Lithium Universe (LU7:AU) has announced Acquisition of Silver Extraction Technology
Download the PDF here.
This post appeared first on investingnews.com
Generative artificial intelligence (AI) has helped a group of scientists identify five new materials that could power the next wave of batteries without relying on lithium.
The study, published on June 26 in Cell Reports Physical Science, focuses on materials that could enable multivalent-ion batteries — a technology long touted for its potential, but hindered by practical challenges.
The lithium problem for batteries
Lithium dominates in batteries used in everything from smartphones to electric vehicles, but faces challenges — it is costly to extract, geographically concentrated and comes with environmental and geopolitical concerns.
As global demand for batteries surges, researchers are racing to find viable alternatives that are both abundant and efficient. Multivalent-ion batteries offer one potential path forward. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, which carry a single positive charge, multivalent-ion batteries using materials like magnesium or zinc carry two or three.
In theory, this means that they can pack more energy into the same space. However, their larger size and stronger charge make it difficult for them to move through standard battery materials.
“One of the biggest hurdles wasn’t a lack of promising battery chemistries — it was the sheer impossibility of testing millions of material combinations,” said lead author Dibakar Datta, a professor of mechanical and industrial engineering at the New Jersey Institute of Technology. “We turned to generative AI as a fast, systematic way to sift through that vast landscape and spot the few structures that could truly make multivalent batteries practical.”
To tackle the challenge, Datta’s team developed a “dual AI” system. The first part, a crystal diffusion variational autoencoder (CDVAE), was trained on vast datasets of known crystal structures. It could generate entirely new porous transition metal oxides, a class of material known for its structural flexibility and ionic conductivity.
The second part was a fine-tuned large language model (LLM) designed to narrow the list.
It focused on materials closest to thermodynamic stability, a critical factor in determining whether a compound can realistically be made and used in the real world.
The CDVAE cast a wide net, creating thousands of hypothetical structures with large, open channels. The LLM then acted as a filter, selecting only those most likely to hold up under actual manufacturing and operational conditions.
Five new battery candidates
“Our AI tools dramatically accelerated the discovery process, which uncovered five entirely new porous transition metal oxide structures that show remarkable promise,” Datta said.
These structures, the study suggests, offer unusually large pathways for ion movement, a crucial step toward making multivalent batteries that charge quickly and last for long periods of time. Quantum mechanical simulations and stability tests confirmed that the materials should be both synthetically feasible and structurally sound.
The five compounds now move to the next stage — experimental synthesis in collaboration with partner laboratories. If successful, they could be incorporated into prototype batteries and eventually scaled for commercial production.
Traditional materials research is often a painstaking, years-long process of hypothesis, synthesis and testing.
By contrast, AI can rapidly explore enormous “material spaces” that would be impossible for humans to search manually, flagging only the most promising candidates for further investigation.
What it means for the batteries of tomorrow
Multivalent-ion batteries have been studied for decades, yet few have reached commercial readiness because the necessary materials either didn’t conduct ions well enough or degraded too quickly.
By using AI to overcome that bottleneck, the research team hopes to accelerate not just battery chemistry, but also the infrastructure needed to support electrification on a global scale.
However, the five materials identified by Datta’s team aren’t ready to replace lithium tomorrow. They still need to be synthesized, tested in lab-scale batteries and proven to perform under real-world conditions.
Safety, scalability and cost effectiveness all remain open questions.
Still, the study’s authors argue that their AI framework has already proven its value by shrinking what could have been a decades-long search into a matter of months.
“This is more than just discovering new battery materials — it’s about establishing a rapid, scalable method to explore any advanced materials, from electronics to clean energy solutions, without extensive trial and error,” Datta added.
Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
This post appeared first on investingnews.com
Lithium, a naturally occurring trace element in the brain, may be able to unlock a key medical mystery: why some people develop Alzheimer’s disease and others don’t, despite similar brain changes.
In a recently published study, scientists at Harvard Medical School state that lithium not only exists in the human brain at biologically meaningful levels, but also appears to protect against neurodegeneration.
Additionally, their work shows that lithium supports the function of all major brain cell types.
The decade-long study drew on mouse experiments and analyses of human brain and blood samples across the spectrum of cognitive health. The Harvard team discovered that as amyloid beta, the sticky protein associated with Alzheimer’s, begins to accumulate, it binds to lithium and depletes its availability in the brain. This drop in lithium impairs neurons, glial cells and other brain structures, accelerating memory loss and disease progression.
“The idea that lithium deficiency could be a cause of Alzheimer’s disease is new and suggests a different therapeutic approach,” said Bruce Yankner, who is the senior author of the study.
Yankner, a professor of genetics and neurology at Harvard Medical School who in the 1990s was the first to show that amyloid beta is toxic to nerve cells, said the new findings open the door to treatments that address the disease in its entirety, rather than targeting single features like amyloid plaques or tau tangles.
To explore this possibility, researchers screened for lithium compounds that could evade capture by amyloid beta.
They identified lithium orotate as the most promising candidate. In mice, the compound reversed Alzheimer’s-like brain changes, prevented cell damage and restored memory, even in animals with advanced disease.
Crucially, the effective dose was about one-thousandth of that used in psychiatric treatments, avoiding the toxicity risk that has hampered lithium’s clinical use in older patients.
“You have to be careful about extrapolating from mouse models, and you never know until you try it in a controlled human clinical trial,” Yankner cautioned. “But so far the results are very encouraging.”
The path to these findings began with access to an unusually rich source of brain tissue.
Working with the Rush Memory and Aging Project in Chicago, the team examined postmortem samples from thousands of donors, from cognitively healthy individuals to those with mild cognitive impairment and full-blown Alzheimer’s.
Using advanced mass spectrometry, they measured trace levels of about 30 metals. Lithium stood out as the only one whose levels dropped sharply at the earliest stages of memory loss.
The pattern matched earlier population studies linking higher environmental lithium levels, including in drinking water, to lower dementia rates. But unlike those correlations, the Harvard team directly measured brain lithium and established a normal range for healthy individuals who had never taken lithium as medication.
“Lithium turns out to be like other nutrients we get from the environment, such as iron and vitamin C,” Yankner said. “It’s the first time anyone’s shown that lithium exists at a natural level that’s biologically meaningful without giving it as a drug.”
To test whether this deficiency was more than an association, the researchers fed healthy mice a lithium-restricted diet, lowering brain lithium to levels seen in Alzheimer’s patients.
The animals developed brain inflammation, lost connections between neurons and showed cognitive decline; however, replenishing them with lithium orotate reversed these changes. What’s more, mice given the compound from early adulthood were protected from developing Alzheimer’s-like symptoms altogether.
The findings raise several possibilities. Measuring lithium levels in blood could become a tool for early screening, identifying people at risk before symptoms emerge. Furthermore, amyloid-evading lithium compounds could be tested as preventive or therapeutic agents, potentially altering the disease course more fundamentally than existing drugs.
For now, researchers stress that no one should self-medicate with lithium supplements.
The team emphasized that the safety and efficacy of lithium orotate in humans remain unproven, and clinical trials will be needed to determine whether the dramatic benefits seen in mice translate to people.
Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
This post appeared first on investingnews.com
Here’s a quick recap of the crypto landscape for Monday (August 11) as of 9:00 p.m. UTC.
Get the latest insights on Bitcoin, Ethereum and altcoins, along with a round-up of key cryptocurrency market news.
Bitcoin and Ethereum price update
Bitcoin (BTC) was priced at US$118,815, down by 0.1 percent over the last 24 hours and its lowest valuation on Monday. Its highest price for the day was US$120,693.
Bitcoin price performance, August 11, 2025.
Chart via TradingView.
Analyst Omkar Godbole offered a cautious outlook, pointing to lower trading volumes for Bitcoin despite similar prices in July and a Coinbase Global (NASDAQ:COIN) discount suggesting weak US institutional demand.
Ethereum (ETH) has outperformed after a weekend rally.
Ethereum broke past US$4,300 on Monday as FG Nexus announced the acquisition of 47,331 ETH, worth about US$200 million. Meanwhile, data from Etherscan shows rising daily transaction counts over the past several weeks.
Creator coins like ZRO and PUMP also saw gains after announcements like Coinbase’s new DEX feature and LayerZero’s acquisition. Bondex CEO Ignacio Palomera called these developments an evolution in how creators can monetize their content. US consumer price index data on Tuesday (August 12) could fuel or dampen the crypto rally.
Altcoin price update
- Solana (SOL) was priced at US$176.39, down by 3.6 percent over 24 hours and its lowest valuation for the day. Its highest price was US$180.86.
- XRP was trading for US$3.16, down 1.7 percent in the past 24 hours and at its lowest valuation of the day. Its highest was US$3.22.
- Sui (SUI) was trading at US$3.69, down by 5 percent over the past 24 hours, and its lowest valuation of the day. Its highest level was US$3.77.
- Cardano (ADA) was trading at US$0.783, down by 3 percent over 24 hours and its lowest valuation on Monday. Its highest was US$0.8008.
Today’s crypto news to know
Bullish aims for US$4.82 billion valuation in upsized IPO
Bullish has increased the size of its planned initial public offering (IPO), targeting a valuation of up to US$4.82 billion. It plans to raise as much as US$990 million by selling 30 million shares priced between US$32 and US$33 each, a higher range than its previous filing, but still below its US$9 billion target in a failed 2021 SPAC merger.
The cryptocurrency exchange said it will convert a significant portion of its IPO proceeds into US-dollar-backed stablecoins through partnerships with token issuers. BlackRock-managed funds and Cathie Wood’s ARK Investment have shown interest in purchasing up to US$200 million worth of shares.
Bullish is expected to price the offering on Tuesday and debut on the NYSE under the ticker “FLY” the next day.
Tether and Rumble propose joint acquisition of Northern Data
Tether and Rumble (NASDAQ:RUM) have proposed to jointly acquire all shares of artificial intelligence infrastructure company Northern Data, according to a press release issued on Monday.
According to the proposed terms, USDt issuer Tether, already Northern Data’s largest shareholder, would support the transaction, which would see each Northern Data shareholder receive 2.319 newly issued Class A Rumble shares for each Northern Data share offered, leading to roughly 33.3 percent of Rumble ownership being transferred to Northern Data shareholders. The final exchange ratio may be adjusted for the potential sale of Peak Mining and a related debt reduction, which would increase the exchange ratio.
Subject to definitive documentation, Tether would also significantly increase its investment in Rumble, becoming a key customer with a multi-year GPU purchase commitment.
Chainlink to partner with ICE
Blockchain oracle platform Chainlink announced a partnership with US-based Fortune 500 company Intercontinental Exchange (NYSE:ICE) on Monday to bring foreign exchange and precious metals data onchain.
The collaboration will unite Intercontinental’s consolidated feed, an aggregator of market data from over 300 global exchanges and marketplaces, with Chainlink Data Streams’ derived data sets, which provide market information to power tokenization for over 2,000 decentralized applications and major financial institutions.
This partnership is the latest move to further integrate traditional market infrastructure with blockchain systems.
El Salvador targets wealthy investors with new Bitcoin banking law
El Salvador has approved a new investment banking law designed to attract institutional and high-net-worth crypto investors. Licensed investment banks with at least US$50 million in capital will be able to provide Bitcoin and other digital asset services, but only to clients meeting “sophisticated investor” criteria.
Requirements include at least US$250,000 in liquid assets and advanced financial knowledge.
The banks will be allowed to issue bonds, structure public-private projects and offer digital asset products. Lawmakers say the changes aim to position the country as a regional financial hub and draw in foreign private capital.
The move comes as President Nayib Bukele consolidates political power through constitutional reforms extending presidential terms and removing term limits.
Blue Origin to accept crypto payments for space flights
According to a Monday press release, Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin has partnered with payment processing company Shift4 Payments (NYSE:FOUR) to allow customers to buy tickets to outer space using crypto and stablecoins.
Trips will take place on Blue Origin’s New Shepard reusable rockets, and direct payments will now be accepted from popular wallets from the likes of MetaMask and Coinbase.
“Our mission has always been to revolutionize commerce by simplifying the transaction process, and we’re thrilled to now extend that vision beyond Earth,” said Taylor Lauber, CEO of Shift4.
“This partnership will enable adventurous travelers to book the adventure of a lifetime, no matter their preferred payment method — all with a simple, frictionless experience,’ he added. Blue Origin has flown more than 75 passengers past the Kármán Line, the boundary separating Earth’s atmosphere and space.
“We believe crypto and stablecoins are going to become an increasingly popular way for consumers to pay, particularly for high-end purchases, as both the consumer and merchant benefit financially from these transactions,” commented Alex Wilson, head of crypto at Shift4.
Securities Disclosure: I, Giann Liguid, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
Securities Disclosure: I, Meagen Seatter, hold no direct investment interest in any company mentioned in this article.
This post appeared first on investingnews.com