tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-17520273317143850662024-03-18T15:38:05.848-07:00Terra Forming TerraTERRAFORMING TERRA
We discuss and comment on the role agriculture will play in the containment of the CO2 problem and address protocols for terraforming the planet Earth.
A model farm template is imagined as the central methodology. A broad range of timely science news and other topics of interest are commented on.arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.comBlogger18857125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-2974807318777642442024-03-18T00:00:00.003-07:002024-03-18T00:00:00.133-07:00 One Man's Astonishing Results from a Nutritional Self-Experiment: Side Benefits, Not Side Effects<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="210" src="https://greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/blank.justin/images/Side_Benefits-Not_Side_Effects-GreenMedInfo.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This man also adopted Pauling vitimin C therapy as well and his list of circulatory problems cleared up</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">i personally take over 4000 mg of C and 2500 of d every day. I gained vsimilar benefitrs and results and am essentially cured starting in 2005.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I do add though that it is possible to have way too much of vitimin C which can overload the kidneys and must be monitored if you try close to 20,000 mg. however at about 200 pounds, 4000 has been safe enough.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The added benfit is that my whole body is c saturated which fends of all virus issues. Again no colds.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>One Man's Astonishing Results from a Nutritional Self-Experiment: Side Benefits, Not Side Effects</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><img src="https://platform-cdn.sharethis.com/img/email.svg" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Posted on: Friday, March 15th 2024 at 4:00 am</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Written By: <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/gmi-blogs/orthomolecularnewsservice">Orthomolecular News Service</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Originaly published on <a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml">www.orthomolecular.org</a> by Hans W. Diel</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>What if a simple vitamin regimen could not only heal your heart, but also cure a host of other chronic conditions? One man's remarkable self-experiment reveals the astonishing power of targeted nutrition.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>My 5-year-long self-experiment with lipoprotein(a) therapy -- to cure my <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/cardiovascular-diseases">heart disease</a> -- has not been without side effects.<a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml#Ref1">[1]</a> However, these side effects are not ones that I would ask my doctor or pharmacist about. (The familiar statement "For risks and side effects, read the package leaflet and ask your doctor or pharmacist," which I am alluding to here, is obligatory for advertising medicines in the media). These side effects are also not the ones that most doctors over-caution about: for example, hypervitaminosis, toxicity, heart damage, <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/inflammation">inflammation</a> of the stomach lining, and even carcinogenic effects.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>No, to the contrary, during my self-experiment I experienced a whole series of miraculous healthy side effects that I only mentioned in passing in the documentation of my experiment with Linus Pauling's vitamin therapy.<a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml#Ref1">[1,2]</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Here, I refer to the successful treatment or prevention of sometimes serious illnesses as "side effects" because the threats and arrogance of pharma-fixated doctors towards the use of natural remedies is annoying and deceptive. Often they say hardly a word about the sometimes very serious side effects of the drugs they prescribe as standard. Of course, the term "side effects" does not do justice to my personal experience in disease treatment and prevention. Each successful experience is a reason to provide more detail.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The most gratifying "list of successes":<a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/raynaud-disease">Raynaud's syndrome</a> cured</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/blood-pressure-high">High blood pressure</a> (arterial hypertension) disappeared</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/cardiac-arrhythmias">Cardiac arrhythmias</a> no longer occur</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Heart rate significantly reduced</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/vitiligo">Vitiligo</a> stopped</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>No <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/coronavirus-disease">coronavirus</a> infection</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>How can the successes be explained? Here is a brief explanation:</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>I am convinced that the decisive basis is the "therapy package" that I put together as part of my experiment with the Pauling therapy, supplemented by recommendations from the German physician Dr Ulrich Strunz.<a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml#Ref3">[3]</a> First, I got blood tests and identified a combination of micronutrients to compensate for nutrient deficiencies in my body. Then I took adequate doses of nutrient supplements every day, based on my body's needs. The blood testing has become routine for me. It helps me to maintain the right, optimum level.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>I have not taken any medication, not a single one.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>OMNS readers will likely know which individual essential nutrients played a particular role in my success. They include adequate doses of <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/vitamin-c">vitamins C</a>,<a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/vitamin-d">D</a>,<a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/vitamin-e">E</a>, and the <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/b-complex">B vitamins</a>, along with minerals such as <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/magnesium">magnesium</a>, zinc, and <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/selenium">selenium</a>, as well as <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/omega-3-fatty-acids">omega-3 fatty acids</a>. How and to what extent what actually worked cannot be traced in detail because my self-experiment had a different goal, namely to cure my heart disease, and was not specifically focused on these "side effects". However, according to my findings, the following assumptions are reasonable:</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>With Raynaud's syndrome (a circulatory disorder of the fingers or toes caused by paroxysmal vasospasms, which are particularly noticeable when exposed to cold. Named after its discoverer, the French doctor Maurice Raynaud. Individual fingers become white and numb, as if they are dying. Painful and frightening), magnesium, as well as the amino acids <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/arginine">arginine</a> and <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/citrulline">citrulline</a> are likely to have been the key factors. As already mentioned, the disease is cured.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Blood pressure has been significantly and persistently reduced, especially after increased intake of arginine, citrulline, <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/taurine">taurine</a>, <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/potassium">potassium</a> and magnesium, and is now regularly in the range of 120 to 65 mmHg.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The cardiac arrhythmia (ventricular arrhythmia), which was particularly evident under stress, has not occurred for five years now, as observed by regular cardiological examinations. Magnesium, potassium, taurine and probably also omega-3 have likely contributed significantly to this. I have raised my omega-3 index to 14%. (Dyerberg/Passwater have reported on the effect of omega-3 on arrhythmias in their book "The Missing Wellness Factors - EPA and DHA"<a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml#Ref4">[4]</a> and William Sears/James Sears in "The Omega-3 Effect"<a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml#Ref5">[5]</a>).</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>I attribute the calming of the heart rate (now 55 - 60 bpm) primarily to magnesium, potassium, taurine and an adequate salt intake, which I have based on the recommendations of Brownstein "Salt Your Way to Health"<a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml#Ref6">[6]</a> and Dinicolantonio "The Salt Fix"<a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml#Ref7">[7]</a>, controlled by measuring the sodium level. My exercise and meditation sessions certainly also played a part. I did not take the beta blockers prescribed to relieve my heart "as part of heart failure therapy". For most individuals, eating plentiful servings of <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/vegetables-all">vegetables</a> and <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/fruit-all">fruits</a> can provide adequate potassium.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>For the last 10 years, the spread of vitiligo (an autoimmune skin disease in which white patches form on the skin due to the loss of pigment cells in various parts of the body) has been halted. The complete therapy package certainly plays a fundamental role here too. However, I suspect that the high-dose vitamin D intake makes a decisive contribution. My vitamin D level has improved from 18 ng/ml - measured after my first heart attack - to 100 ng/ml. Jeff Bowles had similar experiences with vitamin D in his unconventional experiment (described in the book "The Miraculous Results of Extremely High Doses of the Sunshine Hormone Vitamin D3".<a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml#Ref8">[8]</a> Michael Holick also discusses autoimmune diseases and vitamin D in his book "The Vitamin D Solution"<a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v20n01.shtml#Ref9">[9]</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>In the last 6 years I have not had a cold or flu. I attribute this in particular to the high-dose intake of vitamin C and vitamin D in particular, but also to the combined effect with magnesium and the other micronutrients that strengthen the immune system (e.g. zinc, selenium). I have also been spared coronavirus-related illnesses.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>All of this seems an unbelievable result for conventional medicine that mainly relies on drugs from pharmaceutical companies. I am tempted to illustrate the helplessness of this medicine with the advice of one of its representatives. To deal with Raynaud's syndrome, he advised me to place my hands under my armpits or buttocks to protect them when it is cold, e.g. in the car. He himself would always do this with his hands, which are also affected by this condition. Apart from wishing him a safe journey at all times, there is nothing more to add.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Disclaimer</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>I am not a doctor and therefore advise you to consult your doctor if you wish to use any of the experiences I have gained from my self-experiment. These are my personal experiences and do not constitute medical advice. Do not discontinue any medication without the consent of your doctor.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>References</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>1. Diel HW (2022) Lipoprotein(a): The biggest factor for heart attack and stroke? My self-experiment with the Pauling therapy and vitamin C. Orthomolecular Medicine News Service, <a href="http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v18n27.shtml">http://orthomolecular.org/resources/omns/v18n27.shtml</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>2. Pauling L (1986) How to Live Longer and Feel Better. (2006 Revised Ed) OSU Press, ISBN 9780870710964.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>3. Diel H, Maki J (2022) Lipoprotein(a) - Der größte Risikofaktor für Herzinfarkt und Schlaganfall? (translated: Lipoprotein(a) - The biggest risk factor for heart attack and stroke?) Druckpunkt Ruhr, ISBN 9783982424507.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>4. Dyerberg J, Passwater R. (2012) The Missing Wellness Factors - EPA and DHA. Basic Health Publications, ISBN 9781591203001.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>5. Sears W, Sears J (2012) The Omega-3 Effect. Little Brown and Co., ISBN 9780316196840.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>6. Brownstein D (2006) Salt Your Way to Health. Medical Alternative Press, ISBN 978-0966088243.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>7. Dinicolantonio J (2017) The Salt Fix. Piatkus, ISBN 9780349417387.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>8. Bowles J (2014) The Miraculous Results of Extremely High Doses of the Sunshine Hormone Vitamin D3. Jeff T Bowles Publishing LLC, ASIN B005FCKN25.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>9. Holick M (2010) The Vitamin D Solution. Plume Books, ISBN 9780452296886.</i></div><div class="nd-region-middle-wrapper nd-no-sidebars" style="box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; float: none; font-family: "open sans", "Source Sans Pro", sans-serif; font-size: 14px; margin-right: 0px; width: auto;"><div class="nd-region-middle" style="box-sizing: border-box; width: 740.578px;"><div class="field field-blog-byline field-blog-byline" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><div class="field-items author-byline" style="box-sizing: border-box; padding: 1em 0px;"><div class="field-item" style="box-sizing: border-box;"><br /></div></div></div></div></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-91993272446536612642024-03-18T00:00:00.002-07:002024-03-18T00:00:00.134-07:00Why We Need “Degrowth”<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHgEBrps-TjUVTSmL2Xpx7NZbv3qpsWdxhOBX9Kd5z_MmDanOStY35PE3aYyHR1wXmJGgky4ohezEFMiqEmE-TRVJG1teIGFmDO5yjqqtZWilzZOM6GrWAYELQlnyy1_CJsLkUKNTwsQXup5aCZyzIYjvdmJxdaAEbzGvVq6H7v_25sovy9axaNtRAb44/s1200/kohei-1024x646.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="630" data-original-width="1200" height="210" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhHgEBrps-TjUVTSmL2Xpx7NZbv3qpsWdxhOBX9Kd5z_MmDanOStY35PE3aYyHR1wXmJGgky4ohezEFMiqEmE-TRVJG1teIGFmDO5yjqqtZWilzZOM6GrWAYELQlnyy1_CJsLkUKNTwsQXup5aCZyzIYjvdmJxdaAEbzGvVq6H7v_25sovy9axaNtRAb44/w400-h210/kohei-1024x646.webp" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div><br /></div><div>It goes without saying, that i am no fan of Marxism or its sister Fascism, except to understand the need to create money and a system of general monetary distribution. after that the rest tends gto take care of itself pending adjustments.</div><div><br /></div><div>Capitalism is about the assembly of money and its deployment driven by emergent demand. This has been shown to work best without political or government interferance which makes perfect socialogical sense.</div><div><br /></div><div>so then what is the problem? We have a doctrine of faux problems that are typically malthusian. history has shown all such doctines to be false because at a price every thing can be replaced, even you.</div><div><br /></div><div>We have an expanding population, although that has paused whose individual upkeep cost has actually steadily declined. no known resource is in short supply or irreplacable and we are using less per person. This is empiracally true but denied by Marxists.</div><div><br /></div><div>We can do better with local sustainability and the local natural community and the rule of twelve along with each girl producing four offspring. none of which demands or needs big government..</div><div><br /></div><div><br /><br /><b> Why We Need “Degrowth”</b><br /><br /><br />Leading philosopher Kohei Saito defends the controversial idea of “degrowth communism.”<div><br /></div><div>https://www.currentaffairs.org/2024/03/why-we-need-degrowth?</div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Marxist philosophers do not often write bestsellers, but as the New York Times<a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/business/kohei-saito-degrowth-communism.html"> </a><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2023/08/23/business/kohei-saito-degrowth-communism.html">wrote </a>in a profile of Kohei Saito, his work has unexpectedly taken Japan by storm:</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“When Kohei Saito decided to write about “degrowth communism,” his editor was understandably skeptical. Communism is unpopular in Japan. Economic growth is gospel. So a book arguing that Japan should view its current condition of population decline and economic stagnation not as a crisis, but as an opportunity for Marxist reinvention, sounded like a tough sell. But sell it has. Since its release in 2020, Mr. Saito’s book “Capital in the Anthropocene” has sold more than 500,000 copies, exceeding his wildest imaginings. Mr. Saito, a philosophy professor at the University of Tokyo, appears regularly in Japanese media to discuss his ideas. … Mr. Saito has tapped into what he describes as a growing disillusionment in Japan with capitalism’s ability to solve the problems people see around them, whether caring for the country’s growing older population, stemming rising inequality or mitigating climate change.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Prof. Saito’s book has caught on in Japan because it is a powerful statement of an important and challenging set of ideas. Saito points out the ecologically and socially destructive tendencies of capitalism, and argues for an alternative way of structuring the economy and society that could leave us (and the planet) better off. He calls these ideas “degrowth communism.” Today he joins us to explain what he means, to respond to myths and challenges, and clear up misconceptions. Saito’s book<a href="https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/734853/slow-down-by-kohei-saito/"> Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto </a>is now available in English.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>NATHAN J. ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Let’s begin with the crisis to which your book is a response. Lay out for us the basics of the fundamental crisis that you are trying to address.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>KOHEI SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The book discusses the fundamental crisis of the Anthropocene. The Anthropocene is a geological epoch where human activities, especially economic activities, have radically transformed our planet by massive consumption of fossil fuels, for example. A representative crisis of the Anthropocene is the climate crisis, and this crisis will be worse and worse in the coming decades. It will create increasing economic inequality, and also resource scarcity and accelerating inflation, and that will also destabilize this geological order, leading to conflict and war. So, the crisis we are heading in the Anthropocene is a public crisis—the combined crisis of capital accumulation, ecological crisis, and crisis of democracy. This is something that we didn’t experience for many years. Maybe it’s the first time, so we need radical ideas to challenge this crisis.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>You use this term, the<a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthropocene"> Anthropocene</a>, and perhaps some of our listeners and readers have heard it before, perhaps some haven’t. We’re used to these geological epochs, like the Holocene and so forth, with the Anthropocene being this kind of era where, as I understand it, humans are so transforming the natural world that the world itself is now defined by our relation to it. Could you tell us a little more about it?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Geology is usually considered as some kind of natural formation or natural phenomena that has nothing to do with human activity. But the situation has completely changed because our economic activities have so much impact—building streets and dams, radioactive waste, plastics in the ocean—all the things created through our economic activities under capitalism have such a profound impact upon the entire ecosystem. So, there is no nature as such anymore. Everything is mediated by our economic activity. This is the new age of Anthropocene. We are transforming nature. We are transforming the planet.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>There are many people who will hear what you’re saying and will agree with you that obviously human activity is causing a great deal of environmental breakdown, but their response will be, this is why we need sustainability. They might point to what you start the book with: the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals [SDGs]. And what you argue is essentially that this idea of “sustainability” as the solution doesn’t get us nearly close enough to understanding the deep roots of the crisis and what it will actually take to fix it. Why is that?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Yes. Ecological behavior often advocated in the media is only about reducing our plastics and maybe using bicycles more and buying electric cars, and these are all reduced to individual behavior—changing a little bit about your behavior so that we will be more sustainable and so on. But what is ignored under such discourses, including SDGs, but also ESG [environmental, social, and corporate governance] and so on, is the ecological crisis is not an individual issue. It is a system issue. So, the Anthropocene is, as I said, created through our expanding economic activities, but this is also driven by capitalism. Capitalism is a system of constant profit making, and is also accompanied by expanding production, consumption, and waste, and has an impact on the planet. If we don’t challenge this desire of infinite growth and capitalism, all the sustainable proposals are not effectively introduced.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Some people would say, and have said, that while it may be true that our current rate of growth is not sustainable, if we can decouple carbon emissions from economic growth, we can continue to have the growth of economic activity without necessarily destroying the precious planet that we happen to live on. You critique that idea, and you say, no, the entire model leads us inevitably towards disaster. Why is that?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Even some left-wing or liberal people also advocate, for example, for the Green New Deal, and that is also kind of based on the assumption that with the development of new technologies, and with more green jobs, green growth is also possible, so we don’t really have to challenge capitalism as such, or we don’t have to give up economic growth thanks to new technologies, but we maybe need the intervention of the state in the market. So, neoliberalism is bad, but capitalism as such is not necessarily evil.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>I argue differently. Of course, neoliberalism is bad. It is characterized by increasingly economic inequality, austerity, and more precarious jobs and so on. These things need to change. If we create better jobs and a better energy system and so on, but at the same time try to produce and consume more—the workers start to consume more because they are getting some better wages thanks to new green jobs—it will probably destroy the planet in the end. The problem is the climate crisis. I’m not denying the necessity of massive investment in renewable energies and green kinds of technologies and so on, but at the same time, the climate crisis has a time limit. We have to reduce, for example, half of the carbon emissions in the next 10 years, and we also have to decarbonize our entire economy in the next 20–30 years. That means we need a very rapid transition to decarbonize the economy.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>But the problem is, if you look at history, economic growth is always characterized by increasing energy and resource consumption. Even if we have green technologies like electric vehicles, for example, electric vehicles use a lot of resources and energy, and they also require electricity to drive. So, as long as we do not, at the same time, try to reduce the number of cars on the street, it will not be sufficiently rapid. Basically, we need to talk about reducing our consumption and reducing production, and that is the basic idea of degrowth. Degrowth is, however, incompatible with capitalism, so I advocate degrowth post-capitalism.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The first thing I think that plenty of people will hear when you say “we need to reduce consumption” is “reducing living standards.” You critique a culture of ceaseless production and consumption, and you say that we need to “slow down,” that we need degrowth. What people will interpret and portray that as is austerity. You say that our comforts are unsustainable, and we need to give them up. And I think the argument will be made that you can’t possibly convince people to adopt this because it will make life worse. But you argue that this is a total misinterpretation of what you’re actually saying needs that to happen. Could you clear this up for us?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Yes. Degrowth is often associated with austerity, that we have to give up all the luxuries we have. But, not everything, I would say, and we also gain something instead. So, here’s my explanation. First of all, I’m not saying, as I said, that we have to give up all the technologies. I explicitly admit we need renewable energies and electric vehicles. These are the things that we need to develop even more. So, degrowth is not about going back to nature without any kind of Zoom, computer, iPhone, and so on. But at the same time, we have to question whether we need to buy a new iPhone every two years—that’s probably excessive, and we can repair things.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Or another question would be, do we really need fast fashion? Do we need so much meat consumption? I’m not saying we should all be vegans immediately. But at the same time, we can start questioning whether our level of consumption might be actually excessive, and there are some people who are actually consuming much more in an excessive way, people that are super rich. So, first, advocate reducing economic inequality because the super rich do not simply exploit workers, but also they’re quite responsible for the current ecological crisis. The top 1% of rich people are responsible for 15% of carbon emissions. So, that’s something that must be reduced.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>For example, I advocate banning private jets. Do we really need so many private jets? And we should probably reduce cruise ships and industrial meat production. These excessive things must be reduced. That’s my first proposal. And the second proposal is, if we give up some of those things, we will have different kinds of abundance. I argue in my book that this will be an abundance of public goods. In the U.S., for example, education is commodified, and we have to pay a lot of money to go to university, and students have loans. Also, we have to pay a lot to go to a doctor because medical care is privatized and commodified. Public transportation is poor, so we have to buy cars, and we again have to have loans and so on.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>So, our entire economy is commodified, and that means that we have to pay for everything, no matter how necessary these things are for everyone. And so, you need money and have to work harder, but jobs are precarious; wages are low, so you work longer hours, and when you still don’t have enough money, you have little time to spend with your family and friends, and so you’re unhappy. So, my proposal is in a degrowth economy, all those basic services and goods must be decommodified. Education should be free. Medical care, public transportation, electricity—all these things should be as cheap as possible.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>And then you don’t really have to work so hard, and you don’t have to worry so much about your housing, future, and applications. These are the things that can make you feel much more happy and secure. That kind of public abundance can actually be realized without constant economic growth. Degrowth is a kind of new radical abundance.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>You’re talking about increasing abundance and the standard of living while decreasing consumption. And I want to go back to what you said about buying an iPhone every two years, or <a href="https://www.currentaffairs.org/2023/09/exposing-the-dark-side-of-the-fashion-industry">fast fashion </a>where your clothes wear out within a few months, and you have to get new ones. These are instances where we might consume more, but if we had clothes that lasted us 20–30 years, as they can be made to, if we didn’t have these things made as commodities where companies had an incentive or needed to keep selling us things, we could consume less and also be better off. I want to dwell on that because I think that’s a paradox for some people. It’s certainly a paradox in a world that sees GDP as the measure of social welfare.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Exactly. Degrowth also demands abandoning GDP as a measure of social progress and prosperity. Because if you stick to GDP, sending more fast fashion is good for our society because GDP increases and companies make profit and so on. But if you look at the different perspective, for example, ecological or social wellbeing perspective, fast fashion really pollutes the entire planet, and is often based on the severe exploitation of workers in the Global South. And also, the consumers are not necessarily happy after buying those clothes because when you wear it, you are already bored, so you buy new ones.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This is a distinction that Marx actually made, between exchange value and use value. Exchange value is presented in GDP: you sell more, and then you gain more wealth, and so on. But the use value has to do with satisfaction. Fast fashion doesn’t really bring you use value because they are simply produced and wasted, and so on. So, my advocation is that actually the fashion companies need to reduce the production amount, but they never talk about it because that’s, again, the logic of capitalist companies. Instead, what they do is talk about recycling, about organic cotton, about some kind of new materials that are more ecologically friendly, and so on. But the problem is, they produce more of those clothes and end up using more resources and energy, polluting the entire planet. We need to seriously talk about reducing consumption and production because they are really polluting the entire planet, but they’re also not making us happier. We have clearly different ways of satisfying our desires.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>You mentioned Marx, and I want to get to the role of Marx in your book, but you also touched on the exploitation of the Global South. The imperial mode of living comes up a lot in your book, that underneath our consumption in the West is often a vast mountain of exploitation elsewhere that we prefer not to look at, even though it’s a major part of the economic system. Tell us a little bit more about that.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Exactly. For example, the reason why I criticize the Green New Deal in my book is it could work very well for people and the working class in the Global North, say in the US. So, you produce more cars, solar panels, and other new technologies, and that creates jobs that will probably increase GDP, and that can also reduce carbon emissions. I doubt actually that reduction could happen fast enough, but it’s theoretically possible, so we accept that. But even that is not enough. That kind of discourse ignores the global inequality between the Global North and South. Where do all the resources come from to produce electric vehicles? Lithium, cobalt, nickle—these rare metals are often located in the Global South.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>So, what’s happening right now is already happening, and now, what will accelerate in the coming decades under the name of green transformation will most likely be the massive exploitation and extraction of resources in the Global South—in Latin America, Africa, China, Russia. All these places will be massively destroyed as a result. Indigenous people’s lives, ecological systems, biodiversity, deforestation—all these things will accelerate and be accompanied by these things like child labor, excessive exploitation, severe working conditions and so on, carried out under the name of ecological transformation or SDGs. I would say that’s critical.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>So, it simply could accelerate different kinds of imperial domination by the Global North of the Global South, and I think we really have to overcome that kind of injustice and inequality. The governments, or the societies, in the Global North have to think about reducing the number of cars because resources are limited, and those things must be produced somehow. Then we have to reduce and give up that kind of excessive consumption and production after all.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>What alternative ways of measuring progress might there be? I feel like one reason that GDP persists is because it’s easy. It’s easy to see the line going up and say society is becoming better off. You’re talking about degrowth, but degrowth certainly doesn’t mean we just want GDP to go down instead of up. That’s not what we’re talking about. But if you supplant the traditional measures of success and economic well-being, what instead do you pursue? What do you move towards, and how do you know that you’re moving towards it?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>There are many discussions about replacing GDP with a new measure, and that’s not coming simply from the heterodox economic side, but from mainstream economists like Joseph Stiglitz, who is also very critical of GDP. And many people, for example, propose measures such as Genuine Progress Indicator or Human Development Index. These measures actually emphasize education, equality, and also environmental sustainability. So the simple example will be if you destroy the planet, you can measure that by ecological footprint or carbon footprint, then you subtract those amount from GDP. So, the US economy obviously has the largest GDP from today’s calculation. But if you actually subtract the ecological impacts from GDP, the US ranking goes down because the United States is also the biggest polluter in the world in terms of the environment.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>But we can also add other measures about equality. The US will go further down because the US economy is characterized by enlarging economic gaps and so on. Looking from this perspective, it’s interesting because the US has, as I said, the biggest GDP, but at the same time, so many people have died from COVID. So, the higher GDP doesn’t necessarily mean a good medical system, and so your GDP is actually wasted. Japan was much more protective from the consequences of the pandemic. Japan is smaller in terms of GDP, but they have better ways of protecting people from the pandemic.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Many people in Japan, however, complain that the Japanese economy is stagnating. Germany became number three, and then Japan ran down, so they actually worry that Japan is simply becoming a smaller country. But I advocate in Japan a different kind of narrative. Look at your society. Japan is very safe, and has a very good transportation system. Japan has clean air, and many forests. Japan has good food, good anime and cartoons—</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>You have culture!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>These things are not necessarily reflected in GDP. Even if Japan is going down in terms of GDP because we have a smaller population now and innovation is stagnating, indeed that’s something, but at the same time, that doesn’t mean that we are losers. We have different things. These are not simply reflected in GDP. So, why don’t Japanese people invent new measures, and maybe something will come out in the next 10 years.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This is interesting because you read news stories about Japan’s economy. You use the word stagnate—the way these things are often framed is that there was so much growth, but then it slowed down and is now stagnant, and the country is getting older. These are phrased like a country is failing. But as you point out, there’s a lot of richness in Japan. And if you look at different aspects, you could, in fact, say that you’re doing very well, and everything depends on what you’re looking at. So, you draw our attention to the way that we choose how to measure what exactly the good society is, what a good society has, and what a bad society has.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Exactly, we have a valuation system, and we usually value what is measured by money and GDP. But what I advocate in my book is the evaluation of value. This is what Karl Marx was trying to do. His immanent critique of capitalism was to ask, are we really free? Are we really equal? If you look at the market exchange, it looks like that. But if you really look at the production sphere, there is a lot of exploitation, inequality, and so on.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Capitalism creates massive wealth and is associated with growth. But from the ecological perspective, it is often accompanied by destruction of our planet, and from the perspective of global sales, it is accompanied by imperial colonial exploitation and destruction of Indigenous life and so on. So, if you really look from a different perspective, the development of capitalism looks also very different. It is actually to regress to more barbarous stages of life, and this is actually happening. Why don’t we put more importance on wellbeing and equality, and not necessarily massive consumption of fast fashion, iPhones, and technology?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In Japan, the politicians are obsessed with growth, and they’re trying to introduce new technologies and nuclear fusion, carbon capture and storage, and AI—all the things that could be invented and introduced to society. But the introduction of this technology could reinforce the domination by capital and increase economic inequality. So, that means it could increase our unfreedom and inequality in the long run. Technology will not save us automatically. So, we should also talk about slowing down a little bit because acceleration in the last 30 years under neoliberal globalization didn’t make many of us happy. It’s simply making the life more miserable.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>I take this to be a kind of fundamental part of what you call degrowth communism. As you mentioned, you don’t even have to be a particularly heterodox economist to critique the GDP as a measure of well-being. But where you go further and introduce a kind of radicalism is to say, if we start looking at these alternative standards of what constitutes well-being, and we think about what it would take to actually achieve these things, we are led to the conclusion that we have to radically transform the system of production and decommodify many things. Tell us a little bit more, not just about how we measure the good, but what we have to do to get there.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Degrowth is incompatible with capitalism. That’s why I advocate the term degrowth communism. Capitalism is a system of constant expansion, accompanied by excessive waste of energy and resources. Communism is based on very different logic, the logic of mutual aid, sustainability, justice, and so on. I understand communism in many countries has a very bad image because of China, Russia, and so on, but I go back to the tradition of socialism and communism in the 19th century, and that has nothing to do with the image of communism and socialism usually established in the 20th century. For example, looking at Karl Marx—he’s the most famous one—he doesn’t talk about the kind of strong bureaucratic state with undemocratic rule over people’s way of life. Rather, he’s saying that capitalism is characterized by constant expansion of market exchanges, so everything becomes commodified.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>And as I said, no matter how much you need water, medical care, and education, once these things are commodified, these things are only for people with money. This is making our life more precarious and miserable, and increasing economic inequality and so on. Marx says we need to decommodify and to make those goods public goods—common goods—again. And so, the society based on commodification is capitalism, but the society based on commonwealth—the society based on commonification of social wealth—is communism, in my sense.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>So, where do we begin? We can begin by, as I said, decommodifying education and public transportation—meaning free public transportation, free internet, free public housing—and we can expand, and we can imagine the society where many things become decommodified. And no matter what, these things are already introduced in Scandinavian countries—Germany, France, and many countries—but they’re still capitalist. So, we can make that kind of transition already today, and that’s already happening in Europe more.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>But through decommodification, our way of thinking and our way of behavior will change. Because in the US, the tuition is very expensive. So, once you graduate from the college, you look for jobs with higher salary. You are already trapped in the logic of capital accumulation. But if you need to go to college in Germany, tuition is free. So, you spend 10 years at the college, and then you graduate because it’s free, but then you just walk into an NGO, or you just do farming—something good for your society. The way of thinking and the mode of behavior could radically change through decommodification in such a way that we create a sphere of freedom that is independent of the logic of capital accumulation. And why don’t we expand that sphere gradually so that we will have a more anti-capitalist thinking and behavior within capitalism?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Before we wrap up, I want to get to the fact that you are a scholar of Karl Marx. You’ve worked on editing his collected works. One of the interesting things that you contributed here is to bring him into the discussion. And I think, for some people who understand Marx’s basic theory or think they understand it, they would see it as: you had to develop the productive forces of capitalism to the maximum before you could achieve a higher order, which would be communism or socialism—whatever you want to describe it as—and there would be this kind of linear progression where capitalism would flower and then destroy itself, and then something would come after. And one of the interesting things that you as a Marx scholar have contributed is that by going into his later writings, you’ve figured out that—perhaps you can explain it, but as I understand it—he was leaving that view behind and seeing that maybe you didn’t need to develop the forces of capitalism to the maximum because perhaps they were just inherently destructive.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Yes, I argue in my book that later in life, Marx became a degrowth communist. He basically gave up that the productivist idea of progress: with the development of new technologies, the society becomes richer, but the problem is capitalism monopolizes though the fruits of new technologies, and once we overcome the private properties and so on, workers can live like capitalists in socialism thanks to the new technology. So, the slogan could be, “private jets for everyone.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Which is something I’ve<a href="https://thebreakthrough.org/issues/energy/ban-private-jets-or-give-private-jets-to-all"> heard said.</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>But the problem is still that today, some left-wing people advocate that kind of image or story of progress and revolution. However, the problem is exactly that kind of productivist idea created tension or even antagonism with the environmental movement. This is very unfortunate because Marxists or left-wing people and environmentalists are today both trying to change capitalism. Capitalism is obviously creating economic inequality and accelerating the climate crisis. So, they have something in common: the root cause is capitalism. But because of this productivist image of Marxism, environmentalists are often against learning from Marxist critique of capitalism. That’s unfortunate.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>So, I tried to overcome this long-lasting antagonism between red and green. My proposal is basically Marx himself also admitted his earlier failure of falling into the kind of productivist idea. He consciously changed through learning about colonization, about ecological practices in non-western countries, and also learning the natural sciences very intensively in the 1870s and 1880s. He corrected his idea that technologies will emancipate us, and he also corrected the idea that higher productive forces will be the only source of abundance. He changed, as I said. The abundance of commonwealth could be the foundation of a new coming society, and that doesn’t necessarily require the constant increase in productive forces. Abundance of education and culture doesn’t necessarily require the development of suitable AI or something like that. So, we could imagine a very different kind of post-capitalist, post-scarcity society after capitalism. That is what I call degrowth communism, and this is actually coming from Marx. I’m trying to propose that both red and green can learn from each other, and fight against capitalism together.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ROBINSON</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>I have just one final point here, which is that you not only point out that we can and should seek such an alternative, but not to quote a classic neoliberal phrase, in some ways, there is no alternative. You point out the different futures that the climate crisis could take us towards, and if we don’t manage to gain these insights, to think about how we can gain control of the forces of production and put them towards human ends, we could be headed for a future that’s quite dire. Your book is, in many ways, hopeful and constructive. But I think that also, especially when you write about the four futures, it contains a real warning.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>SAITO</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Yes, another scenario is climate fascism. When the polycrisis accelerates, there will be more conflict, more refugees, and more economic inequality. That means that super rich people will probably try to protect themselves. They only care about themselves, so they will abandon the rest of us, and that will really increase the tension between the few who have and the many who don’t. So, that will destabilize the entire social order. And I argue that in my book this is the non-democratic dictatorship, which I call climate fascism. So, in order to avoid this worst scenario, we have to invent a new political imaginary to avoid the catastrophe, and this is degrowth communism. It will be the way that we people in the Global North don’t have to exploit the people in the Global South. It will be a way that we can build much more solidarity with other people. And so, I think we have to provide that kind of socialist tradition because we have lost that kind of post-capitalist imaginary after the collapse of the Soviet Union. And what happened in the last 30 years is simply that we have to work for capitalism, and only economic progress is the way to secure our life and so on, but that didn’t work. So, my proposal is basically we have to learn from Karl Marx, and this is the idea of degrowth communism.</i></div></i><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div><br /></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-42178356100097252392024-03-18T00:00:00.001-07:002024-03-18T00:00:00.133-07:00 Low-cost passive maglev upgrade tested on regular rail tracks<i><img height="267" src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/93b1d63/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2496x1664+2+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdc%2F08%2Fbe22292a4fe0ad19c7dffdbeca91%2Fcleanshot-2024-03-12-at-05.18.28%402x.png" width="400" /></i><br /><br /><br />This s a solid option to compete with airpad tech which also has the baggage of infrastructure improvement. It has to be good enough to lift a one hundred ton load and may still need wheels f0or braking and all that.<div><br /></div><div>It also needs to have all sorts of failsafes. As i have posted before, an airpad train can slide downhill from Prince rupert to Chicago at over 100 miles perhour.using almost no energy imputs. flipping the magnets may be usable here.</div><div><br /></div><div>otherwise we are looking at high volume rare earths mining which will rewrite their economics greatly.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /> <br /><b style="font-style: italic;">Low-cost passive maglev upgrade tested on regular rail tracks</b><div><i><br />By <a href="https://newatlas.com/author/paul-ridden/">Paul Ridden</a></i></div><div><i><br />March 14, 2024<br /><br />https://newatlas.com/transport/ironlev-passive-ferromagnetic-rail-tracks/<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The latest IronLev prototype was presented at LetExpo 2024 in Verona this week, where its successful test run along an existing rail track was revealed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>IronLev</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Maglev transport systems present an attractive option for the mobility mix. They're quick and quiet, and are low maintenance. But setup can be costly and complex. Italy's IronLev is looking to change that with a passive system that runs on regular rail tracks.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>IronLev was founded in 2017 as a joint venture between engineering innovation studio <a href="https://www.adrianogirotto.com/en/">Girotto Brevetti</a> and <a href="https://ales.tech/">Ales Tech</a>, a startup formed by university students who developed a suspension system for the SpaceX Hyperloop competition.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Instead of using significant amounts of power to run a maglev transport system based around electromagnets, the collaboration has tapped into passive magnetic forces to create a "cushion of air that physically separates the vehicle from the track."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>At company launch time, a technology demonstrator of the U-shaped passive ferromagnetic levitation technology had already been built and tested under lab conditions. This was followed in 2018 with a trolley platform hosting a Tesla EV weighing 2 tons that was moved "with a simple light hand pressure."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>IronLev - welcome to the post-wheel future</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"Thanks to the features of our technology and to low and speed independent frictions, we can move a 10-ton wagon with the same force that is needed to lift a 22-lb backpack," claimed company co-founder, Luca Cesaretti. "And we aim at cutting the infrastructure costs tenfold with respect to existing systems."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Indeed, where conventional maglev networks involve heavy investment in new infrastructure, the idea here is to make use of more than 1.5 million kilometers of existing iron railways tracks around the world. And now the team has now taken a test vehicle to a 2-km (1.2-mile) stretch of rail track on the Adria-Mestre route in cooperation with the Veneto Region of Italy.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Tech video - Magnetic Levitation on a existing rail</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The prototype suspended on magnetic skids weighed in at a ton and managed to get up to a self-limited speed of 70 km/h (43.5 mph) thanks to motors at each skid. The team hasn't revealed any further details on the latest prototype, but stresses that zero modifications were made to the tracks and that no elements were added to the infrastructure.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>IronLev is also claiming that its patented technology is "extremely cost-effective," but as we noted in our coverage of the similar <a href="https://newatlas.com/urban-transport/china-sky-train-permanent-magnets/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">Sky Train</a> setup in China a couple of years ago – albeit a suspended carriage system – permanent magnets can be an expensive commodity, with a high percentage of rare earth metal production controlled by China.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>As such, we'll have to wait for the project to move closer to a real-world commercial debut as "people-mover transport systems for sustainable and low-noise mobility solutions in urban environments." The next step in that process will be building a 20-tonne vehicle and ramping the speed up to 200 km/h (124 mph).</i></div></i></div></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-45138661758328299112024-03-18T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-18T00:00:00.134-07:00 Snakes on a plate: Why you should be eating python<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="267" src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/05acafa/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1333+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F40%2F3d%2F9495dd30424ab4ddb07c10c46758%2Fdepositphotos-460842350-l.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Animal husbandry will have to tackle pythons and alligators in the wild at least zand integrating waste management is obvious. however, we have not even tackled deer and pigs are winning.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>so it is not so easy. this will be a goodvtask for AI. All wild stocks call for a harvesting and preparation strategy and that will come vas we remaster land management. <div><br /></div><div>I suspect python steaks turn out to be excellent.<br /><div><br /></div><div><br /><div style="font-style: italic;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Snakes on a plate: Why you should be eating python</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://newatlas.com/author/paul-mcclure/">Paul McClure</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>March 14, 2024</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Farming snakes such as this Burmese python for food is more sustainable than conventional livestock farming</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">https://newatlas.com/science/farmed-pythons-food-source/?</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Farming snakes as a high-protein, low-fat food source may be a more sustainable way of taking the pressure off conventional livestock farming which has been ravaged by climate change and diminishing natural resources, new research suggests.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Many conventional livestock systems don’t satisfy sustainability and/or resilience criteria and contribute to <a href="https://newatlas.com/farming-impact-environment-research/41586/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">worsening environmental conditions</a>. So, scientists have started looking for <a href="https://newatlas.com/entomophagy-insects-food/34006/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">novel food sources</a> with less environmental impact. According to a new study led by researchers at Macquarie University, Australia, one such novel food source is snakes, specifically pythons.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“Climate change, disease and diminishing natural resources are all ramping up pressure on conventional livestock and plant crops, with dire effects on many people in low-income countries already suffering acute protein deficiency,” said Dan Natusch, an honorary research fellow in Macquarie’s School of Natural Sciences and the study’s lead author.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The researchers studied the growth patterns of two python species, reticulated and Burmese pythons, in two Southeast Asian commercial snake farms: one in central Thailand and the other in southern Vietnam.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“While large-scale python farming is well-established in Asia, it has received little attention from mainstream agricultural scientists,” Natusch said. “Snakes require minimal water and can even live off the dew that settles on their scales in the morning. They need very little food and will eat rodents and other pests attacking food crops. And they were a delicacy, historically, in many places.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The researchers assessed the growth rates of juvenile snakes and conducted feeding experiments on some of them to determine what influenced growth. Feeding the baby pythons ‘sausages’ containing waste protein from meat and fish offcuts resulted in fast growth rates with no apparent impact on health.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“We found pythons grew rapidly to reach ‘slaughter weight’ within their first year after hatching,” said Natusch.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>They could also digest soy and other vegetable protein hidden among the meat.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“It’s a bit like hiding broccoli in the meatballs to get your kids to eat their veggies,” said Natusch. “We showed that snake farms can effectively convert a lot of agricultural waste into protein while producing relatively little waste.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>When processed, around 82% of a python’s live weight was usable, including the high-protein meat for food, skin for leather, and the fat (snake oil) and gall bladder (snake bile) for medicinal purposes. Compared to mammals, pound for pound, reptiles produce far fewer greenhouse gases, and their digestive systems produce almost no water waste and far less solid waste.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“There are clear economic and adaptability benefits to farmers who raise pythons rather than raising pigs,” said co-author Rick Shine, a professor in the School of Natural Sciences. “Birds and mammals waste about 90 percent of the energy from the food they eat, simply [by] maintaining a constant body temperature. But cold-blood animals like reptiles just find a spot in the sun to get warm. They are hugely more efficient at turning the food they eat into more flesh and body tissue than any warm-blooded creature ever could.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The researchers say that their study demonstrates the efficiency of snakes in turning waste into usable products, and highlights the opportunities to farm snakes for food in countries where snake meat is culturally acceptable. But, they don’t have high hopes that Western countries will adopt python farming any time soon.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“I think it will be a long time before you see python burgers served up at your favorite local restaurant,” said Shine.</i></div></div></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-44312748333153260832024-03-16T00:00:00.003-07:002024-03-16T00:00:00.136-07:00 How Pomegranate Juice Dramatically Reversed Arterial Plaque in Landmark Study<br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/pomegranate"><img height="210" src="https://greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/blank.justin/images/PomegranateDatabase.jpg" width="400" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>\</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We have reported on this several times ,but this is the first indication that a quarter of a cup daily also serves to reduce plaques.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">I use 50 ml 0f grapefruit extract and over 4000 mg of vitimin C. Adding 50 mg of pomegranite juce is workable and actually cooking the seeds and pulp with the grapefruit peels a really good idea.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We are slowly building a health tonic here without been too keen of general measures.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">grapefruit peels produce natural quinine.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b>How Pomegranate Juice Dramatically Reversed Arterial Plaque in Landmark Study</b></i></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Posted on: Wednesday, March 13th 2024 at 4:00 am</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Written By:</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>GreenMedInfo Research Group</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">https://greenmedinfo.com/content/how-pomegranate-juice-dramatically-reversed-arterial-plaque-landmark-study</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Could a simple fruit hold the key to reversing heart disease? A groundbreaking study from 2004 suggests that pomegranate juice may possess unparalleled potential in the fight against atherosclerosis, yet this natural solution has been largely ignored by the medical establishment</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In the face of an epidemic of heart disease, the search for effective preventive solutions has never been more urgent. While pharmaceutical therapies dominate the landscape of cardiology, a groundbreaking study from 2004 suggests that a natural approach--drinking <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/pomegranate">pomegranate</a> juice--may hold the key to combating atherosclerosis, the buildup of plaque in the arteries that underlies many forms of <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/cardiovascular-diseases">cardiovascular disease</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The study, led by Dr. Michael Aviram and published in the journal Clinical Nutrition, followed 19 patients with severe <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/carotid-stenosis">carotid artery stenosis</a>, a narrowing of the arteries that supply blood to the brain.1 Ten of these patients consumed 50mL of pomegranate juice daily, while the other nine served as a control group. The results were nothing short of remarkable: after one year, the pomegranate group experienced a significant reduction in the thickness of their carotid artery walls, a key measure of atherosclerosis progression.1</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Even more strikingly, five patients continued drinking pomegranate juice for a total of three years, and the benefits only increased with time. Carotid intima-media thickness (IMT), a measure of arterial wall thickening, decreased by 35% after one year and remained reduced for the duration of the study.1 In contrast, IMT increased by 9% in the control group over the same period.1</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>So how does this unassuming fruit wield such power against a formidable disease? The answer lies in its unrivaled antioxidant content. Pomegranates are rich in polyphenols, tannins, and anthocyanins, all of which scavenge the free radicals that contribute to <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/oxidative-stress">oxidative stress</a> and <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/inflammation">inflammation</a> in the body.2 This is critical because oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol is a key player in the development of atherosclerosis.3</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Indeed, the study found that pomegranate juice consumption reduced oxidative stress markers and increased antioxidant capacity in the participants' blood. Serum levels of antibodies against oxidized LDL decreased by 19%, while total antioxidant status increased by 130% after one year of daily pomegranate intake.1 The juice also boosted the activity of paraoxonase, an enzyme that protects against LDL oxidation, by up to 83%.1</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>But the benefits didn't stop there. Pomegranate juice appeared to reduce blood pressure as well, with systolic blood pressure decreasing by 21% after one year.1 This is likely due to the juice's ability to improve endothelial function and reduce oxidative stress in the blood vessels.4</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Perhaps most intriguing of all, the study examined carotid artery plaque specimens from two patients who had consumed pomegranate juice before undergoing surgery. Compared to plaques from control patients, these specimens showed significantly lower levels of oxidized lipids and higher antioxidant content, suggesting that pomegranate juice may directly impact the atherosclerotic lesions themselves.1</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The implications of these findings are profound. While current medical therapies focus primarily on risk factor management, such as surrogate measures like lowering <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/cholesterol-high">cholesterol</a> and <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/blood-pressure-high">blood pressure</a>, pomegranate juice appears to target the root cause of <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/atherosclerosis">atherosclerosis</a> by reducing oxidative stress and inflammation, and healing the underlying damage to the endothelium and arteries. And unlike many pharmaceutical drugs, it is a safe and well-tolerated food, and accessible to virtually everyone.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Yet despite the extraordinary results of this study, pomegranate juice has not been widely embraced as a therapeutic option by the medical community. This raises questions about a potential bias against natural remedies, even when they are supported by rigorous scientific evidence. If a drug showed similar effects on atherosclerosis, it would undoubtedly be hailed as a major breakthrough and rapidly incorporated into standard treatment protocols.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The time has come for a paradigm shift in our approach to heart disease prevention and treatment. While pharmaceuticals certainly have their place, we cannot afford to overlook the immense potential of natural therapies like pomegranate juice. With millions of lives at stake, it is imperative that we prioritize further research into this remarkable fruit and its cardiovascular benefits.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In the meantime, the message to patients is clear: incorporating pomegranate juice into a heart-healthy lifestyle may offer a safe, effective, and delicious way to protect against atherosclerosis and its devastating consequences. As we continue to unravel the mysteries of this ancient fruit, one thing is certain--the humble pomegranate may just hold the key to a brighter, healthier future for us all.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Learn more about the health benefits of pomegranate <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/pomegranate">here</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Learn more about natural approaches to addressing atherosclerosis plaque <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/atherosclerosis">here</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>References</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>1. Aviram, Michael, Mira Rosenblat, Diana Gaitini, Samy Nitecki, Aaron Hoffman, Leslie Dornfeld, Nina Volkova, et al. "Pomegranate Juice Consumption for 3 Years by Patients with Carotid Artery Stenosis Reduces Common Carotid Intima-Media Thickness, Blood Pressure and LDL Oxidation." Clinical Nutrition 23, no. 3 (June 2004): 423-33. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2003.10.002">https://doi.org/10.1016/j.clnu.2003.10.002</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>2. Gil, M. I., F. A. Tomás-Barberán, B. Hess-Pierce, D. M. Holcroft, and A. A. Kader. "Antioxidant Activity of Pomegranate Juice and Its Relationship with Phenolic Composition and Processing." Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 48, no. 10 (October 2000): 4581-89. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1021/jf000404a">https://doi.org/10.1021/jf000404a</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>3. Aviram, Michael. "Review of Human Studies on Oxidative Damage and Antioxidant Protection Related to Cardiovascular Diseases." Free Radical Research 33 Suppl (2000): S85-97. <a href="https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11191279/">https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11191279/</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>4. Aviram, M., and L. Dornfeld. "Pomegranate Juice Consumption Inhibits Serum Angiotensin Converting Enzyme Activity and Reduces Systolic Blood Pressure." Atherosclerosis 158, no. 1 (September 2001): 195-98. <a href="https://doi.org/10.1016/s0021-9150(01)00412-9">https://doi.org/10.1016/s0021-9150(01)00412-9</a>.</i></div></i>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-59144214665652754042024-03-16T00:00:00.002-07:002024-03-16T00:00:00.136-07:00Golf, and other men's hobbies, drive a 300% increase in ALS risk<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="267" src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/5996b45/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1997x1331+2+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fb2%2F48%2F7a0d322542b3a44a98fdafaa7a33%2Fdepositphotos-74976215-l.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;">We may have it right here. Men are naturally more exposed to outdoor toxins than women. The agency could be anything, but the constant is simply increased exposure.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Recall wood is also chemically protested without much oversight as well. What then are we handling with our bare hands?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Again, it could be anything and digging deep into the data may be useless.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">just be aware.</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Golf, and other men's hobbies, drive a 300% increase in ALS risk</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://newatlas.com/author/paul-mcclure/">Paul McClure</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>March 13, 2024</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>https://newatlas.com/medical/als-linked-recreational-activities-men/</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Certain hobbies and non-work-related activities have been linked to an increased risk of ALS in men</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Men who engage in recreational activities such as golf, gardening and woodworking are at higher risk of developing ALS, an incurable progressive nervous system disease, a study has found. The findings add to mounting evidence suggesting a link between ALS and exposure to environmental toxins.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), sometimes called Lou Gehrig's disease, causes progressive motor function loss and cognitive changes. While a definitive cause for the condition hasn't been identified, studies have increasingly suggested that the condition is caused by a <a href="https://newatlas.com/als-gut-bacteria-microbiome-motor-neurone-disease/60699/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">combination</a> of genetic susceptibility and environmental exposure to things like pesticides and <a href="https://newatlas.com/medical/metal-teeth-biomarker-als-risk-neurodegenerative-childhood/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">heavy metals</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>A new study by researchers at the University of Michigan Medicine has added to the growing evidence about what contributes to ALS, linking recreational activities like golf, gardening and woodworking to an increased risk of men, specifically, developing the condition.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“We know that occupational risk factors, like working in manufacturing and trade industries, are linked to an increased risk for ALS, and this adds to a growing literature that recreational activities may also represent important and possibly modifiable risk factors for this disease,” said Stephen Goutman, lead and co-corresponding author of the study.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The researchers surveyed 400 people with ALS and 287 without the condition and asked them to self-report their involvement in hobbies and non-work-related activities. Activities were then stratified by male and female sex.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>They found that the risk of developing ALS was increased in men who engaged in swimming, golf, woodworking, hunting and shooting, gardening or yard work, and metal work. Golf, particularly, was associated with a three-times-greater risk. Interestingly, no recreational activities were significantly associated with an increased ALS risk in women. None of the activities were linked to earlier onset of, or death from, ALS for either sex.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“It is surprising that the risk factors we identified appear to be specific to males,” Goutman said. “While these activities may also increase ALS risk in females, the number of females in our study was too small for us to come to that conclusion.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The study’s findings add to mounting evidence suggesting that ALS has an environmental cause. Gutman said outdoor activities such as golfing, gardening and yardwork might expose people to pesticides. Past studies have found a link between golf and garden maintenance occupations and increased ALS risk. And extensive studies into the effects of woodworking on health led the researchers to believe that formaldehyde exposure could contribute to risk.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“Our goal is to understand what occupations and hobbies increase ALS risk because identifying these activities provides the first step towards ALS prevention,” said Eva Feldman, another of the study’s corresponding authors. “For a disease like Alzheimer’s, we know that a list of factors – including smoking, obesity and high lipids – can increase risk by 40%. Our goal is to establish a similar list for ALS to create a roadmap to decrease risk. With apologies to Robert Frost, it is currently the ‘road not taken,’ and we want to change that.”</i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-74873136616132768982024-03-16T00:00:00.001-07:002024-03-16T00:00:00.137-07:00Five climate megaprojects that might just save the world<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="267" src="https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/13144800/wireless_power_from_space.png?width=1200" width="400" /></i></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> </i><br /><br />The whole climate warming MEME is a backwater of faux science, not least the whole concept itself. It is all defended by literally shouting down any and all scientists who beg to differ. thirty years for this convenient fairy tale.<div><br /></div><div>We are now in position to engage in the centuries long task of fully regreening the Sahara desert to which the great green wall represents a great beginning. all thisvalso means fully greening up the whole middle east itself andeven the restoration of atlantis.</div><div><br /></div><div>It is good to now know that the sinai was not arid at all 10,000 years ago because it means that neither was the Sahara.<br /><br /><br />but then understand that this will actually warm the globe slightly by around a full degree which is something which global warming has failed to do.</div><div>.<i><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b>Five climate megaprojects that might just save the world</b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>From solar power stations in space to stabilising melting glaciers, some researchers are proposing extremely ambitious and risky projects to fight climate change. Could they work?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/author/jon-cartwright/">Jon Cartwright</a>, <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/author/alison-george/">Alison George</a>, <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/author/joshua-howgego/">Joshua Howgego</a>, <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/author/stuart-clark/">Stuart Clark</a> and <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/author/nicola-jones/">Nicola Jones</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>13 March 2024</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2Fmg26134821-800-five-climate-megaprojects-that-might-just-save-the-world%2F" style="color: black;"><br /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg26134821-800-five-climate-megaprojects-that-might-just-save-the-world/</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>WHEN it comes to fighting <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article-topic/climate-change/">climate change</a>, many strategies require relatively small actions from large numbers of people. It is about millions of us installing heat pumps, switching to electric vehicles, <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23731623-000-living-on-the-veg-should-we-all-go-vegan/">eschewing meat in our diets</a> and so on. But given the sheer scale of the challenge, there are those who insist we need to think bigger and bolder too.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>They are talking about audacious infrastructure projects that would cost billions and carry high risks, but could, if they work out, have a truly transformative impact on our stuttering efforts to get carbon emissions down to zero – and even mitigate the worst effects of current warming. They include plans to build a huge solar power station in space, regreen vast swathes of desert and prop up melting glaciers to hold back city-threatening sea level rise.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Here, we examine five of the most promising green megaprojects, weighing up their prospects and exploring what would need to happen next to make good on them. Realistically, what kind of impact could they have? And can we really pull them off?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Launch a solar power station into space</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Clouds may be a source of inspiration for poets and romantics, but for solar power engineers, they are nothing but a nuisance. No matter how efficient the solar panel, when the sky clouds over, power output drops to nearly nothing. Move that solar panel into space, however, and this problem disappears. In orbit, a satellite can bask in the perpetual glow of sunlight and generate electricity at maximum capacity nearly all the time.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Engineers have been talking up the idea of a <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2287179-solar-panels-in-space-could-help-power-the-uk-by-2039-claims-report/">solar power station in space</a> for decades, and when you look at how much energy it could produce, you can see why. A 10-kilometre-wide solar panel in geostationary orbit <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0094576518320708">could produce 570 terawatt-years of energy</a>, according to Ian Cash at <a href="https://www.internationalelectric.com/">International Electric Company</a>. That would be enough to supply 10 billion people at six times the current US levels of energy consumption per capita. (For comparison, the UK’s total electricity demand in 2022 was 320 terawatt-hours.)</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>So, why haven’t we done it? For a long time, the answer was cost. A spacecraft with solar panels extending for kilometres would be heavy, and launching all the required equipment into space would be horrendously expensive. But with the arrival of reusable rockets built by companies such as <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article-topic/spacex/">SpaceX</a>, that price has tumbled. Estimates suggest that it could cost just $5000 per kilogram to send materials into geostationary orbit, where space solar power stations would need to sit, with SpaceX’s upcoming Starship launch system. That is about half of what it costs with our most economical rocket technology today. “The advent of reusable launch vehicles completely changed the economics,” says Martin Soltau, co-CEO of <a href="https://www.spacesolar.co.uk/">Space Solar</a>, a UK company dedicated to the commercial delivery of space-based solar power.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="267" src="https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11120951/SEI_194794403.jpg?width=1200" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Space-based solar power stations could be vast</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>ESA/A. Treuer</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Assuming that we can build a huge solar power station in space, we would then have to get the power back down to us. Fortunately, we know how to do this: microwaves beamed to a ground-based receiver called a rectenna. Researchers at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2416982-satellite-beamed-power-from-space-to-earth-for-the-first-time-ever/">demonstrated this was feasible for the first time</a> in February, as part of their Space Solar Power Project.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>That was an important milestone. But if we had a truly huge solar plant in space (or lots of quite big ones), the rectennae would no doubt prove contentious. There would have to be roughly the same number of them as solar power satellites, and each would need a collecting area of around 20 square kilometres for each gigawatt that it was designed to receive. At that size, the best solution would be placing them offshore. Imagine a giant floating net of antennae, sitting above the highest waves. “In terms of offshore engineering, they’re going to be much more straightforward than making offshore wind turbines reliably work for 25 years,” says Soltau.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Perhaps the biggest uncertainty is whether the carbon emitted while making the solar panels and getting them into space would outweigh the benefits of space-based solar power. A study by Andrew Wilson at <a href="https://metasat-project.eu/">Metasat UK</a>, a space sustainability start-up, looked at the effects of manufacturing and launching the infrastructure for 25 solar power satellites, each capable of generating 2 gigawatts of power on the ground (collectively, about as much as 620 wind turbines). He found that this would <a href="https://pure.strath.ac.uk/ws/portalfiles/portal/149356791/Wilson_etal_BIS_2022_Life_cycle_assessment_of_the_UK_Space_Energy_Initiative_technology_roadmap.pdf">produce about 80 per cent as much carbon as the UK does in a year</a>. However, that would be paid back in carbon savings within six years and the system could operate for as long as 60 years.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Whatever the impact, interest in space-based solar power is growing. As well as the Caltech project, Japan and China have plans to build and test prototype solar power satellites in the next few years. At the European Space Agency, the <a href="https://www.esa.int/Enabling_Support/Space_Engineering_Technology/SOLARIS/SOLARIS2">Solaris programme</a> is also investigating the concept’s feasibility. If the UK puts its shoulder behind this, it might realistically aim to get about 30 per cent of its electricity from space by the early 2040s, says Soltau. Stuart Clark</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Build a set of energy islands</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>If Denmark has its way, the cold and choppy waters of the North Sea will soon be home to a <a href="https://www.copenhagenenergyislands.com/energy-islands/">new island known as Vindø</a>. Not a seabird and sand kind of island, but one of concrete, steel – and clean energy galore. The plans for Vindø are part of a broader scheme to solve the energy crisis by building artificial “energy islands” to support vast wind farms.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Europe already has a lot of offshore <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article-topic/wind-power/">wind turbines</a>. But energy industry insiders reckon we need vastly more if we are to successfully transition to net zero. “In the next 25 years, many countries are looking at building 10 to 15 times as much as we built in the past 35 years,” says Samuel Magid at Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners, a green investment fund. “That’s a huge challenge, and in order to succeed, we have to do things differently.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Wind power has two main drawbacks. One is that the power generation is intermittent, meaning it can be hard to match supply to demand. Another is that the power must be transported via cables to where it is needed on land – and the infrastructure required is wildly expensive, especially if each farm is connected through a dedicated cable, as at present.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2293043-uk-national-grid-in-talks-to-build-an-energy-island-in-the-north-sea/">Energy islands</a> could solve both problems. They would act as hubs in a continental supergrid, with connections from the islands splitting off to several different countries. This would make it easier to balance supply and demand and mean fewer cables are needed overall. “Building anything offshore is expensive,” says <a href="https://www.statkraft.com/contacts/explained-experts/david-flood/">David Flood</a> at Statkraft, Europe’s largest generator of green energy. So the idea is to just build a select few islands that have a lot of connections to various nations. “It’s like a mega junction box,” says Flood.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Denmark’s Vindø is one of at least four such islands intended for the North Sea. The Netherlands, Germany and Belgium all have plans to build similar structures. Each would be built of sand and concrete and would support a huge wind farm nearby. Put all the plans together and they would produce 56 gigawatts of power, roughly equivalent to that provided by 30 nuclear power plants.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The other big attraction of energy islands is that they could be used to produce clean fuel. Certain industries, such as air travel and <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24432560-700-steel-and-concrete-are-climate-changes-hard-problem-can-we-solve-it/">steel and cement production</a>, are hard to electrify, but could be powered by clean-burning <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article-topic/hydrogen/">hydrogen</a>. Energy islands could act as hubs for its production, using the green electricity to power machines called electrolysers, which split water apart to make hydrogen. This could then be shipped or piped back to land.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>For Magid, this is the real, long-term attraction of energy islands. “It costs five times as much to transport electrons through a cable as it does to transport the green hydrogen through a pipeline,” he says. Perhaps the hydrogen could be converted into ammonia – much touted as a future shipping fuel – and the energy islands could also act as maritime refuelling stations.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Green fuel production will probably be a feature of a second generation of energy islands, says Flood. “You could imagine that you don’t have cables at all, you are just producing huge volumes of green hydrogen,” he says.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In that case, other locations could come into play. The sea off the west coast of Ireland, for example, has huge potential for wind generation, but it is largely untapped because the demand for electricity nearby is relatively low. It would, however, be a fantastic place to make green hydrogen. Joshua Howgego</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Stabilise the doomsday glacier</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532650-900-antarcticas-doomsday-glacier-is-melting-can-we-save-it-in-time/">Thwaites glacier</a> in Antarctica – often dubbed the “doomsday glacier” – is in deep trouble. Since 2000, it has lost more than a trillion tonnes of ice. The speed of its flow has also doubled in 30 years, meaning twice as much ice is being spewed into the ocean. Some think it is on a runaway path to collapse.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Even more alarmingly, this glacier buttresses much of the ice sheet covering West Antarctica. If Thwaites fails, the worry is that it will precipitate a widespread melting of the ice – a huge concern because this vast ice sheet contains enough water to raise global sea levels by up to 5 metres. “That will seriously threaten cities like New York, Shanghai, Calcutta and Hamburg,” says <a href="https://www.pik-potsdam.de/~anders/">Anders Levermann</a> at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="266" src="https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11120948/SEI_150375953.jpg?width=1200" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Thwaites glacier is spewing ice into the ocean ever faster</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>CopernicusEU/ESA, processed by Dr. Frazer Christie, Scott Polar Research Institute, UC</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="http://kaares.ulapland.fi/home/hkunta/jmoore/johnpage.htm">John Moore</a> at the University of Lapland in Finland has been exploring ways to shore up the Thwaites glacier for years now. He and his colleagues made <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-03036-4">several proposals</a> in a 2018 commentary published in Nature. One idea was to bore through the glacier to extract the thin layer of water at the bottom that lubricates it and speeds up its flow. However, when Moore calculated the energy needed to bore multiple holes through the ice using a hot-water drilling technique – and keep them open in sub-zero temperatures – he baulked and largely abandoned the idea. “The amount of fuel you need is just insane,” he says.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>It might be better to protect Thwaites in a different way. One key threat is that increasingly warm seawater is seeping under the glacier’s protruding ice shelf, melting it from beneath. Moore and his colleagues think that there might be a way to mitigate this by deploying <a href="https://academic.oup.com/pnasnexus/article/2/3/pgad053/7089571">a buoyant, 80-kilometre-long undersea curtain</a> tethered to the seabed close to the glacier. The aim is to reduce the flow of warmer water reaching the ice. Early tests of a small prototype curtain by researchers at the University of Cambridge have just begun. “We’ve got to figure out a way to at least keep the ice where it is whilst we get greenhouse gas levels down,” says <a href="http://www.eng.cam.ac.uk/profiles/sdf10">Shaun Fitzgerald</a>, who is co-leading this trial.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Needless to say, carrying out a massive engineering project in possibly the most inhospitable place on Earth won’t be cheap. Moore estimates that the sea curtain could cost a whopping $50 billion to $100 billion. However, when you compare that with the tens of billions of dollars that individual cities like New York are spending on flood defences, he argues it is good value for money since it offers global protection.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://nsidc.org/about/about-nsidc/what-we-do/our-people/twila_moon">Twila Moon</a> at the National Snow and Ice Data Center in Boulder, Colorado, <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/posts/twila-moon_glacial-geoengineering-statement-dec-2023-activity-7150269333749809152-bKBz/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop">says</a> that these geoengineering ideas give the “sense of assisting with the climate crisis, while failing to actually do that”. But Moore doesn’t see it that way. “No one is saying this is a substitute [for tackling emissions],” he says. “It’s an extra tool. The best we can hope for is to avoid this collapse process, so the ice sheets gracefully retreat without very rapid sea level rise.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Ultimately, Moore thinks the stakes are high enough that these ambitious ideas are worth entertaining. “I don’t think civilisation could manage without the West Antarctic ice sheet,” he says. “It’s an existential threat.” Alison George</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Regreen the Sinai peninsula</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Once upon a time, the Sinai peninsula was a subtropical paradise. This area, in modern day Egypt, boasted rivers weaving through forests and grasses sparkling with dew. Then, around 10,000 years ago, the hills turned brown, rivers dried up and dusty sands drove away the remnants of life. Changes in Earth’s orbit may have been partly to blame, but <a href="https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/feart.2017.00004/full">human intervention</a> – felling trees and grazing animals – is probably what tipped the balance.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>What if we could return the Sinai to its former Eden? In principle, the reintroduced vegetation would not only suck a huge chunk of carbon from the atmosphere, but also reinvigorate local water cycles, ushering in desperately needed rainfall and allowing flora and fauna to thrive.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="267" src="https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11120945/SEI_194794451.jpg?width=1200" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>About 10,000 years ago, the Sinai peninsula was green – but no longer</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Sinai has the benefit of being well-studied for regreening by a Dutch firm called <a href="https://theweathermakers.nl/">The Weather Makers</a>. At the heart of the company’s plan is Lake Bardawil, a shallow, saline lagoon on Egypt’s Mediterranean coast. This was once 40 metres deep; today, you could find the bottom with a long stick and it is largely stagnant with little seawater exchange. Researchers at the firm would like to deepen the inlets to the sea and dig out the sediment that has built up in the lake itself over millennia.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>According to The Weather Makers, this would improve the water quality and restore fish stocks. Both would be a welcome boost to the fishing industry in North Sinai, a region affected by poverty, terrorism and the war in neighbouring Gaza. Together with the planting of salt-tolerant species, the excavation would also help enlarge the surrounding wetlands, creating a better habitat for migratory birds. The sediment itself, being full of organic matter, could be worked into the land, improving its fertility.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>There is only one thing missing: fresh water. Those at The Weather Makers have several ideas of how to capture it. One is to use <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22229754-400-fog-catchers-pull-water-from-air-in-chiles-dry-fields/">fog collectors</a>, taut nets erected at high altitude, on which atmospheric water vapour can condense and trickle down into reservoirs. Another idea is to store the excavated wet sediment in huge, lowland polytunnels, where its water content can evaporate before condensing on the structures and dribbling down to irrigate plants. Once the plants become sufficiently mature, the polytunnels can be moved elsewhere. Eventually, once a critical mass of land is regreened, the region’s biosphere will naturally tip back to its former state and a self-sustaining water cycle will continue all the hard work – or so the idea goes.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://www.pausata-climate.com/">Francesco Pausata</a>, a climatologist at the University of Quebec in Montreal, cautiously welcomes the proposal, but thinks that the knock-on effects for the climate elsewhere need to be studied. “This sort of geoengineering can be good for the local population,” he says. “But it’s worth investigating in more detail to avoid unintended consequences.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>At present, the Sinai plan is just an idea. The team at The Weather Makers is still in talks with the Egyptian government. But many large-scale greening projects are well under way – for example, the African Union’s <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg23130902-500-a-wall-of-trees-across-the-sahara-is-cool-but-we-dont-need-it/">Great Green Wall initiative</a>, a 15-kilometre-thick strip of planted trees that is intended to stretch from Djibouti to Senegal. Another modern example is the Loess plateau in China, an area roughly the size of France that was reforested in 20 years, starting in the late 1990s.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The merit of these particular projects is debatable. The Loess plateau was transformed so quickly because it relied on unsustainable monocultures. “We need to realise that regreening projects are easy to market, but they are a distraction in most cases from [what ought to be] the real priorities and solutions of protecting the habitats we will otherwise lose,” says <a href="https://www.scifac.hku.hk/people/hughes-alice-catherine">Alice Hughes</a>, a conservation biologist at the University of Hong Kong.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>On the other hand, <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-020-17710-7">a 2020 study</a> suggested that, in a little over 30 years, human activity and climate change has helped desertify 6 per cent of the world’s drylands – that’s some 270 million hectares. Plausibly, all of this desert could be regreened in a nuanced, sustainable manner that is sympathetic to the former habitats. Jon Cartwright</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Suck 80 megatonnes of CO2 from the air each year</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Over the next few decades, it won’t be enough to merely avoid putting more greenhouse gases into the air. We also need to actively <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24332425-000-your-guide-to-the-carbon-sucking-tech-we-need-to-save-the-planet/">remove carbon dioxide</a> to avoid the worst effects of global warming. There are plenty of ways to do that, including planting trees or restoring seagrass beds. But if you want to mop up CO2 in an easy-to-quantify way with few uncertainties, then direct air capture is a solid – if expensive – option.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The idea is to absorb CO2 from the air and then release a stream of the concentrated gas that can either be buried in the ground or sold as a useful product, such as <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2394108-jet-fuel-made-with-captured-co2-and-clean-electricity-set-for-take-off/">synthetic jet fuel</a>. In that sense, you can think of it as recycling CO2.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="319" src="https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11120942/SEI_194795685.jpg?width=1200" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Human activity has desertified vast tracts of land. Can we revive them?</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Edward Burtynsky</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>According to the International Energy Agency (IEA), we will need to <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/ccus">suck 80 megatonnes of CO2</a> out of the atmosphere each year by 2030 in order to hit net-zero emissions by 2050. That amount of the gas is equivalent to what is produced by 185 million barrels of oil; it weighs nearly 15 times as much as the Great Pyramid of Giza.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This is a huge step up from where we are now. Today, there are 18 direct air capture pilot plants in operation globally, collectively sucking up just 0.01 Mt of CO2 per year. The biggest of these is run by Swiss company Climeworks in Iceland: its <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2315695-carbon-removal-project-in-iceland-suffers-setback-due-to-harsh-winter/">Orca facility</a> can soak up 4000 tonnes per year. A much larger effort is under way in Texas. The company 1PointFive broke ground in April 2023 for an industrial plant called Stratos, which aims to extract 500,000 tonnes of CO2 from the air per year starting in 2025.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>A handful of megatonne-scale plants are on the drawing board, but the pace needs to be dramatically accelerated. To reach our goal of 80 Mt per year by 2030, we would need to build about 10 such plants a year, starting now. That is epic, but viable. “It’s technologically feasible,” says <a href="https://www.wri.org/profile/katie-lebling">Katie Lebling</a>, an environmental analyst at the World Resources Institute in Washington DC.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>How do we get there? Firstly, by improving the technology. For now, most direct air capture uses one of two main strategies. One soaks up CO2 into a solid sorbent material and uses low pressure to pull the concentrated CO2 out. That requires a lot of energy, says the IEA. (This is what the Orca facility does, using geothermal energy.) The other strategy, as followed by Stratos, for example, soaks up CO2 into a liquid and then pulls it into limestone pellets that are heated at very high temperatures to release the CO2. This process uses more water and typically burns fossil fuels to get the necessary heat.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Water and energy are big issues. In 2022, the IEA <a href="https://www.iea.org/reports/direct-air-capture-2022">estimated</a> that building and operating enough direct air capture plants to hit the 2050 target could require 50 gigatonnes of water per year – about 1 per cent of current global water use – and 6 exajoules (or 6 billion billion joules) of energy per year, which is also 1 per cent of current global use. Powering that with solar panels would require 23,000 square kilometres of land, which is perhaps another argument for putting the panels off-world (see “Launch a solar power station into space”, page 37).</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>All this means that cost is a problem too, so we will need the right mix of policy incentives to get direct air capture going at scale. The good news, though, is that the plants can be built pretty much anywhere and relatively quickly. By 2050, with an investment boost, we could have dozens of 1-Mt-scale plants whirring away around the world. Nicola Jones</i></div></i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-40199137939488295532024-03-16T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-16T00:00:00.136-07:00 Elephant Stem Cells Made in the Plan to Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKFF7Q6kkHviUR3GTz_Yc0GoJnigc5piUzsAC9fBUP9bwdPl-XjgHn5Jd5agOWieBwFkxTnpnJa85w5OzrTnIsKJ19jIEc65KnEdKwz8Q5BWgmBnZHHfm0_gFAzBxjnsulqeZsBDti_WWCdI_AtdoXaG_9o28A9uOvHOZoGcmFHNXSgutcsYU6-b0gSfI/s768/Screen-Shot-2024-03-13-at-10.42.01-AM-768x434.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="434" data-original-width="768" height="226" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKFF7Q6kkHviUR3GTz_Yc0GoJnigc5piUzsAC9fBUP9bwdPl-XjgHn5Jd5agOWieBwFkxTnpnJa85w5OzrTnIsKJ19jIEc65KnEdKwz8Q5BWgmBnZHHfm0_gFAzBxjnsulqeZsBDti_WWCdI_AtdoXaG_9o28A9uOvHOZoGcmFHNXSgutcsYU6-b0gSfI/w400-h226/Screen-Shot-2024-03-13-at-10.42.01-AM-768x434.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7nPfTj8spKtwL2btli2QfqTqpLIsmXJF_jxPTpYBYPtj4z66DGkUI6p47-0qC4ZWCVNajb3F2MOqEanto3sI5L6nMAmcQRaBeTQJr2kVHuYIzV7vg-GKrylvP52phmIJpjb9ew7b-E3aKF21lV-i8-ZaUoIXsK454Mkf9HhfTeNsdc_tdfAQHWQ6aUUU/s768/Screen-Shot-2024-03-13-at-10.42.10-AM-768x487.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="487" data-original-width="768" height="254" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7nPfTj8spKtwL2btli2QfqTqpLIsmXJF_jxPTpYBYPtj4z66DGkUI6p47-0qC4ZWCVNajb3F2MOqEanto3sI5L6nMAmcQRaBeTQJr2kVHuYIzV7vg-GKrylvP52phmIJpjb9ew7b-E3aKF21lV-i8-ZaUoIXsK454Mkf9HhfTeNsdc_tdfAQHWQ6aUUU/w400-h254/Screen-Shot-2024-03-13-at-10.42.10-AM-768x487.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">what makes it so tantalizing is that we have frozen tissue to work with for essentially the Ice Age biome itself. In a way, we sort of potentially have it all. So can we even work up known microorganisms now? That would at least shake out the expertise to ever tackle the mammoth.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The second option that really needs to be explored is simply raising a large herd of African and Indian in the boreal forest to discover just how they adapt to the available fodder. they may well go a long way to knocking down the pine forest and encourage grass. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We ceetainly need to work cattle and other domesticates there and using elephants may well allow the forest itself to become productive fodder.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Until we get serious about that part, it is all promos. Yet we are looking at providing a winter shed and an open range to observe their behavior. what would a herd of elephants do to the local forest biome if also managed to move.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">.</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Elephant Stem Cells Made in the Plan to Bring Back the Woolly Mammoth</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>March 13, 2024 by <a href="https://www.nextbigfuture.com/author/brian-wang">Brian Wang</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/03/elephant-stem-cells-made-in-the-plan-to-bring-back-the-woolly-mammoth.html#more-193908</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Colossal Biosciences has made elephant stem cells as part of plan to bring back the Woolly Mammoth.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>If there were Woolly Mammoth like creatures living in the frozen areas of the world they would stomp and crush the Permafrost and make it harder to melt. This would slow any climate change effects by about 600 million tons of CO2 each year.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The elephant is resistant to cancer. It is hoped that having, controlling and using elephant stem cells could unlock secrets for improved cancer cures.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Harvard researcher George Church is cofounder of Colossal Biosciences. As of January 31, 2023, Colossal Biosciences has raised $225 million in funding and has over $1 billion in valuation.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>They plan to bring back other species as well.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-37657697787415519492024-03-15T00:00:00.003-07:002024-03-15T00:00:00.144-07:00This Japanese Condiment Clinically Improves Memory: How Wasabi Protects Against Cognitive Decline<div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="400" src="https://greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/jarret@greenmedinfo.com/images/1(12).png" width="400" /></i><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Mastering the art of growing wasabi remains elusive and difficult and really needs to be mastered, likely in a greenhouse. it still likes cold wet feet.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">we all get served horseradish with green food coloring. wasabi itself, i am pretty sure as less bite.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">all good though and all this expands the market for the real thing.</div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>This Japanese Condiment Clinically Improves Memory: How Wasabi Protects Against Cognitive Decline</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Posted on: Monday, February 5th 2024 at 3:00 am</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Written By: <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/gmi-blogs/gmi%20reporter">GMI Reporter</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>This article is copyrighted by GreenMedInfo LLC, 2024</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>A spicy, bright green horseradish paste served alongside sushi, wasabi has gained immense popularity at Japanese restaurants worldwide. But emerging research suggests that beyond livening up your meal, <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/wasabi">wasabi</a> contains powerful compounds that may bolster declining brains.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>A recent double-blinded trial published in Nutrients demonstrated clinically that supplements containing wasabi's <u>key bioactive component, 6-MSITC (6-Methylsulfinylhexly isothiocyanate), improved memory and recall ability in adults aged 60 and over.1</u></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>While the 75 older participants took either a 100mg 6-MSITC extract powder or a placebo pill for 12 weeks, those assigned the <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/wasabi">wasabi</a> derivative experienced enhanced episodic and working memory. Specific neurological testing showed significant benefits on the logical memory and digit span tests that involve memorizing stories and number sequences.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The researchers believe decreasing inflammation and oxidative damage in brain regions like the hippocampus enabled these memory upgrades by protecting neural health. However, previous studies also reveal <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/wasabi">wasabi</a> wields another brain-boosting weapon - the ability to stimulate neural connectivity through a process called neuritogenesis.2</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><img height="400" src="https://greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/jarret@greenmedinfo.com/images/2(11).png" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/wasabi">Wasabi</a> plants contain glucosinolates that break down into isothiocyanates like 6-MSITC upon damage or chewing. Along with other close chemical cousins in Brassica family vegetables like broccoli and cabbage, these sulfur-containing compounds promote nerve cell communication critical for optimal cognition.3</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Neuritogenesis refers to sprouting dendrites and axons that link neurons. The formation of new neurites plays essential roles in establishment of memories as well as neuroprotection against diseases like Alzheimer's that lead to nerve cell death. We have an entire database on the subject covering 60+ natural substances on Greenmedinfo.com <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/pharmacological-action/neuritogenic">here</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Using rat adrenal gland PC12 neuronal cells, researchers identified the isothiocynate 6-HITC as the key ingredient in <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/wasabi">wasabi</a> root extracts driving prolific neurite outgrowths.4 It powerfully turned on NGF (nerve growth factor) receptors known to facilitate neuroplasticity, but often dysfunctional in <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/neurodegenerative-diseases">neurodegenerative conditions.</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Since reduced NGF sensitivity contributes greatly to nerve cell dysfunction and die off in dementia, <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/wasabi">wasabi's</a> multifaceted effects have profound implications for preventing or slowing cognitive decline. The fact that a popular condiment already reaching so many plates could so elegantly enhance neuronal connections shows the promise of culinary medicine - especially against the limited pharmaceutical options for dementia suffering.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Ongoing work continues exploring combinations of bioactive dietary components like those in <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/wasabi">wasabi</a> that synergize for optimal delivery methods and dosages to protect vulnerable and deteriorating neural networks. In the meantime, bathing your sushi roll with sinus-clearing wasabi paste may nourish far more than just your tastebuds and spice tolerance!</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>To learn more about how to approach neurodegenerative conditions, visit our extensive database on the subject <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/neurodegenerative-diseases">here</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/disease/neurodegenerative-diseases"><img height="225" src="https://greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/jarret@greenmedinfo.com/images/4(2).png" width="400" /></a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>To learn more about the health benefits of wasabi, visit our database <a href="https://greenmedinfo.com/substance/wasabi">here</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://greenmedinfo.com/sites/default/files/ckeditor/jarret@greenmedinfo.com/images/3(7).png" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>References</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>1. Rui Nouchi et al., “Benefits of Wasabi Supplements with 6-MSITC (6-Methylsulfinyl Hexyl Isothiocyanate) on Memory Functioning in Healthy Adults Aged 60 Years and Older: Evidence from a Double-Blinded Randomized Controlled Trial,” Nutrients 15, no. 21 (October 2023), <a href="https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15214608">https://doi.org/10.3390/nu15214608</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>2. Makoto Ojika et al., “A Food-Derived Synergist of NGF Signaling: Identification of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase 1B as a Key Regulator of NGF Receptor-Initiated Signal Transduction,” Journal of Neurochemistry (October 2008), <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-4159.2008.05859.x">https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-4159.2008.05859.x</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>3. Takahiro Shibata et al. “A Food-Derived Synergist of NGF Signaling: Identification of Protein Tyrosine Phosphatase 1B as a Key Regulator of NGF Receptor-Initiated Signal Transduction,” Journal of Neurochemistry (October 2008), <a href="https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-4159.2008.05859.x">https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1471-4159.2008.05859.x</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Disclaimer: This article is not intended to provide medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. Views expressed here do not necessarily reflect those of GreenMedInfo or its staff.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-85434286783825165282024-03-15T00:00:00.002-07:002024-03-15T00:00:00.145-07:00Toyota’s Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology<div><h1 class="viewsHeaderText" style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: "Eb Garamond"; font-size: var(--type-ramp-plus-5-font-size); line-height: 40px; margin: 0px; max-height: 160px; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 12px; text-align: start;"><br /></h1><h1 class="viewsHeaderText" style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: "Eb Garamond"; font-size: var(--type-ramp-plus-5-font-size); line-height: 40px; margin: 0px; max-height: 160px; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 12px; text-align: start;"><i style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1lrMJl.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></h1><div><i style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><br /></i></div><div><i style="color: black; font-family: "Times New Roman"; font-weight: 400; text-align: justify;"><br /></i></div>After thirty years of development,, something real is certainly happening and actual fuel deliverability has always been the central issue. this certainly implies it is a done deal.</div><div><br /></div><div>fine details can wait with product on the road.</div><div><br /></div><div>Certainly using direct hydrogen is the actual first option in terms of energetics. Recall most of our combustion enegy comes directly from burning the contained hydrogen The carbon reaction is a poor cousin.<br /><h1 class="viewsHeaderText" style="background-color: white; color: #2b2b2b; font-family: "Eb Garamond"; font-size: var(--type-ramp-plus-5-font-size); line-height: 40px; margin: 0px; max-height: 160px; overflow: hidden; padding-bottom: 0px; padding-top: 12px; text-align: start;">10 Things To Know About Toyota’s Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology</h1></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://www.topspeed.com/tag/hydrogen-cars/?utm_source=syndication">Hydrogen</a> has long been seen as an ideal fuel source for motor vehicles. Hydrogen is the most abundant element in the universe, and processing it as fuel results in zero emissions besides water vapor. The basics of fuel cell technology are about 200 years old, and have been improved exponentially over that period. NASA has been using fuel cell technology to power space-bound tech since the 60s.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The first hydrogen <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/news/1966-gm-electrovan-fuel-cell-prototype-turns-50/?utm_source=syndication">fuel cell-powered car was the Chevrolet Electrovan</a>. Originally planned to be a hydrogen-powered Corvair, <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/tag/chevrolet/?utm_source=syndication">Chevy</a> soon realized the fuel system was far too large to work in anything smaller than a van. <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/tag/gm-general-motors/?utm_source=syndication">GM</a> built a working example in 1966, but it was far too costly for a production run.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>After the Electrovan, hydrogen fuel cell cars languished in obscurity until <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/tag/toyota/?utm_source=syndication">Toyota</a> took up the torch of emission-free technology. Toyota has been perfecting the fuel cell for years, and is ready to push it as a mainstay of their brand. Toyota is all in on hydrogen, be <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/toyota-hydrogen-combustion-engine/?utm_source=syndication">it hydrogen combustion engines</a> or hydrogen fuel cells. It has multiple initiatives for the fuel source, and here's what you need to know about its fuel cell technology.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In order to give you the most up-to-date and accurate information possible, the data used to compile this article was sourced from Toyota and its press releases.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1lrMJl.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Corolla Hydrogen© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Related</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Proof That Toyota Is Betting Big On Hydrogen Despite The Development Of Its 745-mile Solid-state BatteryHydrogen may seem like a pipe dream, but Toyota truly believes in it and is not slowing down despite its progress in EVs.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Has Been Working On Fuel Cell Technology For Over 30 Years</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1hx7NK.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota HiAce Hydrogen© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>While the fuel cell is an old technology, Toyota is a more recent player on that historical scale. Toyota started its vision for a <a href="https://www.toyota-europe.com/brands-and-services/toyota-fuel-cell/fuel-cell-technology?utm_source=syndication">hydrogen automotive future about three decades</a> ago.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Began Its Fuel Cell Program In 1992</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In 1992, Toyota announced its intent to develop a car that ran on hydrogen power and began developing its fuel cell technology.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In 1995, its first FHEV (Fuel Cell Electric Vehicle) was developed.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>By 2005, the FCHV (Fuel Cell Hydrogen Vehicle) was available for sale in limited quantities in Japan and the U.S.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>By 2008, the new FCHV-adv was capable of a 516 miles (830 km) range.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In 2014, the <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/tag/toyota-mirai/">Mirai</a> was launched for sale in various global markets, making a mainstream hydrogen fuel cell car available to the public.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota is the commercial leader in hydrogen fuel cell technology, and has been at the forefront of the mass-market development of hydrogen cars. All of that experience has culminated so far <a href="http://www.topspeed.com/why-toyota-mirai-alive-despite-poor-sales/">in the new Mirai</a>, which is an amazing example of how such special technology can make a perfectly normal and functional vehicle. That hydrogen is not some sci-fi tech, but something that can be used every day. Toyota has been at it for 30+ years and has no plan to stop anytime soon.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Fuel Cell Makes Use Of A Proton-Exchange Membrane</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1hXsWc.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>2023 Toyota Hilux Hydrogen prototype, under-hood view© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Fuel cells are obviously complicated and advanced technology. We'll attempt to describe what actually makes them work here. Proton-exchange membranes essentially convert hydrogen and oxygen molecules into water (H2O) and capture the electrical energy of this reaction.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This Technology Represents A Leap In Fuel Cell Development</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Proton-exchange membranes (PEMs) will replace the alkaline fuel cells that powered the space shuttle and other landmark fuel cell technologies.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>PEMs can be used at low temperatures up to -20 C. This makes them ideal for road-going vehicles as well as generators in cold areas.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>PEMs produce no emissions besides water vapor.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>With the new technology available, Toyota has the perfect setup for powering cars. Newer PEMs are significantly smaller than old alkaline fuel cell technology, while producing a similar power output. PEMs are much more reliable in terms of leaks and do not require harmful chemicals for sealant. Hydrogen fuel cells that can withstand cold and output high power in a smaller package are a recipe for <a href="http://www.topspeed.com/hydrogen-cars-to-look-out-for/">a successful hydrogen vehicle</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1mKAO0.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>2024 Toyota Crown Z (FCEV)© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>How Hydrogen Combustion Engines Will Challenge The EV Market At Its CoreHydrogen combustion engines challenge EVs with rapid refueling, longer range, and broader sustainability.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Fuel Cells Do Not Need A Humidifier</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1iud9a.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Mirai Motor© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>With all the advantages of PEMs, one of the main disadvantages is water management. A dry PEM cannot properly produce electricity and becomes damaged. An overly wet PEM cannot bring in oxygen. Until 2014, most fuel cells had a dedicated humidifier system to manage the water. Toyota created breakthrough technology for their Mirai to solve this issue.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Water Produced By Emissions Is Used Instead</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota created a porous mesh to solve the humidifier issue, which reduces the number of parts in the fuel cell system.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The mesh allows more oxygen to flow in while also ensuring enough water flows out.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The vapor from the emissions becomes its own self-regulating humidifier.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota solved a decades-long problem in fuel cells in order to make its Mirai a viable option for the road. Breakthroughs like this show just how dedicated Toyota is to hydrogen fuel cell technology.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Has Expanded Fuel Cell Technology Beyond Automotive Uses</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1ium6M.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota H2 Generator© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>We have to remember that a hydrogen fuel cell is not actually automotive engineering. It's just a form of electricity generation. While cars are an excellent use of technology, they are far from the only one.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Hydrogen Power Has Virtually Limitless Applications</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Hydrogen generators are a primary alternative use offered by Toyota, proving clean energy can power buildings. <a href="https://www.toyota-europe.com/news/2021/fc-technology-shines">Toyota even lit up the Eiffel Tower using an H2 generator</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota has used H2 generators on its Energy Observer boat, which was the first hydrogen-powered vehicle to circumnavigate the globe.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Hydrogen-powered train prototypes have been developed by Toyota in conjunction with the EU project FCH2Rail.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota proved the ability of the hydrogen fuel cell on the road. Then it went above and beyond and expanded the application to the sea, the rail, and the grid as well. An emission-free generator is not a one-note device. The applications for fuel cells will only grow as hydrogen infrastructure becomes more and more common.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img src="https://assets.msn.com/staticsb/statics/latest/views/icons/ArticleImageFullscreen.svg" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1hno3b.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>GM-Honda Hydrogen Fuel Cell manufacturing unit© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>GM And Honda Begin Production Of Hydrogen Fuel Cells In Their New U.S. FacilityGeneral Motors and Honda rev up hydrogen fuel cell production in the U.S., aiming for affordability and broader adoption.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Hydrogen Powered Trucks Are Available From Toyota</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1hXnPv.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyotas Hydrogen-Powered Fuel Cell Trucks© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota is not just pushing hydrogen for small environmental vehicles. While consumer-focused hydrogen is a huge part of its automotive future, it also wants to <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/toyota-hydrogen-fuel-cells-trucks-plans/?utm_source=syndication">revolutionize the trucking industry</a> as well.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>PACCAR And Toyota Have Partnered To Make Zero Emission Trucks</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Kenworth and Peterbilt <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/category/trucks/">truck</a> brands will be available with hydrogen fuel cells.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>A pilot program was successful in California, and in 2024 the trucks will be available nationwide.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The decision to bring hydrogen to trucking will help bring zero emissions to the heart of the supply chain. In fact, it's been argued <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/hydrogen-tech-better-suited-for-commercial-vehicles/?utm_source=syndication">that hydrogen tech is better suited for commercial applications</a>. John Rich, PACCAR chief technology officer, <a href="https://pressroom.toyota.com/paccar-and-toyota-expand-hydrogen-fuel-cell-truck-collaboration-to-include-commercialization/?utm_source=syndication">commented</a>, “Having worked extensively with the Toyota team, we are confident that our combined efforts can deliver industry leading FCEV trucks with all of the quality, reliability and aftermarket support that Kenworth and Peterbilt customers depend upon”. With the power of PACCAR, Toyota is turning the supply chain into an environmental one.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>FuelCell Energy And Toyota Have Partnered To Create a Hydrogen Production Facility</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1ium6P.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Tri Gen FuelCell Energy Toyota Facility© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota has taken a huge step in its hydrogen efforts by building a dedicated production facility in the United States. It has <a href="https://pressroom.toyota.com/fuelcell-energy-and-toyota-announce-completion-of-worlds-first-tri-gen-production-system/?utm_source=syndication">partnered with FuelCell Energy</a>, which will operate its Tri-Gen plant.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Long Beach, CA Compound Will Also Produce Clean Electricity and Water</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The "Tri" in "Tri-Gen" represents hydrogen, clean water (a byproduct of the energy generated), and electricity powered by the hydrogen fuel cells.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The clean electricity will power Toyota's yearly intake of over 200,000 vehicles at the port of Long Beach.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The facility should reduce the port's carbon footprint by 9,000 tons of CO2 emissions.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This is one of the first facilities of this kind in the US, and the first for a major automaker. The facility not only produces 1,200 gallons of liquid hydrogen but also 1,400 gallons of clean water daily. If it is a success, we could see this technology expand to other ports for power and water needs.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1mgQrl.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Mercedes-Benz F-Cell Hydrogen SUV© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Why Infusing Hydrogen Fuel Cell System Within An EV Skateboard Platform Is A Big BreakthroughA proposed hydrogen fuel cell system could revolutionize FCEVs just as they're taking off, and here's all you need to know about it.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>New Hydrogen Fuel Cell Technology Is Safe</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1irNjN.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Mirai Refuelling© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Hydrogen, for some, conjures the <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/benefits-hydrogen-electric-vehicle-2023/?utm_source=syndication">image of explosive and dangerous accidents</a>, like the Hindenberg. "Oh, the humanity!". However, hydrogen is no longer a terrifying fuel proposition.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>H2 Is Arguably Safer Than Traditional Fuels</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Obviously, to be released to the public, cars must undergo rigorous safety testing, and the Mirai passed these with flying colors.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota's hydrogen tanks are protected by carbon fiber and glass fiber dual shells, and if they do begin to leak, advanced sensors stop the electrification process to prevent ignition.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Refueling stations also have multiple sensor arrays as fail safes for improper release of hydrogen.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>We have learned from our mistakes when it comes to hydrogen, and now have safety standards that make it among the safer fuel options. Most gasoline and diesel tanks have neither additional shielding nor leak sensors like hydrogen tanks do. Hydrogen being the lightest element in the universe also means that it can never pool on the ground like gasoline and diesel, it will simply float away. This means there is significantly less risk for combustion, and that hydrogen is the only non-contaminating fuel source. All of this points to a <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/hydrogen-cars-bright-future/?utm_source=syndication">bright future</a><a href="http://www.topspeed.com/hydrogen-cars-bright-future/"> for hydrogen fuel.</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Hydrogen Fuel Cells Use Familiar Fuel Infrastructure</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1isDCX.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Shell Hydrogen Station© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>One of the biggest hurdles for <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/category/electric-cars/?utm_source=syndication">electric vehicles</a> is charging infrastructure. Both availability and time hold back electrics in expansion. Hydrogen cars may still struggle with availability, but they fill up in the same way as any other car.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>You Refuel At A Pump, Like With ICE Cars</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>A current <a href="https://www.energy.gov/energysaver/hydrogen-fuel-cell-vehicles#:~:text=The%20refueling%20process%20for%20hydrogen,minutes%20for%20a%20full%20tank.">hydrogen fill-up takes about 3 to 5 minutes </a>to get a range comparable to most ICE cars. Essentially, it is an identical process.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>While hydrogen is not nearly as widely available as gasoline, or even really electric, it should be much easier to add to current gas stations as the above image displays. Cars do not need to sit for extended periods of time.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://www.topspeed.com/toyota-hydrogen-combustion-engine/">Liquid hydrogen</a> should make this transition even easier, as it will have a similar storage infrastructure to gasoline, meaning retrofitting should be simple.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Hydrogen will be familiar to customers, pop in a pump, watch the numbers climb, pay, and drive away. This makes it a more attractive prospect than managing a charge on an EV. Unfortunately, however, Shell has decided to discontinue its hydrogen service for consumers. <a href="https://www.motortrend.com/news/shell-california-hydrogen-refueling-station-closure/?utm_source=syndication">Shell plans to shut all California fuel stations in 2024</a>. This deals a blow to an already small system of hydrogen refueling. However, it does not appear to have discouraged Toyota at this stage.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/AA1hcndo.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>2023 Toyota Hilux Hydrogen prototype, profile view© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota's "Hydrogen Sharing Network" Could Make Refuelling Your Hydrogen-powered Car A Whole Lot EasierThanks to recent patent filings, we've learned what Toyota has in store with its "Hydrogen Sharing Network", and it could be a great move.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Fuel Cell Cars Have Been On The Road For Nearly A Decade</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1iuqXC.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Red 2023 Toyota Mirai© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The fuel cell-powered car is a proven technology. We do not need to worry about it being a concept, or a theory, because Toyota has been on the roads for the better part of 10 years.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Mirai Debuted In 2014</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Mirai went on sale in December 2014 in Japan, and April 2015 in California. It went on sale in several European countries in early 2016.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>To date, Toyota has sold over 21,000 examples of it.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>A second-generation version of the Mirai was released in 2020, and is still the basis of current models.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The current Mirai will do over 400 miles on a single tank.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>While the <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/why-toyota-mirai-alive-despite-poor-sales/?utm_source=syndication">Mirai may not have been sold as well as Toyota hoped</a>, it is still an extremely strong proof of concept for hydrogen fuel cells. Its quality and reliability have in part caused other companies to bring out their own hydrogen fuel cell offerings. The Mirai has shown that hydrogen fuel cells are not just pie-in-the-sky technology.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Has Big Plans For Hydrogen</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="225" src="https://img-s-msn-com.akamaized.net/tenant/amp/entityid/BB1hHCvP.img?w=768&h=432&m=6" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Corolla Cross Hydrogen© Provided by TopSpeed</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota is full steam (or maybe just regular old water vapor) ahead with hydrogen offerings. <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/toyota-betting-big-on-hydrogen-despite-745-mile-solid-state-battery/?utm_source=syndication">Hydrogen is a core piece of the company's future</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota Sees Hydrogen As The Key To A Carbon-Neutral Future</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Toyota plans to be carbon-neutral throughout its company and the lifetime of its vehicles by 2050.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Hydrogen fuel cells are a huge piece to this puzzle, but they will also complement this with <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/toyotas-745-mile-solid-state-battery-breakthrough-explained/">solid-state battery technology</a>.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Liquid hydrogen development will also continue to become a larger piece of the equation <a href="https://www.topspeed.com/toyotas-hydrogen-combustion-engine-has-the-potential-to-make-evs-obsolete/">as their hydrogen combustion technology</a> becomes more mainstream.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>There is no greater chance the world has of eliminating emissions from cars than hydrogen fuel cell technology. Electric cars still rely on the fossil fuel grid. Hydrogen has the best of both worlds, long range with a simple refueling process and zero emissions from the car. Fortunately, the most successful car company on Earth has decided to champion hydrogen. We hope they can bring some success to the burgeoning technology.</i></div></i>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-6687953394511642152024-03-15T00:00:00.001-07:002024-03-15T00:00:00.144-07:00 Thermos-sized survival beacon launches SOS balloon 150 feet overhead<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="267" src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/7098b7b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1073x715+74+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F4c%2Fac%2Fc7b6fc194c65b3e6de248d6ffeae%2Fscreen-shot-2024-03-12-at-1.45.55%20PM.png" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">so let us get over ourselves and do two things.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">1 use this platform to also provide comms as well so that we are no longer dependent on the cell system and all that.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">2 Make it mandatory for all who enter the woods. this is no small thing. i can get most of you utterly lost inside of about two minutes in the mountains and a tumble into a bush will make it difficult to find you. Flat bushland is even faster.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Using emergency comms and popping a balloon solves most of this and narrows options down.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Remote triggering of the balloon will also locate accidental drowning victims.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b>Thermos-sized survival beacon launches SOS balloon 150 feet overhead</b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://newatlas.com/author/c-c-weiss/">C.C. Weiss</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>March 12, 2024</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">https://newatlas.com/outdoors/airmarker-survival-balloon-beacon/</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Airmarker balloon is designed to help with fast, confident location identification toward more efficient rescues</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Even with <a href="https://newatlas.com/drones/echo-sar-cell-phones-rescue-beacons/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">smartphones</a>, RV-ready <a href="https://newatlas.com/automotive/starlink-in-motion-rv-internet/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">Starlink internet</a> and personal <a href="https://newatlas.com/outdoors/garmin-mini-2-digital-survival-beacon-throws-lifeline-farther-off-grid/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">rescue beacons</a>, the wilderness can be a hostile, unstable place that leaves you incapacitated and stranded in an instant. It pays to have a backup plan and even a backup to the backup.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Swiss startup Airmarker delivers that type of added safety layer in a bid to help both wilderness adventurers and search and rescue (S&R) teams. Its all-new survival beacon sends up a visual signal that lasts much longer than a flair and works regardless of cellular or satellite coverage. It rises above trees, peaks and cliffs, where it can identify a victim's location from the ground and air.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Swiss seem to love themselves some bright-orange mountain rescue balloons. The minute I spotted the all-new Airmarker, it transported my mind back 12 years to one of my first articles here at New Atlas, then <a href="https://newatlas.com/gizmag-new-atlas/44665/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">Gizmag</a>. It concerned a device called the <a href="https://newatlas.com/rotauf-mrk5-probe-airbag/20849/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">Rotauf MRK5</a>, an avalanche safety gadget that auto-inflated an orange balloon attached to the user via a rope. The balloon was designed to float atop the snow, even if the skier was buried by the avalanche, with the intent of saving invaluable minutes when locating and digging out the victim, helping boost their chances of survival.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/outdoors/airmarker-survival-balloon-beacon/#gallery:1"><img src="" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Twist the R.One bottom, and the helium canisters inflate the SOS balloon</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Airmarker's balloon floats in the air, not snow, but is designed with the same motivation: Shave time off of victim location to improve their survival chances. It might seem redundant in that aforementioned world of cellular and satellite comms and simple alternatives like emergency whistles, lights, <a href="https://newatlas.com/recco-streamlines-helicopter-rescue/38618/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">Recco reflectors</a> and flares, but Airmarker co-founder and CEO Rico Dürst doesn't think so.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dürst spent many hours in the cockpit of a helicopter searching for missing and injured persons on the ground. A helicopter might make it easier to cover a lot of ground quickly, but it's certainly not easy to pick out a person on the ground from high above, even if you're lucky enough to have a general idea where to look. And good luck hearing a whistle over the thundering chatter of chopper blades.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dürst repeatedly found himself squinting desperately from that chopper cockpit, thinking: "If only this lost, injured person was holding onto something as simple as a balloon, they'd be on board and headed back to safety."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In 2021, after hearing the story of a rescue that was delayed for hours because the victim's location was obscured by poor visibility and a rocky outcropping despite the fact that the S&R team had zeroed in on a precise search area, Dürst decided there was something to his balloon idea. He turned to longtime colleague Daniel Wattenhofer for help, brought on a team of designers and sports business veterans, and began penning the Airmarker story.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/outdoors/airmarker-survival-balloon-beacon/#gallery:3"><img src="" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Airmarker R.One weighs around 2 lb and measures 10 x 3.6 in</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In the intervening years, Airmarker developed what it now markets as the R.One, a fairly simple, straightforward device that serves its mission. The 2-lb (890-g) unit's cylindrical form makes it fairly easy to slide in a backpack. In the event of an emergency, the user simply twists the bottom dial, which activates the helium canister-driven balloon inflation. The user then pulls the tethered balloon and lets it float upward as high as 147 feet (45 m) directly above, clearly marking his or her exact location with its easy-to-spot luminous bright-orange color.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The R.One base unit features an integrated carabiner-style clip designed to attach the device to an anchor point like a rock or tree branch so it doesn't fall off a cliff, blow away in strong winds, or otherwise get lost or pushed out of place. The balloon is designed to remain in the air for up to three days, giving rescuers time to identify it and get to the victim.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/outdoors/airmarker-survival-balloon-beacon/#gallery:11"><img src="" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The docked carabiner clip is designed to help secure the R.One unit</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Airmarker</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The R.One is not designed for user reload; instead, Airmarker says owners can send their unit back for replacement at a "special price" after deployment. Hopefully that price is not much more than the postage necessary to send it back and forth because it feels like a product that shouldn't be constrained by a single-use design.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The R.One is available for preorder now for a price of CHF/€199 (approx. US$225). Airmarker started production last month and plans to begin the first deliveries in April. It also plans the future launch of a global version for the US and other non-European markets, as well as more specific models aimed at activities like water sports.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/outdoors/airmarker-survival-balloon-beacon/#gallery:10"><img src="" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Airmarker might not be the first communicator of choice for all rescues, but getting stuck in a crevasse with no cell or satellite signal is one where it could definitely prove invaluable</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The video makes clear exactly how the Airmarker can work in the wild and what types of activities for which it could prove a lifesaver. One particular highlighted circumstance in which it could be valuable is getting stuck in a crevasse, which would obscure one's view of the sky, incapacitating even satellite communication equipment, and also make one virtually impossible to spot on a search-and-rescue mission. The Airmarker balloon, by contrast, is nearly impossible to miss against a white snow-covered backdrop.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div></i>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-53036256945774925842024-03-15T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-15T00:00:00.145-07:00Cognition Makes AI Software Engineer, Devin to Solve Whole Development Projects and Improve Its Own Code<div class="featured-image page-header-image-single " style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 17px; line-height: 0; margin-bottom: 2em; margin-top: 0px; text-align: center;"><br /></div><div data-adpath="/339474670,3911572/Nextbigfuture_B/TopBanner" data-onpage="true" id="gpt_unit_/339474670,3911572/Nextbigfuture_B/TopBanner_0" style="box-sizing: inherit; color: #222222; font-family: -apple-system, system-ui, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol"; font-size: 17px; margin-bottom: 10px; margin-top: 10px; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNuHOCE9Q3PHQR-njOPMvTa5qFoIAPpcg_KJfiH-kdOFUJUfXUl9H7w6bj3YRaCac2Z1YTc0gmySzwfrMZ1QyB16Df9WnRNZl0ngAmniS5OrNX8OyJmxClDl-XXB01orSZyoaYrX9CTElwvyUsnRS9ALQ0oJt_Ywlbq-F3dRxsKFB0jAK9uytmbdtVFGQ/s768/Screen-Shot-2024-03-12-at-4.56.20-PM-768x646.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="646" data-original-width="768" height="336" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjNuHOCE9Q3PHQR-njOPMvTa5qFoIAPpcg_KJfiH-kdOFUJUfXUl9H7w6bj3YRaCac2Z1YTc0gmySzwfrMZ1QyB16Df9WnRNZl0ngAmniS5OrNX8OyJmxClDl-XXB01orSZyoaYrX9CTElwvyUsnRS9ALQ0oJt_Ywlbq-F3dRxsKFB0jAK9uytmbdtVFGQ/w400-h336/Screen-Shot-2024-03-12-at-4.56.20-PM-768x646.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">this is actually good news and showcases the highest and best use of AI. We can use it to massivly upgrade out entire library of human generated software and maintain a quality end product.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Recall all that software is dependent on human demand or would not exist.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Can AI produce independent demand? It can suppress demand only by eliminating our access to money or killing us. either is actually a form pf suicide. Can AI commit suicide?</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">this is now the existensial question facing our human civilization. again i argue that we need over 100 billion folks to terraform earth and that is why we even exist. AI can powerfgully assist but does not represent any real demand.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Cognition Makes AI Software Engineer, Devin to Solve Whole Development Projects and Improve Its Own Code</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>March 12, 2024 by <a href="https://www.nextbigfuture.com/author/brian-wang">Brian Wang</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/03/cognition-makes-ai-software-engineer-devin-to-solve-whole-development-projects-and-improve-its-own-code.html#more-193891</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Stealth Startup, Cognition, backed by Peter Thiel’s Founders Fund and former-Twitter executive Elad Gil and Doordash co-founder Tony Xu, announced a fully autonomous AI software engineer called Devin. Devin can handle entire development projects end-to-end. It can write the code, fix bugs associated with it until final execution. This is the first offering of this kind and even capable of handling projects on Upwork.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>They had a $21 million Series A led by Founders Fund. They have support of industry leaders including Patrick and John Collison, Elad Gil, Sarah Guo, Chris Re, Eric Glyman, Karim Atiyeh, Erik Bernhardsson, Tony Xu, Fred Ehrsam and so many more.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Devin already did real jobs on Upwork.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Seven Times Better Than Previous Best</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Devin correctly resolves 13.86% of the issues end-to-end, far exceeding the previous state-of-the-art of 1.96%. Even when given the exact files to edit, the best previous models can only resolve 4.80% of issues. Devin was evaluated on a random 25% subset of the dataset. Devin was unassisted, whereas all other models were assisted (meaning the model was told exactly which files need to be edited).</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Devin can train and fine tune its own AI models. Devin sets up fine tuning for a large language model given only a link to a research repository on GitHub.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Devin is a tireless, skilled teammate, equally ready to build alongside you or independently complete tasks for you to review.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>With Devin, engineers can focus on more interesting problems and engineering teams can strive for more ambitious goals.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>So, Cognition AI just introduced Devin, the most capable autonomous coding agent I've seen.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Instead of just autocompleting tasks, it can write entire apps on its own in minutes.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>It also correctly resolves 13.86% of issues, autonomously. <a href="https://t.co/7EWncjRQmd">pic.twitter.com/7EWncjRQmd</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>— Rowan Cheung (@rowancheung) <a href="https://twitter.com/rowancheung/status/1767582332964516243?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2024</a></i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-49992866005583585412024-03-14T00:00:00.003-07:002024-03-14T00:00:00.141-07:00Chemotherapy brain fog cleared with simple light and sound treatment<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="267" src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/e733b3b/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1333+0+83/resize/1200x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F8d%2F0a%2Ff25f9b33473f8cef95727fb116a7%2Fchemo-brain-stimulation.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><br /><br /><br /><br />this has been suspected for a long time andb now it is been finally used and application can be studied.<br /><br /><br />There are actually plenty of radiative tech solutions that deserve study difficult as it may well be. Yet we sort of know what helps and checking out outside the known may well surprise.<div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">All good.</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Chemotherapy brain fog cleared with simple light and sound treatment</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://newatlas.com/author/michael-irving/">Michael Irving</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>March 11, 2024</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>MIT scientists have shown in mice that a simple light and sound exposure therapy can reduce symptoms of 'chemo brain,' the cognitive issues that arise during chemotherapy</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">https://newatlas.com/medical/chemotherapy-brain-fog-light-sound/?</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>If you or someone you know has gone through chemotherapy, you might be familiar with the side effect commonly called 'chemo brain.' Scientists have now demonstrated a simple way to protect brain cells from damage using <a href="https://newatlas.com/mit-light-sound-stimulation-40hz-alzheimers-dementia/58876/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">flashing lights and sounds at a certain frequency</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Chemotherapy is one of our best treatments for many cancers, but unfortunately its effects are felt throughout the body, including the brain. Patients often report 'brain fog,' where they have trouble with memory, concentration and decision making, affecting their thinking and behavior. While it normally goes away after the chemotherapy finishes, it can be a frustrating interruption to everyday life for a few months.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>But a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) researchers might have uncovered a fairly simple treatment to counter those ill effects – and, best of all, it’s less invasive than the chemo itself. All you have to do is look at some flashing lights and listen to some sounds daily.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Previous studies by the team have found that lights flickering at a frequency of 40 Hz, and sounds at the same pitch, can stimulate the brain to produce more gamma oscillations. These brain waves range from 25 to 80 Hz, and occur when you’re highly alert, aiding things like focus and concentration. Since people with Alzheimer’s disease seem to have problems with these gamma waves, the MIT team wondered whether this could form a simple treatment to improve their symptoms. And sure enough, <a href="https://newatlas.com/light-therapy-alzheimers-mit/59583/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">experiments in mice</a> showed reduced inflammation, lower levels of toxic proteins thought to contribute to neural degeneration, and improvements on cognitive tests after the light and sound therapy. For the new study, the MIT researchers turned their attention to a different ailment – chemo brain.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The team tested the treatment on mice with chemo brain, by giving them the common chemotherapy drug cisplatin for five days, then five days off, and five on again, mimicking the human dosage regime. Some received the 'gamma therapy,' involving an hour per day of exposure to 40-Hz light and sound, while the control group just had the chemo alone.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Three weeks later, the control mice showed many of the known brain effects of chemotherapy, including smaller brain volume, DNA damage, inflammation, and damage to myelin, the protective coating around neurons. Their populations of brain cells that produce myelin, called oligodendrocytes, were also reduced.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>However, the mice that received daily gamma therapy for the duration of their chemotherapy showed significant reductions in all of these symptoms. They also performed much better on tests that measure the animals’ memory and executive function. When the researchers analyzed gene expression, they found that genes linked to inflammation and cell death were suppressed in mice treated with gamma therapy.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“The treatment can reduce DNA damage, reduce inflammation, and increase the number of oligodendrocytes, which are the cells that produce myelin surrounding the axons,” said Li-Huei Tsai, senior author of the study. “We also found that this treatment improved learning and memory, and enhanced executive function in the animals.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The benefits were found to persist, at least partially, for up to four months after treatment. Gamma therapy was found to work much better if administered at the same time as the chemotherapy, rather than starting it afterwards. Follow-up studies found similar positive effects in mice receiving a different chemo drug, methotrexate. While the mouse tests involved brain implants to directly deliver light and sound to neurons, previous human trials for Alzheimer's have shown similar benefits can be achieved using just a synchronized screen and speaker setup. If it works, this could become a standard part of administering chemotherapy to human patients, to make the life-saving treatment less uncomfortable.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The team also plans to test gamma therapy against other neurological diseases, like Parkinson’s and multiple sclerosis. Clinical trials in human Alzheimer’s patients are already underway.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The research was published in the journal <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/scitranslmed.adf4601">Science Translational Medicine</a>.</i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-10796751368995768582024-03-14T00:00:00.002-07:002024-03-14T00:00:00.140-07:00 Separating Information from Disinformation: Threats from the AI Revolution<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="300" src="https://cdn.mises.org/styles/responsive_4_3_650w/s3/images/2024-03/AI_Terminator_Wire.jpg.webp?itok=i3gK4cj0" width="400" /></i></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div></i>all of a sudden, governments can do what some corporation have sometimes done and proactively condition your thinking. This is a huge problem and obviously dangerous as we already understand though experience and investigation.<div><br /></div><div>After all, queer boys would love the world to all become queer. enforcing that can even become fun. i wonder if gassing Jews ever became fun as well. I am showing you just how danderous the whole MEME happens to be.</div><div><br /></div><div>now how about asking AI what is best and then applying all that. We already know that the meta stats of modernity shows a collapsing birth rate. I have posted that all girls need to expect to produce vfour babies and their natural communities will need to fully support them as well. that also includes all queer girls as well.</div><div><br /></div><div>and Ai will reach this same conclusion.<br /><br /><div><b><br /></b></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b>Separating Information from Disinformation: Threats from the AI Revolution</b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Tags:<a href="https://mises.org/topics/language">Language,</a><a href="https://mises.org/topics/media-and-culture">Media and Culture,</a><a href="https://mises.org/topics/progressivism">Progressivism</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>03/11/2024•<a href="https://mises.org/mises-wire">Mises Wire</a>•<a href="https://mises.org/profile/bylund">Per Bylund</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Artificial intelligence (AI) cannot distinguish fact from fiction. It also isn’t creative or can create novel content but repeats, repackages, and reformulates what has already been said (but perhaps in new ways).</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>I am sure someone will disagree with the latter, perhaps pointing to the fact that AI can clearly generate, for example, new songs and lyrics. I agree with this, but it misses the point. AI produces a “new” song lyric only by drawing from the data of previous song lyrics and then uses that information (the inductively uncovered patterns in it) to generate what to us appears to be a new song (and may very well be one). However, there is no artistry in it, no creativity. It’s only a structural rehashing of what exists.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Of course, we can debate to what extent humans can think truly novel thoughts and whether human learning may be based solely or primarily on mimicry. However, even if we would—for the sake of argument—agree that all we know and do is mere reproduction, humans have limited capacity to remember exactly and will make errors. We also fill in gaps with what subjectively (not objectively) makes sense to us (Rorschach test, anyone?). Even in this very limited scenario, which I disagree with, humans generate novelty beyond what AI is able to do.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Both the inability to distinguish fact from fiction and the inductive tether to existent data patterns are problems that can be alleviated programmatically—but are open for manipulation.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Manipulation and Propaganda</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>When Google launched its Gemini AI in February, it immediately became clear that the AI had a woke agenda. Among other things, the AI pushed <a href="https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/21/24079371/google-ai-gemini-generative-inaccurate-historical">woke diversity ideals</a> into every conceivable response and, among other things, refused to show images of white people (including when asked to produce images of the Founding Fathers).</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Tech guru and Silicon Valley investor Marc Andreessen <a href="https://twitter.com/pmarca/status/1761915996271468603?s=20">summarized</a> it on X (formerly Twitter): “I know it’s hard to believe, but Big Tech AI generates the output it does because it is precisely executing the specific ideological, radical, biased agenda of its creators. The apparently bizarre output is 100% intended. It is working as designed.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>There is indeed a design to these AIs beyond the basic categorization and generation engines. The responses are not perfectly inductive or generative. In part, this is necessary in order to make the AI useful: filters and rules are applied to make sure that the responses that the AI generates are appropriate, fit with user expectations, and are accurate and respectful. Given the legal situation, creators of AI must also make sure that the AI does not, for example, violate intellectual property laws or engage in hate speech. AI is also designed (directed) so that it does not go haywire or offend its users (remember <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tay_(chatbot)">Tay</a>?).</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>However, because such filters are applied and the “behavior” of the AI is already directed, it is easy to take it a little further. After all, when is a response too offensive versus offensive but within the limits of allowable discourse? It is a fine and difficult line that must be specified programmatically.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>It also opens the possibility for steering the generated responses beyond mere quality assurance. With filters already in place, it is easy to make the AI make statements of a specific type or that nudges the user in a certain direction (in terms of selected facts, interpretations, and worldviews). It can also be used to give the AI an agenda, as Andreessen suggests, such as making it relentlessly woke.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Thus, AI can be used as an effective propaganda tool, which both the corporations creating them and the governments and agencies regulating them have recognized.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Misinformation and Error</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>States have long refused to admit that they benefit from and use propaganda to steer and control their subjects. This is in part because they want to maintain a veneer of legitimacy as democratic governments that govern based on (rather than shape) people’s opinions. Propaganda has a bad ring to it; it’s a means of control.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>However, the state’s enemies—both domestic and foreign—are said to understand the power of propaganda and do not hesitate to use it to cause chaos in our otherwise untainted democratic society. The government must save us from such manipulation, they claim. Of course, rarely does it stop at mere defense. We saw this clearly during the covid pandemic, in which the government together with social media companies in effect outlawed expressing opinions that were not the official line (see <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murthy_v._Missouri">Murthy v. Missouri</a>).</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>AI is just as easy to manipulate for propaganda purposes as social media algorithms but with the added bonus that it isn’t only people’s opinions and that users tend to trust that what the AI reports is true. As we saw in the <a href="https://mises.org/mises-wire/economics-ai-revolution">previous article</a> on the AI revolution, this is not a valid assumption, but it is nevertheless a widely held view.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>If the AI then can be instructed to not comment on certain things that the creators (or regulators) do not want people to see or learn, then it is effectively “memory holed.” This type of “unwanted” information will not spread as people will not be exposed to it—such as showing only diverse representations of the Founding Fathers (as Google’s Gemini) or presenting, for example, only Keynesian macroeconomic truths to make it appear like there is no other perspective. People don’t know what they don’t know.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Of course, nothing is to say that what is presented to the user is true. In fact, the AI itself cannot distinguish fact from truth but only generates responses according to direction and only based on whatever the AI has been fed. This leaves plenty of scope for the misrepresentation of the truth and can make the world believe outright lies. AI, therefore, can easily be used to impose control, whether it is upon a state, the subjects under its rule, or even a foreign power.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Real Threat of AI</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>What, then, is the real threat of AI? As we saw in the <a href="https://mises.org/mises-wire/understanding-ai-revolution">first article</a>, large language models will not (cannot) evolve into artificial general intelligence as there is nothing about inductive sifting through large troves of (humanly) created information that will give rise to consciousness. To be frank, we haven’t even figured out what consciousness is, so to think that we will create it (or that it will somehow emerge from algorithms discovering statistical language correlations in existing texts) is quite hyperbolic. Artificial general intelligence is still hypothetical.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>As we saw in the <a href="https://mises.org/mises-wire/economics-ai-revolution">second article</a>, there is also no economic threat from AI. It will not make humans economically superfluous and cause mass unemployment. AI is productive capital, which therefore has value to the extent that it serves consumers by contributing to the satisfaction of their wants. Misused AI is as valuable as a misused factory—it will tend to its scrap value. However, this doesn’t mean that AI will have no impact on the economy. It will, and already has, but it is not as big in the short-term as some fear, and it is likely bigger in the long-term than we expect.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>No, the real threat is AI’s impact on information. This is in part because induction is an inappropriate source of knowledge—truth and fact are not a matter of frequency or statistical probabilities. The evidence and theories of Nicolaus Copernicus and Galileo Galilei would get weeded out as improbable (false) by an AI trained on all the (best and brightest) writings on geocentrism at the time. There is no progress and no learning of new truths if we trust only historical theories and presentations of fact.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>However, this problem can probably be overcome by clever programming (meaning implementing rules—and fact-based limitations—to the induction problem), at least to some extent. The greater problem is the corruption of what AI presents: the misinformation, disinformation, and malinformation that its creators and administrators, as well as governments and pressure groups, direct it to create as a means of controlling or steering public opinion or knowledge.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This is the real danger that the now-famous <a href="https://futureoflife.org/open-letter/pause-giant-ai-experiments/">open letter</a>, signed by Elon Musk, Steve Wozniak, and others, pointed to: “Should we let machines flood our information channels with propaganda and untruth? Should we automate away all the jobs, including the fulfilling ones? Should we develop nonhuman minds that might eventually outnumber, outsmart, obsolete and replace us? Should we risk loss of control of our civilization?”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Other than the economically illiterate reference to “automat[ing] away all the jobs,” the warning is well-taken. AI will not Terminator-like start to hate us and attempt to exterminate mankind. It will not make us all into biological batteries, as in The Matrix. However, it will—especially when corrupted—misinform and mislead us, create chaos, and potentially make our lives “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short.”</i></div></i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-65557543236196962452024-03-14T00:00:00.001-07:002024-03-14T00:00:00.141-07:00Extensive melting of West Antarctic ice sheet now looks unavoidable<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="267" src="https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/23141756/SEI_177147778.jpg?width=1200" width="400" /></i></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> </i>The sad fact is that all projected meaningful time lines go far past the expected death of the writers who will never be brought to book over writing nonsense science.<div><br /></div><div>Never mind that during the vperiod in which we experienced a warmer arctic we also experienced a cooler Antarctic. And yes, all that vulnerable ice is floating already and sort of has to dissappear before we accelerate glacial dumping.</div><div><br /></div><div>Our northern warming spell conforms well with other historic warm spells as well as to duration while global chills are not understood well.<br /><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b>Extensive melting of West Antarctic ice sheet now looks unavoidable</b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Ocean modelling suggests coastal cities around the world need to start preparing for several metres of sea level rise over the coming centuries</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/author/michael-le-page/">Michael Le Page</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>23 October 2023</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2F2398913-extensive-melting-of-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-now-looks-unavoidable%2F" style="color: black;"><br /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.newscientist.com%2Farticle%2F2398913-extensive-melting-of-west-antarctic-ice-sheet-now-looks-unavoidable%2F" style="color: black;"><br /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Glaciers on Horseshoe Island, off the Antarctic Peninsula, may be affected by the loss of floating ice shelves</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The ice shelves that hold back <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2210043-a-drastic-plan-might-prevent-catastrophic-antarctic-ice-sheet-collapse/">the West Antarctic ice sheet</a> will be melted by warming seawater, even in the unlikely event that the world achieves its 1.5°C climate goal, a computer model of the ocean suggests.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The study doesn’t forecast how much sea level rise this will result in, but concludes that policy-makers need to prepare for several metres of sea level rise over the coming centuries.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“There will be some impacts of climate change – and it looks like this could be one of them – that we cannot stop, that we have to adapt to,” says <a href="https://www.bas.ac.uk/profile/kaight/">Kaitlin Naughten</a> at the British Antarctic Survey.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2365209-ipcc-climate-change-report-can-we-avoid-1-5c-of-global-warming/https://www.newscientist.com/article/2286506-13-things-we-learned-from-the-landmark-ipcc-climate-report/">its 2021 report,</a> the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) projected that, in moderate emissions scenarios, sea level would rise between 0.5 and 1 metre by 2100. Naughten says her team’s findings suggest that the sea level <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/2233619-antarctic-ice-melt-could-push-sea-levels-to-rise-1-5-metres-by-2100/">will rise by more than the IPCC’s projections</a>, though she cannot say by how much.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Around Antarctica, the surface waters are about -1.5°C (29°F), but the water several hundred metres down is around 1°C (34°F) – warm enough to melt ice.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Based on a model of the Amundsen Sea off West Antarctica, Naughten and her colleagues predict that changing currents will bring this deeper water closer to the surface, resulting in the melting of the floating ice shelves.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The disappearance of such floating ice doesn’t raise sea level directly, but when ice shelves are lost, the flow of ice from land into the sea speeds up. What’s more, much of the West Antarctic ice sheet rests on rock that is below sea level.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This ice will be exposed to the warming ocean water when the ice shelves are lost, melting its base and <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg24532650-900-antarcticas-doomsday-glacier-is-melting-can-we-save-it-in-time/">causing the collapse of the ice above sea level</a>. This “cliff collapse” could lead to the rapid retreat of the ice.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The model shows that the warming of the Amundsen Sea will proceed at much the same rate over the next half century in four emissions scenarios, ranging from best case to worst case. It is only around 2080 that substantial differences in ocean warming begin to emerge.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>But cutting emissions as fast as possible remains crucial, says Naughten. “Even if this particular impact is unavoidable, the melting of the West Antarctic ice sheet is only one impact of climate change.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>For instance, we can still avoid the loss of the East Antarctic ice sheet, which holds 10 times as much ice as the West Antarctic one, she says.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“It is a very good modelling exercise because it is based on a high-resolution model,” says <a href="https://ps.uci.edu/node/2110">Eric Rignot</a> at the University of California, Irvine.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://geography.exeter.ac.uk/staff/index.php?web_id=Ed_Gasson">Ed Gasson</a> at the University of Exeter in the UK thinks the study is right that we are on course for the <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25556-collapse-of-antarctic-glaciers-seems-to-be-unstoppable/">collapse of the West Antarctic ice sheet</a>. “I don’t think it’s that surprising that, given the current concentration of atmospheric greenhouse gases and given what we know from palaeoclimate studies, the West Antarctic ice sheet may eventually collapse,” says Gasson. “How rapidly that may occur is still a real unknown.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>However, Rignot and Gasson both point out that the study looks only at the ocean and doesn’t include atmospheric processes. Rignot says other studies suggest a rapid cut in emissions would change the winds around Antarctica and thus change ocean currents.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“I do not agree that the time to affect this collapse has completely passed,” says Rignot. “If we curb our greenhouse gas emissions very aggressively and – in addition – are able to sequester atmospheric carbon back in the ground, to go back to concentrations reached in the earlier part of the 20th century, then I do believe there is a chance to slow down the retreat.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>At present, however, global greenhouse gas emissions are <a href="https://x.com/Peters_Glen/status/1715304753700168018?s=20">still rising rather than falling</a>. Meanwhile, around the world, development continues in many coastal areas and in cities that will be impractical to protect from several metres of sea level rise.</i></div></i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-8529349406292705522024-03-14T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-14T00:00:00.140-07:00 Indigenous Australians have managed land with fire for 11,000 years<div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><img height="266" src="https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11125445/SEI_195600559.jpg?width=1200" width="400" /></i><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Interesting that this is what happened and surely this also happened elsewhere as well. The first takehome is that small patch fires werevstarted during the off season which eroded the overall fuel supply stopping natural big burns which also took down trees.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">hitting this fuel supply with animal herds including goats and sheep as well as cattle can have the same impact. Can goats learn to hang with sheep without taking down fences? Can dogs manage such herds?. It may well take specially bred goats.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div>burning is otherwise a waste of good fodder and chippable slash. We want open woodlands with smart groves whose lower branches are gone allowing ample sunlight penetration. this demands human grooming and animal impact once or twice per year. Harvest and spring cleanup does the rest and such a sunlit forest will easily dougle in gross fiber production as well<br /></div><div><br /></div><div>today we can do wonderfully better but we need a lot of humans worldwide as this applies everywhere.</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Indigenous Australians have managed land with fire for 11,000 years</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Lake sediments reveal the ancient history of Aboriginal people’s use of fire to manage the landscape, a tradition that has benefits for biodiversity</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://www.newscientist.com/author/james-woodford/">James Woodford</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>11 March 2024</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Aboriginal people use fires to manage the landscape</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Indigenous Australians have been managing the environment with fire for at least 11,000 years, according to an analysis of sediment cores retrieved from an ancient lake.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://research.jcu.edu.au/portfolio/michael.bird">Michael Bird</a> at James Cook University in Cairns, Australia, says the findings suggest that a return to an Indigenous regime of more frequent but less intense fires could reduce the risk of catastrophic bushfires and improve environmental management.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25834450-800-the-civilisation-myth-how-new-discoveries-are-rewriting-human-history/"><br /></a></div><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25834450-800-the-civilisation-myth-how-new-discoveries-are-rewriting-human-history/" style="font-style: italic;"><br />Read more<br /><br /></a><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25834450-800-the-civilisation-myth-how-new-discoveries-are-rewriting-human-history/"><i></i></a><i><a href="https://www.newscientist.com/article/mg25834450-800-the-civilisation-myth-how-new-discoveries-are-rewriting-human-history/">The civilisation myth: How new discoveries are rewriting human history</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Advertisement</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>It has long been known that Australia’s first peoples, who are thought to have been on the continent for 65,000 years, carefully managed the landscape with fire to make it easier to move around and hunt prey. They also figured out that this benefited some animals and plants that they preferred and reduced the risk of more dangerous fires.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>However, it has been difficult to establish how long this has been happening for, says Bird. That is because most waterways completely dry out in the dry season each year and the carbon in their sediments is destroyed.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Girraween Lagoon, near Darwin in the Northern Territory, is a massive sinkhole covering an area of about 1 hectare that has stayed permanently wet for at least 150,000 years. As the climate changed over millennia, so, too, did the vegetation around the sinkhole. “From Girraween Lagoon, we have got 150,000 years’ worth of sediment that has never dried out,” says Bird.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>By analysing sediment cores from the lagoon’s bed, Bird and his colleagues were able to study three key metrics: the accumulation of micro-charcoal particles, the proportion of burnt material in the sediment cores and a measure of the amount of the different kinds of carbon that remain after burning.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The first two metrics allow researchers to infer the intensity of fires, while the third indicates whether fires were cool enough to leave traces of grasses preserved.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Prior to the arrival of people, natural fires in the savannahs of northern Australia were ignited by lightning late in the dry season, when vegetation and the landscape had almost fully dried out. This kind of higher-intensity fire combusts biomass more completely, particularly fine fuels such as grass and litter, leaving less charred remains from grasses.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><u>Indigenous fire regimes, on the other hand, burn frequently but with much less heat, affect small areas and are limited to short plants, sparing tall trees. This helps to promote a mosaic of vegetation and helping to protect biodiversity.</u></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Bird says the more recent layers in the cores show clear evidence of more frequent fires and grasses that haven’t been fully combusted, indicating cooler fires. These kinds of fires are a sharp departure from the previous natural pattern of fires and provide the tell-tale fingerprint of Indigenous fire management, he says.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><img height="266" src="https://images.newscientist.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/11130027/SEI_195582807.jpg?width=1200" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Researchers collect sediment cores at Girraween Lagoon in Northern Territory, Australia</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Michael Bird</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>This signal can be seen in sediments dating back to at least 11,000 years ago, the study found, but before that point the metric for the proportion of grasses and tree remains becomes harder to study. Bird says there are hints of a human burning signal from as early as 40,000 years ago, but the evidence isn’t as clear-cut.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“It means that for at least 11,000 years, the savannah has grown up with humans,” he says. “The biodiversity has grown up with that fire regime. Take that kind of burning away and you start to see significant problems with biodiversity.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://discover.utas.edu.au/David.Bowman">David Bowman</a> at the University of Tasmania, Australia, says the paper highlights the twin importance of climate and humans in shaping fire regimes.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><u>“Separating climate from anthropogenic – and importantly Indigenous – fire management is a hugely important topic,” he says. “We are battling to counteract climate-driven wildfires globally and such a deep-time perspective will be an invaluable addition to current research and development of sustainable fire management.”</u></i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-62575404921499439092024-03-13T00:00:00.003-07:002024-03-13T14:48:23.722-07:00Laser weapon tech disclosure.<p><br /></p><p><br /></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRy5o8WECqr5C1cr53-ARjS6SfBA1acqD7arv4DMsD-Ugt1KZLMdRxh3bWTpuEGXzdAjNXB-wier9jq0nMUV7tjkTA-2QPIkdtVTz4RwwhbjXLXu6BiWsqdJIzecnDc9aJpTuTgRajsOwnFbZ7haeVl76RN-9sxNv7osBIzbmUtYLOxUKMj8hVyM-JHXg/s230/images%20(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="230" data-original-width="219" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgRy5o8WECqr5C1cr53-ARjS6SfBA1acqD7arv4DMsD-Ugt1KZLMdRxh3bWTpuEGXzdAjNXB-wier9jq0nMUV7tjkTA-2QPIkdtVTz4RwwhbjXLXu6BiWsqdJIzecnDc9aJpTuTgRajsOwnFbZ7haeVl76RN-9sxNv7osBIzbmUtYLOxUKMj8hVyM-JHXg/w381-h400/images%20(1).jpg" width="381" /></a></div><br /><p><br /></p><p>nice of them to now actually tell us about all this. we are looking at fifty years of system development ,painful step after painful step.</p><p>this cam obviously produce those crop images we have been tracking since 1980. understand that nothing else can. this viddeo is all about public disclosure and you do not need to know way better also exists.</p><p>These are all techs with real chalenges, except we have been on the problems for decadess. Progress has been made and i can see it. it</p><p> is just none of your business.</p><p> <iframe width="1080" height="608" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/Vv3xMtqq1MA" title="DragonFire - UK Laser Directed Energy Weapon shoots down a drone" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></p>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-8807811729335232502024-03-13T00:00:00.002-07:002024-03-13T00:00:00.140-07:00Myocarditis game-changer: We've blamed the wrong culprit<div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="267" src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/21c1587/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1333+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fdd%2F71%2F76238eb54fd19b4093a7a0d0a9d7%2Fheart-with-viruses.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A biological agency is damaging the heart itself and observed inflammation is a late stage. We so needed to know this because detection can be a blod test.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">We certainly need to discover those at risk since the jab increased numbers.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">vulnerable forlks need to know in order to avoid ramping up the exertion. We may have a vpatway for sudden death events here.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Myocarditis game-changer: We've blamed the wrong culprit</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://newatlas.com/author/paul-mcclure/">Paul McClure</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Findings from a new study have challenged traditional assumptions about what causes myocarditis</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>AI-generated by DALL-E</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Inflammation resulting from a viral infection has traditionally been thought to cause acute myocarditis, which can lead to fatal heart arrhythmias in otherwise healthy young adults. Now, a new study has shown for the first time that the virus itself damages heart cells before inflammation sets in, challenging traditional assumptions.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Viral infections are the most frequent cause of acute inflammation of the heart muscle or <a href="https://newatlas.com/medical/first-blood-test-myocarditis-detects-heart-inflammation/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">myocarditis</a>, a condition linked to up to 42% of <a href="https://newatlas.com/medical/sudden-cardiac-arrest-symptoms-differ-between-sexes/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">sudden cardiac deaths</a> in young adults. The common cold (adenovirus), hepatitis B and C, and parvovirus have all been associated with myocarditis.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The traditional explanation for what causes myocarditis focuses on inflammation, triggered by the body’s immune response to a virus, which leads to potentially fatal rapid or irregular heart rhythms called <a href="https://newatlas.com/medical/new-implantable-graphene-e-tattoo-light-monitor-correct-arrhythmias/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">arrhythmias</a>. However, a new study led by researchers at the Fralin Biomedical Research Institute at Virginia Tech may have just turned tradition on its head, finding that the virus itself damages heart muscle before the onset of inflammation.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“From a clinical perspective, our understanding of viral infection of the heart has focused on inflammation, causing problems with the rate or rhythm of the heartbeat,” said James Smyth, the study’s corresponding author. “But we have found an acute stage when the virus first infects the heart and before the body’s immune response causes inflammation. So even before the tissue is inflamed, the heart is being set up for arrhythmia.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Using a mouse model of the adenovirus to replicate the human infection process, the researchers studied the virus’ effects on the heart. They found that early in the infection, the virus disrupted critical components of the heart’s electrical and communication systems: ion channels and gap junctions.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Ion channels act like gates in the cell membranes, helping maintain the correct balance of ions – sodium, potassium, and calcium – needed for the heart to generate normal electrical activity and, therefore, allow it to beat properly. Electrical activation of the heart requires cell-to-cell movement of ions and small molecules via protein channels called gap junctions. Because current transfer only occurs at gap junctions, their disruption can cause the heart muscle to contract randomly or irregularly, compromising its pumping effectiveness.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“Our data demonstrate that acutely infected hearts harbor dangerous electrophysiological alterations at the molecular level and reveal, for the first time, how adenoviral infection can precipitate such pathological subcellular remodeling before cardiomyopathy and development of inflammatory myocarditis,” the researchers concluded.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The next step is identifying <a href="https://newatlas.com/medical/saliva-test-heart-attack-troponin/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">biomarkers</a> that indicate an increased risk of arrhythmia in people following a viral infection.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“Individuals who have acute infections can look normal by MRI and echocardiography, but when we delved into the molecular level, we saw that something very dangerous could occur,” said Smyth. “In terms of diagnostics, we can now work with our colleagues here to start looking [for] ways to analyze blood for a biomarker of the more serious problem. People get cardiac infections all the time and they recover. But can we identify what’s different about individuals that are at higher risk to have the arrhythmia? Possibly though a simple blood test in the doctor’s office.”</i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-79937662314794993812024-03-13T00:00:00.001-07:002024-03-13T00:00:00.141-07:00"Cheerios effect" unlocks high-efficiency water harvesting<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="267" src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/0abc3d2/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1333+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F7e%2F4d%2F97a8e93e44d0b964849d4ef0a449%2Fimage003-copy.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">the tech for atmospheric water harvesting is pretty rough and really a proof of concept. we want to psition multiple surfaces able to also withstand air flow and the device really also needs to clam up with rising wind.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">what this tells us is that surface modification is our freind.there is always airflow, but most can be non turbulent. multiple surfaces edge on to the wind allowws for maximum water draw. spacing matters of course but it all says sweet spots.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">now imagine sails consiting on thousands of verticle strips several inches wide in laminer layers some how held apart and perhaps still naturally collapsible.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">now imagine really producing a river of water with this in the desert.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">this promises to be a difficult tech to develop but it literally promises to leap ahead of natural needs.</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>"Cheerios effect" unlocks high-efficiency water harvesting</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://newatlas.com/author/paul-mcclure/">Paul McClure</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>March 10, 2024</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Adding lubricant to a surface improved water condensation rates</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Fauzia Wardani/KAUST</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>VIEW 2 IMAGES</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>You know when you pour milk into a bowl of breakfast cereal and the floating cereal tends to clump together? In fluid mechanics, that phenomenon is known as the ‘Cheerios effect,’ and it’s inspired the development of a unique but more efficient water-harvesting system that could be particularly useful in arid regions.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Researchers from the King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST) in Saudi Arabia, coated a surface with a lubricant film and found that it caused water droplets to combine faster, akin to the Cheerios effect.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>MORE STORIES</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/science/blood-biomarker-sleep-deprivation/?itm_source=ocelot&itm_medium=recirculation&itm_campaign=ocelot_e079a01&itm_content=recommendation_1"><img src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/4f947cd/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1323+0+5/resize/130x86!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fe5%2F23%2F3049faa648a489d5da0d4f1f3531%2Fdepositphotos-48568293-l.jpg" /></a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/science/?itm_source=ocelot&itm_medium=recirculation&itm_campaign=ocelot_e079a01&itm_content=recommendation_1">SCIENCE</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/science/blood-biomarker-sleep-deprivation/?itm_source=ocelot&itm_medium=recirculation&itm_campaign=ocelot_e079a01&itm_content=recommendation_1">Sleep deprivation blood test for safer roads and workplaces</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/biology/overt-project-3d-images-museum-specimens-free/?itm_source=ocelot&itm_medium=recirculation&itm_campaign=ocelot_e079a01&itm_content=recommendation_2"><img src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/abbbd0d/2147483647/strip/true/crop/2000x1323+0+5/resize/130x86!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F7c%2Fa2%2Ff3a4fc924dcabc819d140741958c%2Fovert-specimen-collection.jpg" /></a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/biology/?itm_source=ocelot&itm_medium=recirculation&itm_campaign=ocelot_e079a01&itm_content=recommendation_2">BIOLOGY</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/biology/overt-project-3d-images-museum-specimens-free/?itm_source=ocelot&itm_medium=recirculation&itm_campaign=ocelot_e079a01&itm_content=recommendation_2">Video: 3D images of over 13,000 museum specimens now free to everyone</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“We are interested in designing surfaces that can promote condensation of water, which has important heat-transfer and <a href="https://newatlas.com/materials/harvester-drinking-water-thin-air/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">water-harvesting</a> applications,” said Marcus Lin, who led the research. “Think of water condensing on a cold soda can. The droplets can only move once they grow big enough for gravity to pull them down.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The researchers thought adding a thin oil film would lubricate a surface, causing water droplets to move faster, freeing up space for further droplet condensation and thereby boosting condensation rates. It worked. But how the water droplets reacted surprised them.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>They observed the condensate droplets, ranging in size from tens of microns to several millimeters, engage in a spontaneous and complex collective ‘dance.' The droplets moved in a snake-like fashion until the lubricant was depleted, at which point they switched to a circular motion. As the moving droplets continually redistributed the lubricant across the surface, they resumed their twisty dance.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“They initially moved in a serpentine manner before transitioning into circular motions and then back again,” Lin said. “These motions occurred across scales ranging from micrometers to several centimeters, and they lasted for hours.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/science/cheerios-effect-water-harvesting/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=1dc8c40bb0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_03_11_09_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-1dc8c40bb0-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D#gallery:2"><img src="" /></a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The Cheerios effect in full ... effect</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://depositphotos.com/">Depositphotos</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Like the Cheerios in milk, the condensate droplets in oil were drawn towards neighboring droplets. The larger droplets’ self-propulsion was driven by energy released as they merged with smaller droplets in their path.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The researchers say that devices that can efficiently capture water from the air through simple condensation, with no energy input, are widely prized as pressure on <a href="https://newatlas.com/climate-change-chemistry-lakes/43834/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">freshwater</a> sources grows. This is of particular importance in arid areas such as Saudi Arabia.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“By optimizing the collective motion of condensing droplets, we can greatly increase condensation rates and hence design more efficient water-harvesting systems,” said Lin.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The researchers plan to explore further what drives the droplets’ complex dance, particularly the shift from serpentine to circular movement.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The study was published in the journal <a href="https://journals.aps.org/prl/abstract/10.1103/PhysRevLett.132.058203">Physical Review Letters</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Source: <a href="https://discovery.kaust.edu.sa/en/article/24064/k2051_dancing-droplets-new-spin-on-water-harvesting/">KAUST</a></i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-19065128943469299382024-03-13T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-13T00:00:00.140-07:00Wave Engine's UAV test flight brings pulsejet into 21st century<div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="267" src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/f692c53/2147483647/strip/true/crop/987x658+83+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2F7b%2F63%2F3721e0fb4737b1f83275d4db78ba%2Fdemo.jpg" width="400" /></i><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">we have huge numbetrs of aircraft types and designs and all ojr engines suffer from the same design problem. They have to super power up to enter launch modes. then they always trottle back down to cruise operation which is way less stress.<br /><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">so why not separate those two functions. They are anyway, but in the same engine always pushing the tech.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Call it the buzz bomb catapault system that shoots an aircraft off the runway with its primary turning over at cruise thrust. all this can possibly cut down the operating cost with ony a modest weight gain offrset by smaller engines we already have.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">A rapid one g launch would change commercial flying and hugely shorten runways for takeoffs.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b>Video: Wave Engine's UAV test flight brings pulsejet into 21st century</b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://newatlas.com/author/paul-ridden/">Paul Ridden</a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>March 08, 2024</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;">https://newatlas.com/aircraft/wave-engine-corp-j1-uav-test-flight/</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Wave Engine Corp's first product - the J-1 engine - has no moving parts, and has launched in style, powering a demonstrator UAV through a successful test flight</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>North American Wave Engine Corp</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Wave Engine Corp has aced a demonstration flight of a simple jet engine with no moving parts. A modern version of a pulsejet, the J-1 engine powered a UAV through take-off and several mid-air stop/starts before the aircraft nailed the landing.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The Wave Engine is an evolution of the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pulsejet">pulsejet engine</a>, a simple jet propulsion device where air is fed into a chamber and fuel introduced. This is ignited to produce a fireball that forces high-pressure heated gasses down a tube and out of the tailpipe, creating thrust. As this happens, the pressure inside the engine drops and creates a partial vacuum which draws fresh air in, and another burst of fuel is ignited to repeat the process.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>This is not new technology of course. The pulsejet has been around in one form or another for more than a hundred years, most notably during WWII when it powered the so-called buzz bombs – an early cruise missile with a fairly limited range that caused daily mayhem and destruction throughout London from mid-1944.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The advent of online video platforms has become fertile ground for backyard inventors to test their pulsejet mettle, with "crazy rocketman" <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDRDpHsbfJs">Robert Maddox</a> regularly breathing fire on motorcycles, karts, trikes, skateboards and dragsters. But it's the ever-charismatic Colin Furze we've selected to highlight the essence of these ear-splitting madcap builds, with his now 10-year-old jetbike test video.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Wave Engine has spent the last few years tweaking the formula, and now reckons that its "proprietary technology enables high speeds and allows for an order-of-magnitude reduction in the cost and complexity of jet propulsion."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Where some designs utilize mechanical valves, the digitally controlled Wave Engine uses a short intake tube as its valve. The combustion chamber sits in front of this and then curves into the tailpipe. When the air/fuel is ignited, the explosion – or more correctly deflagration – sends the hot gasses out of both tubes to generate thrust. Air is sucked in by the resulting vacuum inside, and the process starts afresh with a new ignition.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/aircraft/wave-engine-corp-j1-uav-test-flight/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=1dc8c40bb0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_03_11_09_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-1dc8c40bb0-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D#gallery:5"><img src="" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Graphic showing the Wave Engine's repeating cycle</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>North American Wave Engine Corp</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The first full-scale prototypes were developed and tested at the University of Maryland in 2016. An initial seed round in 2018 raised US$1.45 million, followed by development funding from DARPA to the tune of $3 million. The company then took to the air with the first manned aircraft demonstrator in 2020 – where the prototype engine was reportedly engaged mid-flight. The US Air Force Armament Directorate added a cool million to the development pot in 2021, and a second seed round in 2022 brought in another $3.5 million from the private sector.<br /><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/aircraft/wave-engine-corp-j1-uav-test-flight/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=1dc8c40bb0-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_03_11_09_08&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-1dc8c40bb0-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D#gallery:4"><img src="" /></a></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Wave Engine Corp demonstrated a prototype engine mounted atop a glider in 2020</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>North American Wave Engine Corp</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Now Wave Engine's first product has been launched in the shape of the 55-lbf-thrust (245-N) J-1, which has been used as the sole powerplant for a 100-lb (45-kg) Conventional Take-Off and Landing unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) dubbed the Scitor-D. This time the test flight included remote start using liquid fuel, self-powered take-off, climb-cruise, mid-air engine stops and landing. Ear protectors at the ready for the video below!</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Wave Engine Corp. Flight Video</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The J-1 engine measures 5.5 x 12.5 x 64 in (14 x 32 x 163 cm) and tips the scales at 18 lb (8.2 kg). It's reported capable of running on gas (87 Octane), ethanol-based biofuel (E85), and kerosene-based fuel (Jet-A/JP-8), and is said to have demonstrated fuel efficiency to rival turbine-based engines (at under 2 lb/lbf-hr), though development continues and performance is expected to improve.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>"We continue to push the performance and flight envelope," said Daanish Maqbool, CEO of Wave Engine Corporation. "We have worked for years to harness the power of sound and fire, and we believe it is going to change the industry."</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Pricing has not been revealed, but Wave Engine told us that its technology "is a general purpose one that is suitable for military and the commercial sectors. At present, we are mainly seeing interest from military customers and partners in utilizing this technology for attritable aircraft. Ultimately, we believe this technology will also enable new classes of aircraft for civil markets." A 220-lbf (978.6 N) K-1 engine designed for aircraft up to 1,000 lb (450 kg) is also in the works.</i></div></i>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-73149649720718581402024-03-12T00:00:00.003-07:002024-03-12T00:00:00.265-07:00Wave-amplifying generator bounces twice as high as the swells<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span><i><img height="267" src="https://assets.newatlas.com/dims4/default/7ac4c51/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1729x1153+0+0/resize/1200x800!/quality/90/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fnewatlas-brightspot.s3.amazonaws.com%2Ff0%2F7c%2F5e5972474a519d636f79716e2e6b%2Fscreenshot-2024-03-07-at-7.12.54%20pm.png" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This is worth paying attention to because it nicely increases amphlitude which means a superior power stroke drawing much more energy from the applied work.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">this likely improves as we scale upwards as well. and like those windmills, we can place millions in the ocean.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">this is starting to look good and do recall that every wave picks up energy from massive amounts of applied wind, so the potential is possibly way larger than on first blush.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Numbers may still kill it, but maybe not</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div> <div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Video: Wave-amplifying generator bounces twice as high as the swells</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://newatlas.com/author/loz-blain/">Loz Blain</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>March 07, 2024</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>CorPower's 62-foot-high C4 has exceeded expectations in ocean testing</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>CorPower</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Sweden's CorPower has announced "breakthrough" results from Atlantic ocean testing of its full-scale floating generators, which cleverly time their motions to amplify smaller waves while protecting themselves against dangerous storm conditions.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>In a mechanical sense, this is a pretty standard looking anchored buoy point absorber type system; </i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>CorPower says it's a novel phase control technology called WaveSpring that sets its huge C4 buoys apart. An internal pneumatic cylinder is pre-tensioned to pull the buoy downwards, such that in the absence of active control, the buoy simply sits still in "transparent" mode no matter how high the waves get. This acts as a safety mechanism under the worst conditions.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>How it works- CorPower Ocean Wave Energy Converters</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>But when waves are more reasonable, things get weird and the C4 starts bobbing up and down twice as far as the amplitude of the waves, by adjusting the phase of its movements. That is, it doesn't rise at the exact same time as the wave does, it lags behind to get a little extra energy boost, which propels it higher.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The effect makes a huge difference to power generation; CorPower claims a 300% increase in power generation compared to a similar buoy without Wavespring phase adjustments.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>It's also remarkable to watch, as you can see at around 0:45 in the video below – particularly given that these buoys are so dang big – 19 m (62 ft) tall and 9m (30 ft) in diameter.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Reflections after three months in the water.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>CorPower has just hauled this C4 in after six months at an exposed test site in the Atlantic ocean off Aguçadoura, Portugal, where it's been connected to the grid and exporting power. In November, the weather treated CorPower to the perfect survivability test, delivering monster 18.5-m (61-ft) waves – higher than any previously measured. The C4 went into "transparent" mode and rode out the storm without issue.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The team recorded a peak power export around 600 kW, but says the device was limited in both velocity and stroke during the test. It expects to see peak output around 850 kW when it's run at full capacity.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Running test data against the C4's digital twin, CorPower engineers discovered they'd been slightly underestimating its power generation capabilities, so things are definitely on track there.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Now, the buoy is getting a planned checkup back on dry land, where it'll be studied to see how it's held up at sea, and upgrades and adjustments will be made before it's towed back to its site. That's one clear benefit of this kind of design; you can very easily hook and unhook these machines for maintenance back at port.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Getting down to tin tacks, CorPower has projected a <a href="https://euscores.eu/co-location-of-offshore-wind-wave-and-offshore-solar-energy-could-lead-to-unprecedented-lcoe-reduction/">Levelized Cost of Energy (LCoE) in the range of US$33-44 per megawatt-hour</a> once it's deployed 20 gigawatts of capacity. That would be a pretty competitive price, given that wave energy is pretty much 24/7 and can fill in the gaps when wind and solar aren't delivering.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>CorPower Ocean - Wave farms</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>20 GW is a whole lotta buoys though. More than 20,000 of them. So it'll take a while to get that LCoE down to a manageable level. Next step, says the company, will be a multi-buoy site where the concept can start to be tested in something closer to a commercial rollout.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Does this work at scale? We sure hope so, and to the extent that acreage is an issue on the high seas, CorPower says these things can extract 3-5 times more power from a given square kilometer of ocean than a floating offshore wind installation. But wave and tidal energy projects tend to move at a frustratingly slow pace – well, compared to things like <a href="https://newatlas.com/tag/llm-large-language-model/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">large language model AIs</a>, I suppose everything moves slowly.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>And AI is part of the problem. Yes, the world needs to decarbonize its existing power generation capacity. Yes, we also need enough clean power to cover all the cars, trucks, furnaces and everything else that's electrified as we shoot for zero emissions by 2050.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://newatlas.com/energy/corpower-wavespring/?utm_source=New+Atlas+Subscribers&utm_campaign=f5bf1c6df1-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_03_08_08_46&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_65b67362bd-f5bf1c6df1-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D#gallery:2"><img src="" /></a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The generator and wavespring tech can be maintained on-site; the interior of the buoy is dry</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>CorPower</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>But <a href="https://newatlas.com/technology/elon-musk-ai/?itm_source=newatlas&itm_medium=article-body">as Elon Musk recently pointed out</a>, we'll also need to feed another rising behemoth as millions upon millions of high-powered AI chips start gulping electricity at horrendous rates to train and run next-gen AI models. Musk is predicting electricity shortages will start becoming a problem as early as next year.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>So we'll need all the clean energy initiatives we can practically get operational. CorPower seems well-funded, it seems to have a decent-looking solution that's scalable, hardy and very close to production-ready. So get cracking, guys! We'd love to see it succeed at scale.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Source: <a href="https://corpowerocean.com/corpower-ocean-announces-wave-energy-breakthrough/">CorPower</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><iframe width="800" height="450" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/OwnDkuqbhXA" title="Reflections after three months in the water." frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen></iframe></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-8746247281981340122024-03-12T00:00:00.002-07:002024-03-12T00:00:00.263-07:00Exploring the genetic composition of fungi and its role in plant health<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMp36SZk_8mWPtZ5FMlkMtWfcr_Mq0Cj1jn6tbPpHOD_BBhV9eYqkAdfNrQTbxuqwIGCzZL6fY72JeUWJFwY6JUGyS9km7bEep75E4IPGVt3-Kc05DrhkGj7atPOBQZJe8c2DZ3IZGNz_QRLHCpaaabZlxBfkgSAwGU_esxWems0lmIu7GSRYtMmzs0A/s624/thumbnail.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="401" data-original-width="624" height="258" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiIMp36SZk_8mWPtZ5FMlkMtWfcr_Mq0Cj1jn6tbPpHOD_BBhV9eYqkAdfNrQTbxuqwIGCzZL6fY72JeUWJFwY6JUGyS9km7bEep75E4IPGVt3-Kc05DrhkGj7atPOBQZJe8c2DZ3IZGNz_QRLHCpaaabZlxBfkgSAwGU_esxWems0lmIu7GSRYtMmzs0A/w400-h258/thumbnail.png" width="400" /></a></div><br /><b><br /></b></span></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="text-align: justify;">somehow, i am beginmning to think that our simple understanding of life will just be that in far too simple.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Two separate nuclei in the same cell having two separate targets. beggs the obvious. how about ten or more? after all hte cell may simply supplying bricks.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">two centuries folks and we are still as far away from a proper understanding as we are from comms with the next galaxy. Our scientific enthusiasm is turning out to be deeply misplaced.</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><b><br /></b></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Exploring the genetic composition of fungi and its role in plant health</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Photo Credit: Vasilis Kokkoris</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The complex and very diverse world of fungi is often referred to as the fifth kingdom of organisms. It includes various yeasts, moulds and mushrooms. Today, a team of scientists from the University of Ottawa (uOttawa) has uncovered the genetic secrets of a mysterious fungi, revealing the presence of two distinct nuclear populations within them, each playing distinct roles in how they interact with plants.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) are tiny fungi that live in harmony with plants, sharing their genetic diversity and creating a vibrant atmosphere in plant roots and with below-ground microbes. Scientists have been studying AMF for years but are still puzzled by it. Its bodies are like bags packed with thousands of nuclei cells, and how these fungi cooperate with plants has long been unclear.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“There were numerous unresolved questions regarding AMF, mainly because these fungi are always multinucleated and do not exhibit observable sexual characteristics,” says <a href="https://u12097671.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.vdEqlqwOcmUVNskYN6obRBxnno-2B9mymRzlz0T4AHMi9aBpT7sKtS5GriNyW4oVmWpfY94pUv6CFxtNELFbJOD0aqYfD1-2Ff2a7V18ahIHDPQ-3D_e2f_Bj2wJhxfxV08nBq1EWw1dOHO1Ju2QxfvA9fq48FGfGLeS6g6T0OJvRsdjGU0VH8PmZBXhGxiDOXHGtT8VG4ER9BsogBtW6YoN10M70KRy-2BGYVCdPLKKWtDytTZFCgpjJvztZvvFLSo6H99Pk6WPkCW-2FDF6EiMyMCaj4AvEfuHuJxeMhdiVUas3zRGgQL-2BmYHcbXtuWeXTJFyv2mAh-2FCagjcmaeou9-2FrBjp-2B3URXHb0QhYvl4Hc0lUZzz8-2F6zhXmvwP21OFTV6IceljmRFBs2m2y-2Fw-2BHvBqE-2BwvEcAu11O5k2GnKKJWj3UUAxtr-2Fxx-2FlLd7sUKFCUsxBu9Ot6VfCEM2HYUBMFXNVvM4xjNxfsNEr-2Bx7z-2BfuegOnvvsogQYHM6AD4Kh-2BiZf3nMAVg7iz9WvJftKiXZJSkvDficw3cBc0yZUiiOgUCCKRqLQiAZtwyFAPcderrOF-2BO9guNZXmhP-2FRhkTeB2sNPDA0dOYeenIisWdvU1ZFICoKyeulLsS93-2Fz9E-2BpeK-2Fnir8gE8YollOj-2FCGBrVqQJBS636Psc1Ve2NJA12Ic-2BHuon1YPgSgXMBs">Professor Nicolas Corradi</a>, who holds the Chair in Microbial Genomics at the Department of Biology, University of Ottawa. “It has been proposed that AMF possess unique genetics and have undergone an unconventional evolution.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Professor Corradi and colleagues investigated the asexual reproduction of AMF, specifically Rhizophagus irregularis. In <a href="https://u12097671.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.vdEqlqwOcmUVNskYN6obRPP6Sw7Z-2F7e93OFhAfSl00eX9TQDItP-2BO4MQjCwHK2IfBzP3Lml47BFZ27jt9q879A-3D-3DLN0I_Bj2wJhxfxV08nBq1EWw1dOHO1Ju2QxfvA9fq48FGfGLeS6g6T0OJvRsdjGU0VH8PmZBXhGxiDOXHGtT8VG4ER9BsogBtW6YoN10M70KRy-2BGYVCdPLKKWtDytTZFCgpjJvztZvvFLSo6H99Pk6WPkCW-2FDF6EiMyMCaj4AvEfuHuJxeMhdiVUas3zRGgQL-2BmYHcbXtuWeXTJFyv2mAh-2FCagjcmaeou9-2FrBjp-2B3URXHb0QhYvl4Hc0lUZzz8-2F6zhXmvwP21OFTV6IceljmRFBs2m2y-2Fw-2BHvBqE-2BwvEcAu11O5k2GnKKJWj3UUAxtr-2Fxx-2FlLd7sUKFCUsxBu9Ot6VfCEM2HYUBMFXNVvM4xjNxfsNEr-2Bx7z-2BfuegOnvvsogQYHM639Ae0rprG7NNajJTfIQ4tZ2wjK43feWUew7c6LSx3NiMK39x7Jp-2FVZv0G-2Fz6-2By-2BA5K6epcu1u8uv-2F2jvXB4vMzc48PSTTMkzDfWPQTVUVRGHOCnS9I9SczEPeV5E7osk7Y4agvvHkatLYlu5Yh-2BOgBNjosaO0my-2Badq6jS-2FTB2dW-2BvSij3QoAlqdJKEfVm4o">2016</a>, they discovered strains that showed signs of sexual reproduction, with two populations of nuclei co-existing in large cells. “We found that strains having two populations (AMF heterokaryons) are more resilient and could access plant roots more easily, an indication they could be better bio-stimulants.”</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>However, without their complete genome, the researchers could not know why these strains are more successful plant symbionts.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>To address this, Professor Corradi and his team employed advanced sequencing techniques, including RNA-sequencing and third-generation DNA sequencing, to analyze differences in structure, content and expression between the co-existing genomes.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>“AMF heterokaryons have two haplotypes that physically separate among a large number, possibly millions, of co-existing nuclei. This phenomenon is unprecedented in any other organism,” explains Professor Corradi.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Their analyses also demonstrated that the two populations act very differently depending on their <u>surrounding environment and their plant host. “Not only did we find that the two populations differ dramatically in the genes they harbour, but also that these are differently expressed and change in abundance depending on which plant they interact with,” adds Professor Corradi.</u></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The symbiotic interactions between AMF and host plants are crucial for nutrient exchange, pathogen protection and ecosystem sustainability. Studying these interactions will help improve agricultural practices by producing tailored bio stimulants, enhancing plant growth and promoting ecosystem health.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The study, titled “<a href="https://u12097671.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=u001.vdEqlqwOcmUVNskYN6obRPP6Sw7Z-2F7e93OFhAfSl00cnIR5PgQdQeoqpHdioMDZhJXbkNrYiM5G4yceYcGQWjA-3D-3DZbmx_Bj2wJhxfxV08nBq1EWw1dOHO1Ju2QxfvA9fq48FGfGLeS6g6T0OJvRsdjGU0VH8PmZBXhGxiDOXHGtT8VG4ER9BsogBtW6YoN10M70KRy-2BGYVCdPLKKWtDytTZFCgpjJvztZvvFLSo6H99Pk6WPkCW-2FDF6EiMyMCaj4AvEfuHuJxeMhdiVUas3zRGgQL-2BmYHcbXtuWeXTJFyv2mAh-2FCagjcmaeou9-2FrBjp-2B3URXHb0QhYvl4Hc0lUZzz8-2F6zhXmvwP21OFTV6IceljmRFBs2m2y-2Fw-2BHvBqE-2BwvEcAu11O5k2GnKKJWj3UUAxtr-2Fxx-2FlLd7sUKFCUsxBu9Ot6VfCEM2HYUBMFXNVvM4xjNxfsNEr-2Bx7z-2BfuegOnvvsogQYHM6i2ZczirfXvTT73yNveOWvtOgOm7hQA2-2FKAAzdiX3nUmAV5NVw8o6f5Jz80eVovHRhvh5U-2Fl-2FKtQ11S5OxDZpaFLADCn2JnIURe-2FgHiuWuWZyopewdM2VuYOuqkCrjUDIDuEq19Aho8yFpVfpz-2B2J-2F58Y3XaXGOEzyoCkqw7oK4AM7-2BFxp-2BR3H0vw63Nkvx0M">Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi heterokaryons have two nuclear populations with distinct roles in host–plant interactions</a>”, was published in Nature Microbiology.</i></div><p style="background-color: white; color: #1d2228; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 14.04px; margin-bottom: 8pt; margin-top: 0pt; outline: none !important;"><span style="font-size: 11pt; outline: none !important;"><span style="font-family: calibri, arial, helvetica, sans-serif; outline: none !important;"> </span></span></p>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-16609948478699965732024-03-12T00:00:00.001-07:002024-03-12T00:00:00.264-07:00Employment Falls for the Third Month In Spite of 50,000 New Government Jobs<div style="text-align: justify;"><i><img height="193" src="https://cdn.mises.org/inline-images//householdfeb.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></i><br /><br />We are entering an election year and this is happening? So far it appears that the secret goverance of the USA ia actuaslly set to run until the end of term<div><br /></div><div>I wonder if we will have the national guard manage the vote and if electical systems will be removed.<br /><div><br /></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">or do we get more surprises.</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>Employment Falls for the Third Month In Spite of 50,000 New Government Jobs</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>03/08/2024</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>•<a href="https://mises.org/mises-wire">Mises Wire</a>•<a href="https://mises.org/profile/ryan-mcmaken">Ryan McMaken</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">https://mises.org/mises-wire/employment-falls-third-month-spite-50000-new-government-jobs?</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>According to<a href="https://www.bls.gov/news.release/archives/empsit_01052024.pdf"> a new report from the federal government's Bureau of Labor Statistics this week</a>, the US economy added 275,000 jobs for the month of February while the unemployment rate rose to 3.9%. In what has become a predictable ritual, reporters from the legacy media were sure to declare "another strong jobs report." Heather Long of the Washington Post, who is always careful to toe the regime line, announced that "<a href="https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1766094937030864943">the hiring boom continues</a>" and we are in "<a href="https://twitter.com/byHeatherLong/status/1766101312565850446">an incredible era</a>" for job growth.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Long, however, is apparently incapable of reading much deeper into the report than the first paragraph. And she's hardly the only one within the corporate financial media with so little interest in the details.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>In fact, if we look just slightly more closely at the report, even a minimal amount of curiosity quickly reveals that the jobs situation is anything other than a boom. What we really find is that the total number of employed persons has fallen by nearly 900,000 jobs in three months and that 1.8 million full-time jobs have disappeared over the same period. Meanwhile, government jobs continue to make up a larger and larger share of what new job growth there is.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Indeed, the so-called establishment-survey headline number is one of the few beams of light in an otherwise dour or lackluster report. This headline number, of course, is what people like Long report out to busy readers who don't know any better.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The establishment survey report shows that total jobs—both part-time and full-time—increased, month over month, in February by 275,000. This survey has shown job growth every month for several years now, and it is notoriously unreliable. This can be seen in how the initial estimate number each month is often revised downward. For January, for example, the initial estimate—the one reported in all the headlines—was quietly revised downward by a whopping 78,000 jobs in the later revision.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Yet, the establishment survey is only a survey of large employers and does not distinguish between full-time and part-time jobs. It measures total jobs, not employed persons. We get a very different survey if we look at the household survey, which is used to calculate the unemployment rate.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The household survey shows us that in February, the total number of employed persons fell, month over month, by 184,000 people.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><img height="193" src="https://cdn.mises.org/inline-images//householdfeb.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>If we compare the two surveys, we find quite a difference. While the establishment survey reliably shows job gains, the household survey of the population shows that employment has fallen during four of the last five months.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Moreover, the household survey shows that growth in new full-time work has plummeted. Full time work has now fallen for three months in a row, with full-time work falling near twice as much as part-time work as grown. In February, full-time employment fell, month over month, by 187,000 workers. Part-time work, on the other hand, grew by 51,000 over the same period.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><img height="244" src="https://cdn.mises.org/inline-images//parttimefeb.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Another concerning aspect of this report is the fact that growth in government jobs makes up about 20 percent of all new jobs. Of the 275,000 new payroll jobs added according to the establishment survey, 52,000 of those were government jobs. Historically, this ratio suggests an approaching recession since, in times of solid economic growth, government jobs rarely make up more than ten or twelve percent of job growth.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><img height="172" src="https://cdn.mises.org/inline-images//govt%20jobs%20feb.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>We might also look to temporary employment for a sense of just how sustainable is this alleged jobs boom. In February, <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TEMPHELPS">jobs in temporary help services</a> (THS) have fallen, month-to-month, for sixteen months in a row. As we can see in the graph, a sustained drop in THS jobs points to recession rather than a jobs boom. Temporary jobs are often the first jobs to be eliminated by firms, and as the BLS puts it, "flexible labor arrangements provided by temp agencies allow firms to scale down their operations readily and without the added expense of separation pay or having to let go of their best workers." In a weakening economy, there is no longer a need to use THS workers as a means of screening potential new workers or adding work hours to supplement the full-time work force. It appears that over the past year, the need for new workers is fading fast and dropping temp workers is a cheap way to cut costs.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><img height="214" src="https://cdn.mises.org/inline-images//thsfeb.jpg" width="400" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>None of this is likely to get in the way of the "soft landing" narrative repeatedly pushed by Wall Street, the legacy media, and the Federal Reserve. For a hint at how this narrative works, we look to a story <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/stronger-expected-job-gains-reinforce-hope-soft-landing/story?id=107919865">in today's ABC News</a>:</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>While the job market remains hot, its easing temperature could allow the Federal Reserve to go forward with <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/federal-reserve-set-make-interest-rate-decision-amid/story?id=105577952">interest rate cuts</a> expected in the coming months, some analysts told ABC News on Friday. ... In other words, the fresh jobs report aligns with the central bank's path toward a <a href="https://abcnews.go.com/Business/soft-landing-means-chances-happen/story?id=94086706">soft landing</a>, in which inflation returns to normal levels while the economy averts a recession, they said. ... "If the economy can continue to add jobs but without triggering a resurgence in wage growth, the Fed will achieve its soft landing," [chief strategist for Principal Asset Management Seema] Shah said.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The narrative is this: job growth is solid and great, but it is now very slightly less great than was the case last month. But, that's good because that's what the Federal Reserve wants. This means the Fed can lower interest rates later this year and steer the current softening economy to a new expansion cycle and the economy will escape anything worse than a very mild recession. The end.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>It's a nice story, but it's a fairy tale. For decades, the central bank and it's friends in the media has repeatedly claimed that the Fed will steer the economy to a soft landing each time a recession approaches. Each time, the Fed is dead wrong. There has never been a soft landing. Moreover, employment data is a lagging indicator and is only confirming what other economic data has already been showing for months.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>If we take a larger look around, we find plenty of worrisome data in the leading indicators: The Philadelphia Fed's manufacturing index is <a href="https://www.philadelphiafed.org/surveys-and-data/regional-economic-analysis/mbos-2023-09">in recession territory</a>. The <a href="https://www.richmondfed.org/region_communities/regional_data_analysis/surveys/manufacturing">same is true</a> of the Richmond Fed's manufacturing survey. The Conference Board's Leading Indicators Index <a href="https://www.conference-board.org/topics/us-leading-indicators">keeps looking worse</a>. The <a href="https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/T10Y3MM">yield curve</a> points to recession. Business bankruptcies <a href="https://www.foxbusiness.com/economy/business-bankruptcies-surged-58-percent-2023">surged 58 percent in 2023.</a> Net savings <a href="https://mises.org/power-market/yet-another-recession-red-flag-net-saving-negative">turned negative for only the second time in decades</a> in recent months. The economic growth we do see is being fueled by the <a href="https://mises.org/wire/2024s-deficit-already-track-be-worst-covid">biggest deficits since covid</a>.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Now, not even the employment data, apart from a superficial look at the establishment survey, suggests there's much gas in the economic gas tank. This, unfortunately, is the result of years of economic damage done to our economy by more than a decade of ultra-easy money, price inflation, and malinvestment.</i></div></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-59982041460473797842024-03-12T00:00:00.000-07:002024-03-12T00:00:00.265-07:00See the Future of Global Depopulation – a Giant Empty School<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0N3Su-2d0VCrr6kavglQI_Tao6XPvLJhLhIV1UrnxdczdailLLRkC0N-dmlR7ieLZ9P7dN2Pqdq_PSp0Yestlq-vrXF9Gy79eqCHGEPaHe4N2hCeSG6FsoR6vpalDheo86CmirO2RKVYKawf8Z2kjtSYHqQ1prLNww4OaSHfab0e_A5eEgyLNZLDWgt4/s768/Screen-Shot-2024-03-08-at-10.16.40-PM-768x506.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="506" data-original-width="768" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0N3Su-2d0VCrr6kavglQI_Tao6XPvLJhLhIV1UrnxdczdailLLRkC0N-dmlR7ieLZ9P7dN2Pqdq_PSp0Yestlq-vrXF9Gy79eqCHGEPaHe4N2hCeSG6FsoR6vpalDheo86CmirO2RKVYKawf8Z2kjtSYHqQ1prLNww4OaSHfab0e_A5eEgyLNZLDWgt4/w400-h264/Screen-Shot-2024-03-08-at-10.16.40-PM-768x506.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br /><p></p><div style="text-align: justify;">understand that this is a true existential threat to mankind. It can only be countered by a child production mandate that includes high quality mother support through the natural community.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">what makes it worse is that no one is calling it out. every teenage girl must mentally prepare herself to produce four babies. we can fiddle with the economics and surely should because the current economics has got us here. We can not fiddle with the biology at all.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">assuming that the side shows finally abate ,this will be our futiure emergency and it is global.</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><b>See the Future of Global Depopulation – a Giant Empty School</b></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>March 8, 2024 </i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>by <a href="https://www.nextbigfuture.com/author/brian-wang">Brian Wang</a></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>A youtuber shows a day in life of a Japanese Elementary School with only 8 students and 11 teachers.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;">https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2024/03/see-the-future-of-global-depopulation-a-giant-empty-school.html</div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The school has about 20 rooms and had over 400 students in previous generations but is now virtually empty.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>There are about 11 million akiya, or abandoned homes, in rural Japan. Here we see a nearly abandoned school.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>The video shows happy students and teachers but you can also feel the sad decline. The school was built 130 years ago for more capacity. The number of teachers should have been 20-30 and the number of students was and should be hundreds. All of the nearby schools are also nearly empty. They talk about a weekly soccer game that is 5 on 5 with first and second graders from each school.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Lack of fertility is an extinction level event over a few hundred years. The number of fertile women nearly halves every 30 years. In 300 years the number of fertile women would be 1000 times less.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/06/global-population-collapse-takes-women-and-children-first.html">Global population collapse takes women and children first and Japan is leading the way.</a> China, South Korea and many other countries are following. 30% of the people live in countries with falling population and over 80% live in below replacement including India.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Japan is leading the way in a crisis of population collapse. Japan had peak woman about 53 years ago in 1970. This was also about the time they had peak children.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>During Japan’s first postwar baby boom (1947–49), there were 2.5 million births a year. In the second baby boom (1971–74), there were 2 million annual births. Japan had 758000 babies in 2023.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Japan Could Be a Vulnerable Population by 2050</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Japan’s population peaked in 2008. By the time Japan’s overall population peaked, the number of fertile women had fallen in half. The total fertility in 1974. The number of fertile women is dropping and the number of babies each is having is dropping. Japan is now at less than one-third of its peak baby years.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Humanity is on the Path to Being Endangered</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>A species is classified as endangered when its population has declined at least 70 percent and the cause of the decline is known. A species is also classified as endangered when its population has declined at least 50 percent and the cause of the decline is not known. I would argue that we do NOT have a clear understanding of the decline. Yes, we know women are choosing not to have children, but this problem has spread to every moderately industrialized nation and is hitting all nations Urbanization is also anti-baby and anti-family.</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/05/population-collapse-will-reshape-global-economy-by-2050.html">Japan is going from 122 million people today to about 100 million people in 2050-2056</a>. By 2050, its population could fall below 100 million, of whom 38.8% will be 65 or older. IF there was magic policy to double Japan’s birthrates then instead of a working age population of about 58 million in 2050, Japan could have 72 million working age people and a population of about 120 million.</i><i><img src="https://nextbigfuture.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/2024/03/Screen-Shot-2024-03-08-at-10.13.53-PM-1024x678.jpg" /></i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i>Population Collapse Will Be Worse than the Black Death</i></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="font-style: italic; text-align: justify;"><i><a href="https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2023/06/global-population-collapse-takes-women-and-children-first.html">A global fertility collapse could be worse than the Black Death.</a> The collapse could take 50–60 years instead of 7, and that countries with a total fertility rate (TFR) of 1.0–1.1 would lose 30–40% of their population. This would be worse than the 30–50% population loss in the hardest-hit European countries during the Black Death.</i></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-1752027331714385066.post-86717415711407999242024-03-11T00:00:00.003-07:002024-03-11T00:00:00.138-07:00Researchers Examine Man Who Deliberately Got 217 COVID Shots<div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><b><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b><img height="240" src="https://www.theepochtimes.com/_next/image?url=https%3A%2F%2Fimg.theepochtimes.com%2Fassets%2Fuploads%2F2023%2F08%2F23%2Fid5479263-Shutterstock_1928451257-700x420.jpg&w=1200&q=75" width="400" /></b></i></div></b></i><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">This certainly tells us that vulnerability matters. And it is a poor way to attempt suicide as well. and what if anything was achieved in his case, or for that matter, any other case.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">So far the JAB turns out to be a global cash grab by hte usual perps and not about the faux on demand pandemic that they are also trying to repeat with a real killer.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">folks, something for real will have you dying and past before anyone is able to warn you. do read known reports on epidemics from back in the nineteenth century. these events were overnight for the vulnerable and so far the JAB has made folks more vulnerable.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b><br /></b></i></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><b>Researchers Examine Man Who Deliberately Got 217 COVID Shots</b></i></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The man apparently experienced no adverse events attributable to vaccination and was immunologically no different from those who received three vaccine doses.</i></div></i></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>(Momentum studio/Shutterstock)</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>By <a href="https://www.theepochtimes.com/author/megan-redshaw">Megan Redshaw</a></i></div></i></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-style: italic;"><br /></span></div><i><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>3/8/2024Updated:</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>A 62-year-old man from Magdeburg, Germany purposely received more than 200 COVID-19 vaccine doses of eight different vaccine types within 29 months, according to a new study.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In a <a href="https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(24)00134-8/fulltext#sec1">case report</a> recently published in The Lancet Infectious Diseases, researchers examined a hypervaccinated man and found the shots didn’t have a significant positive or negative effect on the immune response, nor were any adverse events “attributable to hypervaccination” reported.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The researchers heard about the man’s case through newspaper articles and contacted him to see if he would be willing to undergo testing, <a href="https://www.fau.eu/2024/03/05/news/research/researchers-investigate-immune-response-of-a-man-who-received-217-covid-vaccinations/">the authors said</a> on Friedrich-Alexander University’s website. The man said he had received 217 vaccinations for personal reasons, and 134 vaccinations were officially confirmed.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Until now, the effects of hypervaccination were largely unknown.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>To investigate the immunological effects of hypervaccination, researchers analyzed the man’s medical information, blood, and saliva samples. According to the study, 62 tests from November 2019 to October 2023 showed hypervaccination increased the quantity but not the quality of adaptive immunity.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Antibody Levels Eventually Dropped After Repeat VaccinationThe immune system has two parts: the innate (general) immune system and the adaptive (specialized) immune system. The innate immune system is the body’s first line of defense against pathogens. Vaccination is designed to work on the adaptive immune system. The adaptive immune system consists of specific cells and antibodies that take over if the innate immune system can’t destroy a pathogen. It has the ability to remember pathogens so it can respond faster the next time the same one is encountered.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>According to the study, the man had large numbers of T-effector cells against SARS-CoV-2—and even more when compared to a control group of 29 people who had only received three mRNA vaccine doses—but antibody levels dropped as they do in patients who received the usual recommended doses.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Although the man had no signs of COVID-19 infection, as confirmed by repeated antigen and PCR tests, and his immune system did not become fatigued, the study found that his immune response could only be sustained through continuous revaccination. The study’s senior author, Dr. Kilian Schober, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/06/health/217-covid-vaccines.html">told The New York Times</a> that “these super-high levels are not sustainable” and would eventually drop to normal levels.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Throughout the entire hypervaccination schedule, the man didn’t report any vaccine-related side effects, but the study didn’t disclose the man’s health status—whether he had preexisting conditions, conditions that worsened, or health conditions that developed during the 29-month period. The study only states that any abnormalities discovered through testing were not attributable to COVID-19 vaccines.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Dr. Schober said that other patients who receive that many doses could experience side effects, and it is unwise for people to disregard medical advice to receive more than the recommended number of vaccinations.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“It is important to remember that this is an individual case study, and the results are not generalizable,” Dr. Schober told CNN. “The benefit is not much bigger if you get vaccinated three times or 200 times.”</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Man Receives 8 Different COVID-19 VaccinesProsecutors initially opened an investigation into the case and collected evidence of 130 vaccinations over nine months, the researchers wrote. The additional doses were self-reported. If the man received 217 vaccine doses within 29 months, that’s an average of one vaccination every four days.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>According to the man’s vaccination history, he first received the Johnson & Johnson shot in June 2021. His subsequent vaccine doses included AstraZeneca, Moderna, Sanofi and GlaxoSmithKline, and Pfizer’s monovalent, bivalent, and updated vaccines.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>Additionally, the man received 16 shots in 2021, 48 shots in January of 2022, 34 shots in February, and six in March before prosecutors got involved.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>In April 2022, <a href="https://www.rtl.de/cms/drei-corona-impfungen-am-tag-mr-booster-aus-magdeburg-laesst-sich-87-mal-impfen-ist-das-schaedlich-4947922.html">German media</a> reported a 60-year-old man from the same city had been vaccinated 87 times, receiving as many as three vaccine doses in one day. Before the man could get any more vaccine doses, he was detained by police at a vaccination center on the suspicion that he was reselling vaccination cards to third parties at a time when proof of vaccination was required to frequent certain venues. No criminal charges were ever filed.</i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i><br /></i></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>The study’s authors said that despite their findings, they do not support hypervaccination as a strategy to improve adaptive immunity, nor are the results sufficient to make far-reaching recommendations for the general public.</i></div> <div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><i>“Current research indicates that a three dose vaccination, coupled with regular top-up vaccines for vulnerable groups, remains the favored approach,” they said on the university’s website. “There is no indication that more vaccines are required.”</i></div></i></div></div>arcleinhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/05942529252160087271noreply@blogger.com0