💧 Cybertruck's 'unapproved lubricant,' NASA's Solar Sail, Electrode material

Tesla has recalled all 3,878 Cybertrucks sold between November 2023 and April 2024 because of a defect in their accelerator pedals. In short, the pedal pad dislodges due to soap added in the production process as a lubricant.

As a result, the trapped pedal remains pressed, causing unintended acceleration and increasing the chances of a collision. For more on the ‘unapproved lubricant,’ check out today’s Must-Read.

🔥Today’s job of the day as featured on jobs.interestingengineering.com:

> Senior Software Engineer, Backend
> DevSecOps Automation Engineer

🎙 New podcast Turning waste into power for a green revolution

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MUST READ

💧 An “unapproved lubricant” forces Elon Musk to recall all Cybertrucks

A Cybertruck owner first raised this issue on March 31. Since then, a few other customers also posted about dislodged pads on social media. “As I’m driving, this slid up. This sliding up, and the way this was still hooked onto the pedal, it held the accelerator down 100 percent,” A Cybertruck owner posted on TikTok.

According to the official recall report, the dislodging of the pedal pad is caused by soap added in the production process as a lubricant to make the pad function smoothly with the pedal. However, instead of enhancing the pedal assembly, soap residues caused the pads to slip from the pedals and eventually dislodge.

Tesla engineers checked the data logs of their customer’s vehicle and conducted additional tests to confirm the faulty pedals. They completed their assessment by April 12 and eventually decided to voluntarily recall all the Cybertrucks.

☀️ Sailing on sunlight: NASA ACS3 solar sail mission to launch next week

NASA has confirmed the launch date for its groundbreaking Advanced Composite Solar Sail System (ACS3) mission. The ACS3 mission is targeting a launch on Wednesday, April 24, aboard a Rocket Lab Electron rocket.

The small satellite launch vehicle will take off from Rocket Lab’s Complex 1 on the Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand. ACS3 will continue what The Planetary Society started in 2021 with LightSail 2, demonstrating the feasibility of solar sails for ambitious, far-reaching space missions.

While NASA says solar sails could enable low-cost missions to the Moon and Mars, some scientists believe they could send a probe to another star system.

🔋 This electrode material allows 33x more energy storage in wearables

Advancements in wearable devices have necessitated the development of lightweight and robust energy storage systems. These requirements mainly demand technology that enables power retention and energy density under various mechanical deformation conditions.

In a step in the right direction, researchers at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) have now developed a fiber-like electrode material that can store energy.

Their modified carbon nanotube fiber showed 33 times more energy storage, 3.3 times more strength, and 1.3 times more conductivity than regular fibers. The team tested these fibers by making them into energy storage devices and using them to power a digital clock, which worked well for over 15 minutes.

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HOT TOPICS OF THE DAY

SCIENCE

> A study published last week has revealed the discovery of a black hole. With a mass a staggering 33 times greater than the Sun, this stellar black hole is the most massive ever detected within our Milky Way galaxy. (More)

> Just two northern white rhinos remain on the planet. Both of them are female, named Najin and her daughter Fatu. The last male, Sudan, died in 2018. Could frozen skin cells transformed into embryos save them? (More)

> The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service revealed the arrival of two newly born black-footed ferret clones named Noreen and Antonia. The achievement marks the first cloning of an endangered species in the U.S. (More)

ENERGY

> According to the team at Johannes Kepler University Linz (JKU), their flexible and ultralight solar cell module, 20 times thinner than a human hair strand, can power various electronics anywhere there is light. (More)

> Apple has reduced its overall greenhouse gas emissions by more than 55 percent since 2015. The milestone marks important progress on its Apple 2030 goal to become carbon neutral across its entire value chain by the end of this decade. (More)

> China is increasingly seeking to put solar panels on the seas off its coastline, with some state-run companies experimenting as far offshore as 30 kilometers. The country has been looking to the ocean to meet its future power via wind, waves, and tides. (More)

INNOVATION

> George Mallory was a world-famous mountaineer. He and his team were the first to climb to 27,300 feet (8,230 m) on Mt. Everest. They missed the peak by just 1,735 feet (620 m). Now, for the first time, his letters dated 1914 and 1924 have been digitized. (More)

> In a markable advancement, the first diesel engine in history with an intrinsic thermal efficiency of 53.09 percent was unveiled by Chinese firm Weichai Power. (More)

> Researchers have uncovered the secrets behind the quiet operation of futuristic aircraft equipped with innovative embedded engines. The study sheds light on the noise generation and transmission mechanisms of boundary layer ingesting (BLI) ducted fans. (More)

VIDEO

> Optics expert Guy Cramer has invented a kind of invisibility shield for soldiers. By misaligning two layers of lenticular lenses, he creates a negative refractive index. That camouflages whatever is behind the lenses. (More)

> The Euclid space telescope will embark on a six-year mission to map the universe. In particular, it will investigate dark matter and dark energy. Ground telescope data will add color and depth to its images. (More)

> Why send a guitar into space? Strapped to a weather balloon and a GoPro camera, the guitar went up 101,000 feet. It resulted in footage of the stratosphere to match a song played down on Earth. (More)

IE QUIZ: THE RESULTS

In yesterday’s quiz, we asked, Can you unravel this mystery number?

The answer is: 15

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