Batteries capable of fully charging in five minutes have been produced in a factory for the first time, marking a significant step towards electric cars becoming as fast to charge as filling up petrol or diesel vehicles.
Electric vehicles are a vital part of action to tackle the climate crisis but running out of charge during a journey is a worry for drivers. The new lithium-ion batteries were developed by the Israeli company StoreDot and manufactured by Eve Energy in China on standard production lines.
Read more at:
Electric car batteries with five-minute charging times produced | Electric, hybrid and low-emission cars | The Guardian
Showing posts with label breakthrough. Show all posts
Showing posts with label breakthrough. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 19, 2021
Thursday, April 11, 2019
EU-China Relationship: EU, China hail 'breakthrough' trade agreement that contrasts Trump's 'America First' agenda
Chinese Premier Li Keqiang has promised the European
Union Beijing will no longer force foreign companies to share sensitive
know-how when operating in China, and it is ready to discuss new global
trading rules on industrial subsidies.
Key points:
- China said it is ready to open up to foreign companies and end demands for trade secrets
- EU and Chinese negotiators agreed on a final communique of cooperation
- The two sides agreed to intensify talks on subsidies and pledged a deal by 2020
Marking a significant shift, Mr Li's pledge at the annual EU-China leaders' meeting last night follows similar offers to the United States, and potentially signals an opening for which European companies have long lobbied.
"European companies will enjoy equal treatment," Mr Li told a news conference following the three-hour summit in Brussels, offering to set up a disputes mechanism to handle complaints.
Summit chair Donald Tusk talked of a major turning point in the relationship between the EU and China. "It is a breakthrough", he said. "For the first time, China has agreed to engage with Europe on this key priority for WTO [World Trade Organisation] reform."
Read more at: EU, China hail 'breakthrough' trade agreement that contrasts Trump's 'America First' agenda - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Monday, March 11, 2019
Britain - Gartner Data and Analytics Summit: Use of big data analytics keeps the Netherlands dry and transforms fashion brands
The use of big data analytics has helped everything from
water management in the Netherlands to both the retail and insurance
industries to undergo digital transformation, as proven in a number of
case studies at the Gartner Data and Analytics Summit.
From defending the Netherlands against the type of flood that claimed 1,800 lives 66 years ago to helping fashion brands sail confidently through the perilous waters of online shopping, the use of big data analytics has never had such a profound effect.
Sensor technology interconnected through the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence and data analysis have been applied to water management to keep Dutch communities safe in an era when climate change is beginning to cause the country real concern.
And in business, they have traditional industries such as retail and insurance to meet customer demand and improve internal processes.
A range of case studies were put forward at the Gartner Data and Analytics Summit in London this week to highlight how almost any sector or business function can undergo digital transformation through intelligent data insight
Read more: Use of big data analytics keeps Holland dry and transforms fashion br
From defending the Netherlands against the type of flood that claimed 1,800 lives 66 years ago to helping fashion brands sail confidently through the perilous waters of online shopping, the use of big data analytics has never had such a profound effect.
Sensor technology interconnected through the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence and data analysis have been applied to water management to keep Dutch communities safe in an era when climate change is beginning to cause the country real concern.
And in business, they have traditional industries such as retail and insurance to meet customer demand and improve internal processes.
A range of case studies were put forward at the Gartner Data and Analytics Summit in London this week to highlight how almost any sector or business function can undergo digital transformation through intelligent data insight
Read more: Use of big data analytics keeps Holland dry and transforms fashion br
Saturday, January 13, 2018
Germany: German coalition talks reach breakthrough: A look at what comes next
The all-nighter appears to have focused minds: Germany's two biggest
political parties — the Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and the Social
Democratic Party (SPD) — announced on Friday morning that they had made a breakthrough in their exploratory talks, paving the way to formal coalition negotiations and, if all goes to plan, another iteration of the grand coalition.
The new agreement represents an important stage victory in the marathon negotiations for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who would certainly prefer a grand coalition to the other two options currently on the table: heading an unstable minority government, or a new election.
Should the negotiations with the SPD fail, a new election could well usher in the end of Merkel's time in office, as her CDU attempts to revive its fortunes following its worst election results ever. Her party took 32.9 percent in September's election, a drop of 8.6 percentage points on the 2013 result. This has resulted in much self-reflection in the party, along with speculation that Merkel's era was drawing to a close — and even debate about potential successors.
Read more: German coalition talks reach breakthrough: A look at what comes next | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 12.01.2018
The new agreement represents an important stage victory in the marathon negotiations for Chancellor Angela Merkel, who would certainly prefer a grand coalition to the other two options currently on the table: heading an unstable minority government, or a new election.
Should the negotiations with the SPD fail, a new election could well usher in the end of Merkel's time in office, as her CDU attempts to revive its fortunes following its worst election results ever. Her party took 32.9 percent in September's election, a drop of 8.6 percentage points on the 2013 result. This has resulted in much self-reflection in the party, along with speculation that Merkel's era was drawing to a close — and even debate about potential successors.
Read more: German coalition talks reach breakthrough: A look at what comes next | Germany| News and in-depth reporting from Berlin and beyond | DW | 12.01.2018
Friday, March 11, 2016
Cancer Research and treatment : Chemotherapy, Treatments for Lymphoma and Other Cancers - by Elizabeth Agnvall
Unleashing a patient's own immune system to fight cancer cells. Reengineering cells to attack tumors. Targeting genetic mutations with medications that block unbridled tumor growth. If it sounds like scientists are waging an all-out war on cancer, that's because they are.
And for the first time in almost 15 years, they're winning. Cancer deaths are down 23 percent since their peak in 1991, according to the American Cancer Society. People are living long-term with bone marrow cancers that a decade ago might have killed them in 2or 3 years. The 5-year survival rate for breast cancer is 90 percent, up from 75 percent in 1975. And, miraculously, patients who would have died within a few months from metastatic melanoma are seemingly cured.
"It is the moment I've been dreaming of in my 30 years practicing medicine," says Louis M. Weiner, director of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington. D.C. "To be able to sit down with a patient who has a disease that in the past couldn't be effectively treated and tell them, 'We have a therapy that could allow you to live your life, watch your grandchildren be born, and help raise them."
Here are the advances in cancer treatments that are offering patients new hope:
Immunotherapies: Typically, when our immune system is faced with a threat — germs or viruses, for instance — it makes antibodies to target and kill the bugs. Cancer researchers have now created manmade antibodies, called monoclonal antibodies, designed to attach to and kill cancer cells by marking them for destruction by the immune system.
Monoclonal antibodies have been effective in treating a wide range of cancers, including lung cancer, breast cancer and lymphoma.
One of the first of these man-made antibodies, Herceptin, changed the landscape for treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer from one that was "the worst type of breast cancer" to one that nearly always responds to treatment if caught early, says Gordon Mills, professor of medicine and immunology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
In the last year, doctors have seen great success with a new type of monoclonal antibody called a checkpoint inhibitor. First approved for treating metastatic melanoma in 2014 and non-small cell lung cancer in 2015 and for metastatic melanoma a few months later, checkpoint inhibitors were used to treat former President Jimmy Carter, who was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in the fall of 2015; his cancer is now in remission.
Checkpoint inhibitors work by blocking the signal — called a checkpoint — that cancer cells send out telling the immune system not to attack. "The drugs allow the immune system to recognize the tumor," says Svetomir Markovic, an oncologist and hematologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Even when patients stop therapy after a few months, the immune system is no longer fooled by the misleading signal. "The early successes of the checkpoint inhibitors have absolutely ignited the scientific community."
Much work lies ahead. The new immunotherapy drugs still only work in about 20 percent of patients overall. But "this advancement of therapeutic strategy where the body's own immune system is the hammer that kills the tumor" has made many oncology practices "literally unrecognizable" from where they were 15 years ago, Markovic says.
Targeted gene therapies: One of the great discoveries in cancer treatment is that cancer tumors have their own genetic footprint. In the last few years, doctors have been able to use that information to test for genetic mutations within an individual's cancer cells and subsequently determine which tumors will be responsive to new medications.
The introduction of these drugs signaled the arrival of a new era particularly in the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma — blood and bone marrow cancers that claim the lives of more than 56,000 people a year. Before 2001, patients with chronic myeloid leukemia had a life expectancy of 3 to 5 years. Today, many patients who began treatment with one of the first targeted therapy to be approved by the FDA — Gleevec — are still alive 15 years later.
Scientists began searching for other mutations that made the tumors sensitive to new drugs, says Mayo Clinic thoracic surgeon Dennis Wigle.
Several of these new gene-targeted drugs are finally making a difference in lung cancer — by far the nation's deadliest cancer — resulting in "sea change" in how that cancer is treated today, Wigle says. While the drugs don't cure the cancer, in some cases, they can force it into remission, he says. The downside? Many of these drugs have to be taken for a lifetime.
Powerful combinations: For some cancers, using a combination of immunotherapy and targeted medications offers the best chance for success.
The blood cancer multiple myeloma is one of the best examples of this approach, says S. Vincent Rajkumar, a hematologist and oncologist at the Mayo Clinic. Using medications that cut off a tumor's blood supply, man-made antibodies that target molecules on the surface of cancer cells, medicines that trigger cell death, and bone marrow transplants and chemotherapy, doctors have drastically increased the prognosis for these patients, from 2 years to a decade or more.
"With the newer therapies, we're turning cancer from a lethal disease into a curable disease," adds Michael Atkins, deputy director of Georgetown's Lombardi Center.
From: : Chemotherapy, Treatments for Lymphoma and Other Cancers AARP
And for the first time in almost 15 years, they're winning. Cancer deaths are down 23 percent since their peak in 1991, according to the American Cancer Society. People are living long-term with bone marrow cancers that a decade ago might have killed them in 2or 3 years. The 5-year survival rate for breast cancer is 90 percent, up from 75 percent in 1975. And, miraculously, patients who would have died within a few months from metastatic melanoma are seemingly cured.
"It is the moment I've been dreaming of in my 30 years practicing medicine," says Louis M. Weiner, director of the Georgetown Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center in Washington. D.C. "To be able to sit down with a patient who has a disease that in the past couldn't be effectively treated and tell them, 'We have a therapy that could allow you to live your life, watch your grandchildren be born, and help raise them."
Here are the advances in cancer treatments that are offering patients new hope:
Immunotherapies: Typically, when our immune system is faced with a threat — germs or viruses, for instance — it makes antibodies to target and kill the bugs. Cancer researchers have now created manmade antibodies, called monoclonal antibodies, designed to attach to and kill cancer cells by marking them for destruction by the immune system.
Monoclonal antibodies have been effective in treating a wide range of cancers, including lung cancer, breast cancer and lymphoma.
One of the first of these man-made antibodies, Herceptin, changed the landscape for treatment of HER2-positive breast cancer from one that was "the worst type of breast cancer" to one that nearly always responds to treatment if caught early, says Gordon Mills, professor of medicine and immunology at MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston.
In the last year, doctors have seen great success with a new type of monoclonal antibody called a checkpoint inhibitor. First approved for treating metastatic melanoma in 2014 and non-small cell lung cancer in 2015 and for metastatic melanoma a few months later, checkpoint inhibitors were used to treat former President Jimmy Carter, who was diagnosed with metastatic melanoma in the fall of 2015; his cancer is now in remission.
Checkpoint inhibitors work by blocking the signal — called a checkpoint — that cancer cells send out telling the immune system not to attack. "The drugs allow the immune system to recognize the tumor," says Svetomir Markovic, an oncologist and hematologist at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. Even when patients stop therapy after a few months, the immune system is no longer fooled by the misleading signal. "The early successes of the checkpoint inhibitors have absolutely ignited the scientific community."
Much work lies ahead. The new immunotherapy drugs still only work in about 20 percent of patients overall. But "this advancement of therapeutic strategy where the body's own immune system is the hammer that kills the tumor" has made many oncology practices "literally unrecognizable" from where they were 15 years ago, Markovic says.
Targeted gene therapies: One of the great discoveries in cancer treatment is that cancer tumors have their own genetic footprint. In the last few years, doctors have been able to use that information to test for genetic mutations within an individual's cancer cells and subsequently determine which tumors will be responsive to new medications.
The introduction of these drugs signaled the arrival of a new era particularly in the treatment of leukemia and lymphoma — blood and bone marrow cancers that claim the lives of more than 56,000 people a year. Before 2001, patients with chronic myeloid leukemia had a life expectancy of 3 to 5 years. Today, many patients who began treatment with one of the first targeted therapy to be approved by the FDA — Gleevec — are still alive 15 years later.
Scientists began searching for other mutations that made the tumors sensitive to new drugs, says Mayo Clinic thoracic surgeon Dennis Wigle.
Several of these new gene-targeted drugs are finally making a difference in lung cancer — by far the nation's deadliest cancer — resulting in "sea change" in how that cancer is treated today, Wigle says. While the drugs don't cure the cancer, in some cases, they can force it into remission, he says. The downside? Many of these drugs have to be taken for a lifetime.
Powerful combinations: For some cancers, using a combination of immunotherapy and targeted medications offers the best chance for success.
The blood cancer multiple myeloma is one of the best examples of this approach, says S. Vincent Rajkumar, a hematologist and oncologist at the Mayo Clinic. Using medications that cut off a tumor's blood supply, man-made antibodies that target molecules on the surface of cancer cells, medicines that trigger cell death, and bone marrow transplants and chemotherapy, doctors have drastically increased the prognosis for these patients, from 2 years to a decade or more.
"With the newer therapies, we're turning cancer from a lethal disease into a curable disease," adds Michael Atkins, deputy director of Georgetown's Lombardi Center.
From: : Chemotherapy, Treatments for Lymphoma and Other Cancers AARP
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