106. Portal Starlink, Investment in Battery Recycling, Device Detecting Skin Cancer

Summary: Starlink's new Portability feature brings internet to vanlifers - The Verge (01:02) Starlink’s internet-from-SpaceX service has gone mobile with a new Portability feature.It costs an additional $25 each month, on top of monthly subscriptions that already start at $110 after a one-time hit of $599 to purchase the Starlink kit. Starlink subscribers can now take their “dishy” anywhere on their home continent that provides active internet coverage. That opens up connectivity to remote places that will likely never be covered by 5G  Starlink doesn’t support use while driving yet, but the company says it’s actively working on a solution for moving vehicles. Musk has previously tweeted about working on a power-efficient solution that can plug into a car’s 12V cigarette lighter and still maintain connectivity. Starlink reportedly draws between 60-70W, an improvement on the 80-100W draw from just a year ago. Starlink is offering Portability on a “best effort basis,” the company says, with users at their registered service addresses receiving priority for network resources.   Rocket Lab launched and recovered a rocket mid-air in a world first | Interesting Engineering (05:31) Rocket Lab, a private aerospace firm, launched a Rocket Lab Electron rocket from Launch Complex 1A on Mahia Peninsula, New Zealand, at roughly 6:48 PM EDTPayload of 34 picosatellites and cubesats into orbit Less than 30 minutes after launch, the rocket's first stage was actually caught mid-air by a flying helicopter.They captured the rocket's drogue chute line. A few seconds after recovering the rocket, the helicopter pilot opted to release the rocket — which plummeted into the deep blue ocean, where it was picked up by a ship  From a tweet from Reuters' Joey Roulette: “Rocket Lab's Murielle Baker says the helicopter pilots [decided] to drop the rocket booster in the ocean after noticing "different load characteristics" than what they experienced during previous testing” Murielle Baker is Rocket Labs' Senior Communications Adviser This is real, it's happening. A flying helicopter successfully caught a first-stage booster rocket, in mid-air. This may not have been a full recovery and reuse of the rocket, but Rocket Lab has just taken us a major step closer to comparatively cheap ways of recycling used booster engines.   Lithium-ion recycler Li-Cycle lands $200 million to power future EVs | TechCrunch (09:54) Metals and fossil fuels behemoth Glencore is pumping $200 million into battery recycler Li-Cycle as part of a larger, symbiotic supply deal inked by the two firms. The Swiss materials giant, Glencore, will ship burnt-out batteries and scraps to Li-Cycle, which will recover the high-demand metals so they can be reused in electric vehicle batteries and other applications. Li-Cycle’s Process:Shred spent batteries and use a water-based system, known as hydrometallurgical processing, to begin to break down the batteries. Hydrometallurgy involve the use of aqueous solutions for the recovery of metals from ores, concentrates, and recycled or residual materials In Li-Cycle’s own hubs, they separate black mass into a variety of materials, including those that can be used to make new lithium-ion batteries. In this partnership, Glencore will be providing Li-Cycle with black mass for processing as well as manufacturing scrap. Securing a supply of scrap could be advantageous for the startup since it is easier to recycle than whole batteries. Why is Glencore doing this?Glencore has been advancing efforts to boost recycling of the batteries that power electric vehicles, including its  plans to build a U.K. plant as part of a deal to help Britishvolt Ltd. develop Britain’s first large-scale EV battery plant. Electric automakers, mining companies and chemical suppliers are racing to control more supplies of materials that are key to transitioning the world to cleaner energy sources.Car manufacturers and industry analysts expect recycled batteries to play a vit