In a recent blog post, Samsung said it sold four times more foldable devices in 2021 than 2020. The Verge reports: It attributes this success to the arrival of the Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Z Flip 3 […]. Samsung says sales for these two devices in their first month alone exceeded “total accumulative sales of Samsung foldable devices in 2020.” These are promising metrics for the slow ascension of foldable phones, though you should bear in mind that Samsung isn’t sharing hard sales data. Instead, it pointed to the fact that its increases were greater than predictions made by third-party analysts, who suggested that total shipments from all manufacturers for foldable devices would hit 9 million in 2021.

If Samsung thinks this figure is useful enough to cite — and with the company thought to account for around 88 percent of the total foldable markets — we can guess that its sales were in the high single-digit millions or pushing into the low tens of millions. These numbers are expected to increase tenfold by 2023 […]. Samsung also says that its decision to push forward early with foldable devices has paid off in terms of converting customers. It says that “compared to the Galaxy Note 20, Samsung has seen a 150 percent increase in consumers who switched smartphone brands for the Galaxy Z Flip 3.” If you want to attract new money, it helps to offer something unique.

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Source: Slashdot – Samsung Says Its Foldable Shipments Increased Four-Fold In 2021

Thirty feet underground and a stone’s throw from Stanford University, scientists are putting the finishing touches on a laser that could fundamentally change the way they study the building blocks of the universe. CNET reports: When completed next year, the Linac Coherent Light Source II, or the LCLS-II , will be the second world-class X-ray laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory. CNET was given the rare opportunity to film inside the more than 2-mile long tunnel ahead of the new laser’s launch. The first LCLS, in operation since 2009, creates a beam capable of 120 light pulses per second. The LCLS-II will be capable of up to 1 million pulses per second, and a beam 10,000 times brighter than its predecessor.

You can think of the LCLS as being like a microscope with atomic resolution. At its core it is a particle accelerator, a device that speeds up charged particles and channels them into a beam. That beam is then run through a series of alternating magnets (a device called an undulator) to produce X-rays. Scientists can use those X-rays to create what they call molecular movies. These are snapshots of atoms and molecules in motion, captured within a few quadrillionths of a second, and strung together like a film. Scientists across nearly every scientific field have come from all over the world to run their experiments with the LCLS. Among other things, their molecular movies have shown chemical reactions as they happened, demonstrated the behavior of atoms inside stars, and produced live snapshots detailing the process of photosynthesis.

Though both lasers accelerate electrons to nearly the speed of light, they’ll each do it differently. The LCLS’s accelerator pushes the electrons down a copper pipe that operates at room temperature, designed to be activated only in short bursts. But the LCLS-II is designed to run continuously, which means it generates massive amounts of heat. A copper cavity would absorb too much of that heat. That’s why engineers turned to a new superconducting accelerator, composed of dozens of 40-foot-long devices called cryomodules designed to run at two degrees above absolute zero (-456 degrees Fahrenheit). They’re kept at operating temperature by a massive cryogenics plant above ground.

[T]he LCLS-II will allow SLAC scientists answer questions they’ve been trying to solve for years. “How does energy transfer happen inside molecular systems? How does charge transfer happen? Once we understand some of these principles, we can start to apply them to understand how we can do artificial photosynthesis, how can we build better solar cells.” Scientists at SLAC hope to produce their first electron beam with the LCLS-II in January, followed by their first X-ray in the summer, which they’ll refer to as their first “big light” event.

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Source: Slashdot – Building the World’s Brightest X-Ray Laser

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: As new year approaches, crowds around the world may be expecting whizzes and bangs to light up the sky. But the appeal of fireworks could fizzle out with the growing use of drones for light shows. One notable example was the opening ceremony of this year’s Tokyo Olympics, while the Over the Top NYE event at Reunion Tower in Dallas is among those planning to combine fireworks and drones to welcome 2022. They are also being embraced at a local level: more than 1,000 people watched a drone display at Mercia Marina in Derbyshire to celebrate Bonfire Night this year.

Ollie Howitt, the creative coordinator at SkyMagic, which used a fleet of 300 drones to create a display for the mayor of London’s new year celebration last year, said demand had increased substantially, something the pandemic has helped accelerate. She added that drones were increasingly able to fly in greater density and for longer. “We do think it’s going to be something that’s ever evolving, as opposed to it being a short-lived sort of fad that people have suddenly got interested in,” she said.

Robert Neff, a partner and general manager at Mercia Marina, also believes drone displays will become more common. “There’s a big movement against fireworks,” he said. Neff said the decision to use a drone display at the marina was down to a number of factors, including the impact of fireworks on animals — from wildlife and waterfowl to the cats and dogs of boat owners. “They’ve often commented on how much distress is caused to their pets by the fireworks,” he said. Howitt said there were benefits to drones: “They’re no emission, they’re reusable, there’s no fallout or any debris or that kind of thing. So in that sense they are a very good, sustainable option.” “Suggestions are that drones have less of an impact on the environment, but we have grave concerns about electrical demand and use of lithium batteries which are known not to be all that ‘green,'” said a spokesperson from the British Fireworks Association. “Firework use impact on the environment has been shown to be minor and very short-lived and recent studies have suggested that there is likely to be more pollution from a couple of cars driving to an event than caused by fireworks at an event.”

Others suggest the use of fireworks and drones are not mutually exclusive. “We find fireworks work really well in tandem with drones. But we don’t really see it as a one replacing the other at all. We sort of feel as if it’s just another tool in the chest for how you sort of animate the sky and what you want to do with the show that you’re putting on,” said Howitt, noting that while fireworks give a loud, emotive, big performance, drones offer the chance to tell stories in the sky by using a series of images.

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Source: Slashdot – Fireworks Could Fizzle Out As Drones Rise In Popularity For New Year

A sugar additive used in several foods could have helped spread a seriously dangerous superbug around the US, according to a 2018 study. ScienceAlert reports: The finger of blame is pointed squarely at the sugar trehalose, found in foods such as nutrition bars and chewing gum. If the findings are confirmed, it’s a stark warning that even apparently harmless additives have the potential to cause health issues when introduced to our food supply. In this case, trehalose is being linked with the rise of two strains of the bacterium Clostridium difficile, capable of causing diarrhea, colitis, organ failure, and even death. The swift rise of the antibiotic-resistant bug has become a huge problem for hospitals in recent years, and the timing matches up with the arrival of trehalose.

“In 2000, trehalose was approved as a food additive in the United States for a number of foods from sushi and vegetables to ice cream,” said one of the researchers, Robert Britton from the Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, back in January 2018. “About three years later the reports of outbreaks with these lineages started to increase. Other factors may also contribute, but we think that trehalose is a key trigger.”

The C. difficile lineages Britton is referring to are RT027 and RT078. When the researchers analysed the genomes of these two strains, they found DNA sequences that enabled them to feed off low doses of trehalose sugar very efficiently. In fact, these particular bacteria need about 1,000 times less trehalose to live off than other varieties of C. difficile, thanks to their genetic make-up. […] It’s still not certain that trehalose has contributed to the rise of C. difficile, but the study results and the timing of its approval as an additive are pretty compelling. More research will now be needed to confirm the link. According to figures from the CDC, “C. difficile was responsible for half a million infections across the year and 29,000 deaths within the first 30 days of diagnosis,” adds ScienceAlert. The findings were published in the journal Nature.

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Source: Slashdot – Sugar Additive Trehalose Could Have Helped Spread Dangerous Superbug Around the US