Comment

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 18, 2024 at 12:03pm

Plastic World

In more than 200 people undergoing surgery, scientists found that nearly 60 percent of patients had microplastics or even smaller nanoplastics in the plaque build-up in the main neck artery. Those patients were 4.5 times more likely to experience a heart attack, a stroke or death in the approximately three years after the surgery than were those whose arteries were plastic-free.  Microplastics are everywhere. These plastic particles, which range from smaller than a single virus particle to as large as the width of a pencil, have been found in the trillions in oceans and tissues of sea animals, as well in drinking water, rain, air, human tissue and breast milk. Since they don’t break down quickly and cells in the body that manage waste can’t degrade them, microplastics accumulate in organisms. According to conservative estimates, most people ingest between 74,000 and 121,000 microplastic particles every year, likely more. But the effect that all these plastic pieces have on human health is still an area of ongoing research.

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 17, 2024 at 11:11am

What Comes After 5G? Developing New Technologies to Enable 6G

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 16, 2024 at 10:03am

Plastic chemicals include all chemicals found in plastic, in addition to additives, impurities and chemicals that are used during production.

The advice of researchers:

The researchers have formulated four points that they believe decision-makers must address:

• Regulate the use of problematic substances in plastics.
• Create more transparency around which chemicals are used in plastic production.
• Make plastics less complicated so we don't have to deal with so many chemicals.
• Increase impact and capacity to make it easier for authorities, industry and researchers to work together to make better plastics.

The report will play a crucial role in tackling the problem of plastic pollution.

Martin Wagner et al, State of the science on plastic chemicals - Identifying and addressing chemicals and polymers of concern, Zenodo (2024). DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.10701706

Part 2

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 16, 2024 at 10:02am

More than 16,000 chemicals can be found in plastic, and many are harmful: Report

Researchers have found more than 16,000 chemicals in plastics. A new report shows that about a quarter of these chemicals can be hazardous to health and the environment.

Plastic pollution is an international environmental crisis, and the researchers behind a new report are becoming increasingly concerned about the health consequences of plastic. There are many problematic chemicals in plastics. They pose a threat to both human health and the environment. Therefore, we must make plastic safe and sustainable.

We can only deal with the plastic problem if we take the chemicals in the plastic into account, and manage them in a responsible manner.

The United Nations is in the process of negotiating a global treaty on plastics. The goal is to end plastic pollution and develop plastics that are safer and more sustainable. That makes it very important for decision makers to know as much as possible about the chemicals in plastics, and take them into account when making decisions.

The key findings of the new report:

• At least 4,200 plastic chemicals, approximately 26%, pose a health and/or environmental hazard.
• 400 of the chemicals that are of concern to the researchers are found in all types of plastics, including plastic food packaging. All plastics can leach hazardous chemicals.
• To make plastic materials safer, we need new methods to regulate the chemicals. This includes identifying the hazardous chemicals and regulating hazardous groups of plastic chemicals.

In addition to being a database of problematic substances, the document also provides a method for identifying and managing chemicals of concern in plastics.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 16, 2024 at 9:30am

We can simply change the amount of water vapour in the system to regenerate the entire material in this new process. In this way, we can minimize the energy we put into the process.

The researchers examined ways to control and modify the materials at the nano-scale to enable more efficient moisture-swing carbon capture. They found that loading the pores with highly basic, negatively charged ions such as phosphate and carbonate yielded the highest capacity for carbon capture.

Yaguang Zhu et al, Confinement Effects on Moisture-Swing Direct Air Capture, Environmental Science & Technology Letters (2024). DOI: 10.1021/acs.estlett.3c00712

Part 2

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Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 16, 2024 at 9:28am

Researchers use moisture to pull carbon dioxide out of the air

A way to capture and release carbon dioxide from the atmosphere is by simply changing the surrounding humidity using a material.

The material could slash the energy costs associated with so-called direct air capture systems, which conventionally rely on energy-intensive temperature or pressure shifts to switch between carbon capture and release. By instead relying on humidity, the material could yield energy efficiency improvements over five times above current technologies. The researchers  report their findings in Environmental Science & Technology Letters.

Direct air capture systems have been heralded as a way to combat climate change by pulling carbon dioxide out of the air to either store permanently underground or convert into a useful product.

Despite its promise, direct air capture has come under scrutiny since it requires more energy to perform than almost any other application of carbon capture. That is because the concentration of carbon dioxide in ambient air is extremely diluted, especially when compared to the waste gas from a point-source emitter such as a coal-fired power plant. One of the process' most energy-intensive steps is regeneration. After capturing carbon dioxide from ambient air, conventional systems require heat and/or pressure changes to release the gas into storage so that the system can be prepared to capture more carbon. In one approach using a liquid solvent, the regeneration step requires heating the carbon capture material to temperatures ranging from 300° to 900°C. By contrast, previous research has shown that regenerating carbon capture materials with humidity only requires adding or removing water vapor. Such an approach dramatically cuts the energy required to remove a ton of carbon dioxide, from up to 4.1 gigajoules using conventional techniques to just 0.7 gigajoules—an energy savings per ton.

To achieve the humidity-based approach, the Princeton team modified an existing type of ion-exchange resin, a material that can trade charged particles with the surrounding environment. These resins are already used for a range of commercial purposes, making them widely available and inexpensive.
Moreover, the surfaces of these resins are dotted with countless tiny pores, only 6 nanometers in diameter. The carbon capture process takes place inside these cavities. At low humidity, a series of chemical reactions occurs in the pores that allows them to capture carbon dioxide from a stream of incoming air. At high humidity, the opposite occurs: the material releases its bound carbon and is prepared for another round of capture.

Part 1

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 16, 2024 at 7:31am

New research suggests that our universe has no dark matter

The current theoretical model for the composition of the universe is that it's made of normal matter, dark energy and dark matter. A new study challenges this.

A study, published recently in The Astrophysical Journal, challenges the current model of the universe by showing that, in fact, it has no room for dark matter.

In cosmology, the term "dark matter" describes all that appears not to interact with light or the electromagnetic field, or that can only be explained through gravitational force. We can't see it, nor do we know what it's made of, but it helps us understand how galaxies, planets and stars behave.

Physicists used a combination of the covarying coupling constants (CCC) and "tired light" (TL) theories (the CCC+TL model) to reach this conclusion.

This model combines two ideas—about how the forces of nature decrease over cosmic time and about light losing energy when it travels a long distance. It's been tested and has been shown to match up with several observations, such as about how galaxies are spread out and how light from the early universe has evolved.

This discovery challenges the prevailing understanding of the universe, which suggests that roughly 27% of it is composed of dark matter and less than 5% of ordinary matter, remaining being the dark energy.

Challenging the need for dark matter in the universe

The study's findings confirm the researchers' previous work (1) ("JWST early universe observations and ΛCDM cosmology") about the age of the universe being 26.7 billion years has allowed them to discover that the universe does not require dark matter to exist.

In standard cosmology, the accelerated expansion of the universe is said to be caused by dark energy but is in fact due to the weakening forces of nature as it expands, not due to dark energy.

"Redshifts" refer to when light is shifted toward the red part of the spectrum. The researcher analyzed data from recent papers on the distribution of galaxies at low redshifts and the angular size of the sound horizon in the literature at high redshift.

There are several papers that question the existence of dark matter, but this is the first one that eliminates its cosmological existence while being consistent with key cosmological observations that we have had time to confirm.

By challenging the need for dark matter in the universe and providing evidence for a new cosmological model, this study opens up new avenues for exploring the fundamental properties of the universe.

 Rajendra P. Gupta, Testing CCC+TL Cosmology with Observed Baryon Acoustic Oscillation Features, The Astrophysical Journal (2024). DOI: 10.3847/1538-4357/ad1bc6

Footnotes:

1.  R Gupta, JWST early Universe observations and ΛCDM cosmology, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (2023). DOI: 10.1093/mnras/stad2032

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 15, 2024 at 12:45pm

The world needs to hear Paul’s incredible story for a few reasons:
This is what happens if you don't take vaccines
You can never kill a determined mind
How science can make a dying man live
A little help for a deserving human being doesn't make you less rich

The Man in the Iron Lung
Polio Survivor Who Lived in Iron Lung For 7 Decades Dies at 78

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 15, 2024 at 11:59am

Can you get electrocuted by an electric vehicle?

Electric cars, scooters and bikes are everywhere. Are they safe? An expert breaks down the safety of EV and lithium-ion batteries when they encounter water.

It is highly unlikely that a Tesla submerged in a pond in  fatal accident poses a threat of electrocution to its driver or rescuers.

Battery compartments in electric vehicles such as Tesla are completely sealed and well protected.

Most electric vehicles, according to the U.S. Department of Energy, like most portable consumer electronics such as smartphones and laptops as well as electric scooters and e-cigarettes are powered by lithium-ion batteries. Lithium-ion batteries store more energy per unit mass and volume and have a high power-to-weight ratio, high energy efficiency, good high-temperature performance, long life and low self-discharge.

An EV battery may get damaged in an accident or punctured by a sharp object. In that case, the electrodes of the opposite charge might touch each other due to damage, which can start a runway reaction.

The battery would start to overheat due to all the electricity being released at once in the uncontrollable process. The temperature of the battery can quickly reach 900°C, or more than 1,650°F and it can catch fire or explode.

When an electric vehicle goes under water the water is unlikely to enter the battery compartment.

There are codes and standards relating to electric vehicles, which particularly deal with a battery pack and how it is protected and sealed.

A vehicle manufactured in the U.S. would fully comply with those requirements. In the case of Tesla vehicles, they are equipped with a number of built-in sensors that can shut the battery off in case of a crash or rollover.

However, the experts are more worried about electric scooters and electric bikes, which also have lithium-ion batteries.They don't have good battery protection from damage, unlike electric  cars.

First responders still have to know that the submerged car is an electric vehicle,  before attempting a rescue. 

If they properly comply with the safety standards, whether it's in an accident or a submergence, [they should be safe].

Source:  Northeastern University

Comment by Dr. Krishna Kumari Challa on March 15, 2024 at 11:49am

Scientists can now remove nanoplastics from your water with 94% efficiency

Researchers have created a new technology that can remove harmful nanoplastics from contaminated water with 94% efficiency. The study, "Utilization of epoxy thermoset waste to produce activated carbon for the remediation of nano-plastic contaminated wastewater," was published in the journal Separation and Purification Technology.

The amount of plastic pollution in our ecosystem has become an increasingly alarming concern globally. Concerns have frequently been flagged about the impact that plastic pollution has on the toxicity to the environment and humans.

The impact of nanoplastics, material that is a thousand times smaller than microplastics, has been found to have a significant detrimental effect on aquatic and human life. However, the options that can eliminate nanoplastics from oceans and lakes are limited.

A team of researchers, who specialize in polymer engineering, tackled a new method to address small plastic waste and remove nanoplastics from wastewater systems.

They used epoxy, a waste polymer that can't be reused or reprocessed and often ends up in landfills or finds its way into water system networks like lakes or streams.

Using a process called thermal decomposition, the researchers converted epoxy into activated carbon, a material capable of removing nanoplastics.

The researchers then used the activated carbon to treat water contaminated by nanoplastics after producing nanoplastics from polyethylene terephthalate, a form of polyester often used in plastic water bottles and clothing such as fleece.

These tiny contaminants pose a greater health risk compared to microplastics as they can penetrate cells and are hard to detect. The 94% removal efficiency of nanoplastics was achieved by physically trapping the nanoplastics in the porous structure of the waste plastic, which generated activated carbon.

Rachel Blanchard et al, Utilization of epoxy thermoset waste to produce activated carbon for the remediation of nano-plastic contaminated wastewater, Separation and Purification Technology (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.seppur.2023.124755

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