Lifeboat Foundation

Daily exposure to chemicals called phthalates, which are used in the manufacture of plastic food containers and many cosmetics, may lead to roughly 100,000 premature deaths among older Americans each year, a new study shows. The resulting annual economic burden is between $40 billion and $47 billion, a value more than quadruple that of previous estimates.

NYU Langone study shows deaths linked to endocrine-disrupting chemicals called phthalates may cost United States billions in lost productivity. Learn more.

Coastal artisanal fisheries, particularly those in developing countries, are facing a global crisis of overexploitation¹. Artificial reefs (ARs), or human–made reefs², have been widely advocated by governmental and non-governmental conservation and management organizations for addressing these issues. Industries, particularly oil and gas, seeking to avoid the costs of removal or conventional disposal of used materials are often major advocates for deploying ARs. Yet, major questions remain regarding the success of such efforts in the context of weak governance and poorly sustained international investment in AR development projects. There is frequently confusion over whether or not ARs should be fishing sites and the precise goals of constructing such ARs are often unclear, making difficult to evaluate their successfulness³. Over the last 40 years, both failures and success AR implementation programs have been reported^4,5. The main point of the present work is to underline the importance of the governance issue and address social and management factors on AR “success”.

To improve fishery yields, it has been recommended that ARs must be no-take areas (e.g.,²). Yet, most ARs were historically delineated as sites for fishing⁴, and were rarely implemented at large scales in/for no-take zones, even in countries with centuries of experience in constructing ARs, such as Japan. In Japan, fishery authorities and local fishers use ARs to promote sustainable catches and to establish nursery grounds of target species⁶. However, fishery authorities and local fishery cooperatives in Japan have extensive management authority over ARs. For example, fishing around ARs is usually limited to hook and line techniques, with net fishing rarely being permitted in areas where risk of entanglement in ARs is high. Furthermore, during spawning, fishing gear and fishing season are often restricted around ARs in Japan. These practices are recognized for their effectiveness in maintaining good fishing performance and marine conservation in Japan and elsewhere where they have been implemented⁷.

Continue reading “Successful artificial reefs depend on getting the context right due to complex socio-bio-economic interactions” »

An international team of physicists led by researchers at Indiana University Bloomington has announced the world’s most precise measurement of the neutron’s lifetime.

The interior of the Earth is a mystery, especially at greater depths (660 km). Researchers only have seismic tomographic images of this region and, to interpret them, they need to calculate seismic (acoustic) velocities in minerals at high pressures and temperatures. With those calculations, they can create 3D velocity maps and figure out the mineralogy and temperature of the observed regions. When a phase transition occurs in a mineral, such as a crystal structure change under pressure, scientists observe a velocity change, usually a sharp seismic velocity discontinuity.

In 2,003 scientists observed in a lab a novel type of phase change in minerals—a spin change in iron in ferropericlase, the second most abundant component of the Earth’s lower mantle. A spin change, or spin crossover, can happen in minerals like ferropericlase under an external stimulus, such as pressure or temperature. Over the next few years, experimental and theoretical groups confirmed this phase change in both ferropericlase and bridgmanite, the most abundant phase of the lower mantle. But no one was quite sure why or where this was happening.

In 2,006 Columbia Engineering Professor Renata Wentzcovitch published her first paper on ferropericlase, providing a theory for the spin crossover in this mineral. Her theory suggested it happened across a thousand kilometers in the lower mantle. Since then, Wentzcovitch, who is a professor in the applied physics and applied mathematics department, earth and environmental sciences, and Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory at Columbia University, has published 13 papers with her group on this topic, investigating velocities in every possible situation of the spin crossover in ferropericlase and bridgmanite, and predicting properties of these minerals throughout this crossover. In 2,014 Wenzcovitch, whose research focuses on computational quantum mechanical studies of materials at extreme conditions, in particular planetary materials predicted how this spin change phenomenon could be detected in seismic tomographic images, but seismologists still could not see it.

Quantum technology typically employs qubits (quantum bits) consisting of, for example, single electrons, photons or atoms. A group of TU Delft researchers has now demonstrated the ability to teleport an arbitrary qubit state from a single photon onto an optomechanical device—consisting of a mechanical structure comprising billions of atoms. Their breakthrough research, now published in Nature Photonics, enables real-world applications such as quantum internet repeater nodes while also allowing quantum mechanics itself to be studied in new ways.

Quantum optomechanics

The field of quantum optomechanics uses optical means to control mechanical motion in the quantum regime. The first quantum effects in microscale mechanical devices were demonstrated about ten years ago. Focused efforts have since resulted in entangled states between optomechanical devices as well as demonstrations of an optomechanical quantum memory. Now, the group of Simon Gröblacher, of the Kavli Institute of Nanoscience and the Department of Quantum Nanoscience at Delft University of Technology, in collaboration with researchers from the University of Campinas in Brazil, has shown the first successful teleportation of an arbitrary optical qubit state onto a micromechanical quantum memory.

Circa 2020

TOKYO — As scientists the world over scramble to develop a vaccine for the coronavirus, Kyushu University professor Takahiro Kusakabe and his team are working to develop a unique vaccine using silkworms.

In his project, each of the worms is a factory that manufactures a type of protein to serve as the key material for vaccine production. Kusakabe said it is possible to create an oral vaccine and aims to start clinical tests on humans in 2021.

Continue reading “Japanese scientists turn to silkworms for COVID-19 vaccine” »

The UN health agency now ranks air pollution on a par with smoking or an unhealthy diet. As a result, it has issued new, stricter guidelines they claim could save millions of lives.

There is quite a bit of handwringing going on that AI-based true self-driving cars are going to be a monopoly. This is based on the assumption that only a few purveyors will be able to attain true self-driving cars. A tiny set of automakers or self-driving tech firms will hold all the cards when it comes to self-driving cars.

We are not there yet, since the invention of self-driving cars is still being figured out.

But, if you are thinking ahead, those purveyors might be the only entities able to field self-driving cars and therefore be able to charge monopoly rent, as it were. This could include charging sky-high prices for the use of self-driving cars.

Continue reading “Worries That AI Self-Driving Cars Will Charge Sky-High Monopolistic Prices” »

“I want to build a transformational technology company that stands the test of time,” Kinsel says.

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Pat Kinsel, 36 started Notarize after selling his previous company, mobile-data collection firm Spindle, to Twitter in 2013 and realizing that the notary had failed to sign his documents. Without the signature, the documents became invalid, despite being stamped, a major headache for Kinsel.

Continue reading “Next Billion-Dollar Startups: How Notarize Built A $760 Million Business In Online Notaries” »