Slashdot User

Comment Re:Good (Score 3, Insightful) 87

by kustar on Monday June 26, 2023 @08:05AM (#63633092) Attached to: NASA Opposes Lithium Mining at Nevada Desert Site Used to Calibrate Satellites

I'd say we should look into getting it directly from seawater, just like table salt

Even the table salt, which is much more ubiquitous in the sea water, is cheaper to dig from the ground, than to dry out from the sea water.

Comment Re:Good (Score 2) 87

by kustar on Monday June 26, 2023 @08:00AM (#63633086) Attached to: NASA Opposes Lithium Mining at Nevada Desert Site Used to Calibrate Satellites

sustainable alternatives to Lithium

Which sustainable alternatives to lithium? This element is already the lightest metal, which has one valence electron.

Submission + - New Study Bolsters Room-Temperature Superconductor Claim (nytimes.com)

Submitted by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 23, 2023 @04:16PM

An anonymous reader writes: A magical material that could effortlessly conduct electricity at room temperatures would likely transform civilization, reclaiming energy otherwise lost to electrical resistance and opening possibilities for novel technologies. Yeta claim of such a room-temperature superconductorpublished in March in the prestigious journal Nature, drew doubts, even suspicion by some that the results had been fabricated. But now, a group of researchers at the University of Illinois Chicago reports that it has verified a critical measurement: the apparent vanishing of electrical resistance. This result does not prove that the material is a room-temperature superconductor, but it may motivate other scientists to take a closer look.

Ranga P. Dias, a professor of mechanical engineering and physics at the University of Rochester in New York and a key figure in the original research, had reported that the material appeared to be a superconductor at temperatures as warm as 70 degrees Fahrenheit — much warmer than other superconductors — when squeezed at a pressure of 145,000 pounds per square inch, or about 10 times what is exerted at the bottom of the ocean’s deepest trenches. The high pressure means the material is unlikely to find practical use, but if the discovery is true, it could point the way to other superconductors that truly work in everyday conditions. The claim was met with skepticism because several scientific controversies have swirled around Dr. Dias, and other scientists trying to replicate the results had failed to detect any signs of superconductivity. Dr. Dias has founded a company, Unearthly Materials, to commercialize the research, raising $16.5 million in financing so far from investors.

The new measurements, revealed ina preprint paperposted this month, come from a team led by Russell J. Hemley, a professor of physics and chemistry at the University of Illinois Chicago. Dr. Hemley declined to comment because the paper had not yet been accepted by a scientific journal. Nonetheless, he is well regarded in the field, and his report could lead to a more positive reconsideration of Dr. Dias’s superconducting claim. “It may convince some people,” said James J. Hamlin, a professor of physics at the University of Florida who has been a persistent critic of Dr. Dias’s research. “It makes me think there might be something to it.”

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