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Submission + - The 33rd First Annual Ig Nobel Prizes (improbable.com)

Thorfinn.au writes: CHEMISTRY and GEOLOGY PRIZE [POLAND, UK] — Jan Zalasiewicz, for explaining why many scientists like to lick rocks.
LITERATURE PRIZE [FRANCE, UK, MALAYSIA, FINLAND] — Chris Moulin, Nicole Bell, Merita Turunen, Arina Baharin, and Akira O’Connor for studying the sensations people feel when they repeat a single word many, many, many, many, many, many, many times.
MECHANICAL ENGINEERING PRIZE [INDIA, CHINA, MALAYSIA, USA] — Te Faye Yap, Zhen Liu, Anoop Rajappan, Trevor Shimokusu, and Daniel Preston, for re-animating dead spiders to use as mechanical gripping tools.
PUBLIC HEALTH PRIZE [SOUTH KOREA, USA] — Seung-min Park, for inventing the Stanford Toilet a computer vision system for defecation analysis et alia
COMMUNICATION PRIZE [ARGENTINA, SPAIN, COLOMBIA, CHILE, CHINA, USA] — María José Torres-Prioris, Diana López-Barroso, Estela Càmara, Sol Fittipaldi, Lucas Sedeño, Agustín Ibáñez, Marcelo Berthier, and Adolfo García, for studying the mental activities of people who are expert at speaking backward.
MEDICINE PRIZE [USA, CANADA, MACEDONIA, IRAN, VIETNAM] — Christine Pham, Bobak Hedayati, Kiana Hashemi, Ella Csuka, Tiana Mamaghani, Margit Juhasz, Jamie Wikenheiser, and Natasha Mesinkovska, for using cadavers to explore whether there is an equal number of hairs in each of a person’s two nostrils.
NUTRITION PRIZE [JAPAN] — Homei Miyashita and Hiromi Nakamura, for experiments to determine how electrified chopsticks and drinking straws can change the taste of food.
EDUCATION PRIZE [HONG KONG, CHINA, CANADA, UK, THE NETHERLANDS, IRELAND, USA, JAPAN] — Katy Tam, Cyanea Poon, Victoria Hui, Wijnand van Tilburg, Christy Wong, Vivian Kwong, Gigi Yuen, and Christian Chan, for methodically studying the boredom of teachers and students.
PSYCHOLOGY PRIZE [USA] — Stanley Milgram, Leonard Bickman, and Lawrence Berkowitz for experiments on a city street to see how many passersby stop to look upward when they see strangers looking upward
PHYSICS PRIZE [SPAIN, GALICIA, SWITZERLAND, FRANCE, UK] — Bieito Fernández Castro, Marian Peña, Enrique Nogueira, Miguel Gilcoto, Esperanza Broullón, Antonio Comesaña, Damien Bouffard, Alberto C. Naveira Garabato, and Beatriz Mouriño-Carballido, for measuring the extent to which ocean-water mixing is affected by the sexual activity of anchovies.

Comment Re:Important questions (Score 5, Informative) 116

Most of these are answered in paper and the Ars Technica article
Operating temperature 110 C, so quite do-able for a stationary power source and very small overhead with good insulation
After 500 cycles battery capacity is over 80% of initial spec
Energy capacity similar to Li-ion
and don't mix with water -> H2S (poison and flammable) noted now so can be part of good design

Lots of opportunity for use, as a storage as part of wind and large scale solar panel farm

Comment Re:Hydrogen is dangerous (Score 1) 145

It is molecular corrosion not chemical corrosion as others have noted, it is still corrosion, that is deteriorates the object. In text books it is hydrogen embrittlement. It makes the metal brittle by penetrating between the crystals, makes a void and breaks the metal. The higher the pressure the worse the problem, or use expensive alloys and put the price of the tank up 250%.

Comment Hydrogen is dangerous (Score 4, Informative) 145

Hydrogen burns as soon as it cat
Minimum explosive limit is about 5% - H2 in Air similar but lower than natural gas
Maximum explosive limit is about 70% - H2 in Air - nat gas is 18%
explosive limit is where a flame can start and be sustained

Flame speed H2 is about 5 times that of natgas - so it gets away from you real quick
Calorific value is much lower than nat gas - so you need more of it for the same amount of energy
Corrosive as anything - so it destroys your pressure storage vessels,
what you say corrosive, it is not chemical action it is molecular action
the molecules of H2 get between the atoms of the steel and make holes in the steel and then break it.
so on all points not good

Comment Re: Ni-Fe batteries are almost not problematical (Score 1) 97

They are good for adding to your house solar system, but terrible for a car of phone (use Lithium here). The operational life of 20+ and some have done 50 years is also good for your house and for adding to remote systems to provide charging for a car. The other issue is they are not maintenance free, they need electrolyte top ups monthly/quarterly.

Comment Ni-Fe batteries are almost not problematical (Score 2) 97

https://ancillary-proxy.atarimworker.io?url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FNickel%25E2%2580%2593iron_battery

The metals are nickel, which is mined in Australia, Canada, New Caledonia (part of France), and iron (most of the planet).

quoting wikipediaThe nickel–iron battery (NiFe battery) is a rechargeable battery having nickel(III) oxide-hydroxide positive plates and iron negative plates, with an electrolyte of potassium hydroxide. The active materials are held in nickel-plated steel tubes or perforated pockets. It is a very robust battery which is tolerant of abuse, (overcharge, overdischarge, and short-circuiting) and can have very long life even if so treated.[7] It is often used in backup situations where it can be continuously charged and can last for more than 20 years. Due to its low specific energy, poor charge retention, and high cost of manufacture, other types of rechargeable batteries have displaced the nickel–iron battery in most applications.

Comment Until the cars go boom (Score 1) 265

Hydrogen is a very difficult fuel to use
Flame speed is 5 times that of air+methane
Explosive limits are 5% to 75% air + H2 whereas methane is 8% to 18%
It is very corrosive in steel and needs very expensive materials for tanks that will last, with steel a new fuel tank every year for domestic safety would be needed.
Low specific calorific value, it takes more kgs of fuel for a standard distance
Fuel tanks will need to be pressure vessels which are heavy

Submission + - Australia records ZERO Covid-19 new infections (bbc.com)

Thorfinn.au writes: Australia has recorded its first day of no local cases of Covid-19 in almost five months.

Zero cases were reported in the 24 hours between 20:00 on Friday and 20:00 on Saturday — the first time this has happened since 9 June.

The state of Victoria — epicentre of Australia's second wave — recorded zero cases for the second day in a row after a 112-day lockdown.

Health officials say more restrictions may be eased in the coming days.

"Thank you to all of our amazing health & public health workers & above all else the Australian people," Health Minister Greg Hunt said on his Twitter account.

Australia has recorded some 27,500 infections and 900 deaths to Covid-19 since the pandemic started — far fewer than many nations.

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