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20. Electric cars will be competitive when they can be charged in the time it takes to fill the gas tank.

Québec Science magazine has selected its 10 Discoveries of the Year, three of which were led by McGill researchers. The prestigious annual list for 2015 honours projects spearheaded by: Thomas Szkopek, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, and Guillaume Gervais, Department of Physics; Jeffrey Mogil, Department of Psychology; and Christine McCusker, Department of Pediatrics and Research Institute of the McGill University Health Centre.

Magnesium infused with dense silicon carbide nanoparticles could be used for airplanes, cars, mobile electronics and more Matthew Chin At left, a deformed sample of pure metal; at right, the strong new metal made of magnesium with silicon carbide nanoparticles. Each central micropillar is about 4 micrometers across.

How disposable Lithium batteries degrade during normal use has been tracked in real-time by a UCL-led team using sophisticated 3D imaging, giving a new way to non-invasively monitor performance loss and guide the development of more effective commercial battery designs. The team recently used the same technique to show how rechargeable Lithium-ion batteries fail when they are exposed to extreme levels of heat, but this is the first time the extent of day-to-day damage of disposable Lithium batteries has been shown.

Researchers from the University of Glasgow have found a way to make swallowable cameras more effective at detecting cancers of the throat and gut. In recent years, tiny sensing systems small enough for patients to swallow have proven to be a valuable clinical alternative to more intrusive imaging methods such as endoscopes.

11. Upward lightning strikes initiate on the ground and head skyward. These discharges, which usually begin at the top of tall and slender structures, pose a real risk for wind turbines.

ANN ARBOR-When heat travels between two objects that aren't touching, it flows differently at the smallest scales-distances on the order of the diameter of DNA, or 1/50,000 of a human hair. While researchers have been aware of this for decades, they haven't understood the process. Heat flow often needs to be prevented or harnessed and the lack of an accurate way to predict it represents a bottleneck in nanotechnology development.

Using technology invented at MIT, doctors may one day be able to monitor patients' vital signs by having them swallow an ingestible electronic device that measures heart rate and breathing rate from within the gastrointestinal tract. This type of sensor could make it easier to assess trauma patients, monitor soldiers in battle, perform long-term evaluation of patients with chronic illnesses, or improve training for professional and amateur athletes, the researchers say.

Graphene has been hailed as a wonder material since it was first isolated from graphite in 2004. Graphene is just a single atom thick but it is flexible, stronger than steel, and capable of efficiently conducting heat and electricity. However, widespread industrial adoption of graphene has so far been limited by the expense of producing it.

UNIVERSITY PARK, Pa. Tasting food relies on food volatiles moving from the back of the mouth to the nasal cavity, but researchers have wondered why airflow doesn't carry them in the other direction, into the lungs. Now a team of engineers, using a 3D printed model of the human airway from nostril to trachea, has determined that the shape of the airway preferentially transfers volatiles to the nasal cavity and allows humans to enjoy the smell of good food.

10. EPFL researchers have come up with a method to determine the exact location of short circuits in a power grid. This is an important step towards operating complex power grid topologies that enable the massive integration of renewable energy resources. When a high-voltage power line is damaged by wind, ice or a tree, electricity utilities must quickly find the fault location and repair it to meet the power quality requirements or avoid cascade blackout.

Researchers at MIT and elsewhere have found a way to significantly boost the energy that can be harnessed from sunlight, a finding that could lead to better solar cells or light detectors. The new approach is based on the discovery that unexpected quantum effects increase the number of charge carriers, known as electrons and "holes," that are knocked loose when photons of light of different wavelengths strikes a metal surface coated with a special class of oxide materials known as high-index dielectrics.

A new study led by researchers in Canada sheds light on the effects of off-label use of prescription drugs with the first-ever investigation in adult populations. A new study led by researchers in Canada sheds light on the effects of off-label use of prescription drugs with the first-ever investigation in adult populations.

A team of physicists led by Caltech's David Hsieh has discovered an unusual form of matter-not a conventional metal, insulator, or magnet, for example, but something entirely different. This phase, characterized by an unusual ordering of electrons, offers possibilities for new electronic device functionalities and could hold the solution to a long-standing mystery in condensed matter physics having to do with high-temperature superconductivity-the ability for some materials to conduct electricity without resistance, even at "high" temperatures approaching  -100 degrees Celsius.

A new experimental revelation about black phosphorus nanoribbons should facilitate the future application of this highly promising material to electronic, optoelectronic and thermoelectric devices. A team of researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)'s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) has experimentally confirmed strong in-plane anisotropy in thermal conductivity, up to a factor of two, along the zigzag and armchair directions of single-crystal black phosphorous nanoribbons.

Peering into a grocery store bin, it's hard to tell if a peach or tomato or avocado is starting to go bad underneath its skin. But an affordable camera technology being developed by the University of Washington and Microsoft Research might enable consumers of the future to tell which piece of fruit is perfectly ripe or what food in the fridge is going rotten.

A team of scientists from the University of Chicago and Penn State University has accidentally discovered a new way of using light to draw and erase quantum-mechanical circuits in a unique class of materials called topological insulators. In contrast to using advanced nanofabrication facilities based on chemical processing of materials, this flexible technique allows for rewritable "optical fabrication" of devices.

Patients whose doctors use electronic health record systems are increasingly confident that their health information will remain private and secure, Weill Cornell Medicine researchers found in a new longitudinal study, published Oct. 5 in the American Journal of Managed Care. While electronic health record systems have been around since the early 2000s, they became more prevalent when the federal government began offering providers incentives to adopt the technology in 2009.

A team of researchers including physicists at the University of Bath have magnetised gold in a process that could lead to a new generation of electronics and make computers faster, smaller and more powerful. The scientists investigated what happens in a device where a very thin layer of a superconductor, a material that carries electrical current without generating any heat, is sandwiched between a layer of a magnetic material and a layer of gold.

The quest to control and understand the intrinsic spin of electrons to advance nanoscale electronics is hampered by how hard it is to measure tiny, fast magnetic devices. Applied physicists at Cornell offer a solution: using heat, instead of light, to measure magnetic systems at short length and time scales.