The world is good

2021-07-22 10:30:51 Scientists develop a disintegrating natural plastic

The plastic problem that we face today is a serious issue that is inspiring many scientists and researchers to find alternatives or modify the plastic manufacturing process so that the material can safely and quickly degrade.

Researchers in China have done just that by creating a new kind of plastic that breaks down in only a week when exposed to sunlight and oxygen. The team, led by Liang Luo from China’s Huazhong University of Science and Technology, thinks that the material they’ve developed would make a great alternative for electronics to make them easier to break down once they reach the end of their lives.

Once exposed to sunlight and oxygen, the new plastic disintegrates and decomposes entirely within one week, leaving no trace of environmentally harmful microplastics behind. The only by-product is naturally occurring succinic acid which could be upcycled for commercial use in food or pharmaceuticals. Obviously, this specific material can’t be used for shopping bags or soda bottles, but because it’s only stable as a functional material in the dark and without oxygen, it could be the perfect solution for use in flexible electronics or smartphones.

Properly discarding and recycling electronic devices is tricky, but Luo is confident that the material would last several years if used inside the devices where it would be isolated from sunlight and air during its life. This would make disposing of electronics a much easier process. The team is excited about the potential of their disintegrating plastic and will continue to refine it so that it can eventually be put out on the commercial market. Open / Comment

2021-07-21 12:15:54 Open / Comment

2021-07-21 12:15:37 Researchers allow paralyzed man to speak via brain signals

A man who is severely paralyzed was able to communicate successfully using cutting-edge technology that translates signals from his brain to his vocal tract into words that are displayed on a screen.

Researchers at UC San Francisco developed this technique that allows people with speech loss to communicate more naturally than other methods that we’ve seen so far. Previous technology enabled paralyzed users to communicate, but only by typing out one letter at a time, which is a painstakingly slow process that requires the parts of the brain that control the arm or hand.

On the other hand, The USCF team developed an implant that can be placed directly on the part of the brain that’s dedicated to speaking. This way, the subject can mentally activate the brain patterns they would normally use to pronounce a word, and the system can take those brain patterns and turn them into words in their entirety rather than single letters.

To create the implant, volunteer patients with normal speech let the team to analyze their brain recordings for speech-related activities. The researchers were then able to study those patterns and develop new methods to decode them in real-time. Once the team was ready to see if brain signals controlling the vocal tract would still be intact in patients who have been paralyzed for a long stretch of time, an anonymous participant who goes by Bravo1 worked with researchers to create a 50-word vocabulary that the team could interpret through advanced computer algorithms.

Patient Bravo1 was then asked to reply to simple questions such as “How are you today?” and “Would you like some water?” The patient would then attempt to speak, but instead, the reply was displayed on a screen as “I am very good,” and “No, I am not thirsty.”

The system is able to decode the patient’s speech at up to 18 words per minute with up to 93 percent accuracy and a 75 percent median accuracy, which is a significant improvement on previous neuroprosthetic systems.

The team is excited about the promising results. MD and Chair of Neurological Surgery at UCSF and senior author on the study Edward Chang says that “it shows strong promise to restore communication by tapping into the brain’s natural speech machinery.”

The next step for the researchers is to expand the trial so that more participants can participate, and to amplify the vocabulary that the system can recognize. Open / Comment

2021-07-20 12:04:38 Open / Comment

2021-07-20 12:04:30 This device connects to your fingertips to produce energy while you sleep

Engineers at the University of California, San Diego have developed a device that harvests sweat from the tip of your fingers, with incredible performance efficiency. The novel technology could potentially help power a number of small wearable electronics. The device is a biofuel cell that is powered by lactate, a compound found in sweat. The electrodes in the device use enzymes that trigger chemical reactions between lactate and oxygen to generate electricity.

Typically, human-powered wearables require a great deal of exercise to fully work. This novel invention, however, can just produce energy during the night, when you’re asleep. The device involves a series of one-centimeter-squared finger pads made of flexible foam that contains a hydrogel. The hydrogel enables the technology to absorb as much sweat as possible.

According to Euronews, the device can operate without any physical activity and is even able to successfully produce 300 millijoules (mj) of power per square centimeter of skin during a 10-hour sleep. The process essentially requires nothing else but access to the sweat glands at the end of our fingertips.

Now you might be wondering why the researchers would choose our fingers to source the sweat instead of, let’s say, our armpits. Well, the choice is quite well reasoned — our fingertips have the highest concentration of sweat glands anywhere on the human body, including under the arms, or on our backs.

The team now plans to integrate the new technology into actual wearables, starting with a pair of smart gloves. Eventually, the researchers plan to use the technology to power devices in a wireless capacity by using its sensory capabilities to connect to our smartphones.

“There’s a lot of exciting potential,” says senior author Joseph Wang. “We have ten fingers to play with.” Open / Comment

2021-07-19 10:54:17 Open / Comment

2021-07-19 10:54:05 Buddhist monk provides new life to thousands of stray dogs in Shanghai

In recent years, China’s growing wealth has led to a boom in the pet market. This, however, also caused an increase in the number of stray animals, with people abandoning the furry creatures when they do not want to or cannot care for them anymore. In turn, breeding among strays has further increased the population of street animals. In Shanghai, stray animals (most of them dogs) that get picked up by police usually end up in metal cages and are often euthanized soon after.

Looking to give these beloved animals a new life, Buddhist monk Zhi Xiang has been rescuing stray animals for more than 27 years, providing them a home at his ancient monastery or at a shelter he runs in Shanghai. Xiang now has nearly 8,000 dogs to feed and care for, a few hundred of which will eventually be resettled in Europe or North America.

The 51-year-old has been rescuing animals — mostly dogs but also cats and other strays — since 1994. “I have to rescue them because if I don’t, they will die for sure,” Xiang said.

Working together with a team of volunteers and a few workers, Xiang keeps several hundred dogs at his Bao’en Temple, which also hosts a room filled with 200 cats, along with several chickens, geese, and peacocks. As reported by ABC NEWS, he keeps mostly sick dogs at the monastery, while the rest go to a bigger facility, where they have the chance to get adopted.

Since 2019, Xiang has also been actively finding homes abroad for some of the strays. English-speaking volunteers are using social media to reach an international audience, and so far, about 300 dogs have been placed in the United States, Canada, and a number of European countries. Open / Comment

2021-07-18 12:45:49 Open / Comment

2021-07-18 12:45:32 Report: Renewable energy transition would save 317,500 US lives

The US has a new set goal of boosting renewable energy production to reach 80 percent of energy needs by the end of the decade. While this is great news for the planet, it turns out it’s also great news for human health.

A new study conducted by researchers from Harvard University, Georgia Institute of Technology, and Syracuse University find that achieving 80 percent renewable energy sourcing would also save 317,500 lives in the US over the next 30 years.

The lifesaving effects would be the result of a sharp reduction in air pollution caused by burning oil, gas, and coal. According to the researchers, the lifesaving effects would be “immediate, widespread and substantial.”

In addition to saving lives, these health benefits would also produce $1.13tn in health savings. Although the transition to a renewable economy would cost an estimated $342bn, that’s a small price to pay compared to the financial benefits of addressing the climate crisis which totals an estimated $637bn.

Kathy Fallon Lambert, study co-author and an air quality expert at Harvard tells the Guardian, “The costs are much lower than we expected and the deaths avoided are much higher; there really is a huge opportunity here to address climate change and air quality.” Open / Comment

2021-07-17 11:39:31 Open / Comment