This week TED-Ed published a new lesson that addresses a topic that just about everyone who owns a cell phone has wondered about at one time or another. That question is “why do phone batteries get worse over time?”  

Why Your Phone Battery Gets Worse Over Time explains how lithium ion batteries work, why they hold less energy over time, and how batteries are recycled. The end of the video dives into the topic of lithium supply and why not all batteries are recycled. Watch the lesson on the TED-Ed YouTube channel or as embedded below. 

The new TED-Ed lesson about batteries is a good companion to an earlier TED-Ed lesson on the same topic. In How Batteries Work students learn about the origins of batteries, how batteries work, the differences between disposable and rechargeable batteries, and why rechargeable batteries eventually cannot be recharged any more. Students watching the video will also see the difference between dry cell and wet cell batteries.

Use This Setting to Preserve Laptop Battery Life

Even though it has improved in recent years, Google Chrome is still notorious for draining laptop batteries. This is particularly true when you have many extensions installed. You can preserve some of your battery’s life by opening the advanced settings menu in Chrome and choosing to disable the option to “continue running background apps when Chrome is closed.” Watch this video to learn how to enable this setting.