The Obtain: Longer-lasting electrical automobile batteries, and Massive Tech’s fightback

That is right now’s version of The Obtain, our weekday publication that gives a each day dose of what’s occurring on the earth of expertise.

This startup desires to pack extra vitality into electrical car batteries

Absolutely charged: Electrical autos are gaining popularity, however they’re nonetheless constrained by how far they’re capable of journey on a single cost—a Tesla Mannequin three can go for about 350 miles earlier than it must be recharged. In a quest to construct batteries that may take us farther safely, startup Stable Energy is working to make solid-state batteries that would pack extra vitality right into a smaller area.

Battery powered: The corporate makes battery cells that substitute the liquid used because the electrolyte in lithium-ion batteries with ceramic layers. This might unlock new choices for battery chemistry, doubtlessly permitting stable batteries to be swapped in. It has taken a step towards testing the expertise in autos, beginning up a large-scale pilot manufacturing line.

A word of warning: Questions stay about whether or not corporations making stable electrolytes will be capable of produce them on a big scale. Inorganic supplies may be brittle and could also be troublesome to maneuver throughout manufacturing. One other concern about stable batteries is how effectively they’ll stand up to degradation over time. Learn the total story.

—Casey Crownhart

The must-reads

I’ve combed the web to seek out you right now’s most enjoyable/vital/scary/fascinating tales about expertise.

1 Massive Tech is spooked by Congress’ proposed crackdown
Tech giants are pulling out all of the stops to attempt to avert efforts to curb their market energy. (FT $)
+ Advocates are racing to get it over the road earlier than the midterm elections. (CNBC)
+ What does breaking apart Massive Tech actually imply? (MIT Know-how Overview)

2 The most important NFT market is going through a reckoning
OpenSea is having to pay out huge sums of cash to settle claims of theft and plagiarism. (NYT $) 
+ The voice of the crypto naysayers is getting louder. (WP $)
+ Why this crypto crash feels totally different to these earlier than it. (The Guardian)
+ Japan has turn out to be one of many first international locations to introduce a authorized framework round stablecoins. (Bloomberg $)
+ The obsession with web3 isn’t with out casualties. (Motherboard)

three One in every of America’s largest child components crops has restarted manufacturing
Excellent news for folks and caregivers grappling with widespread shortages. (BBC)
+ The FDA is going through an investigation into its dealing with of the scarcity. (NPR)
+ The child components scarcity has birthed a shady on-line market. (MIT Know-how Overview)

four Migrants are documenting harmful journeys to Europe on TikTok
Social media platforms and EU lawmakers are at loggerheads over unlawful migration content material. (Remainder of World)

5 You may anticipate to to get reinfected with covid
It’s seemingly we’ll want extra, and higher, vaccines. (Wired $)

6 The hunt to finish the menopause is difficult
Primarily as a result of analysis into ladies’s well being is so underfunded. (Neo.Life)
+ Fatherless sons have greater ranges of testosterone. (Economist $)
+ Trans males’s eggs have been matured within the lab—and will assist them have youngsters. (MIT Know-how Overview)

7 We’re remarkably ignorant about social media’s true influence
Significantly relating to our perceptions of trustworthiness. (New Yorker $)

eight Charging electrical automobiles is simpler stated than finished 🚗
Which is much from very best on a time-pressed highway journey. (WSJ $)

9 Imaginative and prescient-enhancing glasses are serving to color-blind wearers see the world in a brand new mild
By growing their perceivable vary of colours and hue distinction. (The Guardian)

10 The key lifetime of killer cats 🐈‍⬛
Loving our pets doesn’t imply loving their murderous instincts. (Hakai Journal)

Quote of the day

“Plenty of luck on his journey to the moon, I suppose.” 

—President Joe Biden reacts to the information that Elon Musk is planning on reducing Tesla’s workforce by 10% on account of his “tremendous unhealthy feeling concerning the economic system”, stories the BBC.

The large story

Why do you are feeling lonely? Neuroscience is beginning to discover solutions.
September 2020

Lengthy earlier than the world had ever heard of covid-19, Kay Tye got down to reply a query that has taken on new resonance within the age of social distancing: When folks really feel lonely, do they crave social interactions in the identical approach a hungry particular person craves meals? And will she and her colleagues detect and measure this “starvation” within the neural circuits of the mind?

“Loneliness is a common factor. If I have been to ask folks on the road, ‘Are you aware what it means to be lonely?’ in all probability 99 or 100% of individuals would say sure,” explains Tye, a neuroscientist on the Salk Institute of Organic Sciences. “It appears affordable to argue that it ought to be an idea in neuroscience. It’s simply that no one ever discovered a option to check it and localize it to particular cells. That’s what we try to do.”

If Tye succeeds, it may result in new instruments for figuring out and monitoring these in danger from diseases worsened by loneliness. It may additionally yield higher methods to deal with what could possibly be a looming public well being disaster triggered by covid-19. Learn the total story.

Adam Piore

We will nonetheless have good issues

A spot for consolation, enjoyable and distraction in these bizarre occasions. (Received any concepts? Drop me a line or tweet ’em at me.)

+ I couldn’t assist however marvel—if birds had mustaches, would they go above or under their beaks? (Thanks Will!)
+ Chinatown’s seniors are the slickest dressers round.
+ Do you know the newly-discovered world’s largest plant can be a clone?
+ Truffles the glasses-wearing cat is the little good friend all of us want in our lives.
+ The making of this butter field is completely hypnotic.

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