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Aug 12, 2024

Older Trees Show Increased Carbon Storage with Elevated CO2

Posted by in categories: climatology, sustainability

How can older trees help combat climate change? This is what a recent study published in Nature Climate Change hopes to address as an international team of researchers investigated changes in woody biomass in older trees that have been while exposed to free-air CO2 enrichment (FACE) resulting from climate change. This study holds the potential to help researchers, climate scientists, and the public better understand the steps that can be taken to decrease CO2 emissions and combat climate change worldwide.

For the study, the researchers, led by the University of Birmingham’s Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR), conducted a FACE experiment through a combination of canopy laser scanning and tree-ring analysis to examine the 180-year-old Quercus robur L. woodland in central England between 2021and 2022. The goal was ascertaining the effectiveness of older trees compared to younger trees regarding their consumption of CO2, also known as CO2 storage. In the end, the researchers found increased levels of CO2 compared to ambient conditions in 2021 and 2022, respectively, equivalent to 1.7 tons of dry matter per hectare per year.

“Our findings refute the notion that older, mature forests cannot respond to rising levels of atmospheric CO2, but how they respond will likely depend on the supply of nutrients from the soil,” said Dr. Richard Norby from the University of Birmingham, who is lead author of the study. “Evidence from BIFoR FACE of a significant increase in woody biomass production supports the role of mature, long-established, forests as natural climate solutions in the coming decades while society strives to reduce its dependency on carbon.”

Aug 12, 2024

Quantum computers can accelerate the transition to net zero power grids

Posted by in categories: computing, quantum physics

Researchers are studying how quantum computers can help optimise net-zero power grid operation and expansion planning.

Aug 12, 2024

Govee’s New Evangelion Themed RGB LED Lights Are on Sale Today

Posted by in category: futurism

The deals won’t last for-EVA.

Aug 12, 2024

Are emergent abilities in large language models just in-context learning?

Posted by in category: robotics/AI

According to a new study led by TU Darmstadt, AI models such as ChatGPT are apparently less capable of learning independently than previously assumed.

According to the study, there is no evidence that what are known as (LLMs) are beginning to develop a general “intelligent” behavior that would enable them to proceed in a planned or intuitive manner or to think in a complex way.

The study, which has been published on the arXiv preprint server, will be presented in August at the annual conference of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL) in Bangkok, the largest international conference on automatic language processing.

Aug 12, 2024

Chip that entangles four photons opens up possibility of inviolable quantum encryption

Posted by in categories: computing, encryption, information science, mathematics, quantum physics, security

Unlike classical encryption, which relies on mathematical algorithms, quantum encryption assures security based on physical principles. Detection of espionage or interference is guaranteed by unavoidable alteration of the quantum states involved.

Aug 12, 2024

New genetically engineered wood can store carbon and reduce emissions

Posted by in categories: chemistry, energy, engineering, genetics, sustainability

Researchers at the University of Maryland genetically modified poplar trees to produce high-performance, structural wood without the use of chemicals or energy-intensive processing. Made from traditional wood, engineered wood is often seen as a renewable replacement for traditional building materials like steel, cement, glass and plastic. It also has the potential to store carbon for a longer time than traditional wood because it can resist deterioration, making it useful in efforts to reduce carbon emissions.

But the hurdle to true sustainability in engineered wood is that it requires processing with volatile chemicals and a significant amount of energy, and produces considerable waste. The researchers edited one gene in live poplar trees, which then grew wood ready for engineering without processing.

The research was published online on August 12, 2024, in the Journal Matter.

Aug 12, 2024

Australian solar team beats perovskite efficiency milestone, joins elite global club

Posted by in categories: solar power, sustainability

Australian scientists have joined an elite club of just eight around the world, making a perovskite solar cell that can hit 30 per cent efficiency.

Led by storied University of Sydney professor Anita Ho-Baillie, the Sydney team’s work was weighed and measured by the US National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

“It shows that we are capable of producing high performance cells. The next step we will achieve is higher performance, either by double junction or triple junction,” Ho-Baillie says.

Aug 12, 2024

Using corrugated wall coverings to passively cool buildings

Posted by in categories: physics, space

A team of applied physicists at Columbia University, working with a colleague from Henry M. Gunn High School, and another from the University of California, Los Angeles, has found that using corrugated siding on outdoor building walls can passively reduce wall temperatures.

In their paper published in the journal Nexus, the group describes how they added corrugated siding to a small test and found that doing so lowered the wall temperatures.

Prior research has shown that covering the tops of buildings with radiative cooling materials can reduce the amount of heat that makes its way inside by up to 20%. This is because they are made in such a way as to reflect sunlight and radiate heat into .

Aug 12, 2024

LLMs and the Curious Notion of Panprotopsychism

Posted by in category: neuroscience

Could the astonishing language abilities of LLMs hint at a deeper, more fundamental consciousness woven into the fabric of reality itself?

Aug 12, 2024

Spacetime defects uncouple gravity from mass in dark matter alternative

Posted by in categories: cosmology, physics

Something seems to be missing from the universe, and the favored model of physics calls it “dark matter” – but despite a century of searching, it remains a no-show. A new paper proposes an alternative hypothesis, showing how gravity could exist without mass and produce many of the same effects we ascribe to dark matter.

Einstein’s theory of general relativity is still our best model for describing gravity. As you might remember from high school physics class, gravity is the force that arises from masses resting on the fabric of spacetime. The more mass an object has, the deeper the “dip” in spacetime and the stronger the gravitational pull.

But starting in the 1930s, some strange astronomical observations began to raise questions. Galaxy clusters seemed to be moving much too fast to stay stable based on visible matter, suggesting that far more matter was present than we could see. That led to the hypothesis that huge amounts of invisible stuff – which was dubbed dark matter – pervaded the universe. The idea has held surprisingly strong in observations in the decades since, backed up by the motions of stars within galaxies and the bending and magnifying of light through gravitational lenses.

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