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Physicsworld

17h

136

Image Credit: Physicsworld

UK plans £22bn splurge on carbon capture and storage

The UK government has announced it will spend nearly £22 billion on carbon capture and storage (CCS) in the next 25 years. Government ministers claim it will make the UK a global leader in CCS and hydrogen production and is expected to attract £8bn in private investment. However, critics have raised concerns about the technology including its feasibility at scale, commercial viability and potential to extend fossil fuel use rather than expanding renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies. At present, there are no commercial CCS facilities in the UK.
Projects in two industrial clusters, HyNet in Merseyside and the East Coast Cluster in Teesside, will capture CO2 from hydrogen plants, a waste incinerator, a gas-fired power station and a cement works and transport it down pipes to offshore storage sites. The strategy is expected to create 4,000 jobs, with the industry supporting 50,000 roles. The new investment in CCS follows advice from the independent Climate Change Committee and endorsements CCS as critical for decarbonisation, particularly in heavy industry.
According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), globally there are around 45 commercial facilities that capture about 50 million tonnes of carbon annually, roughly 0.14% of global emissions, and up to 435 million tonnes of carbon could be captured every year by 2030, depending on the progress of more than 700 announced CCS projects. The UK government also plans to use CCS to produce so-called “blue” hydrogen by capturing and storing the by-products of hydrogen production.
Critics have raised concerns that blue hydrogen continues reliance on fossil fuels and risks leaks along the natural gas supply chain. The Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis (IEEFA) warns that money earmarked for CCS would be better spent on proven decarbonisation technologies such as buildings insulation, renewable power, heat pumps and electric vehicles. It added that the UK’s plans will make it more reliant on fossil gas imports and send the wrong signal internationally about the need to stop expanding fossil fuel infrastructure.
There are also questions about progress on the European Union's target to store 50 million tonnes of carbon annually by 2030. There are doubts over delays to several EU CCS projects and it has been reported that a pipeline connecting Germany’s Rhine-Ruhr industrial heartland to a Dutch undersea carbon storage project will not come online until at least 2032.
While some climate scientists say the money is vital to decarbonise heavy industry, others advise CCS cannot be the sole answer and renewable and low-carbon technologies are also needed. It also needs to be ensured the technology is profitable and financially viable for investors.
Jessica Jewell, an energy expert at Chalmers University in Sweden, believes that subsidies like the UK government's plan could boost CCS profitability and lead to as significant as a 600-gigatonne reduction in carbon emissions.
Marcelle McManus, director of the Centre for Sustainable Energy Systems at the University of Bath, welcomes the UK investment, saying decarbonising major industries is challenging and will benefit from CCS. However, McManus also emphasises it is vital to create technologies and pathways for a defossilised future and to expand low-carbon alternatives like wind, solar, and electric vehicles.
The new investment in CCS comes as countries attempt to meet the goals of the Paris climate agreement of limiting the global average temperature increase to less than two degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels.
However, there is growing concern that the promised carbon cuts are insufficient to prevent a climate crisis. Last week, the United Nations said countries' climate plans need to be almost three times more ambitious to prevent catastrophic warming.

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Hackaday

20h

348

Image Credit: Hackaday

Intuition about Maxwell’s Equations

Maxwell's equations are fundamental to our understanding of electronics.
[Ali] provides a pragmatic explanation of each law in a video.
Understanding divergence and curl operators is key to comprehending Maxwell's equations.
Maxwell's equations blend math, science, art, and history.

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Knowridge

150

Image Credit: Knowridge

Tiny light hurricanes could revolutionize data transmission

Physicists at Aalto University in Finland have developed a new way to send large amounts of information using tiny 'hurricanes' of light, also known as light vortices.
This innovation could revolutionize data transmission by allowing more data to be sent through optical fibers in a smaller space.
The researchers manipulated metallic nanoparticles to produce complex light vortices, which can potentially carry large amounts of information.
This discovery has the potential for applications in fields like telecommunications and could increase data sent over optical fibers by eight to sixteen times.

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Fyfluiddynamics

191

Image Credit: Fyfluiddynamics

Non-Newtonian Raindrops

Fluids like air and water are called Newtonian because their viscosity does not vary with the force that’s applied to them.
Many common fluids are non-Newtonian, meaning that their viscosity changes depending on how they’re deformed.
Non-Newtonian droplets can behave very differently than Newtonian ones, with behaviors ranging from liquid-like to completely solid.
The behavior of non-Newtonian droplets is influenced by the presence of silica particles within the fluid.

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Physicsworld

119

Image Credit: Physicsworld

From melanoma to malaria: photoacoustic device detects disease without taking a single drop of blood

Researchers from the University of Arkansas have collaborated with Cameroon scientists to develop the Cytophone, a non-invasive device that can detect and identify malaria-infected red blood cells within seconds through a small probe placed on the back of a hand, and without requiring a single drop of blood sample.
The device is the first of its kind to use photoacoustic flow cytometry (PAFC) technology to detect haemozoin, an iron crystal that accumulates in red blood cells infected with malaria parasites.
PAFC delivers low-energy laser pulses through a subject's skin into a blood vessel, then records the thermoacoustic signals generated by absorbers in circulating blood to identify the infected cells.
Clinical testing of the Cytophone in 30 Cameroonian adults with uncomplicated malaria yielded promising results, with a 95% sensitivity rate at the first visit thanks to Cytophone detecting the most common and deadliest species of malaria.
The study's authors suggest that the device also has potential to diagnose other diseases, such as circulating blood clots in stroke patients, and will be incorporated into a wearable platform for low-cost continuous health monitoring.
The Cytophone is a breakthrough device allowing for non-invasive, rapid, label-free and safe in vivo diagnosis of malaria.
The technology works by delivering low-energy laser pulses through the skin into a blood vessel and recording the thermoacoustic signals generated by absorbers in circulating blood.
The Cytophone prototype uses haemozoin, an iron crystal that accumulates in red blood cells infected with malaria parasites, as a potential diagnostic target.
Compared with microscopy-based detection, the Cytophone demonstrated 95% sensitivity at the first visit and 90% sensitivity during the follow-up period, with 69% specificity and an area under the ROC curve of 0.84.
Cytophone has the potential to be an affordable, breakthrough device used for non-invasive, rapid, label-free and safe in vivo diagnoses of not just malaria, but also other diseases such as blood clots and cancer.

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COSMOS

Image Credit: COSMOS

Uranus wind made it harder for spacecraft to probe

Scientists have found that NASA's Voyager 2 spacecraft's flyby of Uranus occurred under rare planetary conditions, making it difficult to probe.
The flyby took place in 1986 and provided valuable scientific insight into the gas planet.
New analysis suggests that Voyager 2 encountered Uranus when its magnetosphere was suppressed by solar wind, potentially impacting our understanding of the planet.
The data indicates that Uranus's magnetosphere is similar to gas giants Jupiter, Saturn, and Neptune, challenging previous assumptions.

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Knowridge

107

Image Credit: Knowridge

Scientists watch ‘dancing’ electrons after neutron star collision

Astrophysicists observe the birth of a black hole and the dance of electrons after the collision of two neutron stars.
The collision produces a bright fireball called a kilonova, releasing immense energy and creating heavy elements.
Scientists use telescopes from around the world to capture the event, combining data to piece together the details.
The high temperatures after the collision lead to the movement of electrons in a hot plasma, creating the 'dance' of electrons.

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Arstechnica

326

Image Credit: Arstechnica

IBM boosts the amount of computation you can get done on quantum hardware

IBM announced developments aimed at enabling limited but useful calculations on quantum hardware.
Changes across the hardware and software stacks have improved efficiency and reduced errors.
The introduction of the second version of IBM's Heron processor with 133 qubits is a significant milestone.
IBM is optimistic that its users will find certain calculations where quantum hardware provides an advantage.

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COSMOS

238

Image Credit: COSMOS

75 years ago today, Australia’s first computer booted up

Australia's first computer, CSIR Mk1 (later renamed CSIRAC), was switched on on 14 November 1949.
Designed and built by Trevor Pearcey with help from Maston Beard and Geoff Hill, CSIRAC was the 4th stored-memory electronic computer in the world.
It became fully operational in 1951, could perform 1,000 operations per second, and stored about 2 kilobytes of data.
CSIRAC holds records as the first computer to play electronic music and do numerical weather forecasting, and it is the only surviving first-generation computer worldwide.

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COSMOS

Image Credit: COSMOS

New Zealand enters race for nuclear fusion with unique approach

OpenStar technologies reaches a milestone in the development of nuclear fusion by creating the first plasma in New Zealand's history.
New Zealand-based OpenStar has developed a levitated dipole which they believe is a better design for nuclear fusion than common fusion device designs like Tokamaks or Stellarators.
The dipole approach uses a magnetic field to redirect the energy of the plasma into a curved path, and leverage a planet magnetosphere as its core inspiration.
OpenStar's dipole machine uses high-temperature superconductors (HTS) to build their magnets, taking advantage of a younger field with fewer machines built worldwide.
HTS magnets have the potential to produce magnetic fields of about 20 Tesla (T). The current prototype hasn't hit that strength yet. In 2022, Chinese researchers created the world's strongest steady-state magnet which had a strength of 45.22 T. The Earth's magnetic field is about a million times weaker than these.
The operating temperature for OpenStar's superconductor is 90 Kelvin (–183°C), however the colder you make them, the better they perform.
Ratu Mataira, OpenStar's founder and CEO, is hopeful OpenStar's technology will help tackle society's energy challenges.
Mataira stated that he believes a reactor capable of producing electricity will hopefully be created sometime in the 2030s.
OpenStar's machine ran 5 shots lasting 5–20 seconds in their first experiment. Mataira claims there is nothing about the plasma physics that actually limits the pulse length available.
The first step toward a nuclear fusion reactor has been made, but there is much work to be done to refine this technology, whichrequires temperatures of more than 100 million degrees Celsius to create.

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Medium

242

How Light Could Bend Space: A New Approach to Warp Drive Physics Inspired by Sound, Bubbles, and…

A new approach to warp drive physics is inspired by sound, bubbles, and light.
Studies on sonoluminescence highlight the role of energy and vacuum formation.
The structured spin of photons could create a vacuum core, potentially distorting spacetime.
This theory challenges traditional views of photon physics and has implications for advanced propulsion concepts.

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Physicsworld

260

Image Credit: Physicsworld

Sceptical space settlers, Einstein in England, trials of the JWST, tackling quantum fundamentals: micro reviews of the best recent books

A City on Mars: Can We Settle Space, Should We Settle Space, and Have We Really Thought This Through? - Kelly and Zach Weinersmith
Einstein in Oxford - Andrew Robinson
Pillars of Creation: How the James Webb Telescope Unlocked the Secrets of the Cosmos - Richard Panek
Quanta and Fields: the Biggest Ideas in the Universe - Sean Carroll

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Knowridge

Image Credit: Knowridge

How physics explains your cat’s mysterious moves: A playful look at feline motion

A recent study in the American Journal of Physics explores cat behavior from a physics perspective.
The study presents an equation that models cat movement near a person, simplifying concepts of classical mechanics.
The equation considers the cat as a 'point particle' influenced by the potential created by a nearby person.
The research aims to make physics more accessible and fun, introducing concepts through relatable examples.

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Guardian

202

Image Credit: Guardian

The Elements of Marie Curie by Dava Sobel review – the great scientist who created her own school

Marie Curie created her own school and mentored many women who went on to prominence in science.
She carried out most of her pathbreaking work with the handicap of being barred from France’s scientific academy, but her persistence and talents let her win two Nobel prizes.
Curie was one of the first pioneers who embraced the ‘flying university’ concept to turn experiments into world-class work.
The book describes how several women passed through the Curie lab and made discoveries that gained global fame.
This account portrays not only the discoveries made by Marie, but also brings out her personality and perseverance in building an amazing scientific career.
It is amazing to note how the Curies, despite being aware of the toxicity of their workspace from radiation exposure, continued their work.
In the appendix, 'The Radioactivists,' Sobel describes the exposure to radiation and its effects on the scientists who worked on it.
The book portrays how scientific dynasties are born and the thirst for knowledge drove scientists to new discoveries.
The only fault in the book is the lack of attention paid to the flu pandemic that killed a large number of people during the early 20th century.
Overall, Marie Curie's story is inspiring and a great read for anyone interested in science, women's achievements, and breaking stereotypes.

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Brighter Side of News

Image Credit: Brighter Side of News

Light, Heat, and Neutron Control: Revolutionary new way to bend light around corners

Physicists at the University of Glasgow have discovered a new method to guide light through opaque substances, using a weakly scattering core encased in a highly scattering material.
Inspired by how sunlight interacts with cumulus clouds, the scientists experimented with 3D-printed structures and found that light transmitted through these structures was over 100 times more intense in the core compared to surrounding materials.
This innovative waveguiding technique has implications beyond optics and could be adapted to guide heat and particles like neutrons, offering possibilities in thermal management, medical imaging, and nuclear technology.
The research, funded by the Royal Academy of Engineering, the EPSRC, and UK Research and Innovation, was published in Nature Physics and highlights the value of interdisciplinary collaboration.

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