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Plants absorb a vast amount of toxic mercury gas in the atmosphere and help reducing the pollutant worldwide by depositing the element into soils, said researchers.
The process is similar to the absorption of carbon dioxide emissions by plants, said the team from University of Massachusetts Lowell, in the US.
Hundreds of tonnes of mercury each year are emitted into the atmosphere as a gas by burning coal, mining and other industrial and natural processes.
Circa 2017
(Inside Science) â On the fictional Star Wars planet Tatooine, moisture farmers erect tall white structures called vaporators to pull valuable water from the desert air. Now researchers on planet Earth have built a device to perform the same basic task. They estimate a suitcase-sized version could harvest enough drinking water per day for a family of four. The device is described in a paper published in the journal Science.
The team, made up of scientists from the University of California, Berkeley and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, expects the device to be most useful in arid regions and in areas where the traditional water supply is polluted. The system relies on the unique properties of a relatively new type of material called a metal organic framework, or MOF.
MOFs were originally created in the mid-1990s by stitching together metal clusters and organic, or carbon-containing, molecules to form a fine porous structure. The tiny pores help the materials absorb large amounts of liquids or gases.
Work remotely, work more jobs.
With the pandemicâs turbocharged acceleration of remote work options, many employees have sought to capitalize on the lack of personal supervision by secretly working two (or more) full-time jobs at once. But while thereâs more money to be made, the strategy brings with it significant tradeoffs, namely mental health.
#Jobs #FutureofWork #BloombergQuicktake.
Fraunhofer ISE has developed a process for recycling the silicon in old solar panels.
The big knock on new technology like electric cars and solar panels is that they are not recyclable. People havenât cared a flying fig leaf about recycling stuff for the past 100 years. If they did, citizens would be at the gates of the corporate headquarters of NestlĂ©, Coca Cola, and Pepsi with flaming torches and pitchforks demanding they stop inundating the Earth with their endless profusion of waste products.
But suddenly, people are all atwitter about what will happen to the batteries of electric cars. Fearmongers on the internet are telling people they will have to drive their old electric cars into lakes and rivers when they stop working. The amazing thing is, people believe that codswallop and repeat it to their friends as if it were carved on the stone tablets Moses brought down with him when he descended the mountain. So much for public education making people smarter.
Another cry you hear from the anti-technology crowd is that millions of old solar panels will be dumped into landfills to fester for centuries. Horse-puckey! Do we need a way to recycle solar panels? Yes, we do. And are responsible adults working on such systems as we speak? Yes, they are. Calm down, people. Everything you read on Twitter or Facebook is not gospel. And letâs not get started on the deliberate misinformation spewed by the talking heads on Faux News 24 hours a day.
Circa 2020
Autopilot has been around longer than you think. Indeed, in 1914, just 11 years after the Wright Brothers first ushered humanity into the aviation age, a fellow named Lawrence Sperry built a gyroscopic self-stabilization system into a Curtiss C-2. It was capable, he claimed, of keeping an aircraft straight and level and pointed in a consistent direction on the compass, and he put on a spectacular public demonstration at the Seine just outside Paris to prove it.
First, he did a pass by the crowd with his hands clearly up in the air. Then, he did the same with an assistant standing on one of the wings, moving about to throw the weight balance off. Then he made a third pass where both pilot and passenger went out and stood on the wings. The crowd went bananas. Those magnificent men and their flying machines!
In this episode of UpOnly, the creator of Ethereum Vitalik Buterin talks origin stories, his motivation, the future of Ethereum, and even biological sciences.
Presented by FTX: https://uponyl.tv/ftx.
Full show notes: https://uponly.tv/vitalik-buterin-on-ethereum-and-immortality/
Timestamps.
Cameras aboard NASAâs Parker Solar Probe managed to peer through Venusâ thick clouds to photograph the planetâs surface.
If confirmed, this âunexpectedâ discovery in the Milky Way would be the first time a life-supporting planet has been found orbiting a dying sun.
Circa 2021
A ruby that formed in Earthâs crust 2.5 billion years ago encases evidence for early life, wriggling around in the planetâs mud.
Trapped within the precious stone, geologists have identified residue of a form of pure carbon called graphite that, they say, is most likely biological in origin, the remains of some ancient microorganism from the time before multicellular life emerged on Earth.
âThe graphite inside this ruby is really unique. Itâs the first time weâve seen evidence of ancient life in ruby-bearing rocks,â said geologist Chris Yakymchuk of the University of Waterloo in Canada.
It may look like a bizarre bike helmet, or a piece of equipment found in Doc Brownâs lab in Back to the Future, yet this gadget made of plastic and copper wire is a technological breakthrough with the potential to revolutionize medical imaging. Despite its playful look, the device is actually a metamaterial, packing in a ton of physics, engineering, and mathematical know-how.
It was developed by Xin Zhang, a College of Engineering professor of mechanical engineering, and her team of scientists at BUâs Photonics Center. Theyâre experts in metamaterials, a type of engineered structure created from small unit cells that might be unspectacular alone, but when grouped together in a precise way, get new superpowers not found in nature. Metamaterials, for instance, can bend, absorb, or manipulate wavesâsuch as electromagnetic waves, sound waves, or radio waves. Each unit cell, also called a resonator, is typically arranged in a repeating pattern in rows and columns; they can be designed in different sizes and shapes, and placed at different orientations, depending on which waves theyâre designed to influence.
Metamaterials can have many novel functions. Zhang, who is also a professor of electrical and computer engineering, biomedical engineering, and materials science and engineering, has designed an acoustic metamaterial that blocks sound without stopping airflow (imagine quieter jet engines and air conditioners) and a magnetic metamaterial that can improve the quality of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) machines used for medical diagnosis.
