Meet the cheaper batteries that could give lithium a run for its money

Welcome back to What’s Next in Tech. In this edition, discover which abundant material could unlock cheaper batteries for EVs. Then, meet a digital forensic analyst who snoops around smart devices in search of clues. Plus, learn about the baby girl who underwent an experimental brain operation while still in the womb.

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Move over, lithium—there’s a new battery chemistry in town.

Lithium is currently the ruler of the battery world, a key ingredient in the batteries powering phones and electric vehicles.?

But as concerns about the supply chain swell, scientists are looking for ways to cut down on battery technology’s most expensive, least readily available ingredients. While there are already options that reduce the need for some, like cobalt and nickel, there’s been little recourse for those looking to dethrone lithium.

But over the past few months, companies in China have announced forays into a new kind of battery chemistry that replaces lithium with sodium. In theory, these new batteries could help push costs down. But it’s unclear just how soon they’ll be ready to fit into real vehicles. Read the story.

How to hack a smart fridge

Do you know how many internet-connected devices there are inside your home? These days, it could be almost anything: a thermostat, a TV, a lightbulb, an air conditioner, or a refrigerator. You’d probably struggle to figure the number out.?

What’s becoming clearer is just how much data these devices are producing, and how many people can access that data if they want to. (Hint: it’s a lot.)

MIT Technology Review’s senior tech policy reporter spoke to some people working in the burgeoning field of IoT forensics, which is essentially about snooping around these devices to find data. To take one example, your fridge could reveal details like email addresses, geolocation data, statistics on energy usage, or even photos of what’s on the shelves. Read the story.

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Doctors have performed brain surgery on a fetus in one of the first operations of its kind

What happened: A seven-week-old baby girl is one of the first people to have undergone an experimental brain operation while still in the womb. She had developed a dangerous condition that led blood to pool in a tiny pocket in her brain, which could have resulted in brain damage, heart problems, and breathing difficulties after birth. The operation might have saved her life.

How they did it: Doctors used ultrasound imaging to help them guide a needle through the mother’s abdomen, the uterus wall, and the fetus’s skull and into the malformation in the brain. They then fed a tiny catheter through the needle to deliver a series of tiny platinum coils into the blood-filled pocket. Once each was released, it expanded, helping to block the point where the artery joined the vein. The baby girl was born healthy a few days later.

What’s next: The team behind the operation now plans to treat more fetuses with similar brain conditions in the same way. For conditions like these, fetal brain surgery could be the future. Read the story.

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