Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2024 at 9:18am

Who's to blame when climate change turns the lights off?

Deadly Storms have flooded recently large areas of central Europe and the UK, destroying homes and displacing thousands of people.

With the flooding of sub-stations, the scouring of the foundations of pylons and river embankment failures, the rainstorm has also caused power outages many miles away. This will create yet more disruption as sewage pumping stations stall, train and tram services halt and vehicle charging points fail.

The UK saw this ripple of infrastructure failure in the 2007 summer floods.

India too saw this ripple effect  in this monsoon season.

 All systems fail occasionally. But infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable to disruptions caused by extreme weather, which is being made more severe and frequent as a result of climate change.

Your home may not be in the path of the next storm but the infrastructure it relies on might be.

Source:  original article.

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2024 at 9:07am

Tap water is also a greener option. Plastic bottles make up the second most common ocean pollutant, accounting for 12% of all plastic waste. Globally, just 9% of these bottles are recycled, meaning that most end up in landfill or incinerators, or are 'exported' to low and middle income countries, to deal with, begging the question of social justice, they say.

Apart from the waste generated, the process of extracting the raw materials and manufacturing plastic bottles significantly contributes to greenhouse gas emissions, they add.

While some efforts have been made to facilitate the use of drinking water in restaurants and public spaces, and to curb the prevalence of single-use plastics, much more needs to be done, argue the authors.
The reliance on [bottled water] incurs significant health, financial and environmental costs, calling for an urgent re-evaluation of its widespread use.

 Rethinking bottled water in public health discourse, BMJ Global Health (2024). DOI: 10.1136/bmjgh-2024-015226

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2024 at 9:06am

Bottled water has a huge and growing toll on human and planetary health, experts warn

The huge and growing toll bottled water is taking on human and planetary health warrants an urgent rethink of its use as 1 million bottles are bought every minute around the globe, with that figure set to rise further still amid escalating demand, warn population health experts in a commentary published in the open access journal BMJ Global Health.

Some 2 billion people around the world with limited or no access to safe drinking water rely on bottled water. But for the rest of us, it's largely a matter of convenience and the unshaken belief—aided and abetted by industry marketing—that bottled water is safer and often healthier than tap water.

It isn't, insist the experts!

That's because bottled water often isn't subject to the same rigorous quality and safety standards as tap water, and it can carry the risk of harmful chemicals leaching from the plastic bottles used for it, especially if it's stored for a long time, and/or exposed to sunlight and high temperatures, they explain (the same is true for cold drinks).

Between an estimated 10% and 78% of bottled water samples contain contaminants, including microplastics, often classified as hormone (endocrine) disruptors, and various other substances including phthalates (used to make plastics more durable) and bisphenol A (BPA).

Microplastic contamination is associated with oxidative stress, immune system dysregulation, and changes in blood fat levels. And BPA exposure has been linked to later-life health issues, such as high blood pressure, cardiovascular disease, diabetes and obesity, they add.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2024 at 8:50am

Extinct volcanoes a 'rich' source of rare earth elements, research suggests

A mysterious type of iron-rich magma entombed within extinct volcanoes is likely abundant with rare earth elements and could offer a new way to source these in-demand metals, according to new research.

Rare earth elements are found in smartphones, flat screen TVs, magnets, and even trains and missiles. They are also vital to the development of electric vehicles and renewable energy technologies such as wind turbines.

The iron-rich magma that solidified to form some extinct volcanoes is up to a hundred times more efficient at concentrating rare earth metals than the magmas that commonly erupt from active volcanoes.

The findings suggest that these iron-rich extinct volcanoes across the globe, such as El Laco in Chile, could be studied for the presence of rare earth elements." The researchers simulated volcanic eruptions in the lab by sourcing rocks similar to those from iron-rich extinct volcanoes. They put these rocks into a pressurized furnace and heated them to extremely high temperatures to melt them and learn more about the minerals inside the rocks.

This is how they discovered the abundance of rare earth elements contained in iron-rich volcanic rocks. 

Silicate and iron phosphate melt immiscibility promotes REE enrichment, Geochemical Perspectives Letters (2024). DOI: 10.7185/geochemlet.2436

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2024 at 8:29am

The scientists created a model for testing smart lighting that aims to keep plants' ability to photosynthesize steady over the course of a day, while still lowering electricity costs. They found that an optimization algorithm could cut electricity costs by 12% without compromising plants' carbon fixation, just by varying the intensity of the light.

They then tested whether varying light intensity affected the growth of leafy plants like spinach which are often grown in vertical farms, and found that there was no negative effect. This remained true even when the plants were subject to irregularly changing light intensity, rather than a predictable, regular pattern.

Vertical farming goes dynamic: optimizing resource use efficiency, product quality, and energy costs, Frontiers in Science (2024). DOI: 10.3389/fsci.2024.1411259

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 25, 2024 at 8:28am

Indoor vertical farming could future-proof food demand

To make sure everyone eats well in our crowded world, we need to innovate. Vertical farming systems, which grow plants intensively in an indoor setting, could be part of the answer—but to use them on a large scale we need to overcome key problems, especially the management of the energy-intensive, expensive light the plants need to grow.

Now scientists show how manipulating light according to the needs of specific crops could make them grow stronger and healthier while minimizing energy use.

The biggest benefit of vertical farming systems is that healthy food  can be grown much more closely to consumers in places where this is impossible otherwise: in mega-cities, in deserts, and in places that are cold and dark during large parts of the year. But the biggest challenge is the costs associated with electricity use.

  Many vertical farming systems are run using constant environmental conditions, which require lots of expensive electricity for maintenance. The scientists' analysis shows that these demanding conditions are unnecessary: using dynamic environmental control, they suggest, we can achieve vertical farming which is more cost-effective and which raises healthier plants.

Scientists were motivated by the rhythms that plants show on diurnal as well as on developmental timescales, which require their growing environment to be adjusted regularly in order to steer their growth perfectly.

They outlined a strategy that makes use of plant physiology knowledge, novel sensing and modeling techniques, and novel varieties specifically bred for vertical farming systems.

Because plants' biological functions are heavily influenced by environmental conditions like temperature changes, light wavelengths, and the amount of CO₂ in the atmosphere, manipulating the environment allows a vertical farming system to manipulate plant development.

Lighting is a critical variable; all plants need it to photosynthesize, and different light wavelengths have different effects on different plants. This variable is also particularly sensitive to electricity pricing, so offers opportunities to make efficiency gains.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 24, 2024 at 10:04am

COVID origin at Wuhan market, says study
The hunt for the origins of COVID-19 has circled back to an animal market in Wuhan, China that was linked to many of the earliest cases of the disease. Researchers reanalysed genomes collected from the market shortly after it was shut down on 1 January 2020. They identified several animal species that could have passed SARS-CoV-2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, to people. The study establishes the presence of animals and the virus at the market, although it does not confirm whether the animals themselves were infected with the virus. The researchers argue that their reanalysis adds weight to the market being the site of the first spillover events, in which animals infected humans.

https://www.cell.com/cell/fulltext/S0092-8674(24)00901-2?_returnURL=https%3A%2F%2Flinkinghub.elsevier.com%2Fretrieve%2Fpii%2FS0092867424009012%3Fshowall%3Dtrue

https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03026-9?utm_source=Live+...

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 24, 2024 at 9:20am

Acidic water damages corals, shellfish and the phytoplankton that feeds a host of marine species.

This means it also disrupts food supplies for billions of people, as well as limiting the oceans' capacity to absorb more CO2 and thus help limit global warming.

The only one of the nine planetary boundaries that is not close to being crossed concerns the state of the planet's protective ozone layer.

Man-made chemicals have damaged this shield, causing acid rain, but it has started recovering since a number of these chemicals were banned in 1987.

A ninth threshold—concerning concentrations of minute particles in the atmosphere that can cause heart and lung diseases -– is close to the danger limit.

But the researchers said the risk showed signs of receding slightly due to efforts by several countries to improve air quality, such as banning the most pollutant petrol and diesel cars.
They warned, however, that concentrations of fine particles could still soar in countries that are rapidly industrializing.

The PIK set these nine planetary danger levels to warn humans against tipping Earth's natural systems past points of no return.

"These tipping points... if crossed, would lead to irreversible and catastrophic outcomes for billions of people and many future generations on Earth", experts say.
All nine planetary boundaries are "interconnected" so breaching one crucial limit can destabilize Earth's entire life system.

Source: AFP and other news agencies

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 24, 2024 at 9:19am

World's oceans near critical acidification level: Report

The world's oceans are close to becoming too acidic to properly sustain marine life or help stabilize the climate, a new report said this week.

The report by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) details nine factors that are crucial for regulating the planet's ability to sustain life.

In six of these areas, the safe limit has already been exceeded in recent years as a result of human activity.

The crucial threshold for ocean acidification could soon become the seventh to be breached, according to the PIK's first Planetary Health Check.

The safe boundaries that have already been crossed concern crucial—and related—factors including climate change; the loss of natural species, natural habitat and freshwater; and a rise in pollutants, including plastics and chemical fertilizers used in agriculture.

The sustainable level of ocean acidification is now also set to be exceeded, largely as a result of ever-increasing emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2) created by burning fossil fuels like oil, coal and gas.

As CO2 emissions increase, more of it dissolves in sea water... making the oceans more acidic.

Even with rapid emission cuts, some level of continued acidification may be unavoidable due to the CO₂ already emitted and the time it takes for the ocean system to respond.

Therefore, breaching the ocean acidification boundary appears inevitable within the coming years.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on September 24, 2024 at 8:55am

High-pressure reactions can turn nonporous rocks into sponges

In deep Earth, rocks take up and release water all the time, and the effects can be wide reaching. Dehydration can cause rocks to crack and trigger earthquakes, and over geologic timescales, this water cycling can influence plate tectonics and move continents.

Researchers asked how water can move through impermeable rocks, such as those found in mantle wedges, the deep lithosphere, and the lower crust. They hypothesize that certain reactions can cause temporary porosity in these rocks. By mathematically modeling the hydration and dehydration of rock at high pressure, they derived equations to estimate how the porosity of rock changes as water cycles through it. 

The research is published in the journal Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems.

Previous work suggested that at very high temperatures, minerals can react with each other to form denser minerals, squeezing water out of the minerals and generating less dense, more porous rocks in the process.

As the reaction progresses, a "dehydration front" moves through the rock. On the other hand, some reactions cause rocks to act like dry sponges, soaking up surrounding water and becoming denser. The progression of this reaction is known as a hydration front.

In the study, the researchers presented 1D simulations for three scenarios (one for a hydration front and two for dehydration fronts) in which a rock with no porosity becomes temporarily porous.

Stefan M. Schmalholz et al, (De)hydration Front Propagation Into Zero‐Permeability Rock, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (2024). DOI: 10.1029/2023GC011422

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