All posts tagged: material

Strange never-before-seen material found at Hiroshima atomic bombing site

Strange never-before-seen material found at Hiroshima atomic bombing site

Published by Sam Flores

Nearly 81 years after the cataclysmic atomic bombing of Japan that instantly killed over 70,000 people, scientists have discovered a bizarre and previously unknown material from the beach sands of the Hiroshima Bay region. Nuclear explosions, meteorite impacts, and other high-energy events can act as natural laboratories for the formation of previously unknown materials. In the study, scientists analysed particles called Hiroshimaites, which are tiny spherical fragments of molten debris formed during the Hiroshima bombing when the atomic explosion generated temperatures exceeding 7,000°C within seconds. These Hiroshimaite particles were embedded in resin, polished, and analysed under reflected-light microscopes. “We report the discovery of a previously unknown alloy preserved within a Hiroshimaite spherule recovered from beach sands of Hiroshima Bay, formed during the 6 August 1945 atomic airburst,” they wrote in the journal Science Advances. Prefectural Industry Promotion Building after the bombing of Hiroshima (AFP via Getty Images) The particles were also examined more deeply with scanning electron microscopy. Researchers found unique materials formed as the atomic explosion’s heat vaporised building materials, metals, soil, glass, and …

9 Phrases Women Say When They Aren’t Wife Material

9 Phrases Women Say When They Aren’t Wife Material

Published by Jenni Sidey

If you feel like you’ve noticed people getting married later in life or not at all, you’re not imagining it. People’s attitudes about marriage are changing a lot, and many have decided it’s just not right for them. This is particularly relevant for women, who have not always benefited from marriage. Now that women don’t have to rely on a husband for financial support, some are taking completely different paths. Naysayers might argue that these women simply aren’t wife material, but they probably never wanted to be, and they have no problem speaking up about it. If a woman says these 9 phrases, she’s probably not wife material: 1. ‘I don’t believe in marriage’ Monkey Business Images via Canva As marriage rates continue to decline, some women have taken to saying that they just don’t believe in the idea that used to be pretty much non-negotiable. Author Naoise Dolan offered her own opinion when she declared that “marriage is a form of state authority and coercion that I will not endorse through my participation.” Dolan’s …

SpaceXAI and Stability AI sued over AI-generated child sexual abuse material : NPR

SpaceXAI and Stability AI sued over AI-generated child sexual abuse material : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

In this photo illustration, the Grok website is seen through a magnifying glass on a computer screen on February 12, 2026. Grok is the AI chatbot built by Elon Musk’s SpaceXAI, formerly known as xAI. A class action lawsuit filed against SpaceXAI and Stability AI alleges the companies’ AI tools were used to make sexually explicit images of children. Pablo Vera/AFP via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Pablo Vera/AFP via Getty Images New plaintiffs in a class action lawsuit against Elon Musk’s AI company, SpaceXAI, allege that the company’s image-generation models were used to create child sexual abuse material and that the company failed to adequately share information about an alleged perpetrator with authorities. Two plaintiffs, one in Wyoming and the other in Wisconsin, joined the lawsuit filed by three Tennessee teenagers earlier this year, according to an amended complaint filed on Tuesday. All the plaintiffs are referred to as Jane Does. The suit was also expanded to include Stability AI, the company behind the Stable Diffusion image generator, as a defendant. The suit …

ISS test finds that moon dust could be effective as a lunar building material

ISS test finds that moon dust could be effective as a lunar building material

Published by Jenni Sidey

Building material samples from the University of Delaware spent six months bolted to the outside of the International Space Station, exposed to vacuum, radiation and constant temperature swings. When they came back, some were stronger than matching samples kept on Earth. That result does not mean moon bases are around the corner. But it does offer an encouraging sign for one of the hardest practical problems in space exploration: how to build roads, landing pads, shelters and shields without hauling huge amounts of construction material from Earth. The team is working with geopolymers, a cement-like material that can be made by chemically binding clay-rich powders into a solid. In this case, the powders were simulated lunar and Martian regolith, stand-ins for the dusty surface material found on those worlds. The results appear in Advances in Space Research, with related processing work reported in Acta Astronautica and a special issue of the Journal of Rheology. “Regolith is essentially a clay-like silicate material,” said Norman Wagner, the Unidel Robert L. Pigford Chair in Chemical Engineering at the …

Biochar material advances PFOS removal by capturing and destroying forever chemicals

Biochar material advances PFOS removal by capturing and destroying forever chemicals

Published by skeptic

Researchers have developed a new biochar-based material that could significantly improve PFOS removal by both capturing the persistent contaminant from water and breaking it down using ultraviolet light. The technology addresses one of the biggest challenges in treating per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which are notoriously resistant to conventional treatment methods. The study, published in the journal Biochar, was led by researchers from Jinan University and San Diego State University. Their newly engineered material, known as Ga₂O₃@biochar, combines adsorption with photocatalytic degradation, enabling it to concentrate perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS) on its surface before destroying much of the pollutant through light-driven chemical reactions. Laboratory testing demonstrated impressive results, with the material removing more than 99% of PFOS from water within 30 minutes. Following ultraviolet exposure, over 80% of the captured PFOS was degraded, while more than 70% of its carbon-fluorine bonds were broken, highlighting its potential as a more sustainable approach to PFOS removal. A new strategy for tackling PFAS pollution PFOS is among the most persistent members of the PFAS family, often referred to as …

A popular kitchen countertop material is causing a deadly lung disease in workers

A popular kitchen countertop material is causing a deadly lung disease in workers

Published by Daniella Wilson

Get the Well Enough newsletter with Harry Bullmore for tips on living a healthier, happier and longer life Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore Get the Well Enough email with Harry Bullmore If you walk into a Costco, Home Depot or Lowe’s and order a countertop for your kitchen renovation, the store will likely contract with a local fabrication shop, instructing them to make one from a material called engineered stone. Often marketed as “quartz,” engineered stone is a synthetic product that contains up to 95% finely ground quartz mixed with polyester resins and pigments. The ease with which consumers can order it obscures the fact that workers who cut, grind and polish these kitchen countertops risk developing a terrible disease that destroys their lungs. In California alone, more than 550 workers have been diagnosed with silicosis caused by this engineered stone (Getty Images) In California alone, more than 550 workers have been diagnosed with silicosis caused by this engineered stone – a deadly disease that is totally preventable and for which there …

Deported Filipino sailors say they were falsely linked to child sexual abuse material : NPR

Deported Filipino sailors say they were falsely linked to child sexual abuse material : NPR

Published by Sam Flores

Victor Bizar Gómez for NPR For the last two decades, 39-year-old Michael James Garcia has worked in the cruise ship industry. This was his dream. “I’m a marine engineer graduate, so actually it’s really my profession to work on the ship,” Garcia told NPR from his home in the Philippines. Most of his time in the industry was spent sailing in the U.S. with different companies, most recently with Viking Ocean Cruises where he worked as a motorman in the engine department. Garcia had a visa that’s given to crew members on commercial ships, and he says he’d never gotten into any trouble with immigration authorities. But in October of last year, that changed. Garcia was interrogated by Customs and Border Protection agents while on board the Viking cruise ship at the port in Charleston, South Carolina. It was unclear to him at that point why he was being questioned. “I’ve been very cooperative with them because I’m confident that I didn’t do anything that violates the country,” Garcia said. He allowed them into his …

New material tackles one of the biggest barriers to scaling artificial intelligence

New material tackles one of the biggest barriers to scaling artificial intelligence

Published by Jenni Sidey

Photonic chips sit deep inside the modern internet, routing the light pulses that carry emails, videos and AI requests around the world. They are fast, compact and essential. However, they still stumble at some of the most important jobs. This is especially true when light signals need to be converted, amplified or reshaped. That weakness matters more now than it did a few years ago. Generative AI systems push far more data back and forth between processors than a standard search query does. Every extra exchange adds pressure on the hardware that moves information inside and between data centers. In addition, what used to be a modest energy cost could become a much larger one. This will happen as AI systems expand and demand more from the networks underneath them. A team at Polytechnique Montréal says it has found a way to give photonic chips some of the functions they have long lacked. Writing in Science Advances, the researchers report a material that can be added directly onto silicon. This material lets light be processed …

Time and Material Feel Alive in Hammer’s ‘Several Eternities in a Day’

Time and Material Feel Alive in Hammer’s ‘Several Eternities in a Day’

Published by Jenni Sidey

There is something primal, almost amniotic, about entering the dim space that makes up the first gallery of “Several Eternities in a Day: Form in the Age of Living Materials” at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles. Here, the walls thrum with a muffled sound reminiscent of waves crashing or a creature breathing. The air is heavy with petrichor. In this cave-like space, the past feels briefly palpable in the present. That soundscape is one of three compositions created for the exhibition by Raven Chacon. With speakers embedded into one wall, Study for Vertical Earth (2026) amplifies the otherwise sub-audible frequencies emanating beneath the earth’s surface. We register the raspy, low decibel recording as a vibration coursing through the room, through the body. Round the corner and the source of that perfumed scent comes courtesy mounds of loamy soil that line the perimeter and form a pathway from the mouth of the show into its depth. To this seemingly ancient installation titled Ch’ablin nu rayb’el Chua taj ab’ej (2026), Edgar Calel has added banded boulders …

Oklo Lands DOE Plutonium Deal To Turn Surplus Material Into Bridge Fuel

Oklo Lands DOE Plutonium Deal To Turn Surplus Material Into Bridge Fuel

Published by Jenni Sidey

Oklo just secured a direct path to turn Cold War-era plutonium into fuel for its advanced reactors.   The Department of Energy selected Oklo for advanced negotiations under the Surplus Plutonium Utilization Program, one of five companies chosen to convert existing stockpiles into usable fuel under strict security and safeguards rules. The move gives Oklo a practical bridge while domestic enrichment capacity scales.   Work with radioactive materials at a plutonium facility at the at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1978.Credit The Santa Clara company is partnering with European advanced reactor developer newcleo on the effort. Oklo would lead U.S. utilization of the surplus material while newcleo would supply fuel expertise and potential project capital, subject to final agreements and U.S. security approvals.  The two firms already announced a strategic partnership last October that includes up to $2 billion in investment through a newcleo-affiliated vehicle for advanced fuel fabrication infrastructure in the United States. newcleo has since begun pre-application talks with the NRC for both a fuel facility and its lead-cooled fast reactor design.   …