The entire US coastline is in for a one-two punch from the lunar cycle and climate change.
Most plastic persists in the environment. A recently developed polymer degrades in a week and doesn’t leave microplastics behind. Image credit: Larina Marina/ Shutterstock.
Plastic trash chokes shorelines and oceans, in part because plastic polymers do not easily decompose. But a new kind of environmentally degradable plastic could help change that: It breaks down in about a week in sunlight and air, according to a recent study in the Journal of the American Chemical Society (JACS). Chemical characterization using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and mass spectroscopy, among other techniques, revealed that the plastic decomposed rapidly in sunlight from a petroleum-based polymer into succinic acid, a naturally occurring nontoxic small molecule that doesn’t leave microplastic fragments in the environment.
Although a sun-sensitive plastic might not be a good choice for bottles or bags that need to last more than a week on shelves, integrating the environmentally degradable polymer as a minor ingredient, or with other biodegradable polymers, could help speed breakdown of these materials in landfills, says coauthor Liang Luo, an organic materials scientist at Huazhong University of Science and Technology in Wuhan, China. The flexible and degradable material would be potentially useful inside electronics, he says. Sealed inside a cell phone or other flexible electronic device, the polymer could last for years isolated from light and oxygen, Luo notes, while making smartphones easier to dispose of at the end of their service life. And the byproduct succinic acid could be upcycled for commercial uses in the pharmaceutical and food industries, Luo adds.
Some of the biggest names in technology, media and finance have gathered this week in Sun Valley, Idaho, for the latest edition of the annual conference hosted by Allen & Company, a private investment bank. The event has been dubbed the “summer camp for billionaires” due to its guest list.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Apple CEO Tim Cook and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates are reportedly among those who have been spotted at this year’s event, which began Tuesday and concludes on July 10.
To develop its drug, Vir “deliberately isolated an antibody that binds to a part of the virus that is very difficult for the virus to mutate,” he said. That piece of the virus is “conserved, not only in all the variants, but in SARS-1… and in a whole family of coronaviruses.”
Vir knew the variant onslaught was coming, said the company’s executive vice president of research and chief scientific officer, Herbert “Skip” Virgin, M.D., Ph.D. So far, added Scangos, its premise of targeting a conserved site to maintain efficacy against mutations “seems to be holding true.”
Sotrovimab “appears to retain activity against variants of concern” like alpha, beta, gamma, epsilon and iota, the National Institutes of Health noted in recently updated COVID-19 treatment guidelines. Last week, GSK and Vir provided data suggesting that delta also belongs to that list. Updated lab experiment data posted on the preprint repository bioRxiv showed sotrovimab’s activity against 14 variants including the troubling delta variant—which first surfaced in India and appears to spread more rapidly than the already-speedy alpha—was very similar to that against the original SARS-CoV-2 virus.
“Go forth and conquer,” actor Kate Winslet says.
SpaceX’s Elon Musk is among the high-profile people celebrating Branson’s preparations for space.
“I haven’t seen anything like it,” scientist says of the flashy arachnid from Asia.
“People love to jump to conclusions what such a behavior is good for,” such as attracting prey or deterring predators, says Rainer Foelix, author of the book Biology of Spiders.
“Rather than to speculate, it would be better to study this phenomenon scientifically,” Foelix says.
Continue reading “Disco Spider Pulsates With Color, Baffling Scientists” »
A powerful solar storm is approaching the Earth at a speed of 1.6 million kilometers and this storm will hit the Earth either on Sunday or Monday. According to website Spaceweather.com, the storm that originated from the Sun’s atmosphere can have a significant impact on a region of space dominated by Earth’s magnetic field.
View of celestial lighting
Due to the solar storm, there will be a view of beautiful celestial lighting for the people living at the North or South Pole. The people living closer to these areas can expect to see beautiful aurora at night.
Humans are integrating with technology. Not in the future – now. With the emergence of custom prosthetics that make us stronger and faster, neural implants that change how our brains work, and new senses and abilities that you’ve never dreamed of having, it’s time to start imagining what a better version of you might look like.
From reality-enhancing implants to brain-controlled exoskeletons, breakthroughs in bio-tech have fuelled a new fusion of machinery and organic matter.
New AI tools CLIP+VQ-GAN can create impressive works of art based on just a few words of input.
Breaking — Branson Beats Bezos to Space! Some history of the Virgin Galactic propulsion development, flight analysis and more background with Tim Pickens.
Tim Pickens is an entrepreneur, inventor, innovator, engineer and educator. He specializes in commercial space, technical product development and solutions, and business consulting and strategy for space and technical companies. Pickens’ 25+ years of experience in the aerospace industry, specializing in the design, fabrication and testing of propulsion hardware systems, has earned him a reputation as one of the industry’s leaders in these areas. Early in his career, Pickens served as propulsion lead for Scaled Composites on SpaceShipOne, winner of the $10 million Ansari X Prize. He also worked for small hardware-rich aerospace companies in Huntsville, and later supported the Virgin Galactic’s SpaceShipTwo venture.
Continue reading “Branson Beats Bezos to Space History and Flight Analysis with Tim Pickens” »
