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“A good ratio of oxygen to methane is key to combustion,” said Justin Long.

Can methane flare burners be advanced to produce less methane? This is what a recent study published in Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research hopes to address as a team of researchers from the University of Michigan (U-M) and the Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) developed a methane flare burner with increased combustion stability and efficiency compared to traditional methane flare burners. This study has the potential to develop more environmentally friendly burners to combat human-caused climate change, specifically since methane is a far larger contributor to climate change than carbon dioxide.

For the study, the researchers used a combination of machine learning and novel manufacturing methods to test several designs of a methane flare burner that incorporates crosswinds to simulate real-world environments. The burner design includes splitting the methane flow in three directions while enabling oxygen flow from crosswinds to mix with the methane, enabling a much cleaner combustion. In the end, the researchers found that their design achieves 98 percent combustion efficiency, meaning it produces 98 percent less methane than traditional burners.

“A good ratio of oxygen to methane is key to combustion,” said Justin Long, who is a Senior Research Engineer at SwRI. “The surrounding air needs to be captured and incorporated to mix with the methane, but too much can dilute it. U-M researchers conducted a lot of computational fluid dynamics work to find a design with an optimal air-methane balance, even when subjected to high-crosswind conditions.”

Continue reading “New Methane Flare Tech: Efficiency Plus Combustion Stability” | >

Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor (/ ˈ k æ n t ɔːr / KAN-tor; German: [ˈɡeːɔʁk ˈfɛʁdinant ˈluːtvɪç ˈfiːlɪp ˈkantoːɐ̯] ; 3 March [O.S. 19 February] 1845 – 6 January 1918 [ 1 ] ) was a mathematician who played a pivotal role in the creation of set theory, which has become a fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite and well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. Cantor’s method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an infinity of infinities. He defined the cardinal and ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor’s work is of great philosophical interest, a fact he was well aware of. [ 2 ]

Originally, Cantor’s theory of transfinite numbers was regarded as counter-intuitive – even shocking. This caused it to encounter resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré [ 3 ] and later from Hermann Weyl and L. E. J. Brouwer, while Ludwig Wittgenstein raised philosophical objections; see Controversy over Cantor’s theory. Cantor, a devout Lutheran Christian, [ 4 ] believed the theory had been communicated to him by God. [ 5 ] Some Christian theologians (particularly neo-Scholastics) saw Cantor’s work as a challenge to the uniqueness of the absolute infinity in the nature of God [ 6 ] – on one occasion equating the theory of transfinite numbers with pantheism [ 7 ] – a proposition that Cantor vigorously rejected.

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The results show two distinct patterns in the protective effect of natural infection against reinfection in the Omicron era compared to the pre-Omicron era. Before the emergence of Omicron, natural infection offered robust protection against reinfection, with roughly 80% effectiveness and minimal signs of waning over time after the infection. However, during the Omicron era, this protection was strong only for recently infected individuals, rapidly declining over time after the infection and ultimately diminishing within a year. These patterns were consistent regardless of whether any infection or only symptomatic infection was considered as an outcome, and for both vaccinated and unvaccinated populations.

The two distinct patterns observed in the Omicron versus pre-Omicron eras provide population-level results that validate previous experimental molecular evidence1,2,18,19,20, and are probably the result of a complex interplay of several interrelated factors, in addition to waning immunity, immune evasion and the accelerated and convergent evolution of Omicron, such as immune imprinting, varying immunogenicity, global population immunity faced by the strains and population characteristics associated with infections at different stages of the pandemic.

Whereas these factors are interconnected and challenging to disentangle, the observed differences in protection against reinfection may stem from distinct evolutionary pressures acting on SARS-CoV-2 during the pre-Omicron and Omicron eras. In the pre-Omicron era, with a large proportion of individuals remaining immune naive because of non-pharmaceutical interventions and delayed scale-up of vaccination, intrinsic transmissibility may have been the primary driver of viral adaptation. This was evidenced by the emergence of more transmissible variants such as Alpha4,22,23 and Delta24,25. Conversely, following the very large and widespread Omicron wave in early 2022 (Extended Data Fig. 3)26, most individuals possessed some level of immunity, either from infection or vaccination. This may have shifted the dominant evolutionary pressure towards immune escape through not only antigenic drift, but also recombination and convergent evolution as the adaptive mechanisms for the virus2,18,27,28.

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Hippos spend 16 hours a day submerged in water. Withough Sun protection, they wouldn’t survive.

That reddish substance that sometimes appears on the skin of hippopotamuses?

That unique secretion serves as a sunscreen, protecting them from solar radiation. The secretion contains two highly acidic and unstable compounds: hipposudoric acid (red) and norhipposudoric acid (orange).

When these compounds mix with mucus and dry on the hippo’s skin, they form a durable layer that acts as a natural sunscreen, protecting the animal from harmful UV rays for hours. Hippos are semiaquatic, spending up to 16 hours a day submerged in water to stay cool, but this does not shield their skin from the sun, making their natural sunscreen essential.

Scientists believe the secretion is synthesized from amino acids when exposed to oxygen, though much about its exact mechanisms remains unknown. Recent research has revealed that the secretion, often referred to as “hippo sweat,” contains microscopic structures that scatter light, providing both sunblock and sunscreen properties. The substance also includes red and orange pigments capable of absorbing ultraviolet light, contributing to its effectiveness.

Continue reading “The red sweat of the hippopotamus” | >

The highly anticipated 8th Integrated Flight Test of Starship and Superheavy has arrived! Our live coverage of this historic event will be hosted by Will Robinson-Smith from Spaceflight Now! Please show your support by liking and sharing this stream with your friends and family! Now let’s light this candle!

Support Spaceflight Now! @SpaceflightNowVideo.

If you would like to get involved with our community or learn more about Rockets and Space, please feel free to join our LabPadre Discord server at discord.gg/labpadre.

X: https://twitter.com/LabPadre.

Continue reading “WATCH STARSHIP FLIGHT 8 LIVE — Commentary With Spaceflight Now” | >

Technology may one day grant us a Utopia in which virtually all tasks are performed by robots and artificial intelligence. In such a post-scarcity civilization, people may have difficulty finding a purpose to existence. Today we will explore how this may come about, what the consequences of this existential threat might be, and what purposes people may find for themselves in such a future.

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Credits: post-scarcity civilizations: purpose. ep 140 season 4, episode 26

Continue reading “Post-Scarcity Civilizations & Purpose” | >

Zuchongzhi-3, a superconducting quantum computing prototype with 105 qubits and 182 couplers, has made significant advancements in random quantum circuit sampling. This prototype was successfully developed by a research team from the University of Science and Technology of China (USTC).

This prototype operates at a speed that is 1015 times faster than the currently available and one million times faster than the latest results published by Google. This achievement marks a milestone in enhancing the performance of quantum computation, following the success of Zuchongzhi-2. The research findings have been published as the cover article in Physical Review Letters.

Quantum supremacy is the demonstration of a quantum computer capable of performing tasks that are infeasible for classical computers. In 2019, Google’s 53-qubit Sycamore processor completed a random circuit sampling task in 200 seconds, a task that would have taken approximately 10,000 years to simulate on the world’s fastest supercomputer at the time.

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“The pattern we found is so reproducible that we were able to make an accurate prediction of when each interglacial period of the past million years or so would occur and how long each would last,” said Dr. Stephen Barker.

Earth has experienced several climate cycles throughout its long history, including several ice ages that caused the planet to freeze over. The last ice age occurred approximately 11,700 years ago, but when could the next one occur? This is what a recent study published in Science hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated specific characteristics that could help predict Earth’s next ice age. This study has the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, and the public better understand Earth’s climate history and how climate change could alter this history.

For the study, the researchers analyzed Earth’s climate history over the last one million years and compared this data to changes in Earth’s axial tilt, the axial tilt’s wobble (also called precession), and changes in Earth’s orbit around the Sun. The goal of the study was to connect these planetary parameters to past ice ages, also called glacial periods, while also attempting to predict future ice ages without human-caused climate change.

In the end, the researchers not only discovered when every ice age occurred over the past 900,000 years, but they predict the Earth will have approximately 10,000 years until the next ice age, noting we are currently in an interglacial period known as the Holocene.

Continue reading “Predicting the Future: When Will the Next Ice Age Begin?” | >

Renewable energy in Japan will receive a seismic shift via perovskite solar cells, the latest development that would change the way solar energy is viewed. Lightweight, flexible, and adaptable, these solar cells will provide a more viable means to producing energy within a city, responding to shortages of land and sustainable issues. Let’s see how Japan is benefiting from the PSC technology to bring about a green future.

Japan is currently utilizing its competitive advantages to lead the rest of the world into the new renewable energy age. Under its revised energy plan, the Ministry of Industry now prioritizes PSCs on Section 0 of its plan wherein Japan aims to develop PSC sections generating 20 gigawatts of electricity equivalent to 20 nuclear reactors by fiscal 2040.

The strategy was designed to be closely aligned with the country’s commitment to net-zero emissions by 2050. At the center of this strategy is Japan’s position as the second-largest iodine producer in the world, a necessary ingredient in the manufacturing of perovskite solar cells.

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