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As our culture makes the shift away from carbon-intensive energy sources, alternative sources like solar energy from photovoltaic cells are becoming an attractive option. However, while the cost of producing solar cells has been decreasing steadily in recent years, they still require a great deal of resources to make: the silicon crystals that solar cells use not only require hazardous solvents for their production, they also need to be baked at high temperatures — 1,000ºC (1,832ºF) — to attain the purity required for their use, an energy-intensive process that can increase the final product’s carbon footprint.
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Last January, France’s Institute for Radiological Protection and Nuclear Safety (IRSN) detection stations began detecting the presence of radioactive iodine-131 in the air across Europe. While the concentrations of the radioactive substance are still well within accepted safety limits, its source remains a mystery, despite numerous investigations having been conducted into the event over the past month.
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NASA has announced the discovery of a family of 7 Earth-like exoplanets that are orbiting a nearby star, an ultracool dwarf called TRAPPIST-1. The observations were made using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope, building on earlier findings announced last year by a team from the University of Liège in Belgium, using observations from the TRAPPIST (Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope) telescope at the La Silla Observatory in the Atacama desert, Chile. Not only is the TRAPPIST-1 system rich in earth-sized, rocky planets, ripe for comparatively easy study, but also three of these planets lie within their star’s habitable zone.
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Our medical science has become quite adept at extending the human lifespan, leading to the presence of centenarians as commonplace in our culture. However, the race to find ways to keep the population healthy as it grows older – to stave off the actual effects of aging – has been a difficult one. Recently, researchers at Moscow State University have made a successful test of a new medication that slowed the aging process and extended the lifespan of mice, a medication that may very well work to improve the conditions of humans as we grow older.
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