Zinc energy-storage technologies are cheaper and safer than lithium-ion, according to researchers. California officials are expecting zinc batteries to hold more charge, with some being able to store 25 to 50 hours worth of energy. The shift to zinc from lithium-ion can help the state to attain 100-percent clean energy by 2045, as Forbes details: 

“Some of them are looking to provide residential homes the storage they need to ride through these PSPS (public-safety power shut-off) events that California has, or to provide the reliability and resiliency that a home should have, and they're in the size that they would fit in your garage, or they would fit something about the size of your outside air conditioner.”

California recently invested $16.8 million in energy-storage technologies beyond lithium-ion, many of which employ zinc.

“If you look past lithium ion, probably zinc is the next metal that's the most popular for energy storage, and it it does appear to be able to provide performance equal to or better than lithium if given a chance,” Gravely said in a webinar hosted by the Clean Energy States Alliance. “So we have projects where we're doing zinc batteries at the residential level, the commercial level, and the industrial level.”

The state plans to install 2,400 megawatts of energy-storage through 2023, about 90 percent of which are based on lithium-ion technologies. But state officials estimate they will need another 20,000 to 30,000 MW of energy storage by 2045.

Image via Forbes 

Hey, it’s an eco-friendly option! The demand for Indonesian coffin maker Natianingsih‘s rattan coffin increased by 50 percent in early 2020. Some Europeans are choosing to bury their loved ones with rattan coffins, a more environmentally-friendly casket than the traditional wooden caskets. Watch South China Morning Post’s full piece on the rise of popularity of these eco-friendly caskets. 

This pro gaming mouse just took things to a whole new level. Meet the Razer Naga Pro gaming mouse, a computer mouse that works for a lot of types of games thanks to its easily-customizable design.  There’s a 12-button side plate for MMO, a six-button side plate for battle royale, and a two-button side plate for FPS, as the Gadget Flow details: 

 Altogether, by switching between any of the three side plates, you’ll get up to 20 customizable buttons. Not only are the side plates super cool, but this mouse also has a slew of other sweet features. It’ll deliver Razer Hyperspeed technology along with 150 hours of battery life so you can play without stopping. With an ergonomic design, the Razer Naga Pro ensures all of the button plates fit naturally beneath your thumb so they’re in reach when you need them.

Image via the Gadget Flow 

Is it a glimpse into the future? Hyundai’s lowkey scary four-legged robot car concept called Elevate is something straight out of a sci-fi movie. The company has announced a new studio that will work on “ultimate mobility vehicles,” including the Elevate. New Atlas has more details: 

New Horizons Studio will bring together Hyundai's expertise in vehicles, robotics and intelligent mobility in order to push the boundaries of vehicular engineering to "reimagine how vehicles might traverse the world." And that world definitely isn't limited to mere road, track and level trail, but also applies to "unconventional and off-road terrain, including places where vehicles have never roamed before."

Adding to the intrigue is the fact that Hyundai calls the Elevate concept the first UMV on which New Horizons will work. As imagined during initial concept phase, the Elevate has four electric-driven wheels attached to robotic legs. It can travel as a pod-like electric car, but its real magic happens when terrain becomes impassable ... or so it seems. The Elevate extends its legs to walk, climb and stretch over obstacles. The legs have five degrees of motion, including wheels that rotate 360 degrees in relation to the "ankle" for precise micro-movement. Hyundai said the Elevate could climb up to 5 feet (1.5 m) of vertical wall and step over 5-foot gaps.

Image via the New Atlas 

Alright, say you have the funds, resources, and the opportunity to go on a vacation amidst the pandemic. Of course, you’d rather have a safe getaway, right? The Diamanten Cabin in Oppdal, Norway might be a good option. Also called as “the diamond,” the visually enigmatic cabin was designed and constructed by A38 Arkitekter: 

 Nestled nearby traditionally vibrant timber cabins, the Diamanten Cabin is unassuming in size, with a total of only a single, open room.

However, The Diamanten’s artistry is found not in its size, but in the way it appeals to the landscape and vernacular structures that cradle it. The frame of the cabin is structured so that the roof cascades gracefully in the direction of the massive mountain that frames its larger community. The cabin’s transparent pitched roof provides a vista point for the expansive valley’s horizon that rests just ahead of it. The minimal, yet sturdy cylindrical foundation emphasizes the designer’s devotion to environmental harmony as the single-room home borrows minimal physical space in its conception, maintaining the natural state of the surrounding land.

Image via Yanko Design 

At first glance, this four-piece furniture collection by Niko Koronis looks like big blocks of soap carved into something new, but they’re actually made of resin. Koronis was inspired by the work Italian architect Carlo Scarpa, whose work featured sharp lines and graphic shapes. The artist designed each furniture item to look like “small scale architectural entities,” as Dezeen details: 

"One has to love Scarpa, for many different reasons," Koronis told Dezeen.

"Apart from his charismatic personality, his unique formal and material aesthetic that stood in contrast to his contemporaries' loud and artificial early postmodernism is something that has been a constant inspiration for many architects and designers alike."

Koronis made each of the translucent furniture pieces from resin in hues of blue and green, granting them a frosty, soap-like appearance.

According to the designer, resin is "a somewhat misunderstood material that is experiencing a revival these days".

The resin used for the collection was industrially produced via a chemical process, as resin usually is, but Koronis wanted to make the material seem as organic as possible.

He carried out multiple tests with the material to test its properties, as well as its limitations and advantages.

Image via Dezeen 

If you ever encounter a hand stretched out in front of you, try not giving anything. This short comic / story made by Shencomix  at Owl Turd has left me awake at night, thinking about open palms and candies. A recommended read. Narrative wise, it manages to instill suspense and fear in just short sentences. 

Image via Tumblr 

It’s not the operating systems we are working with, that’s for sure. Take for example the European Space Agency (ESA)’s recently-launched Solar Orbiter. Since the spacecraft will get close to the Sun, it will have to withstand harsh solar conditions. The Solar Orbiter then needs an operating system that can operate under specific conditions. The ESA developed a real-time operating system (RTOS) for Solar Orbiter that can react to dangerous situations in 50 seconds: 

"We’ve got extremely demanding requirements for this mission," says Maria Hernek, head of flight software systems section at ESA. "Typically, rebooting the platform such as this takes roughly 40 seconds. Here, we’ve had 50 seconds total to find the issue, have it isolated, have the system operational again, and take recovery action.”

To reiterate: this operating system, located far away in space, needs to remotely reboot and recover in 50 seconds. Otherwise, the Solar Orbiter is getting fried.

The criteria by which we judge Windows or macOS are fairly simple. They perform a computation, and if the result of this computation is correct, then a task is considered to be done correctly. Operating systems used in space add at least one more central criterion: a computation needs to be done correctly within a strictly specified deadline. When a deadline is not met, the task is considered failed and terminated. And in spaceflight, a missed deadline quite often means your spacecraft has already turned into a fireball or strayed into an incorrect orbit. There’s no point in processing such tasks any further; things must adhere to a very precise clock.

The time, as measured by the clock, is divided into singular ticks. To simplify it, space operating systems are typically designed in such a way that each task is performed within a set number of allocated ticks. It can take three ticks to upload data from sensors; four further ticks are devoted to fire up engines and so on. Each possible task is assigned a specific priority, so a higher-priority task can take precedence over the lower-priority task. And this way, a software designer knows exactly which task is going to be performed in any given scenario and how much time it is going to take to get it done.

Image via Ars Technica 

Graphene is a monolayer of carbon atoms. A team of physicists have successfully created a circuit that generates an electrical current from graphene. The electricity harvested from it can provide clean, limitless, low-voltage power for small devices or sensors, as Phys Org details: 

The findings, published in the journal Physical Review E, are proof of a theory the physicists developed at the U of A three years ago that freestanding graphene—a single layer of carbon atoms—ripples and buckles in a way that holds promise for energy harvesting.

The idea of harvesting energy from graphene is controversial because it refutes physicist Richard Feynman's well-known assertion that the thermal motion of atoms, known as Brownian motion, cannot do work. Thibado's team found that at room temperature the thermal motion of graphene does in fact induce an alternating current (AC) in a circuit, an achievement thought to be impossible.

In the 1950s, physicist Léon Brillouin published a landmark paper refuting the idea that adding a single diode, a one-way electrical gate, to a circuit is the solution to harvesting energy from Brownian motion. Knowing this, Thibado's group built their circuit with two diodes for converting AC into a direct current (DC). With the diodes in opposition allowing the current to flow both ways, they provide separate paths through the circuit, producing a pulsing DC current that performs work on a load resistor.

Image via Phys Org

Ask students this question and you’ll get a few responses of affirmation. Most would probably say no. Who wants to suffer through extremely detailed computations and formulas? I sure don’t. Mathematician Daniel Rockmore asks the provocative question:  “Is it time to kill calculus?” and what kind of mathematics do we need people to learn, as Popular Mechanics details: 

What math are people really using, and how can we prepare them to do it better, faster, and with more confidence? With arithmetic, that means ideas like rapidly making change or doing other transactional or household math in your head. And with Levitt’s new committee for reforming math curricula, it means more focus on statistics over calculus.

There’s another key point here. As more and more students study computing and programming, there’s incentive to give them access to discrete mathematics, which is the counterpoint to calculus’s continuous mathematics: think counting numbers versus decimals that stretch into infinity. And what Levitt wants to include—data science—is an interesting middle ground between the two, with rays that extend into programming, data entry and management, and even proofreading, a multidisciplinary field that teaches key ideas from many areas of study.

Levitt most directly advocates for turning the current model of high school math, the “algebra-geometry-algebra sandwich,” into something where students have more options for the second algebra. If that means more kids who opt away from precalculus because of their interests elsewhere, honestly, Sir Isaac Newton probably approves.

Image via Popular Mechanics 

One of the gripes against the well-loved The Legend Of Zelda: Breath Of The Wild Game was its lack of the traditional temple-like dungeons we saw in previous iterations of the Zelda franchise. Waikuteru showcases their mod of the Skyview Temple implemented in the game. Watch the forty-minute walkthrough of the temple. Honestly, the amount of detail in the mod shows how much time and effort they spent finishing the custom dungeon! 

Hades (the game by Supergiant studios, not the actual god from Greek mythology … wait) is one of the games with the loudest reception this year. Sure, it’s an excellent roguelite, but one of the main reasons  everyone is talking about this game is because, well, the characters are hot. If you’ve seen that tweet of someone lowkey joking that the official Nintendo Indie World account is being horny on main, or if you’ve seen YouTubers go crazy over how gorgeous the characters are, well, they’re right: the art for these characters is insane. Game designer Greg Kasavin told Kotaku the reason why everyone is so damned hot: 

Everyone, from Megaera to Thanatos (call me, zaddy), down to even Asterius and Dusa owe their attractiveness to the vision of Supergiant’s art team.

“There’s a really simple answer to your question,” he said via email. “Because Jen Zee.”

“Our portrayals of the gods owe greatly to classical tradition,” Kasavin continued. 

“Something Jen cares a lot about as an artist. For instance, there’s this idea of heroic nudity that dates back to ancient Greek art, and culture, and it’s something we explored as part of developing the look of the game. So, I guess this is me telling you with a straight face that the gods in Hades are ‘friggin’ hot’ as part of our commitment to honoring the source material, expressed visually through Jen’s instincts as an artist.”

Beyond being an utterly gorgeous disaster bisexual, Zagreus’ most attractive feature is how disarmingly tender he is. He has all the hallmarks of your typical cantankerous bad-boy. He is the prince of the Underworld, who resents his father, struggles with abandonment issues, and whose only talent it seems is killing monsters. I would have expected him to be some grimdark, I’m-not-here-to-play-nice kind of guy. But in his conversations with people, even people that annoy him, he is unfailingly gentle and jovial.

Image via Kotaku 

With the pandemic forcing us to stay in our houses for our safety, most of us have probably spent their newly-found free time watching movies. Do you have a whole list of movies you like and don’t like? Or are you trying to avoid bad movies so you don’t end up wasting your time? Check out IGN’s worst reviewed movies of 2020. Before you do, read their disclaimer for the list: 

IGN's worst-reviewed movies of 2020 (so far) is an unfortunate list, because nobody sets out to make a bad movie (as far as we know), but sometimes a project just doesn't come together. So let's have a look at the films released (both theatrically and streaming) so far this year that were scored the worst of the worst by IGN's critics.

But first, a few notes: IGN rates its movies on a scale of 0-10. All the films cited in this article were or will be released (theatrically or streaming) between January 1st and May 1st. The "worst reviewed" movies listed here all scored 5.0 or below. The IGN review scale labels any film scored 5.0 as "mediocre," 4.0 as "bad," 3.0 as "awful" and 2.0 as "painful."

Image via IGN 

Period is a candy apple shade, intended to draw cheerful attention to the fact that periods are normal and shouldn’t be stigmatized. The “energizing and dynamic red” aims to embolden those who menstruate to not be ashamed of themselves. Period is a partnership of Pantone with the menstrual cup company Intimina, as Glamour details: 

 “To own their period with self-assurance; to stand up and passionately celebrate the exciting and powerful life force they are born with; to urge everyone, regardless of gender, to feel comfortable to talk spontaneously and openly about this pure and natural bodily function.” 

Well, huzzah. Is it possible to be laughing very hard at corporate-speak and quite moved by it at the same time? The fact that, at any given time, a woman could be quietly seeping into her underpants and is fully expected to hide it—even though it can be incredibly painful!—is one of patriarchal society's most clownish rules. If color institutes want to do their part changing this, well, governments, politicians, religious leaders, and celebrities, get in line behind Pantone! 

Pantone says the shade is “an original red color emblematic of a steady flow during menstruation,” adding that it worked with a gynecologist and examined research before landing on the shade. But Pressman adds in a P.R. statement, “By no means is this supposed to be an accurate depiction. Instead, we created a visual identifier of a red shade that would help Intimina leverage the power of color to share their story.” But wouldn't a more realistic warm rust-colored red-brown with hints of deep scarlet be just as great?  

Image via Glamour 

The Cerulean Coffee Shop, located in Jongno-gu, South Korea is housed in a reinterpreted hanok, a Korean traditional house. Studio Stof managed to turn the hanok into a modern coffee shop without losing the traditional feel of the hanok. ArchDaily shares how the studio managed to complete the coffee shop: 

The cafe is mainly divided into two zones, which are the newly built zone where baristas make coffee and the traditional hanok zone where customers can sit and drink coffee. There are only coffee scents, conversation sounds, and skylights in the new zone, a platform for entry and exit. There is even no sound of music. Stof imagined that customers would be able to watch leaves falling in autumn and snowflakes in winter while waiting for coffee though the open ceiling of the waiting area in the new zone.

The other space of traditional hanok has a long stretch of seats along with the structure of the old house, allowing customers to see the yard and the sky. This is the space where the eyes would naturally stay outside of the room by intentionally lowering the lighting level inside. A method of indirect lighting was used as a whole for natural mood of the indoor spaces. In particular, the custom-made floor stand lamp designed by [stof] is adjustable to control the direction of light. The design was inspired by traditional Korean candle holder which the direction of emitted light varies depending on the type of decor installed behind the candlesticks.

Image via ArchDaily