Reinventing business
What is keeping top managers awake at night at a time when the challenges seem to come from all directions, and all at once? Is it climate change or financial problems, or is it the global economy or finding or creating the best staffing solution, or even the long-term viability of the business? What, for example, will be the impact of AI on the business? Can the business survive?
The malaria vaccine we've been waiting for?
New hope in the fight against malaria has emerged with the publication of promising results from a large-scale clinical trial of a vaccine. The R21/Matrix-M vaccine, developed by Oxford University, UK and the Serum Institute of India, demonstrated an impressive 78% efficacy in preventing malaria in young African children over the first year of follow-up. This surpasses the existing RTS,S/AS01 vaccine – the only malaria vaccine currently recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), which offers 55% efficacy.
Magnetic power: no batteries required
A battery-free temperature sensor, which harvests and stores its energy requirements, has been designed by researchers in the US. It has potential for applications that are hard to access such as a ship’s engine, where it could gather data on power consumption and operations for long periods of time.
MIT unveils organic electric car battery
Car batteries that use organic materials instead of critical materials like cobalt could power cars of the future, say Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US, researchers.
CO2 converted into carbon nanofibres
Scientists in the US have converted CO2 gas into valuable carbon nanofibres in a two-step process, involving an electrochemical and a thermochemical reaction at relatively low temperatures and ambient pressures. Converting CO2 into carbon nanofibres could allow it to be sequestered in long-term materials. However, CO2 is a stable molecule, so carbon monoxide is a far better starting material for making carbon nanofibres.
UK engineers test rocket that “eats” itself
Engineers in the UK say they have built and tested the first unsupported “self-eating” rocket engine, which consumes part of its fuselage for fuel. As the propane and oxygen fuel tank empties, the high-density polyethylene fuselage melts and is fed into the combustion chamber as additional fuel, causing the rocket’s weight to steadily diminish.