Researchers Use Carbon-Air Battery in Breakthrough for Next-Generation Storage Systems

The power sector is undergoing a rapid change globally as the world shifts to renewable energy and cuts down on using fossil fuels. However, a big roadblock to generating electricity from wind and solar energy is their intermittent nature due to unfavourable environmental conditions. To address this problem, storage was found in hydrogen batteries. But these, too, suffered from poor efficiency and required massive space to build, which made them complex for thermal management. Now, researchers at a Japanese institute say they have found a way to make renewable energy…

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Human eggs grown to maturity in lab, signals breakthrough in fertility treatment

Scientists have grown human egg cells to full maturity in the lab in a potential breakthrough for fertility treatment, they announced in a study published on Friday. Researchers in New York and Edinburgh developed a new method to grow eggs from very early-stage cells obtained from ovary tissue, a team reported in the journal Molecular Human Reproduction. The eggs were grown to the point at which they could be fertilised. This had previously been achieved with mouse egg cells, while human eggs had been successfully cultivated starting from a much…

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Breakthrough malaria drug likely by ’18

Breakthrough malaria drug likely by ’18 (Getty Images) Contrary to the perception that drug research is mostly focused around the diseases of the elite, the antimalarial drug pipeline has increased nearly three-fold since 2008, with at least three new medicines expected to be launched in two to five years. India, where a lot of clinical trials have already begun, is likely to get a breakthrough anti-malarial drug Tafenoquine by 2018. The drug, a one-day-two-dose treatment, has already entered phase-three trials and once approved will replace the current 14-day treatment for…

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Austrian researchers develop potential AIDS treatment breakthrough

Austrian researchers have developed a treatment that could spell a breakthrough in the treatment of AIDS, the Krone newspaper reported on Monday. The research duo of Thomas Szekeres, a human geneticist who also serves as President of the Vienna Medical Association, and Walter Jaeger, a pharmacist, said the arduous research project spanned 15 years. Jaeger said while it was “full of setbacks”, there were also often “new hopes”, and they are now satisfied with the research results and ready to make them public, Xinhua reported. The research is based on…

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