These are words, literally, as well&ensp;as cute (in some cases) this week in technology. sodium-pasco-scooter A little more on that below.
 On&ensp;the streets of the eastern city of Hangzhou, shiny electric mopeds catch the eye outside a shopping mall. The scooters, which cost &pound;300 to &pound;500 ($400 to $660), rely on sodium-based batteries made from an abundant element&ensp;in sea salt. Fast-charging stations keep the batteries in the scooters full in as little as 15 minutes &mdash; and from empty to 80% full in that amount of time &mdash; for a use-the-chair, return-it mode envisioned for sharing scooters and peoples&rsquo; personal vehicles, said&ensp;Yadea, a leading Chinese two-wheeler manufacturer that hosted the event set in early 2025. They have also established battery-swapping&ensp;stations that allow riders to trade low batteries for fully charged ones by scanning a QR code.
 Yadea&ensp;is just one of a number of Chinese companies developing alternative battery technologies, underscoring the pace of development of China&rsquo;s clean-tech industry. At a time when the world is still working&ensp;to improve lithium-ion batteries, China has already launched a plan for mass production of sodium-ion batteries, in a bid to cut dependence on raw materials in short supply.
 EXPANSION OF&ensp;MARKETS - THE NA-ION BATTERY INDUSTRY IS MORE ACCEPTED Chinese automakers were the first to produce cars&ensp;with sodium-ion batteries, but those small, limited-range cars have made little impact so far. In April 2025 China&rsquo;s largest battery maker, CATL, announced plans to&ensp;mass produce sodium-ion batteries for trucks and cars under its new Naxtra brand, targeting a launch later this year. Chinese grid operators are, meanwhile,&ensp;building energy storage stations that make use of sodium-ion batteries to support renewable energy, which is considered as a promising sector where this technology is expected to expand.
 China&rsquo;s multi-piece movement may in fact win it a race for global leadership in&ensp;developing sodium-ion batteries, experts say. But how popular sodium-ion batteries will be is an open&ensp;question.
 The two-wheeler&ensp;market is one of the industries driving heavy investment in sodium-ion batteries, especially in China, where the market is fiercely competitive and growing rapidly. Yadea, for its part, has already launched three models that run on sodium-ion batteries, one of several&ensp;that its Hangzhou Huayu New Energy Research Institute is working on.
 Twofold wheels: the faster sodium-ion&ensp;technology is made for them Two-wheelers, ubiquitous in Asia and known in China as &ldquo;little electric donkeys,&rdquo; are used&ensp;most commonly for short trips around shops, offices or to metro stations. These vehicles require about half the energy density in their batteries as they operate over shorter&ensp;distances at lower speeds than cars. Sodium-ion batteries have less energy density than lithium-ion&ensp;ones, but they outperform old-fashioned lead-acid batteries, which are cheaper but also have shorter life and less energy.
 The high&ensp;number of two-wheelers that are sold in Asia also offers an economy of scale. In China alone, roughly 55 million electric two-wheelers were sold in 2023 &mdash;&ensp;almost six times the number of all electric cars sold in that country that year.
 Yadea aims to bring sodium-ion batteries to millions, in the form of two-wheelers and&ensp;with infrastructure that does not depend on filing giant, metal fish out of the sea. In 2024, the company began&ensp;a pilot program in Shenzhen with 150,000 food delivery riders who could exchange used batteries for fully charged ones at partner stations in 30 seconds.
 The rapid rise of Yadea and another battery-swapping company, Dudu&ensp;Huandian, has spurred Shenzhen to become a &ldquo;battery-swapping city.&rdquo; The city plans to have 20,000 charging and swapping pods for electric scooters in place by 2025 and&ensp;ramp that figure up to 50,000 by 2027. Shenzhen already has a &ldquo;battery-swapping park&rdquo; and wants a five-minute one-stop swap location network for residents to use, with the Shenzhen&ensp;Electric Bicycle Industry Association and local government cooperating to promote the system.
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China is on the forefront of sodium-ion battery deployment, and electric scooters is being used&ensp;as the flagship product. Scooters like these, enabled by sodium batteries rather than the conventional lithium-ion and lead-acid&ensp;models, are becoming popular, helping to usher the technology into the mainstream.
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China Drives Sodium-Ion Battery Growth Through Electric Scooters

Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski to Join ISS in Poland&rsquo;s First Space Mission Dr. Sławosz Uznański-Wiśniewski is set to launch on June 8 as part of the Ax-4 mission to the International Space Station (ISS), marking Poland&rsquo;s first space mission. He will become the second Polish person to travel to space, following Mirosław Hermaszewski&rsquo;s flight in 1978. The mission represents both a personal achievement and a national milestone.
 Once in orbit, the astronaut will carry out 13 scientific experiments created by Polish scientists in partnership with the European Space Agency. These experiments aim to advance research in space living, including one focused on growing food on the Moon and Mars. The mission is expected to last between 14 and 16 days.
 Pierogi Goes to Space Uznański-Wiśniewski has also gained attention for announcing that he will bring freeze-dried pierogi&mdash;a traditional Polish dumpling&mdash;into space. This will be the first time the dish is taken aboard the ISS.
 He shared his hopes that the pierogi will taste just as good in space as they do on Earth. His announcement, along with the futuristic look of the spacesuit, has sparked national pride and support from fans, who are eagerly cheering on Poland&rsquo;s latest space pioneer.
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A Polish astronaut has captured the attention of space enthusiasts after revealing the advanced spacesuit he will wear during his upcoming journey to space. The modern design of the suit and the significance of the mission have created a wave of excitement online.

Polish Astronaut Reveals Spacesuit Ahead of Historic Space Mission

&ldquo;Suite Vulgate du Merlin&rdquo; is part of the Lancelot-Grail cycle, a widely read series of Arthurian romances among the nobility of&ensp;the Middle Ages. The narratives contained&ensp;in them would be told by troupes of travelling poets known as trouv&egrave;res. To preserve the delicate pages, researchers developed a noninvasive procedure to digitize the codex through imaging and CT&ensp;scans, resulting in a virtual 3D model that the scientists can study without having to open it.
 Dr. Ir&egrave;ne Fabry-Tehranchi, a specialist in French&ensp;medieval texts, recognized the importance of the manuscript and called the discovery a &ldquo;one in a life time experience.&rdquo; The scans not only unveiled the story, but demonstrated medieval-style bookbinding that could assist in following the manuscript&rsquo;s chain of&ensp;custody.
 From Jacket Copy to Historic&ensp;Find It dates back to 2019, when Sian Collins, previously at Cambridge and now head of special collections and archives at the University of Wales Trinity Saint David, was examining&ensp;estate records from Huntingfield Manor in Suffolk, which was owned by the Vanneck family. What had been indexed as a 14th-century Sir Gawain story was written in Old French and cited characters like Gawain and,&ensp;yes, Excalibur.
 More analysis returned two scenes: The first tells of a battle in which Gawain, his brothers and king Loth fight four Saxon kings&ensp;Dodalis, Moydas, Orianc&eacute;s and Brandalus. The second scene is King Arthur&rsquo;s court and Merlin, disguised as a handsome harpist, plays at a&ensp;feast. He is wearing a silk tunic and jeweled harness&mdash;not just the room,&ensp;but the whole house is illuminated by his finery.
 Preserving the Past With the &ldquo;Suite Vulgate du Merlin,&rdquo; composed around 1230, we&ensp;break in on the scene of Arthur&rsquo;s coronation, focusing instead on the early years of his reign. The young king has to contend with British barons eager for war and&ensp;a Saxon invasion. In all of this adversity, Merlin plays an instrumental&ensp;part, giving advice and even shape-shifting so as to help Arthur.
 As printed books became fashionable in the late 1500s, older manuscripts were often&ensp;thrown away or recycled, Dr. Fabry-Tehranchi explained. The parchment&ensp;pages, sought for their durability, were a common material for the dust covers of book bindings. At the&ensp;same time, English readers were finding it increasingly difficult to understand Old French, with modernized editions such as Sir Thomas Malory&rsquo;s &ldquo;Morte D&rsquo;Arthur&rdquo; now in play.
 Dr Laura Campbell, who has&ensp;worked on the Bristol Merlin, another rare find, points out just how much easier it would have been for modern audiences to access these updated Arthurian stories. Not involved in this project, she explained the significance of such finds for the understanding of&ensp;medieval European literary and cultural history.
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Two previously unknown pages from a 13th-century&ensp;tale of Merlin in Old French and of Arthur in Guinevere&rsquo;s court were discovered by researchers at Cambridge University Library. Written in Old French, these leaves were&ensp;discovered bound into another book as its cover. The fragment is from the&ensp;&ldquo;Suite Vulgate du Merlin,&rdquo; a sequel to the Arthurian legend. Roughly three dozen copies of this sequel are believed&ensp;to exist.
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Hidden Arthurian Manuscript Found in Medieval Book Binding

Turning Risk into Research Knowing Friede&rsquo;s story and detailed&ensp;record-keeping for 17 years had impressed Glanville, he realized that there was something unique he could make out of the story as a new kind of antivenom. Friede contributed a 40-milliliter blood sample that became the basis for research conducted under Glanville and Peter Kwong, a professor of&ensp;the medical sciences at Columbia University. The researchers extracted antibodies from Friede&rsquo;s blood and combined&ensp;them with a venom-inhibiting drug to develop an antivenom tested in mice.
 This new compound, named using two specific antibodies (LNX-D09&ensp;and SNX-B03) and a small molecule drug known as darapladib, neutralized the venom of 19 different species of snake. LNX-D09 provided protection against six species&ensp;alone. Protection was extended&ensp;to three more with the addition of varespladib. The addition of the last one, SNX-B03, made the effective period&ensp;to 19. Mice&ensp;that received the cocktail were completely protected against 13 of the species and partially protected (20&ndash;40%) against the other six.
 A Breakthrough&ensp;in Treating Snakebites? The traditional way to make antivenom is to inject&ensp;animals like horses with venom, then collect the antibodies that develop in their blood &mdash; a process that can be labor-intensive, imprecise and can trigger extreme reactions in people. This new antivenom, however,&ensp;employs human antibodies, which could minimize adverse reactions and lead to better results.
 Snakebites kill some 200 people worldwide each day and cause 400,000 cases&ensp;of disability per year, primarily in the global South. Snakebite was added to the World Health Organization&rsquo;s list of neglected tropical&ensp;diseases in 2017. Friede, who abandoned self-vaccinations in 2018 following a number of&ensp;close calls, is now employed by Centivax, Glanville&rsquo;s biotech company. The treatment hasn&rsquo;t been tested in&ensp;humans yet, but researchers are optimistic.
 The study looked only at snakes like cobras and mambas,&ensp;not viperids like rattlesnakes. The group hopes&ensp;to study other antibodies for wider protection. The group&rsquo;s researchers also aim&ensp;to start field trials of the antivenom in Australia, administering it in veterinary clinics to dogs bitten by elapid snakes. This breakthrough could result in a universal or dual-form antivenom, and&ensp;change the way snakebites are treated globally.

A novel way to treat snakebites has been discovered through an unlikely collaboration between a scientist and a man who spent nearly 20 years self-immunizing himself by exposing&ensp;his body to snake venom. Immunologist Jacob Glanville identified Tim Friede, a self-taught snake handler who had injected himself with&ensp;venom from some of the deadliest snakes on the planet &mdash; culturing himself to snake venom as if it were poison ivy and even permitting snakebites at one point &mdash; all to gradually build his immune system.

Man’s Snake Venom Immunity Inspires Groundbreaking Antivenom

The&ensp;bucket&rsquo;s missing base, which had not been seen for decades, was discovered during a summer dig. This recently discovered section of the hull&ensp;also showed decoration, including paws, shields, and the already absent face of one warrior, rounding out the design of the vessel. The contents were also surprising &mdash; cremated human and animal bone&ensp;along with a remarkably well-preserved comb &mdash; and suggest it was the bucket in which a high-status individual was cremated.
 Revealing the Burial Secrets The pail&ensp;was carefully excavated and then subjected to CT scans and x-rays before a team of experts could give the find a closer look. Inside it, they found cremated human bones, including skull vault and ankle bones, as well as animal remains that may also pertain to a horse, an&ensp;animal commonly associated with high-status Anglo-Saxon cremation rituals. The bones and fibers appear to have been in a collapsed bag and&ensp;were then put into the bucket. Some of these&ensp;fragments were also swirled with copper alloy from the patina of the vessel.
 The most distinctive part of the burial is that no other bucket from the&ensp;period has been discovered with cremated remains. Inside&ensp;the bucket, the researchers also found a well-preserved comb, which appears to have been made from antler. It&ensp;was not burnt like the bones. Combs such as these were used by men and women to groom hair, as&ensp;well as to extract lice. Researchers hoped that DNA from the comb might provide clues about the identity or possible origin of the person buried there because the sex of the individual could not be determined&ensp;by examination of the bones alone.
 Knowing the Bucket&rsquo;s Journey and&ensp;Importance The base of the bucket&ensp;was found intact with concentric cold hammering rings imprinted on it, a technique of shaping metal by pounding that doesn&rsquo;t involve heat. No lid has been discovered but the&ensp;bucket appears to have been old when buried. It may have been a valuable&ensp;antique, a diplomatic gift, or an accouterment of a widely traveled Saxon soldier. It is used as a mortuary pot for cremation, which suggests the person is the high status and may be involved in foreign&ensp;affairs, researchers said.
The find is one of many made during a two-year project that began in 2024 and includes&ensp;multiple archaeological teams. It is part of a long tradition of Sutton Hoo&rsquo;s&ensp;shaping our understanding of Anglo-Saxon England. One of these, in the late 1930s, famously disclosed a 90-foot-long ship burial that is thought&ensp;to have been the grave of King Raedwald of East Anglia, who died around 624. The vessel 0.8 km was towed up the River Deben and buried under&ensp;a mound with its treasures.
 As well as the royal burial, a&ensp;sixth-century Anglo-Saxon cemetery with 13 cremations and 9 inhumations was found next to the Sutton Hoo visitor center in 2000. The fact that they were ancestors may be why they're called princes (most were men), to distinguish them from the people later buried in the royal mounds and&ensp;thus give a comprehensive view of early Anglo-Saxon life and customs. The new discoveries shed further light on burial&ensp;practices and cultural interaction in the era.

At Sutton Hoo in England, where the seventh-century Anglo-Saxon &ldquo;ghost ship&rdquo; burial is located, archaeologists have published a&ensp;substantial amount of information on a mysterious sixth-century object, the Bromeswell bucket. First identified as fragments in 1986 and excavated more completely in 2012, the bucket&ensp;has puzzled scientists with its high-resolution North African hunting scene that includes warriors, animals, and weapons. Experts believe it was created in Antioch (in what is now Turkey) under the Byzantine&ensp;Empire and was moved to Britain a century later.
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Anglo-Saxon Burial Bucket Reveals Cremated Remains and Artifacts

The Dawn&ensp;of AI-Generated Realism Veo 3 distinguishes itself from previous tools by creating&ensp;video, as well as dialogue, music, and sound effects. It fits well with detailed input and will respect visual coherence,&ensp;accurate lip-synch, and physically based realism. In sharp contrast to the prior model, this produces&ensp;humans with realistic features &mdash; such as a correct number of fingers and facial expressions. Most of the videos don&rsquo;t have the usual tells&ensp;of AI making, toward the end of making them even more persuasive. One rhizome screen produced by&ensp;filmmaker and molecular biologist Hashem Al-Ghaili features AI-generated characters pondering their artificial existence. Such short films have astonished viewers with their realism but&ensp;also raised questions like what this means for the future of stories. Tool of Creativity or Menace to&ensp;Artists? Veo 3 was launched at Google I/O and is now available to U.S. users starting at $249/month&ensp;on the Google AI Ultra plan. According&ensp;to Google, the model was designed with input from filmmakers and other creatives. In promotional copy, the filmmaker&ensp;Dave Clark describes the apparatus as so close to autonomous in the thinking department, that it seems, on some levels, to think for itself. Mixed reactions have greeted&ensp;the news, however. While&ensp;some creatives look forward to the freedom, others are anxious or simply dismissive. There&rsquo;s been increasing concern&ensp;over originality and authorship. For example, the tool was said to recycle the same bad joke for different user prompts,&ensp;suggesting a lack of creative variety. The Road Ahead Some AI analysts think that Veo 3 could prove useful in&ensp;commercial areas like marketing and media production. However, there are still&ensp;some major questions about how the model was trained and how it affects originality. In one case, Veo 3 recreated a plant so surprisingly similar to the one&ensp;on a popular tech reviewer&rsquo;s desk that real-world video references were apparently used in training. As ultra-realistic AI&ensp;videos become easier and easier to make, questions about consent, content rights and the future of filmmaking are only just getting started. Tools like Veo 3 are a testament to the expanding boundaries of creative technology &mdash; but they&rsquo;re also shining&ensp;a light on the struggle to create clear frameworks in a digital age that&rsquo;s evolving at a breakneck pace.

Google has unveiled its&ensp;most sophisticated AI video tool to date &mdash; Veo 3. The tool&ensp;can produce a strikingly realistic video that is virtually indistinguishable from human-created content. Its realism is both thrilling and troubling to the many who think that fact and fiction are increasingly&ensp;blurred online.

Google Veo 3 AI Tool Creates Stunningly Realistic Videos

This fourth test flight began with great promise, going&ensp;further than its two earlier efforts. But problems set in when the Super Heavy booster exploded rather than splashing down in the Gulf&ensp;of Mexico. And the&ensp;upper-stage Starship did not open its doors to deploy some Starlink satellite simulators. Malfunctions in&ensp;orbit and re-entry failures The spacecraft lost pressure and began to spin out of control in&ensp;suborbital flight, during which some sort of leak caused it to spin faster and start to break apart as it attempted to re-enter Earth&rsquo;s atmosphere. SpaceX called the&ensp;mishap a &ldquo;rapid unscheduled disassembly,&rdquo; in its inimitable way of avoiding acknowledging failure. Even so, SpaceX&ensp;noted that it would be important to learn from these experiences for future flights. Musk is looking to short-circuit launches&ensp;faster Elon Musk chimed in with the&ensp;following: &ldquo;Launch cadence for the next three flights will be faster &ndash; approximately one every three to four weeks.&rdquo; He wouldn&rsquo;t say whether a planned live stream&ensp;involving Mars would go on as scheduled.
Two months after being banned from flying for investigation of mishaps, that latest flight had taken off&ensp;after a flight ban lasting most of two months was lifted. The two most recent Starship flights, in January and March, ended in explosions shortly after lifting off, showering debris on&ensp;parts of the Caribbean and scrambling dozens of airline routes. For this flight,&ensp;the Federal Aviation Administration widened the areas of debris hazard. Public&ensp;concern and international attention Space enthusiasts had gathered at Isla Blanca Park on&ensp;South Padre Island to watch the event, while tourist boats clogged the lagoon nearby. A live feed&ensp;showed Musk at Starbase mission control with an &ldquo;Occupy Mars&rdquo; shirt on.
One such attendee was 50-year-old Australian Piers Dawson, who organised his first trip to the United States to coincide with the launch, and&ensp;took his wife and teenage son along. Joshua Wingate, a 33-year-old tech entrepreneur from Austin, described the launch: &ldquo;There&rsquo;s never a failure&ensp;in science. You learn from&ensp;every single test, so that was still really exciting to see.&rdquo;
&nbsp;

The newest prototype of SpaceX&rsquo;s next-generation Starship spacecraft ruptured during a test&ensp;over the Indian Ocean recently, indicating new challenges in Elon Musk&rsquo;s goal to carry humans to Mars. The rocket, the most powerful&ensp;and tallest ever built, took off at 6:36 p.m. from the southern Texas launch site SpaceX is building near a village that earlier this week voted to change its name to Starbase.
&nbsp;

SpaceX Starship Disintegrates Over Ocean During Test Flight

Introduction
 Indian-born <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunita_Williams"> NASA</a> <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunita_Williams">astronaut Sunita Williams</a> and her colleague <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Wilmore">Butch Wilmore</a> successfully returned to Earth from the International Space Station (ISS) on March 19, 2025. They were working on the ISS for the last nine months, where they were engaged in research and various scientific experiments.
 Return Details
 Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore traveled from the ISS to Earth via SpaceX's Crew Dragon capsule. The capsule managed to make a safe landing in the Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida at 3.27 pm IST on March 19.
 Health Tests and Monitoring
 After returning to Earth, both astronauts were brought to NASA's Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas, where they will have to undergo health tests and a rehabilitation process. This process will last for about two weeks, during which their physical and mental health will be checked so that they can re-adjust to the Earth's environment.
 Congratulatory Messages
 Congratulations are being received from all over the world on the successful return of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore.
 The White House said, "Promise made, promise kept: President Trump pledged to rescue the astronauts stranded in space for nine months. Today, they safely splashed down in the Gulf of America, thanks to Elon Musk, SpaceX, and NASA!"
Elon Musk says "Congratulations to the @SpaceX and @NASA teams for another safe astronaut return!"
 PM Modi wrote on social media platform X, "Welcome back, #Crew9! The Earth missed you. Theirs has been a test of grit, courage and the boundless human spirit. Sunita Williams and the #Crew9 astronauts have once again shown us what perseverance truly means. Their unwavering determination in the face of the vast unknown will forever inspire millions.
 Space exploration is about pushing the limits of human potential, daring to dream, and having the courage to turn those dreams into reality. Sunita Williams, a trailblazer and an icon, has exemplified this spirit throughout her career.
 We are incredibly proud of all those who worked tirelessly to ensure their safe return. They have demonstrated what happens when precision meets passion and technology meets tenacity."
 Took Longer Than NASA Expected
 NASA sent them in June of 2024 to test out the Boeing Starliner capsule. However, there were issues with the capsule that rendered it unsafe. So they ended up spending 9 months on the space station, a mission that was originally planned to last 8 days. Nick Hague and Russian cosmonaut Alexander Gorbunov have also returned to Earth with Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore.
 Current Status
 Currently, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore are at NASA's Johnson Space Center, where they are undergoing a rehabilitation process. During this time, they will also participate in media interviews and public events, where they will share their space experiences.
 The Bottom Line
 This successful return of Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore is an important achievement not only for NASA but also for the global space community. Their dedication and patience in difficult circumstances have once again made them heroes.
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