The latest Big Picture post is up and featuring both the Earth’s most awe inspiring geological activity and one of my favoured choice of a top shelf country.

Researchers at MIT are well on the way to developing a new alternate type of battery that in essence is a soft state liquid, making it easier to ‘refuel’ electronics, from electric cars to basically whatever the hell they’ll think of next.

The new battery relies on an innovative architecture called a semi-solid flow cell, in which solid particles are suspended in a carrier liquid and pumped through the system. In this design, the battery’s active components — the positive and negative electrodes, or cathodes and anodes — are composed of particles suspended in a liquid electrolyte. These two different suspensions are pumped through systems separated by a filter, such as a thin porous membrane.
The new design should make it possible to reduce the size and the cost of a complete battery system, including all of its structural support and connectors, to about half the current levels. That dramatic reduction could be the key to making electric vehicles fully competitive with conventional gas- or diesel-powered vehicles, the researchers say.

The concept of this is so brilliant and forward thinking, even just theoretical applications of use, not just to cars, already conjures up all sorts of different uses that’ll make our everyday lives more fluid and efficient. The future, I fucking love it. Read more on it here.

Slacked a bit on the posts last week and still have to do one on 48 hours at some point soon.  Things have just been pretty busy and mental at the mo.

In the meantime…  behold this very impressive timelapse footage of the night sky, shot around the Very Large Telescope in the Atacama, Chile.  Gorgeous.

Haven’t had much time to blog.  Been busy, especially with 48 Hours coming up this weekend and have prepped so far almost nothing.  Nothing!

Pfft…  totally gonna just embrace the chaos and wing it.

Meanwhile, here’s a bloody awesome picture of the space shuttle Endeavour taking off on it’s final flight.

This is totally freakin’ cool…

Amateur astronomer Nick Risinger travelled across the globe to capture the night sky on a special camera rig and create this 5000 megapixel, 360-degree interactive view of the Milky Way and more than 20 million stars.

Composed of 37,440 images, this giant image provides a high level of detail to our night sky and for me, gives another alarming call to how bad light pollution is getting at night.

Anyhow, to check out the interactive awesomeness, go to https://skysurvey.org/

This is officially my favourite thing on the internet today.

The KFC Double Down got released today and you could say I’m just counting down the minutes till lunchtime.  Have even developed a rather fitting hangover for the occasion too.  Can’t wait.

In honor of it’s release, here’s a write up article about a modified burger, well known and dubbed the McGangBang.  A super burger where you put a McChicken burger inside of a Double Cheeseburger.  Hell’s yeah.

And this quote is the best…

It’s kind of like having a threesome with two ugly chicks. While it’s happening you’re stoked, because hey threesome!!! But once you’re finished it kinda sinks in about what you’ve done.

Science is awesome.  But slow down with the helping our future robot overlords.

Magnetic scout-bots to sneak on board ship
“Throwbots”, which can be tossed through a window or door, are standard equipment for many US police forces. These small robots – invaluable in sieges and hostage situations – are designed to always land right side up before being driven around by remote control, beaming back video from inside a building.
[full article]

Way back in 2005 when science was finally getting interesting, movies were sucking less and climate change was a thermostat brand, the good man Ross MacLeod was a regular enough contributor to our University magazine with his Captain Evil comics.

Fast forward to today and he’s reviving the ol’ bastard and spreading his evil online.  Go to https://captainevil.org/ and get your support on.