Lifeboat Foundation

2015

After an oil spill, the number one priority is finding a way to contain and remove the oil. Boat operators sometimes deploy physical booms to trap the oil so that it can be siphoned or burned off of the water’s surface. But, because oil in water is tricky to contain, other methods for corraling it call for adding manmade chemicals to the water.

In a technique called dispersion, chemicals and wave action break down the oil into smaller particles, which then disperse and slowly biodegrade over a large area. Then, there is chemical herding. To clean up an oil spill with a chemical herder, crews spray a compound around the perimeter of the spill. The compound stays on the surface and causes the oil to thicken. Once it’s thick enough, it can be burned off. Chemical herding requires calm water, which makes it unreliable in some spills, but, unlike mechanical removal or dispersion, it gets all the oil. The technique has been around since the 1970s, but, until now, the chemicals used to herd the oil, called soap surfectants, didn’t break down over time. After the oil burned off, they’d still be in the ecosystem.

Continue reading “Scientists Find a Natural Way to Clean Up Oil Spills, With a Plant-Based Molecule” »

A US Air Force laser has shot down several missiles in a test, paving the way for laser-equipped war planes.

MG is bringing what should be a very affordable, practical electric crossover to the market in the new EZS. The company’s first EV will rock a 45.5-kWh battery powering a 110-kW (147-hp) electric powertrain and giving it a range “up to 428 km” (266 mi).

Blue supergiants are the rock-and-roll stars of the universe. They are massive stars that live fast and die young which makes them rare and difficult to study, even with modern telescopes.

Before space telescopes, few blue supergiants had been observed, so our knowledge of these stars was limited.

Leading astrophysicist Dr. Tamara Rogers, from Newcastle University, UK, and her team have been working for the past five years to create simulations of stars like these to try to predict what it is that makes the surface appear the way it does.

Continue reading “Secrets of the ‘blue supergiant’ revealed” »

Something strange is happening off the coast of Portugal, and scientists have now proposed a groundbreaking explanation.

Groupe PSA, responsible for some 25 percent of all light commercial vehicle sales in the UK, has affirmed a commitment to electrification at the Birmingham Commercial Vehicle Show, showing a new Peugeot Boxer and Citroen Relay based on an electric platform.

NASA is sending fan-propelled robotic “bees” into space to do chores for astronauts 🚀 🐝.

To kill bacteria in the blood, our immune system relies on nanomachines that can open deadly holes in their targets. UCL scientists have now filmed these nanomachines in action, discovering a key bottleneck in the process which helps to protect our own cells.

The research, published in Nature Communications, provides us with a better understanding of how the immune system kills bacteria and why our own cells remain intact. This may guide the development of new therapies that harness the immune system against bacterial infections, and strategies that repurpose the immune system to act against other rogue cells in the body.

In earlier research, the scientists imaged the hallmarks of attack in live bacteria, showing that the immune system response results in ‘bullet holes’ spread across the cell envelopes of bacteria. The holes are incredibly small with a diameter of just 10 nanometres.

Continue reading “Filming how our immune system kill bacteria” »

Like other previous claims, this one may not hold up.