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spaceexp

Annual Number of Objects Launched into Space

(by u/oscarleo0)

#charts #space #satellites #space launches

materialsscienceandengineering

Self-Healing Ceramic Coating Seals Turbine Cracks at 800 °C

Inspired by natural glaze layers in cobalt superalloys, the new coating uses cobalt oxide migration to fill cracks, limit spallation, and protect extreme-environment engine components from heat-driven damage. In a recent research article available as an Article in Press in the journal Communications Materials, researchers developed a self-healing ceramic coating based on phase segregation in the CoO–Cr2O3 system that autonomously repairs thermally induced cracks at elevated temperatures, enhancing durability and lubricity for gas turbine engine applications. Extreme Environment Material Challenges Gas turbine engines experience extreme thermal and mechanical stresses, with surfaces exposed to temperature gradients that can reach 2000 °C, leading to material degradation through cracking and wear. Enhancing surface durability is essential for improving engine efficiency and meeting environmental targets.

mindblowingscience

Three decades ago, researchers working atop the Llullaillaco volcano, located on the border between Argentina and Chile, discovered exceptio

Three decades ago, researchers working atop the Llullaillaco volcano, located on the border between Argentina and Chile, discovered exceptionally well-preserved remains. The find included the mummified bodies of three children along with associated artifacts. The site became known as the Capacocha burial, which was linked to the Inca ritual by the same name, which involved sacrificing children and young women. In a recent study published in Archaeometry, researchers turned to the coca leaves, manioc seeds and maize grains found among the offerings surrounding a buried maiden. By combining radiocarbon dating and stable isotope analysis of these short-lived plant remains, researchers were able to pinpoint a more precise timeframe for the burial.

#Science #Archaeology #Political Science #Capacocha Burial Site #Llullaillaco Volcano #Inca Empire #Human Sacrifice

saywhat-politics

President Donald Trump insists the proposal he ordered would crack down on voter fraud, but Democrats call it an attempt to seize control of

Postal Service would restrict mail-in voting under Trump proposal, chief says

President Donald Trump insists the proposal he ordered would crack down on voter fraud, but Democrats call it an attempt to seize control of election administration ahead of crucial midterms.

By EMILIO PEREZ IBARGUEN

06/24/2026 03:06 PM EDT

The U.S.’ chief mailman told lawmakers Wednesday that his agency would restrict the delivery of mail-in ballots in states that don’t hand over a list of eligible voters, in line with proposed rules ordered by President Donald Trump.

Postmaster General David Steiner dismissed Senate Democrats’ concerns that the floated regulations are an attempt by Trump to federalize elections, instead characterizing the proposal as an assurance that “the right ballots are going to the right people” during an appearance before the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee.

Though any new rule must be approved by the agency’s board of directors, Steiner’s public support is a boost for the president’s efforts to curtail voting by mail, which he has long characterized as susceptible to fraud. Trump issued an executive order in late March mandating the agency propose a rule requiring states to provide the Postal Service with a list of all eligible voters at least 60 days ahead of any federal election.

The proposal comes ahead of the November midterms, contests which usually see the president’s party lose seats in Congress. Republicans on the Hill have expressed growing consternation with their electoral chances they say are being hampered by Trump’s domestic agenda and a deeply unpopular war.

Democrats questioned whether USPS has the constitutional authority to enforce such a rule, arguing that the job of administering elections is delegated to the states.

Steiner, for his part, agreed that the Postal Service is not responsible for administering elections but cast the rule as a procedural step for ensuring ballots are only sent to eligible voters.

#u.s. postal service #mail in ballots #david steiner #postmaster general #mail in voting #donald trump #second term

materialsscienceandengineering

TURBO consortium demonstrates real-time resin monitoring, in-line process control in wind turbine blade infusion

CPI’s wireless sensing platform, integrated with Synthesites process monitoring technology, successfully tracked resin flow and temperature enabling ML-based in-line process control during composite infusion trials at NCC and Siemens Gamesa facilities.

Members of the TURBO (Towards Turbine Blade Production with Zero Waste) consortium recently reported progress on real-time process monitoring during composite infusion, with trials conducted at facilities operated by NCC Operations Ltd. (Sedgefield, U.K.) and Siemens Gamesa Renewable Energy (Aalborg, Denmark). The demonstrations centered on a wireless sensing platform developed by Centre for Process Innovation Ltd. (CPI, Sedgefield, U.K.), which tracked resin flow and temperature during the infusion process. According to consortium members, the integration and trial activities validated the platform’s ability to broadcast monitoring data in real time, supporting adaptive process control approaches intended to improve manufacturing consistency and reduce defects in wind turbine blade production.

materialsscienceandengineering

What If the Next 3D Printing Material Came from Your Kitchen?

Researchers at Chalmers University (Sweden) have developed a biodegradable material for 3D printing made from baker’s yeast, wood cellulose fibers, seaweed alginate, vegetable glycerol, and water. The end result aims to be an alternative to construction materials such as plastic, plaster, or synthetic textiles, but made from organic and industrial byproducts. Each ingredient serves a specific function. Alginate provides stability during printing; cellulose reinforces the structure and adds strength; glycerol acts as a plasticizer and provides flexibility. The yeast, meanwhile, acts as a binder for all the ingredients and gives the mixture viscosity. “Because [yeast] consists of single-celled organisms, we can produce a more homogeneous, predictable material,” explains Malgorzata Zboinska, a professor at Chalmers and the lead researcher on the study. The five ingredients form a malleable hydrogel that is ready for printing.

materialsscienceandengineering

Study Probes PLA and Wood Dust FFF Composites

Researchers evaluated how wood dust affects PLA parts printed by FFF, and the results could change how makers and manufacturers approach bio-filled filaments. The study, titled “Mechanical properties of PLA–wood dust composites fabricated by FDM,” appears in EPJ Web of Conferences and focuses on a question in consumer and professional 3D printing: can low-cost, renewable fillers meaningfully strengthen or lighten common polymers without reducing print reliability. Wood-filled PLA filaments are not new, but most are marketed for surface aesthetics, lower density, and a pleasant finish rather than structural duty. Decades of polymer–wood composite work in injection molding suggest trade-offs among stiffness, strength, and toughness depending on particle size, loading fraction, and coupling chemistry. FFF adds another layer of complexity: interlayer bonding, bead shape, and raster orientation often dominate performance, and lignocellulosic fillers can bring moisture and thermal degradation into the mix.

materialsscienceandengineering

Xarion’s dry, contact-free NDT method closes automated ultrasonic testing gap

From large aerospace production systems to challenging small-scale honeycomb applications, LEA has already proven itself in demanding industrial environments.

Every aircraft that flies depends on parts that look perfect from the outside but may hide delaminations, disbonds or porosity within. Finding those defects is the job of nondestructive testing (NDT), and for decades it has meant slow, manual ultrasonic inspection. Xarion’s (Vienna, Austria) laser excited acoustics (LEA) technology is changing this by making automated ultrasonic inspection more practical across aerospace, automotive, defense and maintenance, repair and overhaul (MRO). Xarion’s LEA is a dry, contact-free ultrasonic testing method that combines a pulsed laser for ultrasound generation with the company’s optical microphone for detection. In contrast to conventional ultrasonic testing, no probe must be pressed against the part, and no water or gel is required to transmit the ultrasound.

materialsscienceandengineering

OSHA Top 10 Violations in Manufacturing (2025)

Construction’s influence on OSHA’s list of safety violations can be misleading for manufacturers. Here’s what really matters to our industry.

OSHA’s top 10 list of safety violations—which the Occupational Safety and Health Administration releases each year—is highly anticipated and shines a light on the main areas of concern for workplace safety across all industries. For manufacturing businesses, however, this can be misleading, as the list is heavily influenced by construction, which has fundamentally different safety risks. “If I’m a manufacturing safety manager who’s brand-new, OSHA’s top 10 is the short list of the things I need to be prepared for. The problem is, this is not preparing me for the environment in which I live,” says Gil Truesdale, leader of safety services at MSC. By mainly focusing on that list, he says, “you’re trying to deliver solutions to things that you don’t necessarily have problems for, and unfortunately it takes your eye off the ball, and something hits you in the head because you’re looking the other way.”

materialsscienceandengineering

Luyten’s Tower Crane 3DCP System Capable of Printing Structures Up to 100 Meters

Luyten has produced a most unusual 3DCP printer. 3DCP systems tend to be of two forms: a gantry that surrounds the build site; and a robotic arm that reaches into the build volume. Sometimes these can be mounted on rails to extend the effective build volume on the X and Y axes. Australia-based Luyten, a global construction company, has developed a very different format for a 3DCP device: a tower crane. Tower cranes are something everyone in an urban environment is familiar with: they are those extremely tall cranes that lift components upwards when constructing skyscrapers. Most large city skylines will have at least a few visible at all times. Here, however, Luyten has done something quite unique: they’ve used a tower crane as a motion system for the 3DCP process. That is their ASCEND SERIES A27 system.

materialsscienceandengineering

AI Uses Crystal Symmetry to Find New Antiferromagnets for Spintronics

A symmetry-guided AI model narrowed 110,000 generated crystals to four stable antiferromagnetic candidates, pointing to a faster computational route for discovering materials that could shape future spintronic memory technologies.

A recent study published in the journal npj Computational Materials introduced a generative deep learning framework for the inverse design of magnetic crystalline materials. Termed “Space Group Crystal Diffusion Variational Autoencoders (SG-CDVAE)”, this model incorporates crystallographic space-group information directly into its latent representation, improving the generation of high-symmetry crystal structures. By combining global crystal symmetries with local atomic arrangements, SG-CDVAE supports more targeted exploration of vast chemical design spaces and identifies materials with targeted magnetic properties. From an initial pool of approximately 110,000 generated crystal structures, the SG-CDVAE generation and high-throughput screening workflow identified 80 high-symmetry antiferromagnetic (AFM) candidates, demonstrating its potential to accelerate computational materials discovery.

mindblowingscience

Scientists predict that the next three to five decades provide a critical window to anticipate and plan for Antarctic ice loss and its contr

Scientists predict that the next three to five decades provide a critical window to anticipate and plan for Antarctic ice loss and its contribution to sea level rise. Research published in Nature, led by Monash University researcher Dr. Felicity McCormack from Securing Antarctica's Environmental Future (SAEF), looks at the predictability of Antarctic ice loss and what this means for sea level rise projections. Based on reports from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), a global sea level rise exceeding two meters by 2100 cannot be ruled out under high-emission scenarios due to the large-scale collapse of the Antarctic Ice Sheet.

#Science #Environment #Earth Science #Global Warming #Antarctica

zombiethethinker

Currently working on a fish fossil at the sternburg science camps!

#paleontology #paleoart #dinosaurs #fish #extinct fish #fossil #dinosaur #science

materialsscienceandengineering

The European AIM-PLATES project is accelerating the development of advanced composite technologies designed to strengthen hydrogen storage i

The European AIM-PLATES project is accelerating the development of advanced composite technologies designed to strengthen hydrogen storage infrastructure, pressure vessel applications, and fuel cell manufacturing across Europe. Bringing together 16 industrial and research partners, the initiative focuses on scalable production of lightweight composite bipolar plates for next-generation hydrogen systems. The project addresses a critical challenge within hydrogen technologies, as bipolar plates account for a major share of fuel cell stack weight and cost. According to the consortium, bipolar plates can represent up to 80% of stack weight and nearly 40% of total system cost, creating major implications for hydrogen storage efficiency, pressure vessel integration, and industrial scalability.

materialsscienceandengineering

Fatigue Performance in Additive Manufacturing: Challenges for Design, Testing, and Qualification

Defects, residual stress, and anisotropy may reduce fatigue strength in 3D‑printed parts, making robust qualification testing essential for adoption

As additive manufacturing (AM) transitions from prototyping into the production of structural and safety-critical components subjected to repeated loading, fatigue performance becomes a central concern. While the fundamental principles of fatigue remain unchanged, the nature of additive manufacturing introduces additional complexities that must be considered during testing. Why Fatigue Matters in Additive Manufacturing Fatigue testing has been routinely conducted for conventionally manufactured components to characterize long-term behavior, demonstrate compliance with international standards, or provide material input data for finite element analysis (FEA) and life prediction models. These same motivations now apply to additively manufactured parts.

materialsscienceandengineering

Support-Free 3D Printing with 90° Overhang Angles? A New Study Reveals How Standard FDM Printers Can Do It

For a long time, standard 3-axis fused deposition modeling (FDM) printer operators have followed a general rule: if you want to print a horizontal overhang, you need to print a sacrificial support structure underneath it, otherwise the hot plastic will sag. But a new breakthrough is aiming to turn that assumption on its head. Researchers have developed a novel path-planning strategy that allows these printers to create cantilevered horizontal overhangs without needing any support structures. Their research, titled “Wave-inspired path-planning strategy for support-free horizontal overhangs in FDM” was published in the July volume of Additive Manufacturing Letters.

spaceexp

Recent Coronal Mass Ejection

#coronal mass ejection #science #astronomy #cme

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