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The race is on around the world as scientists strive to develop a new generation of batteries that can perform beyond the limits of the current lithium-ion based battery. Researchers at the University of Illinois at Chicago have taken a significant step toward the development of a battery that could outperform the lithium-ion technology used in electric cars such as the Chevy Volt. They have shown they can replace the lithium ions, each of which carries a single positive charge, with magnesium ions, which have a plus-two charge, in battery-like chemical reactions, using an electrode with a structure like those...

Molybdenum disulfide sheets -- which are "sandwiches" of one molybdenum atom between two sulfur atoms -- may improve rechargeable lithium-ion batteries, according to the latest research from Gurpreet Singh, assistant professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering. Credit: Kansas State University The key to better cellphones and other rechargeable electronics may be in tiny "sandwiches" made of nanosheets, according to mechanical engineering research from Kansas State University. Gurpreet Singh, assistant professor of mechanical and nuclear engineering, and his research team are improving rechargeable lithium-ion batteries. The team has focused on the lithium cycling of molybdenum disulfide, or MoS2, sheets, which Singh...

The research and maps, which span a large area of the sky, are the product of a massive effort of an international team from the US, UK, Spain, Germany, Switzerland, and Brazil. They announced their new results at the American Physical Society (APS) meeting in Baltimore, Maryland. According to cosmologists, dark matter particles stream and clump together over time in particular regions of the cosmos, often in the same places where galaxies form and cluster. Over time, a “cosmic web” develops across the universe. Though dark matter is invisible, it expands with the universe and feels the pull of gravity....

I would like to think this headline from Newsweek is simply being sarcastic, but I doubt this is the case: Who Reported on Hillary Clinton's Historic Chipotle Visit, and How? This headline was written by people who have no conception of what is and isn't historical. SNIP Hillary going to a Chipotle counter and saying, "I'll have a chicken bowl with a side of guacamole," is not historic. SNIP

Ukraine's parliament has voted to ban "propaganda of the totalitarian communist and Nazi regimes," a major rebuke to the country's Soviet-era masters in Moscow and to Russia. A total of 254 members of the 450-seat Vekhovna Rada voted on April 9 in favor of the legislation in the former Soviet republic, which is deeply at odds with Russia over its annexation of Crimea and support for separatists in a conflict that has killed more than 6,000 people. Under the legislation, the communist government that ruled between 1917 and 1991 -- the Soviet era -- is condemned as a criminal regime...

Vandalism at a Jamestown, North Carolina church totals up to $10,000 in damage. Guilford County Sheriff's investigators said that sometime between Friday night and Saturday morning vandals spray painted several messages on Bales Memorial Wesleyan Church, broke the front sign and some windows, and damaged the church bus. The church leadership said the congregation isn't hateful toward gay people and they doesn't understand why someone would lash out at them. "I can't tell you a reason that someone would target this church, particularly because this is a loving church. This is not a judgmental place or a place where someone...

Full title: Christians in Niger Forgive Muslims Who Burned Churches and Killed Believers: 'We Want Them to Know Jesus Christ' Christians living in Niger, West Africa have offered Christ-like forgiveness to the radical Muslims who destroyed their homes and churches, are are continuing to share the Gospel in the region. On January 17, hundreds of Muslims, angered by the cartoons of the prophet Muhammad published by the French magazine Charlie Hebdo, destroyed 69 churches and 11 Christian homes. Ten Christians lost their lives and hundreds more were injured in the wake of the deadly rampage. "They took pews, Bibles, chairs...

Cardinal Francis George of Chicago. Chicago, Ill., Apr 17, 2015 / 12:20 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Cardinal Francis George, the Emeritus Archbishop of Chicago, passed away Friday morning after a long batter with cancer. Archbishop Blase Cupich, who currently heads the archdiocese, remembered Cardinal George as “a man of peace, tenacity and courage.” At an April 17 press conference, Archbishop Cupich lauded the cardinal for his bravery in overcoming challenges, which included a battle with polio as a teenager that left his legs permanently weak. “Cardinal George was a respected leader among the bishops of the United States,” Archbishop Cupich noted,...

Seven years ago, the World Bank set out to help preserve Kenya's Embobut Forest for future generations. As part of the Natural Resource Management Project, it spent millions to mitigate erosion, prevent landslides and improve the administration of water resources. The bank acknowledged that some of the area's residents would have to be relocated, only to declare a few years later that relocation would be too complicated and unnecessary. By then, Kenya's government was already using the project as a justification to rid the forest of its indigenous population, the Sengwer. Thousands have found themselves dispossessed, their houses set ablaze...

The International Association of Machinists & Aerospace Workers Friday withdrew for at least six months their petition for an election scheduled for Wednesday to unionize Boeing Co.’s North Charleston plant. The union cited a “toxic environment and gross violation of workers’s lawful organizing rights.” If the union had pressed ahead with the controversial vote – being waged in a strongly anti-union state – and failed to win, organizers would have had to wait at least a year to schedule another try at passage. “An atmosphere of threats, harassment and unprecedented political interference has intimated workers to the point we don’t...

Since Colorado voters legalized pot in 2012, prohibition supporters have warned that recreational marijuana will lead to a scourge of “drugged divers” on the state’s roads. They often point out that when the state legalized medical marijuana in 2001, there was a surge in drivers found to have smoked pot. ...]

Can Christianity survive, in the face of persecution and conflict, in the region of its birth? The BBC's Jane Corbin travelled across the Middle East - through Iraq and Syria - to investigate the plight of Christians, as hundreds of thousands flee Islamic militancy in the region.As I climbed the steep mountain path above the plain of Nineveh, Iraq, the sound of monks chanting and the smell of incense drifted out of the 4th Century monastery of St Matthew. Once, 7,000 monks worshipped here when Christianity was the official religion of the Roman empire. Almost the whole population was Christian...

It’s one thing for Hillary Clinton to lift Granny Warren’s applause lines, but now she’s speaking with a forked tongue about her grandparents, just like the fake Indian does.You know how Fauxcahontas says she’s an Indian because her grandma told her she had “high cheekbones”? And how her parents had to elope because her paternal grandparents were angry that their son was marrying a “breed”? (Funny, the newlyweds had a big wedding party in their hometown right after they got married in the biggest church in the next town over.)Now Hillary is out in Iowa making it up about her...

I am a very committed, very public advocate of marriage as a gender-based institution. Many of my fellow proponents of man/woman marriage cite religious liberty as an argument against redefining marriage. While I have great respect for those who promote this view, I must respectfully disagree with their assessment.The uproar over the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act demonstrates that religious liberty arguments don’t work anymore. I take no pleasure in saying this. But religious liberty arguments are not compelling enough to induce our fellow citizens to sacrifice something they value, namely, sexual liberty.I can think of three reasons for this.An...

The suspect arrested Thursday (April 16) and booked with attempted first-degree murder of a St. Charles Parish sheriff's deputy, was fired from the Transportation Security Administration for "unbecoming conduct" and was previously arrested and booked with domestic violence and aggravated assault, St. Charles Sheriff Greg Champagne said. The suspect, 58-year-old John Pau Devillier, is a native of St. Charles Parish. However, authorities say his most recent residence was a room at the Value Place Motel in Gulfport, Miss. "We are at this time thoroughly looking into Mr. Devillier's past," Champagne said. "We have learned, what I can positively corroborate about...

'Isis' has been removed from the official list of names of future hurricanes as it was now deemed inappropriate because of the eponymous militant group, the U.N.'s World Meteorological Organization (WMO) said on Friday. As the name of an ancient goddess of Egypt, Isis had been on the WMO list of names for hurricanes in the eastern North Pacific in 2016, WMO spokeswoman Clare Nullis said. But ISIS is also used to describe the Islamic State militant group, whose forces have captured large swathes of Iraq and Syria and which stands accused by U.N. war crimes investigators of committing brutal...

In 1921, according to the history books, an newly-blind Englishman named James Biggs was feeling threatened by the amount of traffic in his neighborhood. In order to be more visible to motorists, Biggs reportedly painted his cane white. If true, it means the white cane as an aid to the blind is approaching its 100th birthday. Which explains why, in true Silicon Valley fashion, Raghav Ganesh thought the world was overdue for the white cane, 2.0. "There's an old device here that needed an upgrade," Raghav says, "and I thought I could make that better." Raghav Ganesh, a San Jose...

Walter Scott and his passenger were looking forward to having a cookout when he was pulled over and shot dead by a South Carolina police officer, it has emerged. Scott, 50, and Pierre Fulton, his friend of several years, had met for breakfast on April 4 before Scott drove him to a church...Scott was behind $18,000 in his child support payments and family members have said he may have run because he was worried about going to jail.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, has accused the EU of declaring “enmity” on his country as next week’s centenary commemorations of the massacres of Armenians by the Ottoman Empire descend into bitter rows over what to call them. Both the European Parliament and Pope Francis this week referred to the killings as a genocide, a term recognised by much of the rest of the world but fiercely disputed by Turkey. The European decision prompted a furious response from Mr Erdogan. “Such decisions are nothing but expressions of enmity against Turkey by abusing Armenians,” he said while on a visit to...

CaliforniaÂ’s report said $440 million. New JerseyÂ’s said $600 million. In Pennsylvania, the tally is $700 million. Those figures are public worker pension fees being paid annually by taxpayers to Wall Street firms, and they have kicked off an intensifying debate over whether such expenses are necessary. Now, a report from an industry-friendly source says those huge levies represent only a fraction of the true amounts being raked in by Wall Street firms from state and local governments. In all, CEM Benchmarking concludes that AmericaÂ’s public pension funds are paying billions of dollars in undisclosed fees to private equity firms....