Lifeboat Foundation: Safeguarding Humanity
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Category: sustainability – Page 25

Scientists and botanists are continuously exploring nature’s vast variety, making tree and plant discoveries that highlight the richness of our planet’s biodiversity.

These findings spark excitement and curiosity, offering fresh perspectives on the vast array of plant species still awaiting exploration. Most recently, experts have added to the world of botanical discoveries by naming six new tree species. These species were identified during an exhaustive comparison of dried plant specimens gathered from across the Neotropics.

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Scientists have simulated a groundbreaking solution to boost fusion efficiency by eliminating “slow modes,” unhelpful waves that waste energy during plasma heating.

Using 2D simulations, researchers demonstrated how a slight tilt in the Faraday screen can enhance energy transfer, bringing us closer to sustainable fusion energy.

Heating plasma for fusion: the challenge.

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Researchers found that the fungus Parengyodontium album degrades UV-exposed polyethylene in the ocean, suggesting that similar fungi might also break down plastics in deeper waters.

Researchers, including those from NIOZ, have discovered that a marine fungus can decompose the plastic polyethylene after it has been exposed to UV radiation from sunlight. Their findings, published in the journal Science of the Total Environment, suggest that numerous other fungi capable of degrading plastic likely reside in the deeper regions of the ocean.

The fungus Parengyodontium album lives together with other marine microbes in thin layers on plastic litter in the ocean. Marine microbiologists from the Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ) discovered that the fungus is capable of breaking down particles of the plastic polyethylene (PE), the most abundant of all plastics that have ended up in the ocean. The NIOZ researchers cooperated with colleagues from Utrecht University, the Ocean Cleanup Foundation and research institutes in Paris, Copenhagen, and St Gallen, Switzerland. The finding allows the fungus to join a very short list of plastic-degrading marine fungi: only four species have been found to date. A larger number of bacteria were already known to be able to degrade plastic.

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Healthy, stable ecosystems provide services that keep us healthy, such as supplying food and clean water, producing oxygen, and making green spaces available for our recreation and wellbeing.

Another key service ecosystems provide is disease regulation. When nature is in balance – with predators controlling herbivore populations, and herbivores controlling plant growth – it’s more difficult for pathogens to emerge in a way that causes pandemics.

But when human activities disrupt and unbalance ecosystems – such as by way of climate change and biodiversity loss – things go wrong.

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From the article:

When most analysts discuss Tesla, they focus on new vehicles or the electric vehicle company’s advancements in autonomy.

Yet, according to Launch i/o CEO Jeff Lutz, one of the most significant—and under-discussed—developments at Tesla is happening not in its design studios or on the road, but in its factories.

Lutz, a former executive at Google and Motorola, argues that Tesla’s true innovation isn’t just the electric vehicles or robots it’s building, but how those products are being made.

The company’s first-principles approach to manufacturing is a radical departure from the industry norm, focusing not just on cheap labor or existing models, but on rethinking the entire production process.

Continue reading “The Musk-Led Manufacturing Revolution Nobody Is Talking About” | >

Glass might soon have some competition from an unlikely rival – bamboo. Scientists in China have turned regular old bamboo into a transparent material that’s also resistant to fire and water, and suppresses smoke.

Silica glass, made from sand, is still the go-to building material when you need something transparent but strong, like windows. But it’s not particularly sustainable, and can be heavy and brittle.

Transparent wood has actually been muscling in on glass’s turf for a few years now. Scientists chemically remove the lignin from the wood fibers, then treat the remaining material with plexiglass or epoxy. The end result is a material that’s transparent, renewable, and as strong as or stronger than glass, while being lighter and a better thermal insulator.

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The great state of Wisconsin is about to get enough clean energy to power 200,000 homes, as the Public Service Commission of Wisconsin has approved a new solar farm that will be the most powerful in the state, Electrek reported.

Vista Sands Solar Farm, which will be located on 8,500 acres of private farmland in Portage County that is being leased from its owners, is being developed by Doral Renewables LLC, a Philadelphia-based company.

The project is expected to take around two years to complete. It will cost $1 billion and generate around 500 jobs during construction and 50 permanent positions once the farm is open for business, per the company.

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As fringe as the idea of solar radiation modification once was and as generally controversial as it remains, it is gaining some traction. Last spring, the University of Chicago hired David Keith, one of the most visible proponents of solar geoengineering, to lead a new Climate Systems Engineering initiative, committing to at least 10 new faculty hires for the program. The group will study solar geoengineering, as well as other kinds of Earth system modifications aimed at addressing the climate crisis.

With this initiative, the University of Chicago is attempting to position itself as the place for serious scientific consideration of the logistics and implications of Earth system interventions aimed at reversing or counteracting climate change. It is part of a broader university effort to become a global leader in the climate and energy space.

Previously, Keith was at Harvard University, where he helped launch the Solar Geoengineering Research Program. After repeated delays and years of controversy, Harvard recently canceled a small-scale outdoor geoengineering experiment that Keith helped plan. That experiment would have involved launching a high-altitude balloon, releasing fine particles of calcium carbonate into the stratosphere, and then sending the balloon back through the cloud to monitor how those particles disperse and interact within the atmosphere, and with solar radiation.

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