Science & Technology News

[GordMay]

COVID-19 “is but the latest example of an unexpected, novel, and devastating pandemic disease”, wrote physician Anthony Fauci and medical epidemiologist David Morens in Cell in September. “We have entered a pandemic era.”

“How We Got to COVID-19" ~ by David M. Morens, and Anthony S. Fauci

Infectious diseases, prevalent in humans and animals, are caused by pathogens, that once emerged from other animal hosts. In addition to these established infections, new infectious diseases periodically emerge. In extreme cases, they may cause pandemics such as COVID-19; in other cases, dead-end infections, or smaller epidemics result. Established diseases may also re-emerge, for example, by extending geographically, or by becoming more transmissible, or more pathogenic. Disease emergence reflects dynamic balances and imbalances, within complex globally distributed ecosystems, comprising humans, animals, pathogens, and the environment. Understanding these variables is a necessary step in controlling future devastating disease emergences.

➥ https://www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(20)31012-6.pdf


“How Climate Change Is Ushering in a New Pandemic Era” ~ by Jeff Goodell
A warming world is expanding the range of deadly diseases and risking an explosion of new zoonotic pathogens from the likes of bats, mosquitoes, and ticks.
Rolling Stone explores how climate change is encouraging the rise of new pathogens, expanding the range of existing diseases and increasing our vulnerability to old ones.
➥ https://www.rollingstone.com/culture...engue-1098923/

[GordMay]

“Super Corals” can live in extreme environments
In a surprising sign of resilience, some corals can survive long heat waves, but the reefs appear to require unpolluted water, in order to resist worsening effects of climate change.

In 2016, one of the warmest years on record, scientists from the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), and several tropical countries, studied [1] over 200 individual reefs, spanning 12 countries. They considered the reefs’ overall exposure to warm seawater temperatures, as well as the corals’ sensitivity to heat stress, by looking for signs of bleaching.
Overall, they found that bleaching across reefs was not consistent, across the Coral Triangle [2] and climate models had overestimated the level of destruction the reefs would experience. Specifically, coral reefs in island environments (like Indonesia, Australia, and Fiji) were more resistant to heat stress than those in Vietnam, Japan, India, and East Africa.

1. “Large geographic variability in the resistance of corals to thermal stress” ~ by Timothy R. McClanahan et al
➥ https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/geb.13191

2. The “Coral Triangle” is a region of coral reefs in the western Pacific Ocean around Indonesia, the Phillipines, Malaysia, and several other smaller countries. This patch of the Indo-Pacific Ocean is home to 75 percent of all corals species, six of seven turtle species, and several thousand fish species.

3. “Mangrove lagoons of the Great Barrier Reef support coral populations persisting under extreme environmental conditions” ~ by Emma F. Camp et al

Scientists are using selective breeding and genetic engineering to create “super-corals” that are more heat-tolerant and resistant to bleaching. Super-corals could cope with hotter and longer heat waves, giving hope that reefs might persist. A new study [4] shows that super-corals are already out there, occurring naturally in shallow pools in American Samoa. For four species, the researchers demonstrated that the heat tolerance, that these corals acquired in hot pools, is maintained even when they are transplanted elsewhere, meaning their heat tolerance is ingrained within their DNA.

4. “Using naturally occurring climate resilient corals to construct bleaching-resistant nurseries” ~ by Megan K. Morikawa and Stephen R. Palumbi
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/116/21/10586.full

Heat-tolerant genes could help corals adapt to climate change ➥ https://www.newscientist.com/article...#ixzz6gEia6ofs

HOWEVER:

5. “Stress-resistant corals may not acclimatize to ocean warming but maintain heat tolerance under cooler temperatures” ~ by Verena Schoepf et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-019-12065-0

[Singularity]

Spoiler alert: Still okay to buy green bananas:

Asteroids aren't completely random? Mass extinctions of Earth's land animals follow a cycle, study finds

""Paleontologists had previously discovered that similar mass extinctions of marine life, in which up to 90% of species disappeared, were not random events, but seemed to come in a 26-million-year cycle.How could this be? Aren't asteroid or comet impacts completely random? Apparently not, the study suggests, and it's because of the orbit of our planet through the galaxy.
The solar system passes through the crowded part of our Milky Way galaxy about every 30 million years. During those times, comet showers are possible, leading to large impacts on the Earth.

...we're about 20 million years away from the next predicted mass extinction that's due to a comet strike or volcanic activity. "

A 27.5-My underlying periodicity detected in extinction episodes of non-marine tetrapods
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full...nalCode=ghbi20

[GordMay]

Crucial ocean research disrupted by pandemic has both immediate and long-term impact

Ocean Observing System Report Card 2020
In April 2020 the Global Ocean Observing System (GOOS) organized a systematic review of the impact of Covid-19 pandemic on the ocean observing system, across the global in situ ocean observing networks. The review assesses risk to the delivery of essential climate and ocean variables used in services from weather forecasting to commercial shipping, and ocean policy.

As the global pandemic took hold, some of the immediate impacts included:
- the recall to home port of almost all research vessels and the postponement of many deployment, maintenance and repair missions to deep sea moorings;
- cancellation of four invaluable full-depth ocean surveys, of over a dozen different climate and ocean related variables, such as carbon, temperature, salinity and water alkalinity;
- slowdown in deployment of autonomous instruments, such as drifting buoys, profiling floats and underwater gliders;
- cessation of surface carbon measurements from ships, which tell us about the uptake of greenhouse gases by the ocean;
- loss of 80% of data flow from the Ship of Opportunity Programme's ocean temperature profile measurements.

The global system showed resilience to these immediate impacts, due to the diversity of platforms, the increased use of autonomous platforms - able to operate for months without human intervention - and through the actions of individual operators in maintaining network function whilst working from home under Covid-19 restrictions.
But months on from the initial impacts and with research vessel operations far from returning to normal, GOOS has growing concern for parts of the global system.

"There is a real risk that equipment will fail, resulting in the loss of both data and potentially the equipment itself, like the moorings." explains Johannes Karstensen, co-lead of the OceanSITES interdisciplinary moorings network. The loss of even a single one of the over 300 operational moorings could mean a gap of two to five years of data.

The Argo network is also heavily reliant on research vessel cruises for reseeding the global array of profiling floats, which already shows a 10% decline in observations to the real-time data delivery systems compared with early 2020.
On the impacts of the potential loss of ocean data, "The data is critical for projecting ocean heat waves, which can trigger toxic algae blooms that shut down commercial fishing and aquaculture operations, and cause mass die-offs of marine mammals and birds. It also is important for projecting the strength and paths of tropical storms and hurricanes that affect the United States and many other countries." writes Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News.
"GOOS is calling for careful international coordination across national research vessel fleets to ensure we do not compromise essential data for weather prediction and climate, especially for the maintenance and deployment of important deep sea mooring arrays." says Toste Tanhua, co-chair of GOOS.


More ➥ OceanOPS Report Card 2020

PDF ➥ https://www.ocean-ops.org/reportcard...rtcard2020.pdf

[Ded reckoner]

Putting aside commentary about the validity of the anthropogenic global warming theory and the economics of any course of action, the impetus for reducing C02 emissions seems to be with massive expansion of solar and wind farms instead of reliance on nuclear power. Concomitantly, internal combustion engines are anathema, and there must be a rapid transition to electric vehicles. For practical reasons, these require lithium batteries. While we're saving the planet, here's another article to read about the environmental damage that has been and will be caused by lithium mining: https://www.theguardian.com/news/202...=pocket-newtab

[SailOar]

U.S. physicists rally around ambitious plan to build fusion power plant

U.S. fusion scientists, notorious for squabbling over which projects to fund with their field’s limited budget, have coalesced around an audacious goal. A 10-year plan presented last week to the federal Fusion Energy Sciences Advisory Committee is the first since the community tried to formulate such a road map in 2014 and failed spectacularly. It calls for the Department of Energy (DOE), the main sponsor of U.S. fusion research, to prepare to build a prototype power plant in the 2040s that would produce carbon-free electricity by harnessing the nuclear process that powers the Sun.

The plan formalizes a goal set out 2 years ago by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine and embraced in a March report from a 15-month-long fusion community planning process. It also represents a subtle but crucial shift from the basic research that officials in DOE’s Office of Science have favored. “The community urgently wants to move forward with fusion on a time scale that can impact climate change,” says Troy Carter, a fusion physicist at the University of California, Los Angeles, who chaired the planning committee. “We have to get started.”

[GordMay]

What are the ingredients in Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccine?
Medicinal ingredient:
- mRNA
Non-medicinal ingredients:
- ALC-0315 ((4-hydroxybutyl)azanediyl)bis(hexane-6,1-diyl)bis(2-hexyldecanoate)
- ALC-0159 = 2-[(polyethylene glycol)-2000]-N,N-ditetradecylacetamide
- 1,2-Distearoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine
- cholesterol
- dibasic sodium phosphate dihydrate
- monobasic potassium phosphate
- potassium chloride
- sodium chloride
- sucrose
- water for injection

PFIZER-BIONTECH COVID-19 VACCINE (COVID-19 mRNA Vaccine)
PRODUCT MONOGRAPH INCLUDING PATIENT MEDICATION INFORMATION
The ingredients are listed on Page 23 of the vaccine's product monograph.
➥ https://covid-vaccine.canada.ca/info...ine-pm1-en.pdf

“What are the ingredients of Pfizer’s covid-19 vaccine?”
Reading the ingredient list is like looking at the side of a cereal box, except that you need a degree in organic chemistry to understand it. We got help from various scientists and biotech entrepreneurs to understand what each of the ingredients does and make some educated guesses about others.
MIT ➥ https://www.technologyreview.com/202...id-19-vaccine/

[GordMay]

PHE investigating a novel strain of COVID-19
“A new variant of the virus that causes COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) has been identified across the South East of England.
The strain was identified due to Public Health England’s (PHE) proactive and enhanced monitoring following the increase in cases seen in Kent and London. The variant has been named ‘VUI – 202012/01’ (the first Variant Under Investigation in December 2020).
As of 13 December, 1,108 cases with this variant have been identified, predominantly in the South and East of England.
PHE is working with partners to investigate and plans to share its findings over the next 2 weeks. There is currently no evidence to suggest that the strain has any impact on disease severity, antibody response or vaccine efficacy ...”
More ➥ https://www.gov.uk/government/news/p...in-of-covid-19

[GordMay]

“New Climate Maps Show a Transformed United States”
"According to new data from the Rhodium Group analyzed by ProPublica and The New York Times Magazine, warming temperatures and changing rainfall will drive agriculture and temperate climates northward, while sea level rise will consume coastlines and dangerous levels of humidity will swamp the Mississippi River valley.
Taken with other recent research showing that the most habitable climate in North America will shift northward and the incidence of large fires will increase across the country, this suggests that the climate crisis will profoundly interrupt the way we live and farm in the United States. See how the North American places where humans have lived for thousands of years will shift and what changes are in store for your county..."

In a paper [1], published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, a team of researchers modeled the human climate “niche”: the regions where temperature and precipitation have been most suitable for humans to live in over the past 6,000 years.
In the United States, that niche today blankets the heart of the country, from the Atlantic seaboard through northern Texas and Nebraska, and the California coast. But as the climate warms, the niche could shift drastically northward. Under even a moderate carbon emissions scenario (known as RCP 4.5), by 2070 much of the Southeast becomes less suitable and the niche shifts toward the Midwest...
Much more ➥ https://projects.propublica.org/climate-migration/

[1] “Future of the human climate niche” ~ by Chi Xu et al
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/117/21/11350

[GordMay]

How COVID vaccines were made so fast — and what it means for other diseases
Before COVID-19, the mumps vaccine in the 1960s was the fastest any vaccine had been developed: it took four years, from viral sampling to approval. The Pfizer–BioNTech vaccine became the first fully tested immunization to be approved for emergency use against the coronavirus within a year. The world was able to develop COVID-19 vaccines so quickly because of years of previous research on related viruses and faster ways to manufacture vaccines, enormous funding that allowed firms to run multiple trials in parallel and regulators moving more quickly than normal. What we learnt from the process looks likely to change the future of vaccine science forever.

“The lightning-fast quest for COVID vaccines — and what it means for other diseases” ~ by Philip Bali
The speedy approach used to tackle SARS-CoV-2 could change the future of vaccine science.
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-03626-1

[GordMay]

A team of scientists, led by the National Center for Atmospheric Research, is predicting that the sunspot cycle (SC 25), that started this fall, could be one of the strongest since record-keeping began.
In a new article* in Solar Physics, the researchers predict that Sunspot Cycle 25 will peak with a maximum sunspot number somewhere between approximately 210 and 260, which would put the new cycle in the company of the top few ever observed. The cycle that just ended, Sunspot Cycle 24, peaked with a sunspot number of 116.

“Overlapping Magnetic Activity Cycles and the Sunspot Number: Forecasting Sunspot Cycle 25 Amplitude” ~ by Scott W. McIntosh et al
“... Our method predicts that SC25 could be among the strongest sunspot cycles ever observed, depending on when the upcoming termination happens, and it is highly likely that it will certainly be stronger than present SC24 (sunspot number of 116) and most likely stronger than the previous SC23 (sunspot number of 180). This is in stark contrast to the consensus of the Solar Cycle 25 Prediction Panel (SC25PP), sunspot number maximum between 95 and 130, i.e. similar to that of SC24 ...”
* ➥ https://link.springer.com/article/10...7-020-01723-y/

The alternate view:
“Solar experts predict the Sun’s activity in Solar Cycle 25 to be below average, similar to Solar Cycle 24"
SC 25PP ➥ https://www.weather.gov/news/190504-...in-solar-cycle

Some skeptics of human-induced climate change blame global warming on natural variations in the sun’s output, due to sunspots and/or solar wind. They say it’s no coincidence that an increase in sunspot activity, and a run-up of global temperatures on Earth, are happening concurrently, and view regulation of carbon emissions as folly, with negative ramifications for our economy, and tried-and-true energy infrastructure.
Many climate scientists agree that sunspots, and solar wind, could be playing a role in climate change, but the vast majority view it as very minima,l and attribute Earth’s warming primarily to emissions from industrial activity; and they have thousands of peer-reviewed studies available, to back up that claim.

CF member, newhaul, has a demonstrated interest & knowledge of sunspot activity. I wonder what his thoughts might be.

[newhaul]

Hey all thanks gord for letting me know this thread is here .
I will review later but for now wrt the article gord posted here is my view / personal opinion concerning the solar cycles

Imo it will be just a bit below what 24 was . The minimum was to long .
I have a suspicion there was a math error in their calculations. Either that or an out and out lie to grab some grant cash .
I personally expect 25 to be approx 10% to 15 % lower than 24 was both in sunspot and f10.7 cm radio Flux.
As to climatic effects that all depends on when we peak . In 2024 or 2025.

BTW merry Christmas everyone

[Ded reckoner]

Here is a compilation of some information about the different coronavirus vaccines available or in development:


Using ethical (i.e. not aborted fetus) cell lines
GlaxoSmithKline (teaming up with Sanofi)
John Paul II Medical Research Institute
Novavax (invertebrate cell line Sf9)
Sanofi-Pasteur (partnering with GSK)
Sinovac (Vero (monkey kidney) cells)

Using no cells at all
Inovio Pharmaceuticals (DNA plasmid) (but will test with tainted cell line HEK-293T)
Moderna working with NIAID (mRNA is cell-free, but NIAID’s research isolating the SARS-CoV2 spike protein was based on HEK-293)
Pfizer (mRNA)

“Neither the Pfizer nor the Moderna vaccine involved the use of cell lines that originated in fetal tissue taken from the body of an aborted baby at any level of design, development or production...They are not completely free from any connection to abortion, however, as both Pfizer and Moderna made use of a tainted cell line for one of the confirmatory lab tests of their products” (using aborted fetus HEK-293T cell line)
Moderna
Pfizer

Using aborted fetus cell lines
CanSino Biologics/Beijing Institute of Biotechnology (HEK-293)
Emergent BioSolutions (working with J&J)
Inovio Pharmaceuticals (HEK-293)
Johnson & Johnson (PER.C6)
Oxford University/AstraZeneca (HEK-293)
University of Pittsburgh

[GordMay]

“How to make technology greener? End planned obsolescence" ~ by Emily Chung
Making devices modular, repairable can extend lifespan, reduce environmental impacts.
“... Many of us are frustrated by how soon new high-tech devices like smartphones break or just don't work as well anymore, forcing us to replace them — a concept sometimes called "planned obsolescence."
But it doesn't have to be that way. Advocates say not only is it possible for manufacturers to make longer-lasting, easier-to-repair devices, but it's necessary on an Earth with limited resources ...
... devices often end up as potentially hazardous e-waste, which the UN says is one of the fastest growing waste streams in the world, comprising 53.6 million tonnes in 2019, up 21 per cent in just five years. Of that, only 17.4 per cent is formally collected and recycled ...
... A 2017 Greenpeace USA report[1] on greener electronics — its most recent on that topic — found that many high-end phones at that time, such as the LG G6 and the Samsung Galaxy 8 were increasingly breakable. "The latter has been reported to be one of the most breakable phones of all time due to the edge-to-edge glass on both sides," it said ...
... Greenpeace found that among 40 best-selling gadgets, it was difficult or impossible to replace commonly failing parts, such as the battery or display in nearly 70 per cent. It also noted a trend among LG and Samsung toward making phones less repairable; efforts by Apple and Sony to block environmental standards to encourage the design of devices that are easier to repair, upgrade and disassemble for recycling; and said tablets and laptops design by Microsoft often require damaging the device to access it for repairs ..."
More ➥ https://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/p...ence-1.5847168

[1] “Guide to Greener Electronics 2017"
➥ https://www.greenpeace.org/usa/repor...ctronics-2017/

[GordMay]

Another new kind of battery that removes carbon dioxide from the air
Engineers at MIT invented a device that uses something called "electro-swing absorption", to take carbon dioxide from the air, and allow it to be stored (or used) for other industries.

Researchers Sahag Voskian and T. Alan Hatton at MIT engineered a revolutionary new carbon-capture technique called ‘electro-swing-absorption’ (ESA) [1]; a specialized battery that absorbs CO2 from air, as it passes through the device. In addition to their study on this device, they plan to commercialize the process through their startup company, Verdox.

The battery uses some newly engineered materials which make up a cathode (negative end of the battery) and an anode (positive end of the battery). The researchers built these from tiny particles called carbon nanotubes. They coated the anode with an iron-based chemical called ferrocene and the cathode with a large organic molecule called polyanthraquinone.

They sandwiched these together into layers with channels so that gas can flow between them. The researchers measured the pressure of a stream of air they passed through the device during charging and discharging to test how well the battery absorbs CO2. Experiments were repeated for a variety of CO2 concentrations to mimic exhaust gas from combustion and different types of ambient air to determine how well the filter worked.

On charging, they found CO2 molecules bind to the cathode surfaces through a chemical process known as reduction. In reduction, the CO2 molecule gains two extra electrons. After that, CO2 attaches itself to the long molecule polyanthraquinone mentioned earlier. Upon discharging, the CO2 deatches from the polyanthroquinone in a reaction called oxidation.

Once that CO2 is released, the device can capture a new CO2 molecule on the next cycle. Even better, the battery discharge step could provide some of the original energy required for the charging process. This reduces the energy consumption of the charge/discharge process. When two of these cells were linked together to perform reduction and oxidation simultaneously, it reduced the wait-time required between cycles. As the oxidation cell discharges, the exhaust stream containing CO2 can be fed to the reduction cell for CO2 absorption.

The pure CO2 released can also be used to supply other industries. Examples include a source for carbonating drinks or for farmers who add CO2 to their greenhouses to maximize crop growth. Alternatively, the CO2 can be stored using compression tanks or by burying the CO2 underground so it does not reach the atmosphere. This prevents the CO2 from ever reaching the atmosphere.

This carbon capturing battery is unique because it can switch between absorbing or releasing CO2. Other carbon capture methods require significant amounts of time, chemical processing, or energy to regenerate before they can absorb CO2 again. The device is highly scalable and can be designed in many shapes and sizes, only requiring a power supply.

The researchers found that this technology was quite durable, lasting over 7,000 cycles with less than 30% loss in capacity for absorbing CO2. The device effectively absorbed CO2 at concentrations as low as 0.8%, similar to levels expected for ventilation of confined living spaces such as space modules, submarines, and buildings.

The researchers conducted a preliminary financial analysis for their technology and concluded the device could be economically feasible for industries. Costs ranged from $50–$100 per ton CO2 depending on the feed concentrations of CO2 being fed in and the applications under consideration.

While there is a global drive to reduce fossil fuel combustion, they will continue to be combusted long into the future, whether that be by the chemical, pharmaceutical or transport industry. The efficiency in design and scalability of this carbon capture technology brings significant potential to support sustainable economies.


➥ https://news.mit.edu/2019/mit-engine...oxide-air-1025


“Faradaic electro-swing reactive adsorption for CO2 capture” ~ by Sahag Voskian and T. Alan Hatton
[1] ➥ https://pubs.rsc.org/en/content/arti...c#!divAbstract