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Why is Enceladus a possible home for life - and should we visit to find out?
Science, Maths & Technology

Why is Enceladus a possible home for life - and should we visit to find out?

...energy in the water to feed microbial life, scientists have been searching for proof that the right sort of reactions really do occur. [The Conversation] And during its last dive through the icy plumes that Enceladus erupts into space in October 2015, the Cassini spacecraft has finally managed to find it – in the form of molecular hydrogen. The finding, published in...
Offshore wind powers ahead in Europe
Nature & Environment

Offshore wind powers ahead in Europe

...energy policy, and an important element in the battle against climate change. Fossil fuel prices WindEurope, an offshore wind industry group, says that at the present rate of installations it’s likely Europe will be producing about seven per cent of its electricity from offshore wind by 2030. By some calculations, all this building work would seem to make little...
How can we say Bitcoin is overvalued when we don't know how to value it?
Money & Business

How can we say Bitcoin is overvalued when we don't know how to value it?

...energy consumed by Bitcoin miners (the computers that validate transactions and are rewarded with Bitcoins). Diverging from fundamentals If we take a close look, we can see how the price of Bitcoin may be diverging from these fundamentals. For instance, it is becoming less profitable to be a miner, especially as the energy required increases. At some stage the cost may...
Economic incentives for countries to decarbonise
Money & Business

Economic incentives for countries to decarbonise

...energy are already (or will soon be) as low as the cheapest fossil fuels. Climate policy. The Paris Agreement, which aims to limit global temperature increase to well below 2 °C, has now been signed by 194 states plus the European Union, while more than 130 countries have now set or are considering a target of net-zero emissions by 2050. These pledges will drive further...
Brain-inspired computing: a new paradigm for sustainable AI
Science, Maths & Technology

Brain-inspired computing: a new paradigm for sustainable AI

...energy. Scientists call this the ‘Von Neumann bottleneck’, and it is one of the main reasons AI is so power-hungry. The logical solution? Build hardware that actually works like a brain, not just software that thinks like one. Neuromorphic computing Instead of running brain-inspired software (ANN) on conventional hardware, neuromorphic computing is a hardware...
Michael Jacobs - Stories of Change
Nature & Environment

Michael Jacobs - Stories of Change

...energy and climate change policy. From 2010-15 he acted as strategic adviser to a number of governments, international institutions, philanthropic foundations and NGOs. He helped to found the Global Commission on the Economy and Climate and was a co-author of its its reports Better Growth, Better Climate (2014) and Seizing the Global Opportunity (2015). He has written...
Living without oil
Science, Maths & Technology

Living without oil

...energy. It is vital in the manufacture of many modern materials. But the worlds supply of oil is finite, its price is unstable and our reliance on oil has damaging environmental consequences. This free course, Living without oil, explains why developing alternatives to oil is an essential and urgent task for humanity...Crude oil is currently our most important global...
Level 1: Introductory 8 hrs
The science behind sunblocks, tanning and sunburn
Science, Maths & Technology

The science behind sunblocks, tanning and sunburn

...oxide. A sunscreen contains chemicals that absorb the energy contained in the ultraviolet rays and reflect it away as lower-energy long-wave radiation, which is emitted as heat. [sun block versus sunscreen] Final thoughts A good way to limit exposure to UV light is to avoid being outdoors in sunlight too long. UV rays are most intense between the hours of 10 am and 4 pm....