Science & Technology News

[GordMay]

UWMS:
NASA's new $30-million space toilet, the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), will launch to the International Space Station (ISS) this weekend, where astronauts will test how well it works in micro-gravity. The new toilet is lighter, smaller, better smelling, and more gender-inclusive, than the Russian-made toilet, currently in use aboard the ISS. The UWMS is also 65 per cent smaller, and 40 per cent lighter than the toilet currently aboard the ISS.
➥ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/boldly-...for-deep-space

[GordMay]

Sir Isaac Newton’s “Toad-Vomit Lozenges”
If someone told you that Sir Isaac Newton, the great mind responsible for the discovery of calculus and fundamental laws of physics, had also developed a remedy for the bubonic plague, you’d be forgiven for assuming it might be worth a shot. You would, however, be in for an unwelcome surprise.
In the "best" bubonic plague treatment observed by Newton, "a toad suspended by the legs in a chimney for three days, which at last vomited up earth with various insects in it, on to a dish of yellow wax, and shortly after died. Combining powdered toad with the excretions and serum made into lozenges and worn about the affected area drove away the contagion and drew out the poison."
The recipe was scribbled, by Newton, in two pages of notes on Jan Baptist van Helmont’s 1667 book De Peste, which was all about the bubonic plague.
Sold at auction for US$ 81,325
Bonham’s ➥ https://www.bonhams.com/press_release/30347/
And ➥ https://www.bonhams.com/auctions/26489/lot/1/

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by GordMay

UWMS:
NASA's new $30-million space toilet, the Universal Waste Management System (UWMS), will launch to the International Space Station (ISS) this weekend, where astronauts will test how well it works in micro-gravity. The new toilet is lighter, smaller, better smelling, and more gender-inclusive, than the Russian-made toilet, currently in use aboard the ISS. The UWMS is also 65 per cent smaller, and 40 per cent lighter than the toilet currently aboard the ISS.
➥ https://www.nasa.gov/feature/boldly-...for-deep-space

I wonder if they make a marine version .

[Lodesman]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

I wonder if they make a marine version .

Of course they do, but it's $50million

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by Lodesman

Of course they do, but it's $50million

[Tetepare]

I hope it works better than my Jabsco and has a better warranty

[RaymondR]

They don't have his and hers toilets on that thing. Good god, the damned thing costs billions. Is this a rerun of the $40,000 toilet seats on the B52 bombers?

[GordMay]

The first indication a young person has COVID-19 might be a stroke.
In a study [1] recently published in the journal Neurology, researchers analyzed 10 studies involving 160 patients who'd suffered a stroke along with COVID-19.
One of the findings, of this study, is that for patients under 50 years old, many (48%) were totally asymptomatic when they had a stroke related to COVID-19, and 43% of COVID-19 patients under age 50 had no previous risk factors for stroke; which means that, for these patients, the stroke was their first symptom of the disease.
When COVID-19 surfaced globally, more than eight months ago, medical experts considered it primarily a respiratory illness.
Today, following months of reports of COVID patients suffering blood clots, pulmonary embolisms and strokes, they say it might also be a vascular (thrombogenic) one.
[1] “Stroke Risk, phenotypes, and death in COVID-19: Systematic review and newly reported cases” ~ by Sebastian Fridman et al
➥ https://n.neurology.org/content/neur...10851.full.pdf

[Be Free]

Originally Posted by fgd3

> it is the sum of the first three odd powers of 2 (21 + 23 + 25 = 42)


That threw me for awhile until I figured out is was 2^1+2^3+2^5.

Which is the same as saying it is 101010 in binary

[Mike OReilly]

The Great Lakes are awash in plastic. A new project is using trash-trapping technology to get rid of it

[GordMay]

Originally Posted by Mike OReilly

The Great Lakes are awash in plastic. A new project is using trash-trapping technology to get rid of it

Seabin ➥ https://seabinproject.com/
LittaTrap ➥ https://www.enviropod.com/

[GordMay]

Plastic-Degrading Enzyme Cocktail
In 2018, University of Portsmouth’s Professor John McGeehan and colleagues engineered an enzyme that can digest polyethylene terephthalate (PET), the primary material used in the manufacture of single-use plastic beverage bottles.

Now, the same team has created a two-enzyme cocktail (PETase + MHETase), that can digest PET up to six times faster. The new super enzyme could potentially break down one bottle, in as little as six weeks - still a little bit too slow for a real recycling process; but it's a major step forward, to creating a commercially viable system.

“Plastic-eating enzyme 'cocktail' heralds new hope for plastic waste”
➥ https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_relea...p-pe092520.php

"Characterization and engineering of a two-enzyme system for plastics depolymerization" ~ by Brandon C. Knott et al.
➥ https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2.../23/2006753117

[GordMay]

Oceans Are Capturing More Carbon Than Expected – Underestimated by Up to 900,000,000 Metric Tons of Carbon per Year
A new study*, conducted by a group of scientists from Exeter University, shows that some parts of our oceans are absorbing carbon up to twice the rate calculated by current climate models.
Previous estimates of the movement of carbon ("flux") between the atmosphere and oceans have not accounted for temperature differences at the water's surface and a few metres below.
A larger ocean sink could imply that CO2 emissions are larger than currently thought, or that the land sink is smaller than we currently think.
The sink seems to be increasing with time, especially in the last 20 years, this may be because atmospheric CO2 has continued to rise rapidly, dissolving more every year into the surface waters.
The findings may also mean that the exchanges of carbon between the ocean and land, including those from large rivers like the Amazon, and that we currently consider to be relatively similar from year to year, are in fact more variable.
While this may bring positive benefits, in terms of reducing atmospheric warming due to climate change, as more carbon dioxide is being removed from the air, the oceans are impacted by the carbon they absorb. They become more acidic, which threatens the health of marine ecosystems and makes it increasingly difficult for ocean life to survive (acidification can dissolve the calcium carbonate that makes up mussel shells and coral skeletons, and interrupt processes like fish breathing).

*“Revised estimates of ocean-atmosphere CO2 flux are consistent with ocean carbon inventory” ~ by Andrew J. Watson et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-18203-3#Sec2

See also:
“Thermal skin effect of the surface ocean and its implications for CO2 uptake” ~ by J. E. Robertson & A. J. Watson
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/358738a0

And:
“Key Uncertainties in the Recent Air Sea Flux of CO2" ~ by D.K. Woolf et al
➥ https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley....9/2018GB006041

And:
“Increasing ocean stratification over the past half-century” ~ by Guancheng Li, Lijing Cheng et al
➥ https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-020-00918-2

[GordMay]

“CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION:Quantifying sources and themes in the COVID-19 infodemic” ~ by Dr. Sarah Evanega et al
The World Health Organization has stated that a parallel “infodemic” of misinformation is undermining efforts to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
This study identifies the most prominent misinformation topics that appeared in traditional and online media in the early phase of the pandemic, from January 1 up to May 26, 2020. The results come from a sample of 38 million articles published in English-language media around the world, making this the first fully comprehensive study of COVID misinformation in the media yet carried out...
More ➥ https://allianceforscience.cornell.e...ationFINAL.pdf

[Mike OReilly]

Originally Posted by GordMay

“CORONAVIRUS MISINFORMATION:Quantifying sources and themes in the COVID-19 infodemic” ~ by Dr. Sarah Evanega et al
The World Health Organization has stated that a parallel “infodemic” of misinformation is undermining efforts to combat the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.
This study identifies the most prominent misinformation topics that appeared in traditional and online media in the early phase of the pandemic, from January 1 up to May 26, 2020. The results come from a sample of 38 million articles published in English-language media around the world, making this the first fully comprehensive study of COVID misinformation in the media yet carried out...
More ➥ https://allianceforscience.cornell.e...ationFINAL.pdf

From the summary: The study concludes that Donald Trump was likely the largest driver of the COVID-19 misinformation “infodemic.”

No surprise I guess. Still rather ironic given recent news.