Surprising Science — October 13, 2011

Electric Vehicle Charging Breakthrough

Nissan is said to be working on a charger that could juice up an EV in just 10 minutes. It’s the kind of thing that could move EVs from the fringe squarely into the mainstream.

bigthinkeditor

What’s the Latest Development?

Electric vehicles may be cleaner than gasoline-powered cars and cheap to charge, but they come with a major downside: how long it takes to juice them up. But what if EVs could be charged up in the time it takes to go to the bathroom and run into a convenience store for a snack? Nissan is said to be working on a charger that can juice up an EV in just 10 minutes.

What’s the Big Idea?

It’s the kind of thing that could move EVs from the fringe squarely into the mainstream. Apparently Nissan and Japan’s Kansai University have figured out how to shave the charging time down to just 10 minutes by using a capacitor electrode made of tungsten oxide and vanadium oxide (instead of carbon, which is used in today’s chargers) to improve power.

a computer generated image of a human brain.

Thinking

The great free will debate featuring Michio Kaku and Steven Pinker

Who — or what — really controls your mind?

Building destroyed by the Halifax Explosion. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division Washington, D.C.

The Past

The largest accidental explosion of all time

More than a century ago, Halifax suffered an accidental blast one-fifth the size of the atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima.

a collage of photos of a man with a hat and a book.

High Culture

6 great books with wildly unreliable narrators

Dive into the twisted truths and concealed realities told by literature’s most unreliable narrators.

a group of five matches on a pink background.

The Well

Signs you’re burned out — and how to bounce back

If you don’t feel better after the weekend, the “burnout paradox” could explain why.

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7 min

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with

Laurie Santos

Starts With A Bang

The trick to instantly identifying JWST images

If you can identify a foreground star, the spike patterns are a dead giveaway as to whether it’s a JWST image or any other observatory.

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