News

Toyota Develops 1000 km Electric Car Battery

Toyota Motor has developed a secondary electric car battery that can last up to 1,000 km per charge. The new battery is based on a solid core and its simplified structure means it does not require fire-retardant materials. It eliminates the disadvantages of lithium-ion batteries, which are based on an easily heatable and combustible liquid core. Mazda has developed a new electrode material that can double battery capacity, NEC a home lithium-ion battery that can last for about 20 years, and Nissan’s Leaf electric car can run 160 km per charge.

Early Humans Were Skilled Deep-Sea Fishermen

Prehistoric humans living more than 40,000 years ago had mastered the skills needed to catch fast-moving, deep ocean fish such as tuna, a remarkable new archaeological find has revealed. In a small cave at the eastern end of East Timor, north of Australia, archaeologist Sue O’Connor from the Australian National University has unearthed the bones of more than 2,800 fish, some of which were caught as long as 42,000 years ago. So far, she and her colleagues have only excavated two small test pits at the cave, which contained a number of stone artifacts, bone points, animal remains, shell beads and fish hooks. In just one of those pits, 1 meter square and 2 meters deep, they found 39,000 fish bones. They also unearthed another rare find — a small piece of fishing hook made from a shell, which dates to between 23,000 and 16,000 years ago.

Ex-Inspector Urges Cancellation of Keystone XL Pipeline

A former inspector on the original Keystone pipeline is sounding the alarm over TransCanada’s plans for the Keystone XL. Mike Klink, a former Bechtel employee who surveyed the first Keystone pipeline, says he raised numerous concerns during construction that went ignored. The first Keystone carries tar sands oil from Alberta to refineries in the Midwest, while the XL would extend that route to the Gulf Coast. Writing in Nebraska’s Lincoln Journal Star, Klink describes a number of safety and design flaws, including cheap foreign steel, weak foundations and rigged safety tests. He concludes: “I am coming forward because my kids encouraged me to tell the truth about what was done and covered up… I am not telling you we shouldn’t build pipelines. We just should not build this one.” Klink says Bechtel fired him for voicing his complaints.