WATCH: We can now see exactly how heavy metals pass through aquatic animals
Thanks to radioisotopes we can now map our pollution.
Pretty
much everything humans do on the planet impacts the environment. But
one of the most difficult parts of managing those impacts is
understanding exactly what damage we're really doing. For
example, we know that the heavy metals from industrial processes such as
mining are getting into our waterways, but have a limited understanding
of what this does to aquatic life.
To address this, aquatic
researcher Tom Cresswell from the Australian Nuclear Science and
Technology Organisation (ANSTO)
uses radioisotopes to trace this heavy metal pollution, and follow its
lifecycle inside prawns, yabbies and other marine invertebrates. As he
explains in the video above, this is the first technique that allows us
to study how heavy metals pass through these animals, without having to
kill them.
So how does it work? First you take the metal you want
to study, such as cadmium, which is frequently used to make batteries
and solar panels and as a result, ends up contaminating our rivers and
groundwater.
You then bombard the metal with neutrons to create a radioisotope. This
is a version of the metal that behaves in exactly the same way
chemically and biologically, except that it gives off a unique
radioactive signal that can be detected from within the live animal.
Cresswell,
who works as an isotope ecologist at ANSTO, then puts this radioisotope
into the environment of prawns. In particular, he's looked at prawns
taken from the remote rivers of Papua New Guinea, where mining has
caused isolated areas of elevated heavy metal concentrations. He can
then watch as the metal is absorbed by the prawn and, most importantly,
see how long it takes before the animal gets rid of it completely.
This
research is crucial, as it will help us to understand exactly what's
happening when these heavy metals get into water systems, and also the
best way to manage them in future.
"The future of water resource
management is unknown at the moment, we’re still finding out more and
more about how humans affect the environment. And unfortunately we're
finding that a lot of the things we do have adverse effects and we’re
unbalancing these environmental systems," explains Cresswell. "The more
research we can do to understand our impact, the more we’re able to
regain that balance."
After six months and 22 flights at NASA's Armstrong Flight Research Center
in Edwards, California, NASA has announced the successful completion of
testing for its morphing airplane wing design. Known as Adaptive Compliant Trailing Edge
(ACTE) flight control surfaces, they replace a plane's conventional,
rigid flaps with a flexible composite material. Not only are they
designed to significantly reduce an aircraft's weight (as well as the
noise it generates during flight), these flaps could save the industry millions of dollars annually
in fuel savings. In tests, the wing's curve remained set anywhere from
-2 to 30 degrees but it can be adjusted as needed, even in midflight.
Eventually, flexible wings can make for lighter, more fuel-efficient
planes as well as quieter takeoffs and landings.
"The completion of this flight test campaign at Armstrong is a big
step for NASA's Environmentally Responsible Aviation Project," said ERA
project manager Fay Collier in a statement. "This is the first of eight
large-scale integrated technology demonstrations ERA is finishing up
this year that are designed to reduce the impact of aviation on the
environment." The ACTE results are to be integrated into future design
trade studies conducted by NASA's Langley Research Center.
"How hard can it be? It's not rocket science!" might
be something you've heard, or said, before. While it's a tired old
expression, it still raises a valid point: rocket science is really
freakin' difficult.
Bill Nye is a guy (indeed, a
Science Guy) who knows a thing or two about rocket science. He also
knows plenty about space travel, as CEO of The Planetary Society (the
world's largest non-profit group devoted to space exploration). Nye,
astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson and comedian Chuck Nice answered
listener questions about rockets, science and rocket science on StarTalk
Radio.
Have any benefits come from the two space shuttle disasters?
NASA's
thirty-year Space Shuttle program came to an end in 2011. While the
program safely completed 133 flights, there were also a pair of tragic
disasters. The shuttle Challenger broke
apart shortly after liftoff on January 28, 1986, killing all seven
astronauts on board. Seventeen years later, nearly to the day, the
shuttle Columbia broke up when re-entering Earth's atmosphere. Once again, all seven crew members lost their lives.
Challenger broke up 73 seconds after liftoff in 1986
While it's always difficult to look
past such a loss of life, it's still important to keep in mind that
plenty is learned from every misstep, no matter how tragic. Neil
deGrasse Tyson notes that rocket disasters are "opportunities rich in
learning experiences." For instance, after the Challenger disaster,
the Space Shuttle program suspended all flights for two years while the
investigation was underway. In September of 1988, the Space Shuttle Discovery completed a successful mission, incorporating safety recommendations prompted by Challenger's failure, including redesigned rocket boosters.
Unlike the Challenger disaster, Columbia's
disintegration occurred on re-entry into our atmosphere. A seemingly
minor mishap - a piece of foam insulation breaking off and damaging the
left wing when the shuttle launched - proved deadly on re-entry. The
compromised wing allowed atmospheric gases to penetrate inside the
wing's internal structure, causing the spacecraft to break apart,
killing all seven astronauts on board. Once again, the Space Shuttle
fleet was grounded for two years. And once again, lessons were learned.
Future missions included improved safety precautions, including upgraded
safety harnesses and automated safety mechanisms.
In a more recent rocket disaster, Virgin Galactic's experimental SpaceCraftTwo, the\pacecraft VSS Enterprise broke
up during a 2014 test flight, killing the pilot. Virgin founder Richard
Branson said his team learned valuable information from the tragedy. He
summed up the balance between safety and exploration, saying, "Space is
hard - but worth it."
How do we balance our desire to explore with the need to ensure a safe journey?
Building
off Branson's mantra, Nye says there will always be a level of risk
involved with new endeavors, especially when it comes to space. But
dialing it back a few steps, most of humanity's greatest successes have
come from taking risks, and many of those successes came after failures.
Nye brings up a caveman analogy, that of the curious early human who
continually sought out the next hill, the next vista, in the search for
new things. "People who don't take risks get eliminated," says Nye,
"It's deep within us, the drive."
Fire is dangerous, risky and deadly - but where would we be without it?
It's
also worth noting that in all of the tragedies discussed above, the
victims knew the risks involved before they set off on their missions.
We don't all have to take risks, but if we want to keep furthering our
knowledge of the world and the cosmos, someone has to. When Richard
Branson's space tourism industry makes its maiden flight, it will
probably attract plenty of risk takers. But if you're risk-averse? "You
don't have to buy a ticket," notes Nye, "You don't have to go."
How easy is rocketry these days? Do we pretty well have it figured out?
We
know a whole lot more than we used to - but there's still plenty to be
learned with each launch. We've filled Earth's orbit with all manner of
spacecraft over the past sixty years. "We are boldly going where
hundreds have before," says Neil deGrasse Tyson. But even though
hundreds may have gone there before, it's still an incredibly small
sample size. Bill Nye, the engineer who spent his early career working
on jets at Boeing (including the iconic 747), notes that the hundreds of
rockets we've launched are a tiny drop in the bucket compared with the
thousands upon thousands of airplane flights we've made since the Wright
brothers first lifted off at Kitty Hawk.
Barely
a decade after the Wright brothers achieved rickety liftoff,
highly-maneuverable biplanes like the SPAD XIII (seen with American ace
Eddie Rickenbacker) dominated World War I's aerial dogfight
Though
piloting planes safely within our atmosphere and launching spacecraft
into orbit are two very different things, there are parallels to be
drawn. If we had the same sample size for rockets and spacecraft as we
do for aircraft, we'd know a lot more about rocketry. So how do we learn
more about rocketry? The answer is simple, says Nye: "Let's go to low
Earth orbit enough times to make it routine."
The trick is to heat the foil with electricity and it will burn the paper to create a fire
If you are planning a camping or a trek,
there are chances when you would need to create a fire for safety,
cooking and whatever you need it for. But with match boxes and lighters
easy to carry around, it is easy to get one up. But what if you forgot
or ran out of the same? The video below shows you how you can start a
quick fire within seconds with almost any battery you may have. All you
need is a simple chewing gum wrapper or an inside lining of a cigarette
box, which has an aluminium foil sandwiched on paper. The trick is to
heat the foil with electricity and it will burn the paper to create a
fire. Check out the video below to know how.
Depression can physically change your DNA, study suggests
More evidence that the disease is much more than a mood disorder.
Researchers
from the UK have found evidence that depression doesn't just change our
brains, it can also alter our DNA and the way our cells generate
energy.
A team from the Wellcome Trust Centre for Human Genetics
investigated the genomes of more than 11,500 women, with the hopes of
finding genes that might contribute to the risk of depression. But
instead, they stumbled across a signature of metabolic changes in their
cells that appears to have been triggered by the disease.
The
most notable discovery was that women who had stress-related depression
- depression that's associated with some kind of adversity during
childhood such as sexual abuse - had more mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) than
their peers. Mitochondria are the 'powerhouse organelles' that provide
the energy for the rest of the cell, and an increase in mitochondrial
DNA led the researchers to believe that the energy needs of their cells
had changed in response to stress.
"We were surprised at the
observation that there was a difference in mitochondrial DNA. So
surprised it took us a long time to convince ourselves it was real, and
not an artefact," said geneticist and one of the lead researchers,
Jonathan Flint, in a press release.
After
going back over their results, the researchers also found that the
women with stress-related depression had shorter telomeres than the
healthy women. Telomeres are the caps at the end of our chromosomes that
naturally shorten as we age, and the team began to question whether
this process had been sped up by stress.
But
as we know, correlation doesn't equal causation, so the team decided to
test their hypothesis further in mice. Over four weeks, the mice were
put under stress, and the researchers monitored any genetic and cellular
changes that occured.
Their research, which was published in Current Biology, revealed
that the stressed-out mice not only showed an increase in mtDNA, but
they also had shorter telomeres than the normal lab mice. These changes
seem to be triggered by the stress hormone corticosterone.
According
to Flint, these molecular changes may well reflect the body's way of
naturally coping with major stress. "Depression might in some sense be
considered a metabolic reaction to perceived stress," he said.
The
good news is that the research in mice showed that the effects of
stress are also partly reversible. The team now hopes that the research
will help point out biomarkers of stress and its consequences. It's
still very early days, but in the future, looking at mitochondrial DNA
levels could help to reveal whether someone has recovered from a trauma.
"We have only a snapshot of the relationship between the molecular markers and depression," said Flint.
"We want to know how they change over time - before, during, and after a
depressive illness. That information will tell us much about their
clinical utility."
It's becoming increasingly clear that the
things that affect us emotionally also affect us on a biological level.
Earlier this year, a separate team of researchers showed that childhood
trauma could alter cellular ageing, and in November 2014, scientists
also revealed that meditation and yoga can actually help maintain
telomere length. There's no evidence as yet that these types of changes
are permanent or will be passed on to future generations.
While
there's still a lot to understand, we hope this research will help
reduce the stigma surrounding mental disorders and bring more acceptance
and support for people suffering from them. It's definitely about time.
The Car Company Audi Has Made Diesel From Air And Water
Quartz is reporting that Audi has begun production of a synthetic diesel fuel made
from water, carbon dioxide, and hydrogen. Unlike fossil fuels, which
release additional carbon into the atmosphere, Audi’s “e-diesel,” which
is being produced at a plant in Dresden in conjunction with the German
alternative energy company Sunfire, has a net-zero carbon footprint
because it is made with carbon dioxide taken from the air.
The
news report also adds: “Though the prospect of cars being powered by
air and water is exciting, it remains little more than a prospect for
now. The Dresden plant will produce a mere 3,000 liters (794 gallons) of
the carbon-neutral fuel over the next few months—a tiny drop in a huge
ocean.”
The electronic cigarette came onto
the market in 2007 and today the sales have reached over $1 billion a year in
the U.S alone. They have proven to be very popular amongst smokers; however we
still don’t know just how safe the electronic cigarette is. Scientists did
undertake a study internationally and this claimed that the vapour from an
electronic cigarette contains anywhere from 9 to 450 times less toxins.
The various components of an
electronic cigarette are typically assembled by screwing or pushing together.
There is the LED light which glows during usage and it typically simulates the
ember of a normal cigarette when inhaling and exhaling. There is a sensor inside
the electronic cigarette which can detect the flow of air when an inhalation is
made by the user. This tells the battery to turn on and the heating element is
subsequently triggered. Some types of electronic cigarette are turned on and
off by the use of a button, which the user presses and holds when they want to
inhale the vapour.
There is a slim line battery and
this is typically lithium-ion. The average amount of puffs, or inhalations, the
user gets from a battery charge is around 300. The electricity is passed
through a material that is resistant, which is typically made from metal or
ceramic and this is what transfers the heat.
The heating element inside the
electronic cigarette reaches around 150 degrees Fahrenheit which vaporizes
around 0.005 millilitres of nicotine liquid, producing the vapour which is then
inhaled by the user, just as they would when drawing on a cigarette. Each of
these hits gives the user roughly 90% of the nicotine they would get when they
were smoking a cigarette filled with tobacco.
The nicotine in the electronic
cigarette is stored as a viscous fluid; this is generally either vegetable
glycerine or propylene glycol or even a 50/50 mixture of both. This contains
around 1% nicotine along with flavourings. These can either be fruit, menthol
or even tobacco flavour. There are also weird and wonderful flavours to choose
from, including anything from Coca-Cola to pina colada, apple pie and anything
in between.
Finally there is the flexible tip
which is put into the mouth, through which the user inhales the vapour. This is
often made of silicone and in some cases it is designed to look and feel just
like the filter on a real cigarette. Electronic cigarettes come in different
sizes, just as you would get normal or king-size in tobacco cigarettes.
There are many accessories on the
market to go with the electronic cigarettes, these typically include USB
chargers, either cable like or made to look like the box that cigarettes are
packaged in, which keep your electronic cigarettes charged up as the box itself
is charged first. Other accessories include wallets and neck straps to hold the
cigarette and even desktop holders.
