After more than 30 years toiling in obscurity in the ultra-complex world of battery technology, Kurt Kelty and the other chemists, electrical engineers and minerals experts racing to design the next generation of electric vehicle batteries are at last having their moment. Kelty, who ran Tesla’s battery cell team for more than a decade, now […]
Technology
Posted inNews
A Silicon Valley Lawmaker Wants to Protect Workers from Employer Spying
Workers today are subject to more monitoring and tracking on the job — often without their knowledge — than ever before, advocates say. Various productivity applications, often on workers’ smartphones or other devices, track and predict delivery drivers’ and warehouse workers’ every move, collecting data on their location, speed, and accuracy in finishing orders, according to […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Every (Oxygenized) Breath You Take
If you’ve seen those heart-wrenching photos from India of long lines of people waiting to get oxygen cylinders refilled, you’ll appreciate the benefit of personal, portable, oxygen concentrators. Especially during the COVID crisis, oxygen is at a premium. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, reduces the ability of cells lining the lungs from functioning as […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
The Quartz Crisis
The “quartz crisis” began in Tokyo on Christmas Day in 1969 when Seiko unveiled the world’s first quartz watch, the Astron 35SQ. Designed by Kazunari Sasaki of Suwa Seiko-sha, the Astron achieved 100 times the accuracy of a regular mechanical watch by using a vibrating quartz crystal instead of a balance wheel for time keeping. […]
Posted inNews
HSU Expanding Curriculum with Polytechnic Push
As a way of prioritizing Humboldt State University’s push to become polytechnic, the university is expanding its curriculum to include more STEM-related degree programs as soon as fall of 2023. “This is what a 21st-century education looks like: programs where students build the skills to have meaningful careers and a nuanced understanding of society’s complex […]
Posted inNews
Humboldt State’s Robotics Camp Returns This July
Humboldt State University announced that its popular summer Robotics Camp will return this July. A press release from HSU News & Information stated the STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art and Math) – oriented camp for students entering eighth and ninth grades will be held virtually this year, using videoconferencing. The camp runs July 20-24 and July 27-30 during the afternoon. […]
Posted inLife + Outdoors
Is Science Done For?
Last time, I discussed the possibility that pure science has reached some fundamental limits (“Is Science Done For? Part 1: Pure Science,” Sept. 26). This “end of science” idea was popularized (and employed as a title) by science writer John Horgan in his 1996 book. As I noted, Horgan claimed, “the era of truly profound […]
Posted inLetters + Opinion
Old School Sensi-bilities
In the ’70s, when it was still called marijuana, my buddy and I grew a crop near Briceland. Last week, we returned to the scene of our then crime. To minimize security concerns for our research, we booked safe passage to a couple grows via Humboldt Cannabis Tours. We expected to be impressed by technology […]
Posted inNews
Brownouts, Be Gone
Humboldt State University students designed a cool device to try to help the 50 million households in the world relying on renewable energy mini-grids avoid brownouts by distributing their load on the grid more evenly. And it seems to work. They conceived the grid-share idea, reports environmental research web, when HSU grad student Karma Dorji, […]
Posted inNews
Text Message Spam Scam
A little after 8 a.m. this morning, my cell phone rang with a distinctive chime indicating a text message. Offering advance warning, it told me I was about to receive a text from someone using Yahoo text. A couple of minutes later the text came. The message from someone I did not recognize, “scott.shawn22,” was […]
Posted inNews
“This Is the Future”
It’s finally complete. After years of operating a state-of-the-art alternative energy lab in a collection of dilapidated buildings in the back of Humboldt State’s now-empty University Annex, the Schatz Energy Research Center moved into its new digs on Friday, celebrating with the grand opening with the requisite speeches and an open house. The brand new […]
Posted inNews
Internet Outage Revenge
If you lost Internet, land line or cell service during the big silence on Friday, your carrier might — just might — give you a little refund. Only you have to ask. Which means you have to pick and poke through one of those annoying phone trees, possibly for less than the cost of a […]