Sodium-ion batteries are cheaper than lithium-ion batteries — and they're also more environmentally friendly. And "In the past few years, sodium-ion battery production has increased in the United States," reports the Washington Post, with a new factory planned to manufacture them "in the same way as lithium-ion batteries, just with different ingredients. Instead of using expensive materials like lithium, nickel and cobalt, these will be made of sodium, iron and manganese..." Last month, sodium-ion battery manufacturer Natron Energy announced it would open a "gigafactory" in North Carolina that would produce 24 gigawatt hours of batteries annually, enough energy to charge 24,000 electric vehicles. But sodium-ion batteries are still early in their development compared with lithium-ion, and they have yet to hit the market on a massive scale. "It's unlikely sodium-ion could displace lithium-ion anytime soon," said Keith Beers, polymer science and materials chemistry principal engineer at technical consultancy firm Exponent... The biggest limitation of sodium-ion batteries is their weight. Sodium weighs nearly three times as much as lithium, and it cannot store the same amount of energy. As a result, sodium-ion batteries tend to be larger. Jens Peters, an economics professor at the University of Alcalá in Madrid, said the energy density could be improved over time in sodium-ion batteries. But, he added, "what we found out so far in our assessments is that it is not a game changer." Sodium-ion batteries are touted to be the environmentally friendly alternative to their lithium-ion counterparts, thanks to their raw materials. Sodium, iron and manganese are all abundant elements on the planet, so they require less energy to extract and cost less... Sodium-ion batteries also last longer than lithium-ion ones because they can withstand more charge cycles, said Wendell Brooks, co-CEO of Natron Energy. "Our product can have millions of cycles," said Brooks, "where lithium-ion would have three to five thousand cycles and wear out a lot faster...." Sodium-ion batteries aren't the best fit for smartphones or electric vehicles, which need to store lots of energy. However, one advantage is their low cost. And they could be a good candidate in situations where the size of the battery isn't a concern, like energy storage. "When something is built out to support grid or backup storage, it doesn't need to be very dense. It's staying put," Beers said. Natron will invest nearly $1.4 billion in the factory "to meet the rapidly expanding demand for critical power, industrial and grid energy storage solutions," according to their announcement. "Natron's high-performance sodium-ion batteries outperform lithium-ion batteries in power density and recharging speed, do not require lithium, cobalt, copper, or nickel, and are non-flammable... Natron's batteries are the only UL-listed sodium-ion batteries on the market today, and will be delivered to a wide range of customer end markets in the industrial power space, including data centers, mobility, EV fast charging, microgrids, and telecom, among others."

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

Boeing factory workers to vote on deal that could end seven-week strike

Boeing factory workers bring an end to turbulence as they vote to return to work

The Agency is every online community member's worst fears come to life: a real honest-to-goodness troll/noise factory where dozens of employees using hundreds of accounts post thousands of highly targeted and coordinated attacks as awful comments on Twitter, Facebook, and forums in order to sway public opinion about geopolitics. From a nondescript office building in St. Petersburg, Russia, an army of well-paid “trolls” has tried to wreak havoc all around the Internet — and in real-life American communities...

OMG. I can't believe October is over already. I blame Satisfactory which, okay, I do get it now, and it did destroy my body and mind. I am inches from being done now; I just want to make sure that I finish it with enough force that I do actually put it away, as I could imagine tinkering with my saddest factory forever.

The game isn't without flaw, but I think most of those flaws are not interesting to talk about. I do have one petty but important criticism, which is mildly spoilerful and anyway will only be interesting if you played the game. There is an object called the Somersloop ("cool S") which allows you to double the output of a machine. Canonically this item is some kind of "loop" and the flavor text talks about how it is able to create more energy than you put into it. So when I'm out hunting for Korok seeds I have this thought that maybe I could create a loop of factories whereby it would create infinite resources by repeatedly doubling. And I'm thinking about it but the crafting tree doesn't have any notable loops in it, but I remember the "packager" which allows you to put a fluid in a container or the converse, and I'm like: Yes, that's great! So I get back to base and I am doing this, just for fun to create an infinite fuel factory or whatever, and I realize that the packager just doesn't have a slot for a Somersloop. They must just hate fun, elegant twists. It would not break the game to allow this (you can always get infinite resources lots of other ways) or cause any other problem I can think of. Hmph!

The thing about constructing a factory and watching it churn is that it's basically the same thing as a programming project that you invented for yourself, and it's probably better to do the programming project. Here's progress on my mysterious rectangle:

Ford is getting its workers in Cologne, Germany, to work fewer hours. The carmaker said a "lower than expected demand for electric vehicles" brought on the shift. The carmaker has more than 4,000 employees at its Cologne plant. Ford is slashing the work hours of its manufacturing plant workers in…

The post Ulyanovsky Cartridge Manufacturing Factory appeared first on English Russia.

The carmaker has more than 4,000 employees at its Cologne plant. It also has another plant in Saarlouis, in southwestern Germany.

Carnosine (β-alanyl-l-histidine) and anserine (β-alanyl-3-methyl-l-histidine) are abundant peptides in the nervous system and skeletal muscle of many vertebrates. Many in vitro and in vivo studies demonstrated that exogenously added carnosine can improve muscle contraction, has antioxidant activity, and can quench various reactive aldehydes. Some of these functions likely contribute to the proposed anti-aging activity of carnosine. However, the physiological role of carnosine and related histidine-containing dipeptides (HCDs) is not clear. In this study, we generated a mouse line deficient in carnosine synthase (Carns1). HCDs were undetectable in the primary olfactory system and skeletal muscle of Carns1-deficient mice. Skeletal muscle contraction in these mice, however, was unaltered, and there was no evidence for reduced pH-buffering capacity in the skeletal muscle. Olfactory tests did not reveal any deterioration in 8-month-old mice lacking carnosine. In contrast, aging (18–24-month-old) Carns1-deficient mice exhibited olfactory sensitivity impairments that correlated with an age-dependent reduction in the number of olfactory receptor neurons. Whereas we found no evidence for elevated levels of lipoxidation and glycation end products in the primary olfactory system, protein carbonylation was increased in the olfactory bulb of aged Carns1-deficient mice. Taken together, these results suggest that carnosine in the olfactory system is not essential for information processing in the olfactory signaling pathway but does have a role in the long-term protection of olfactory receptor neurons, possibly through its antioxidant activity.

An explosion at a food-coloring factory in Louisville, Ky., hospitalized at least 11, including two in critical condition, on Tuesday afternoon.

An explosion at a food-coloring factory in Louisville, Ky., hospitalized at least 11, including two in critical condition, on Tuesday afternoon.

Odor information arrives first in the main olfactory bulb and is then broadcasted to the olfactory cortices and striatum. Downstream regions have unique cellular and connectivity architectures that may generate different coding patterns to the same odors. To reveal region-specific response features, tuning and decoding of single-unit populations, we recorded responses to the same odors under the same conditions across regions, namely, the main olfactory bulb (MOB), the anterior olfactory nucleus (AON), the anterior piriform cortex (aPC), and the olfactory tubercle of the ventral striatum (OT), of awake male mice. We focused on chemically closely related aldehydes that still create distinct percepts. The MOB had the highest decoding accuracy for aldehydes and was the only region encoding chemical similarity. The MOB had the highest fraction of inhibited responses and narrowly tuned odor-excited responses in terms of timing and odor selectivity. Downstream, the interconnected AON and aPC differed in their response patterns to the same stimuli. While odor-excited responses dominated the AON, the aPC had a comparably high fraction of odor-inhibited responses. Both cortices share a main output target that is the MOB. This prompted us to test if the two regions convey also different net outputs. Aldehydes activated AON terminals in the MOB as a bulk signal but inhibited those from the aPC. The differential cortical projection responses generalized to complex odors. In summary, olfactory regions reveal specialized features in their encoding with AON and aPC differing in their local computations, thereby generating inverse net centrifugal and intercortical outputs.

Company delivers kits that car enthusiasts use to build their own replicas of classics

Keisha Oliver, who is pursuing a dual-title doctoral degree in art education and African American and diaspora studies, was named a fall 2024 artist-in-residence at the Penn State College of Engineering’s Learning Factory.

The Government Employees' Pension Fund delivered a return of 4.9% on investments for its members in the year to end-March.

Title: Cheesecake Factory's Breakfast Burrito Tops Latest Xtreme Eating Awards
Category: Health News
Created: 8/28/2018 12:00:00 AM
Last Editorial Review: 8/28/2018 12:00:00 AM

It's the RPGCast trio bringing you another week of mild insanity. Kelley struggles because Japanese names are hard. Chris wants to take all the cats camping, but Anna Marie swiftly vetoes the idea. The dad jokes arrive in full force, and everyone's thinking about vacations.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 604: “Press 5 for More Rune Factory” appeared first on RPGamer.

Ryan slip 'n slides his health away. Robert lives on the side of danger and poor choices in video games. Meanwhile, Chris makes his own bathtub Geralt.

The post RPG Cast – Episode 725: “Not Every Idea in the Factory Is a Good One” appeared first on RPGamer.

REVERB features 17 audiovisual installations including new works by Es Devlin and Theaster Gates, plus Devon Turnbull's Listening Room.

The post The Vinyl Factory celebrates art and sound with immersive exhibition at 180 Studios appeared first on Fact Magazine.

Reverb features new works by Es Devlin and Theaster Gates, plus Devon Turnbull's Listening Room.

The post The Vinyl Factory: Reverb exhibition extended until 22 December appeared first on Fact Magazine.

A new battery plant under construction in South Carolina will supply BMW factories.

The deal secured by the Hull facility is for the East Anglia TWO project off the Suffolk coast.

Hospitals have been forced to innovate with new ways of hydrating patients and giving them medications, after a key factory that produces IV fluid bags flooded during Hurricane Helene. (This story first aired on Morning Edition on Nov. 7, 2024.)

Clayton home building group team members share their stories of being part of the Clayton manufacturing family.

SMASHD Labs Season 2 is a 10-week accelerator program based out of Los Angeles talent firm Atom Factory. We are inviting companies at the intersection of entertainment, technology, and culture to work alongside our team to accelerate their growth. Join us and our roster of world-class mentors for a masterclass in hustle.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Saturday turned his first European Gigafactory near Berlin into a fairground where visitors could tour the facility. The project faced some delays and local resistance but Musk said the company expects to start production in November. Photo: Patrick Pleul/Associated Press

This is the first time Apple's high-end iPhone Pro series will be made in a country other than China.

Australia’s new five-storey Rubik’s cube-inspired structure is a visual and sensory experience, complete with gnomes, tinsel curtains and a mist room.

Kandee Factory is a new candy brand that boasts a vegetarian, all-natural USP

As cases of worker abuse at garment factories soar, H&M says it is 'deeply concerned' by the developments in Myanmar

Boeing factory workers end strike with contract approval, securing wage increase and resuming production

The Ministry’s latest monthly economic review points to evidence of a slowdown in urban demand as reflected in the performance of various indicators during the first half of FY25

They are an entertainment collaborative with new fangled ideas and creative energy. The members of Stray Factory tell Shonali Muthalaly what theatre means to them.

Nearly two thousand trees, 50 varieties of flowering plants and 20 varieties of hedge plants add colour to Jagannath Textile near Karumathampatti.

The new season takes the students out of their preoccupation with studies to other problems -- jealousy of another's easy success, a blip in a romance, financial crunch, meltdowns, discovers Deepa Gahlot.

Acasti picks CordenPharma to extract omega-3s from krill

Drugs can be made by more than just chemical synthesis. Here are stories of three from the sea, the land, and yes, the factory

Several people suffered severe burn injuries; workers were trapped inside the factory as firefighters struggled to reach them; with smoke engulfing the whole area, panic sparked among local residents

India's industrial production expanded by 3.1 per cent in September, mainly due to improvement in the manufacturing sector, according to official data released on Tuesday. The factory output, measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), witnessed a growth of 6.4 per cent in September 2023.

Spring water case an example of kind of legal tangle that can await foreign investors

For Immediate Release No. 20-OPA-042

In a tweet Saturday morning, Tesla's chief executive said it would file a lawsuit against county officials over not being able to run its factory.

Billionaire Elon Musk has vowed to sue local authorities “immediately” after his Tesla electric car factory wasn’t allowed reopen due to Covid-19 restrictions, and has warned he’s considering pulling out of California altogether.
Read Full Article at RT.com

Hours after Tesla CEO Elon Musk said that he would pull the car maker’s plant from the Golden State, the company sued Alameda county, accusing officials of “defying” state laws by refusing to allow the facility to reopen.
Read Full Article at RT.com

Al Arabian Novel Factory is the sequel to Jasmine Days, the story of young radio jockey Sameera Parvin, an immigrant in the city from Pakistan, and her guitar-playing colleague Ali Fardan.