Science and Medicine

Can biominerals sourced from snails improve lithium-ion batteries and solar cellconcentration?

Can biominerals sourced from snails improve lithium-ion batteries and solar cell concentration?

According to researchers at the University of California, Riverside, the hunt for ways to improve battery energy storage and recharging, as well as the sunlight capture and concentration in solar cells, could be found in the strangest of places.

Assistant Professor David Kisailus, who has been studying a marine snail found off the U.S. coast called the chiton, has found that the snail’s teeth—constantly worn down by rasping algae off rocks and then replaced by further rows—could hold the key for improving our battery technology. The teeth, which contain the hardest-known biomineral magnetite, undergo an interesting process to become hard enough to cope with gnawing on rocks, as Wards autosummarizes:

Read more: Can snail teeth improve battery tech, solar cells?

Previous research has shown that chewing gum can improve concentration in visual memory tasks.

Chewing gum can help you stay focused for longer on tasks that require ongoing attention.

Previous research has shown that chewing gum can improve concentration in visual memory tasks. This study focused on the potential benefits of chewing gum during an audio memory task.

It’s been well established by previous research that chewing gum can benefit some areas of cognition. The study focused on an audio task that involved short-term memory recall to see if chewing gum would improve concentration, especially in the latter stages of the task.

The study, published in the British Journal of Psychology, involved 38 participants being split into two groups. Both groups completed a 30-minute audio task that involved listening to a list of numbers from 1 through 9 being read out in a random manner.

The researchers, including Chris Miles of Cardiff University, scored participants on how accurately and quickly they were able to detect a sequence of odd-even-odd numbers, such as 7-2-1. Participants also completed questionnaires on their mood both before and after the task.

Read more: Chewing Gum Helps Maintain Focus