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The Department of Defense’s All-domain Anomaly Resolution Office (AARO), created to centralize UAP investigations, remains the designated authority for analysis.

However, active-duty personnel and veterans have expressed skepticism regarding the office’s credibility and effectiveness.

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The absence of actionable feedback or follow-up investigations deteriorates trust among frontline warfighters who have experienced these encounters firsthand.

Analyst Marik von Rennenkampff, a former Defense and State Department official, reviewed flight records for the timeframe and confirmed no conventional aircraft were near the USS Jackson during the incident.

Rennenkampff concluded that the sightings cannot be explained by commercial, civilian, or military aviation activity.

Wiggins said, “Maybe one day, this will be like the stealth fighter or Area 51, classified for decades and then just accepted. But by then, I’ll be 80 or 90, and it’ll be too late to matter.”

“These characteristics create a ‘soft lattice’ that maintains high lithium diffusion rates even as the composition changes during battery cycling,” remarked the researchers.

The team noticed that lithium stripping and plating preferentially occurred during battery cycling at the interface between the LixAg alloy and the current collector rather than at the delicate LLZTO/LixAg interface.

“This phenomenon effectively protects the critical electrolyte-anode interface from contact loss during cycling, a common failure mechanism in solid-state batteries,” highlighted the press release.

Excellent cycling stability, rate performance
To demonstrate the practical potential of their innovation, the researchers constructed full cells using LiFePO4 cathodes, LLZTO electrolytes, and LixAg anodes.

These cells exhibited excellent cycling stability and rate performance and confirmed the viability of this approach for real-world applications.

“Teams at the facility have processed 98% of Oak Ridge’s inventory of contact-handled and remote-handled transuranic debris waste. They have also shipped 94% of the contact-handled waste and 78% of the remote-handled waste for disposal,” said ORNL in a press release.

Waste related to 1970s’ nuclear experiments
The complex operation, managed by the Oak Ridge Office of Environmental Management (OREM) and contractor UCOR, centered on waste dating back to nuclear physics experiments in the 1970s.

“Completing this task is a significant risk reduction accomplishment,” emphasized OREM Project Manager Mike Vestal.

“This effort, and others like it, are enhancing safety at the site by steadily removing inventories of legacy waste.”

The radium source is just one piece of the vast cleanup puzzle at Oak Ridge. The site contends with significant amounts of transuranic waste – radioactive elements heavier than uranium, primarily byproducts of historical research activities at ORNL.

Global efforts toward radioactive waste management
Scientists across the globe are actively looking for ways to tackle the issue of radioactive waste.

Recently, Sweden announced that it was constructing a final storage facility for its spent nuclear fuel. This repository is expected to be located 500 meters below ground in solid bedrock.

According to officials, the facility will safely store highly radioactive waste for 100,000 years.

The plan ahead
Looking forward, the researchers aim to broaden their dataset by including various types of lithium-ion batteries, increasing the model’s adaptability across different chemistries and form factors. This would extend the technology’s usefulness beyond electric vehicles to include energy storage systems, consumer electronics, and other lithium-ion-based applications.

The team is also investigating how to integrate the system with fast-charging protocols, allowing real-time adjustments to charging parameters based on lithium plating risk, potentially enabling faster charging without sacrificing battery safety or lifespan.

As electric vehicles increasingly replace internal combustion engines around the world, innovations like this intelligent lithium plating detection system will be essential in making the shift to electric mobility not only environmentally friendly but also safe and dependable for all users.