The world's brightest X-ray laser

A UK bank accidentally paid thousands of people over $175 million on Christmas, a Swedish-Italian joint venture is to build novel dual-tilted wind turbines in Italy Jan 03, 2022 [View on browser]( Good morning to the world’s brightest X-ray laser, which is nearing completion. It'll be the world's most powerful laser, so get ready to learn some of the universe's biggest secrets. Speaking of innovation, a company is hoping to kick-start Italy's offshore floating wind farm market with its dual-tilted turbines. Additionally, a bank in the U.K. accidentally paid thousands of dollars to customers as an unexpected Christmas gift. We would call it a Christmas miracle if they weren’t taken back as swiftly as they were paid. This is The Blueprint. Keep reading. SCIENCE [A Swedish-Italian Joint Venture Is To Build Novel Dual-Tilted Wind Turbines In Italy]( [Hexicon.]( The Stockholm-headquartered company Hexicon [is hoping to kick-start]( Italy's offshore floating wind farm market with its innovative dual-tilted turbines. - What’s new? The company has recently been granted a 50-50 joint venture with Bologna-based clean energy developer Avapa Energy to develop offshore floating wind farms for Italy. The new venture, imaginatively called AvenHexicon, will now begin to look for suitable sites for building wind farms. The new wind farms will primarily consist of Hexicon's floating platforms with tilted towers (pictured above). The situation in Italy. To date, the country currently has no operating [offshore wind farms]( but its national wind energy association, Anev, has set a target of five gigawatts of floating offshore wind for the country by 2040. [Read More]( CULTURE [A UK Bank Accidentally Paid Thousands of People Over $175 Million on Christmas]( [A Santander branch in Surrey, London.]( A subsidiary of Banco Santander from Spain, Santander UK, [accidentally paid out £130 million]( ($170 million) to thousands of its customers due to a technical glitch that caused scheduled payments to be conducted twice. Merry Christmas? - The glitch impacted over 75,000 transactions and over 2,000 commercial and corporate accounts. Although the glitch has since been identified and rectified, many people temporarily received a Christmas bonus that they weren't expecting at all. The bank will continue to recover the money over the next few days, but there is no confirmation on how long it might take to recover the entire amount, or if the amount in its entirety can even be recovered. Backtrack. In 2020, U.S.-based Citibank accidentally transferred $900 million to lenders of a cosmetic company, of which over $500 million was not voluntarily paid back. Oh, well. [Read More]( INNOVATION [The World’s Brightest X-Ray Laser Is Nearing Completion]( [LCLS-II.]( Scientists at the Department of Energy's SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory [are putting the finishing touches]( on what will become the world's brightest laser. - Called the Linac Coherent Light Source II (LCLS-II), it will be 10,000 times brighter than the brightest laser before itself, once it becomes operational. Wow! It’s currently under construction about 30 feet (9 meters) underground close to Stanford University, and extends for about 2 miles (3.2 km) in a specially excavated tunnel. - What does it offer? Its predecessor, Linac Coherent Light Source I (LCLS-I), went live in 2009 and is able to create a beam capable of 120 light pulses a second. LCLS-II, however, crushes this record by being able to produce 1 million pulses per second. The laser promises to help physicists unlock some of the fundamental unknowns about our universe. It will be interesting to see what mysteries LCLS-II will unveil in 2022 and beyond. [Read More]( MAIL & MUSINGS Which field do you believe will have the greatest impact on our lives if a breakthrough occurs? Be sure you check back tomorrow for the results! [Astronomy.]( [Quantum physics.]( [Medicine.]( [Energy.]( [Materials.]( Yesterday’s Results We reported yesterday that a reporter was facing charges for utilizing the "view source" function on a website, and asked if the reporter was in the wrong for doing so. According to the majority, they should be rewarded. What? The guy should be rewarded. 59% Nope, the Governor is in the wrong. 36% Yes, obviously you become a criminal the moment you stumble upon such things! 3% The journalist should have ignored it. 2% QUOTE OF THE DAY “ A human being is a part of the whole called by us universe, a part limited in time and space. He experiences himself, his thoughts and feelings as something separated from the rest, a kind of optical delusion of his consciousness. This delusion is a kind of prison for us, restricting us to our personal desires and to affection for a few persons nearest to us. Our task must be to free ourselves from this prison by widening our circle of compassion to embrace all living creatures and the whole of nature in its beauty. Nobody is able to achieve this completely, but the striving for such achievement is in itself a part of the liberation and a foundation for inner security. ” Albert Einstein, in a 1950 letter. [Video]VIDEO OF THE DAY [The Mules Behind the High-Performance Engines of Formula 1]( These performance engines are all based on the development of early mules. [The Mules Behind the High-Performance Engines of Formula 1]( AND ANOTHER THING... - Could space explorers turn into cannibals if food was scarce? [These two scientists seem to believe so](. - Bill Gates wants you to read more science fiction: Here are [five books he loved reading this year](. (GatesNotes) - Cave divers [are continuing to push the boundaries]( of what is possible as they survey and map the world's deepest places. - Here's [why you probably don't need to rely on a VPN]( anymore. (NBC News) - HMS Birkenhead, a troopship transporting reinforcements, sank off the coast of South Africa on February 26, 1852. [The story of the sinking is both tragic and inspiring](. - A longtime venture capitalist sees the religious dedication to Elon Musk, hype, and YOLO investing as almost [a dot com-style pyramid scheme in the making](. (VICE) - Layers of [the earliest chemicals formed on Earth]( may be clumping in the lowest parts of its mantle. [Share to Win]SHARE TO WIN [All products]( Share The Blueprint! Give your friends deeper insights into engineering and tech, and win exclusive IE swag for free. [Read Details]( Share your link Copy & share your referral link with others. [ [Referral Program Terms and Conditions]( Prepared by Derya Ozdemir Enjoy reading? Don't forget to forward to a friend! Was this email forwarded to you? [Subscribe]( [About Us]( | [Advertise]( | [Contact Us]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Youtube]( [Linkedin]( [Instagram]( You are receiving this email because you have subscribed to our newsletter. 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