discuss Science & Technology news & discussion

[CraigD]

Post and discuss interesting articles & videos about science and technology.

You don't need to be an expert - just interested in the wonders of modern science, technology, and the history of these fields.

Please keep it rational, and post articles from reputable sources.
Try not to editorialise headlines and keep the copy to just a paragraph with a link to the original source. When quoting excerpts from articles, I think the best method is to italicise the copy, and include a link to the source.

Have some fun with your comments and discussions... just keep the sources legitimate.

Other threads:
The Break Room has a number of other popular threads, so there is no need to post material here that is better suited to these other threads:

- Covid19-Coronavirus updates and news
- Conspiracy Thread Free For All
- The *religious* discussion thread

Please enjoy!

 

[koolishman]

Brain implant startup backed by Bezos and Gates is testing mind-controlled computing on humans​

In a Brooklyn lab stuffed with 3D printers and a makeshift pickleball court, employees at a brain interface startup called Synchron are working on technology designed to transform daily life for people with paralysis.

The Synchron Switch is implanted through the blood vessels to allow people with no or very limited physical mobility to operate technology such as cursors and smart home devices using their mind. So far, the nascent technology has been used on three patients in the U.S. and four in Australia.
Founded in 2012, Synchron is part of the burgeoning brain-computer interface, or BCI, industry. A BCI is a system that deciphers brain signals and translates them into commands for external technologies. Perhaps the best-known name in the space is Neuralink, thanks to the high profile of founder Elon Musk, who is also the CEO of Tesla, SpaceX and Twitter.
But Musk isn’t the only tech billionaire wagering on the eventual transition of BCI from radical science experiment to flourishing medical business. In December, Synchron announced a $75 million financing round that included funding from the investment firms of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos.

 

[J Sokol]

‘Incredibly intelligent, highly elusive’: US faces new threat from Canadian ‘super pig’​

For decades, wild pigs have been antagonizing flora and fauna in the US: gobbling up crops, spreading disease and even killing deer and elk.

Now, as fears over the potential of the pig impact in the US grow, North America is also facing a new swine-related threat, as a Canadian “super pig” ... is poised to infiltrate the north of the country.

The emergence of the so-called super pig, a result of cross-breeding domestic pigs with wild boars, only adds to the problems the US faces from the swine invasion.

Pigs are not native to the US, but have wrought havoc in recent decades: the government estimates the country’s approximately 6 million wild, or feral, pigs cause $1.5bn of damage each year.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/feb/20/us-threat-canada-super-pig-boar

 

[koolishman]

Bouncing seismic waves reveal distinct layer in Earth's inner core​

By measuring the different speeds at which these waves penetrate and pass through the Earth’s inner core, the researchers believe they’ve documented evidence of a distinct layer inside Earth known as the innermost inner core -- a solid “metallic ball” that sits within the centre of the inner core.

Not long ago it was thought Earth’s structure was comprised of four distinct layers: the crust, the mantle, the outer core and the inner core. The findings, published in Nature Communications, confirm there is a fifth layer.

“The existence of an internal metallic ball within the inner core, the innermost inner core, was hypothesized about 20 years ago. We now provide another line of evidence to prove the hypothesis,” Dr Thanh-Son Phạm, from the ANU Research School of Earth Sciences, said.

​

 

[Cal2]

Silver mirror triples efficiency of perovskite solar cells​

Perovskites are one of the most promising new materials for solar cell technology. Now engineers at the University of Rochester have developed a new way to more than triple the material’s efficiency by adding a layer of reflective silver underneath it.

For the better part of a century, silicon has been the go-to material for making solar cells, thanks to its abundance and efficiency in converting light to an electrical current. But in just the last decade, a new contender has rapidly risen through the ranks – perovskite, which is much cheaper and has already caught up to silicon in efficiency.

Now a new study has boosted perovskite’s efficiency by three and a half times, without even tweaking the material itself. Instead, the team found that adding a layer of a different material underneath it changed the interactions of the electrons in the perovskite, reducing an energy-sapping process.

https://newatlas.com/energy/perovsk..._term=0_65b67362bd-bb9ec32a06-[LIST_EMAIL_ID]

 

[Cal2]

COBOD Machines 3D Printing a House a Week in Kenya​

COBOD, the Danish additive construction (AC) firm, has announced that the company’s printers are being used in Kenya to create the world’s largest community of printed affordable housing — topping a previous community built with the company’s printers, also in Kenya, which once held that same title. The company printing the houses is 14Trees, a joint venture between cement giant Holcim and British International Investment (BII), which focuses on accelerating the construction of affordable housing in Africa with 3D printing.

https://3dprint.com/297977/cobod-machines-3d-printing-a-house-a-week-in-kenya/

 

[J Sokol]

COBOD Machines 3D Printing a House a Week in Kenya​

COBOD, the Danish additive construction (AC) firm, has announced that the company’s printers are being used in Kenya to create the world’s largest community of printed affordable housing — topping a previous community built with the company’s printers, also in Kenya, which once held that same title. The company printing the houses is 14Trees, a joint venture between cement giant Holcim and British International Investment (BII), which focuses on accelerating the construction of affordable housing in Africa with 3D printing.

https://3dprint.com/297977/cobod-machines-3d-printing-a-house-a-week-in-keny

​

Fleet of 3D Printers Begin Building Housing Community in Texas​

As 2022 comes to an end, additive construction (AC) companies all over the world are announcing a flurry of upcoming projects. The most recent of these is also one of the most ambitious: in collaboration with Lennar Corporation, among the US’s largest construction firms, Austin-based ICONwill build a community of 100 homes in Texas.

The 100-home community located in Georgetown — one of Austin’s fastest-growing suburbs — will be known as Wolf Ranch. Co-designed by the renowned architectural/urban planning firm Bjarke Ingels Group (BIG), each home will be between 1600 and 2100 square feet, with 8 different floor plans for potential buyers to choose from.

https://3dprint.com/295708/fleet-of...with-construction-giant-lennar-corp-and-icon/

 

[koolishman]

In Chernobyl’s Stray Dogs, Scientists Look for Genetic Effects of Radiation​

Today, hundreds of free-ranging dogs live in the area around the site of the disaster, known as the exclusion zone. They roam through the abandoned city of Pripyat and bed down in the highly contaminated Semikhody train station.

Now, scientists have conducted the first deep dive into the animals’ DNA. The dogs of Chernobyl are genetically distinct, different from purebred canines as well as other groups of free-breeding dogs, the scientists reported Friday in Science Advances.

It remains too soon to say whether, or how, the radioactive environment has contributed to the unique genetic profiles of the dogs of Chernobyl, the scientists said. But the study is the first step in an effort to understand not only how long-term radiation exposure has affected the dogs but also what it takes to survive an environmental catastrophe.

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.ade2537

 

[Cal2]

3D printing with sound? Yep, that’s possible​

A new technology instantly materializes objects using ultrasound holograms.​

A machine that instantly materializes objects using ultrasonic holograms sounds like something found onboard the Starship Enterprise, but according to a recent breakthrough from scientists in Germany, it’s not science fiction—it’s reality.

A new study published this month in the journal Science Advances from the Max Planck Institute for Medical Research and Heidelberg University, explores the concept of “touchless 3D printing” and how it could be used, in particular, to print living tissue. While traditional 3D printing relies on techniques like adding layer after layer of matter, bonding them until you end up with an object; this new form of 3D printing uses sound waves that can push matter around without physically touching it. The achievement here is that these scientists found a way to build any 3D shape they want using those waves.

According to Kai Melde, the lead author of the study, there’s great potential to use this technology for the “assembly of biological cells” because “ultrasound is gentle and non-toxic to cells and the remote assembly without contact helps keep things sterile and the cells happy,” he explains. .....

According to Heiner Kremer, the team member who wrote all the required computing magic, “the digitization of an entire 3D object into ultrasound hologram fields is computationally very demanding and required us to come up with a new computation routine.”

Once the calculations are done, it’s time to “print” the object. This is a comparatively simple process. Their proprietary machine fires the ultrasound fields towards a lab dish, shaping the biological cells (or any microscopic matter, really) that’s been suspended in a liquid that feeds the cells nutrients to keep them alive. The amazing thing is that this is one single step: the object just forms instantly in one go, as opposed to traditional 3D printing processes, which take a very long time.

 

[Cal2]

Water purification membrane generates electricity as it filters​

A team from the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) and Myongji University, both located in Seoul, has published a new paper describing an "electricity generation and purification membrane for water recycling."

The team claims it can reject more than 95% of contaminants smaller than one hundred millionth of a meter in size, including heavy metal particles and the microplastics that are now found in distressing quantities in rainwater from Antarctica to the Tibetan Plateau, rendering it unsafe to drink. It seems to work regardless of the acidity of the water source as well, performing well across a pH range of 1-10.

The membrane is a two-layer sandwich, the top layer being a conductive polymer, and the bottom being a porous filter. As contaminated water is poured onto the top layer, it moves laterally across the membrane, creating a cross-flow of ions that can be harvested as an electrical current using electrodes at either end of the membrane.

While the study claims the membrane showed "high energy generation performance" in experimental testing, the lab prototype is small and so are the corresponding power figures. The study abstract reports a maximum power level of just 16.44 microwatts, and a maximum of 15.16 millijoules of energy generated over an unspecified time period. And the power generation is continuous – just 10 microliters of water was enough to generate electricity for more than three hours.

https://newatlas.com/technology/kis..._term=0_65b67362bd-c6e9e25a51-[LIST_EMAIL_ID]

 

[Cal2]

Anyone interested in doing concrete 3D printing should watch this video, imo:

Their website: https://www.mudbots.com/

 

[koolishman]

Human ancestors were walking upright 7 million years ago, ancient limb bone suggests​

An ancient leg bone found near the famed skull of a human ancestor is providing new evidence that our lineage may have been walking upright 7 million years ago. A partial thighbone and two lower arm bones from Chad’s Djurab Desert suggest a species known as Sahelanthropus tchadensis ambled along on two legs, as well as spending some time in the trees, according to a new study.

If the creature did walk upright, it’s a “huge” discovery, says Dan Lieberman, a Harvard University paleoanthropologist who was not involved with the new analysis. It would mean upright walking was one of the first traits to distinguish the human lineage, which diverged from chimps at about this time, he says. But, “It’s not a slam dunk,” Lieberman says, because the partial fossil thighbone lacks both ends.

 

[Cannuck]

The orbital test flight called "Good Luck, Have Fun," or GLHF mission scrubbed

Terran 1 launch scrubbed for the second time Saturday after an attempt on Wednesday (March 8) that was scrubbed due to fuel-temperature issues on the rocket's upper stage.

See: Relativity's 3D-printed Terran 1 rocket

 

[J Sokol]

‘We’ve lost the right to be pessimistic’: Patagonia treads fine line tackling climate crisis as for-profit company​

Under California blue skies, the Patagonia outdoor clothing brand’s corporate campus is bustling with its usual mix of employees, pets – and kids.

Situated in Ventura, north-west of Los Angeles and close to the beach for surfing purposes, the sprawl of neutral-colored stucco buildings is very on-brand for a business with a cult following among environmentalists. Wood-lined interiors make the offices feel more cabin than corporate. Blown-up posters from past marketing campaigns line hallways. “There are no profits to be made on a dead planet,” reads one from 2004.

On the surface, all appears to be business as usual. But over the last six months, Patagonia has been wrestling with an existential dilemma that has long obsessed the company: can the group sincerely fight the climate crisis as a for-profit apparel company?

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/mar/12/patagonia-climate-crisis-for-profit-company

 

[J Sokol]

David Attenborough says nature is in crisis but ‘we have the solutions’​

Sir David Attenborough has warned that “nature is in crisis” and urged people to unite behind action to save it.

The natural historian, who has presented programmes including Planet Earth and The Blue Planet, spoke out as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the National Trust launched a joint initiative aimed at halting the destruction of nature across the UK.

Launching the Save Our Wild Isles campaign, a joint statement from the chief executives of the three groups said the country’s “amazing wildlife and wild places” were being “destroyed at terrifying speed”.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-...nature-is-in-crisis-but-we-have-the-solutions

 

[Cannuck]

David Attenborough says nature is in crisis but ‘we have the solutions’​

Sir David Attenborough has warned that “nature is in crisis” and urged people to unite behind action to save it.

The natural historian, who has presented programmes including Planet Earth and The Blue Planet, spoke out as the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and the National Trust launched a joint initiative aimed at halting the destruction of nature across the UK.

Launching the Save Our Wild Isles campaign, a joint statement from the chief executives of the three groups said the country’s “amazing wildlife and wild places” were being “destroyed at terrifying speed”.

https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-...nature-is-in-crisis-but-we-have-the-solutions

If humans showed empathy toward nature's plight, collectively, we may find the wisdom to heal Mother Earth.

A poll by YouGov, commissioned for the campaign, found that four out of five Scots (81%) want to see all political parties come together to produce an action plan to protect nature, with 79% backing harsher penalties for businesses whose actions contribute to the decline in nature. Almost three-quarters of Scottish people (71%) said they were worried about the state of nature in Britain. In the UK as a whole, the figure was 76%.

 

[Cal2]

If humans showed empathy toward nature's plight, collectively, we may find the wisdom to heal Mother Earth.

Sounds like a job for 'Design a way/s forward while leaving the problem/s in place'.

 

[Cannuck]

Turning Blue-Green Algae Into A Smoked Salmon Superfood

An Israeli startup has become the first to use the algae as a plant-based meat and fish substitute. It wants to reintroduce spirulina to the public as a superfood, rather than just a supplement. And its first product will be a smoked salmon substitute.

It’s developed the technology to give spirulina the texture of beef, fish, or seafood by compressing its cells into ’tissues’. ...

A Finnish company will be ready to produce the world’s most sustainable protein in 2024...using CO2.

Food Out of Thin Air​

Food production, as we know it, is entirely dependent on land and weather conditions. Protein production is a massively disproportionate squanderer of the Earth’s resources. It’s time to enter the era of sustainable food production to liberate our planet from the burdens of agriculture.

Solein is the purest and most sustainable protein in the world. It is nutritionally rich. It can taste and look like anything you use it for. It is unparalleled in its functionality – it can be used in any food, regardless of diet.

https://solarfoods.com/

 

[Cal2]

A Finnish company will be ready to produce the world’s most sustainable protein in 2024...using CO2.

Food Out of Thin Air​

Food production, as we know it, is entirely dependent on land and weather conditions. Protein production is a massively disproportionate squanderer of the Earth’s resources. It’s time to enter the era of sustainable food production to liberate our planet from the burdens of agriculture.

Solein is the purest and most sustainable protein in the world. It is nutritionally rich. It can taste and look like anything you use it for. It is unparalleled in its functionality – it can be used in any food, regardless of diet.

https://solarfoods.com/

This NASA-inspired technology converts carbon dioxide into food. Here’s how​

• NASA-based technology is being used to turn carbon dioxide into food and bio-based products.
• Kiverdi in California is using the tech to create the world’s first ‘air-based meat’.
• It could also help sustainably feed the aquaculture industry – and make plastic more biodegradable, contributing to the circular economy.
• Kiverdi is one of 17 innovators part of The Circulars Accelerator cohort on UpLink.

Can you make food from thin air?
NASA asked the same question in the 1960s. And the challenge of feeding a year-long space mission led to a remarkable discovery: when astronauts exhale, the carbon dioxide in their breath can be captured by a special class of microbes – and potentially turned into nutrients.
Now an American company has taken this technology and converted CO2 into food and bio-based products.

https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2021/07/nasa-technology-converts-co2-into-food/

 

[Cal2]

https://newmurabba.com/

Click on 'Watch video', when it pops up.

 

[Cannuck]

https://newmurabba.com/

Click on 'Watch video', when it pops up.

Wow, the new Mecca. The cube is the size of 20 Empire State buildings! Not sure I'd feel at home though, lol.

What is immersive shopping?​

Immersive commerce the customer experience by the use of new technologies such as augmented reality, virtual reality, AI & machine learning, chatbots etc.

Immersive shopping aims to create an interactive shopping experience instead of just briefly browsing through. This time expenditure makes consumers more likely to make purchases. Additionally, customers spend more time choosing the product and, as a result, become more familiar with it and the brand. This solution is also useful for vehicles and objects made on-demand. With virtual showrooms, you also have the option to present your product before you start manufacturing (ie. 3Dprinted).

https://www.scnsoft.com/virtual-reality/shopping

​

 

[Cal2]

Wow, the new Mecca. The cube is the size of 20 Empire State buildings! Not sure I'd feel at home though, lol.

Probably not. A friend who once lived in Riyadh for a few years said for it to be a major city, it needs an 'open soul and an open culture', which he says it doesn't have.

 

[Cal2]

Anyone interested in doing concrete 3D printing should watch this video, imo:

Their website: https://www.mudbots.com/

Btw, I started my construction 3D printing project more formally the last few weeks. Trying to design out some of the problems these guys, and others, are still having with their hardware. If anyone has any solutions or solution directions to something they've seen or read, I'd like to hear them.

 

[Cannuck]

Space is literally littered...

Looking for GIS software, I found this tool designed for tracking satellites: https://www.keeptrack.space/

The number of satellites orbiting the earth is just mind boggling

 

[Cannuck]

Will NASA and Elon Musk develop a 'contradictory propulsion', Light-speed engine with EM drive?

 

[koolishman]

World’s top climate scientists issue ‘survival guide for humanity,’ call for major course correction​

A landmark U.N. report published Monday urged governments across the globe to embark on an urgent course correction to tackle the climate emergency, warning current plans were insufficient to prevent the worst of what the crisis has in store.

The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change said the unprecedented challenge of keeping global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels had become even greater in recent years due to the relentless increase in global greenhouse gas emissions.

The report from ipcc.

https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/syr/