#Carbon materials

[jcmarchi]

A carbon-lite atmosphere could be a sign of water and life on other terrestrial planets, MIT study finds

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/a-carbon-lite-atmosphere-could-be-a-sign-of-water-and-life-on-other-terrestrial-planets-mit-study-finds/

A carbon-lite atmosphere could be a sign of water and life on other terrestrial planets, MIT study finds

Scientists at MIT, the University of Birmingham, and elsewhere say that astronomers’ best chance of finding liquid water, and even life on other planets, is to look for the absence, rather than the presence, of a chemical feature in their atmospheres.

The researchers propose that if a terrestrial planet has substantially less carbon dioxide in its atmosphere compared to other planets in the same system, it could be a sign of liquid water — and possibly life — on that planet’s surface.

What’s more, this new signature is within the sights of NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). While scientists have proposed other signs of habitability, those features are challenging if not impossible to measure with current technologies. The team says this new signature, of relatively depleted carbon dioxide, is the only sign of habitability that is detectable now.

“The Holy Grail in exoplanet science is to look for habitable worlds, and the presence of life, but all the features that have been talked about so far have been beyond the reach of the newest observatories,” says Julien de Wit, assistant professor of planetary sciences at MIT. “Now we have a way to find out if there’s liquid water on another planet. And it’s something we can get to in the next few years.”

The team’s findings appear today in Nature Astronomy. De Wit co-led the study with Amaury Triaud of the University of Birmingham in the UK. Their MIT co-authors include Benjamin Rackham, Prajwal Niraula, Ana Glidden Oliver Jagoutz, Matej Peč, Janusz Petkowski, and Sara Seager, along with Frieder Klein at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI), Martin Turbet of Ècole Polytechnique in France, and Franck Selsis of the Laboratoire d’astrophysique de Bordeaux.

Beyond a glimmer

Astronomers have so far detected more than 5,200 worlds beyond our solar system. With current telescopes, astronomers can directly measure a planet’s distance to its star and the time it takes it to complete an orbit. Those measurements can help scientists infer whether a planet is within a habitable zone. But there’s been no way to directly confirm whether a planet is indeed habitable, meaning that liquid water exists on its surface.

Across our own solar system, scientists can detect the presence of liquid oceans by observing “glints” — flashes of sunlight that reflect off liquid surfaces. These glints, or specular reflections, have been observed, for instance, on Saturn’s largest moon, Titan, which helped to confirm the moon’s large lakes.

Detecting a similar glimmer in far-off planets, however, is out of reach with current technologies. But de Wit and his colleagues realized there’s another habitable feature close to home that could be detectable in distant worlds.

“An idea came to us, by looking at what’s going on with the terrestrial planets in our own system,” Triaud says.

Venus, Earth, and Mars share similarities, in that all three are rocky and inhabit a relatively temperate region with respect to the sun. Earth is the only planet among the trio that currently hosts liquid water. And the team noted another obvious distinction: Earth has significantly less carbon dioxide in its atmosphere.

“We assume that these planets were created in a similar fashion, and if we see one planet with much less carbon now, it must have gone somewhere,” Triaud says. “The only process that could remove that much carbon from an atmosphere is a strong water cycle involving oceans of liquid water.”

Indeed, the Earth’s oceans have played a major and sustained role in absorbing carbon dioxide. Over hundreds of millions of years, the oceans have taken up a huge amount of carbon dioxide, nearly equal to the amount that persists in Venus’ atmosphere today. This planetary-scale effect has left Earth’s atmosphere significantly depleted of carbon dioxide  compared to its planetary neighbors.

“On Earth, much of the atmospheric carbon dioxide has been sequestered in seawater and solid rock over geological timescales, which has helped to regulate climate and habitability for billions of years,” says study co-author Frieder Klein.

The team reasoned that if a similar depletion of carbon dioxide were detected in a far-off planet, relative to its neighbors, this would be a reliable signal of liquid oceans and life on its surface.

“After reviewing extensively the literature of many fields from biology, to chemistry, and even carbon sequestration in the context of climate change, we believe that indeed if we detect carbon depletion, it has a good chance of being a strong sign of liquid water and/or life,” de Wit says.

A roadmap to life

In their study, the team lays out a strategy for detecting habitable planets by searching for a signature of depleted carbon dioxide. Such a search would work best for “peas-in-a-pod” systems, in which multiple terrestrial planets, all about the same size, orbit relatively close to each other, similar to our own solar system. The first step the team proposes is to confirm that the planets have atmospheres, by simply looking for the presence of carbon dioxide, which is expected to dominate most planetary atmospheres.

“Carbon dioxide is a very strong absorber in the infrared, and can be easily detected in the atmospheres of exoplanets,” de Wit explains. “A signal of carbon dioxide can then reveal the presence of exoplanet atmospheres.”

Once astronomers determine that multiple planets in a system host atmospheres, they can move on to measure their carbon dioxide content, to see whether one planet has significantly less than the others. If so, the planet is likely habitable, meaning that it hosts significant bodies of liquid water on its surface.

But habitable conditions doesn’t necessarily mean that a planet is inhabited. To see whether life might actually exist, the team proposes that astronomers look for another feature in a planet’s atmosphere: ozone.

On Earth, the researchers note that plants and some microbes contribute to drawing carbon dioxide, although not nearly as much as the oceans. Nevertheless, as part of this process, the lifeforms emit oxygen, which reacts with the sun’s photons to transform into ozone — a molecule that is far easier to detect than oxygen itself.

The researchers say that if a planet’s atmosphere shows signs of both ozone and depleted carbon dioxide, it likely is a habitable, and inhabited world.

“If we see ozone, chances are pretty high that it’s connected to carbon dioxide being consumed by life,” Triaud says. “And if it’s life, it’s glorious life. It would not be just a few bacteria. It would be a planetary-scale biomass that’s able to process a huge amount of carbon, and interact with it.”

The team estimates that NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope would be able to measure carbon dioxide, and possibly ozone, in nearby, multiplanet systems such as TRAPPIST-1 — a seven-planet system that orbits a bright star, just 40 light years from Earth.

“TRAPPIST-1 is one of only a handful of systems where we could do terrestrial atmospheric studies with JWST,” de Wit says. “Now we have a roadmap for finding habitable planets. If we all work together, paradigm-shifting discoveries could be done within the next few years.”

[starry-bi-sky]

fast food is the best course of action after causing a scene. ᴘᴀʀᴛ ᴏғ ᴛʜᴇ ᴅᴀɴʏᴀʟ ᴀʟ ɢʜᴜʟ ᴀᴜ

(First Post Here and Second Post Here

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Danny finds Sam easily.

She's right where she said she was over the phone: standing outside on a balcony, in Gotham, at Father's many charity functions. 

("Would you still be willing to fly over to Gotham, Danny?" She asks, her voice ringing clear through the speakers. Danny is already climbing out his window before she even finishes her sentence. He was just about to settle down for the night, his ghosts would know better by now than to disturb him at this time. The Box Ghost not included.)

("Of course." He says, sounding more confident than he feels. Sam was one of his best— closest friends, he would do anything she or Tucker asked. Even if it means stepping foot into his Father's city. He drops down silently, and walks through the house's ghost shield. "Would you like me to bring you anything?")

(Sam sighs through the phone, relief leaking through. "One of the veggie burgers from Nasty Burgers would be great, with their new ecto-fries. Extra salt. I'm sick of all this rich people food.")

(A small smile pulls across Danny's face, tilting at the corner as his living form falls away to his ghost self. "Alright," he says, and kicks himself off the ground, "I'll be there in a few minutes.")

("Thanks, Danny.")

He had the bag of food with him, stored in a container he had to run back to the house to get that would prevent the food from cooling during his flight over. Clutching it in hand, he floats down behind Sam and sheds his invisibility.

Being visible and being invisible always felt different, but in a way Danny can never describe, no matter how many times he tries to think about it. It's like a gut-feeling, a sixth sense, he always knows when he's visible and when he is not.

His ghost form burns away like steel wool being lit, and Danny drops the last foot to the ground silently. In his other hand lies his thermos, but filled with plain ectoplasm — lazarus water. "I have your food." 

(He brought the thermos for himself — his side was still healing from his last fight with Technus. The ghost impaled him with a broken pipe, and Danny returned the favor by wedging his sword into his chest. Technus had been quite offended by him ruining his favorite coat.)

Sam jumps a foot into the air, and her hand slams across her mouth to muffle the shriek she lets out as she whirls around. "Danny!" She hisses, her voice rising in pitch, and her eyes narrow at him into a glare. "Freaking-- Tucker's right, we seriously need to put a bell on you."

"You have been saying that for years," Danny grins, sharp-toothed and jack-knifed, and passes the container over to her. "And yet I've yet to see any kind of bell." He was going to start getting disappointed at this rate.

As Sam takes the container, Danny hops up onto the railing and looks around. He hadn't seen any of Father's other children lurking around the building before he revealed himself, but that doesn't mean they aren't there. He wasn't going to fool himself into thinking that their stealth skills were poor.

He wasn't that arrogant.

...Anymore.

"Oh you will." Sam threatens, unzipping the container and grabbing the takeout bag. "I'll get you a collar and everything, we can start calling you Catwoman." When she pulls out her fries, Danny snaps forward and steals one from the box, ignoring her indignant yell as he pops it into his mouth.

"I spent my own money on these fries, Sam." He sniffs, leaning away from her with a stifled huff of laughter as she swats at him. "So they are technically my fries. And also, Catwoman would be a poor thief if she wore a bell."

Sam grumbles at him, and takes a bite out of a handful of fries. "I'll venmo you money." She says past a mouthful of food, Danny would have been disgusted in the past, when he was still new. But he's gotten used to this... normality. So he makes no reaction to it. "How does three hundred bucks sound?"

Danny immediately frowns.

"Did you have a fight with your parents?" He asks, eyes glancing to the doors. Doors that are covered heavily by curtains and blurred heavily, decadent music passing through in muffled sounds. He shifts himself away from the light. "You only spend that much money when they've pissed you off."

Sam's chewing stops, and her annoyed expression falters into one Danny knows well -- hurt, furrowed brows, a small frown, disappointment -- and she turns her head away from him. She swallows. "Yeah." she says, quiet.

Oh.

Danny knows that tone too.

Guilt settles like a rock in his chest. He leans forward, "Was it about me again?" He wasn't blind to the disdain Sam's parents had for him, far from it. This wasn't the first time Sam had gotten into a fight with them over her friendship with him and Tucker. But especially him. He unsettled people, even after years of observing his age-mates and trying to mimic their behavior, and anyone who knew him in middle school knew it was an act.  

Sam's silence gives him all the confirmation he needs, and the guilt heavies itself with the weight of the sky. Danny's never much cared about others' opinions of him -- he is (was?) an Al Ghul, they never heed to mind what the weight of a simpleton's thoughts.

But.. he cares a little a lot when it hurts his friends like this. He presses his lips together into a thin line, and forces the words out through his teeth. It sounds robotic. Al Ghul's do not apologize. "I... am sorry." But this one does. It doesn’t come easy. 

Sam sighs through her nose, and turns to roll her eyes at him. "Don't apologize on their behalf when you won't even apologize for your own; their assholes." She says, and goes reaching for more fries.

It's a sign, a signal. A silent word for the conversation to move on, to change. A distraction. Danny grasps it with both hands, and makes an offended noise in the back of his throat. And like he has learned, puts a hand to his chest like a scandalized American southern lady. "I apologize! I apologize plenty."

She snorts. "Only when you think it matters." And pokes him in the ribs sharply with her fry. He withholds a wince and snatches it out of her hands. "You're about as unapologetic as they come, Danny J. Fenton. I've seen you look more sincere when you're trying to drive your sword between Vlad's ribs."

"Stabbing Masters is a very important task for me, Sam." Danny says in only partially faux-seriousness. Masters has yet to realize that Danny had no interest in becoming his son, but he had to (reluctantly) admire his persistence. "Of course I will apply myself to it as best as I can."

He grins triumphantly when Sam laughs, and she reaches over to shove him square in the chest. He barks out a laugh of his own as he grips onto the balcony railing and catches himself at an angle.

"Quit with your method actor talk," Sam retorts, grinning sharply while Danny twists himself back up elegantly. "I know you can talk like a normal person, I've literally seen you do it."

Danny sniffs, and snatches more fries from the carton as revenge. "I'm not entirely sure what you mean, Miss Sam." He says, grin-twisting when Sam rolls her eyes. "My speech has always been this way. This 'normal' you speak of, I do not know it."

She waves her hand dismissively at him. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. But if you keep talking like that, I'm pushing you off the balcony."

"Such violence, Sam."

He gets a laugh again, full of disbelief without any of the annoyance. "I'm gonna be the one that stabs you, oh my god. Pot meet kettle." She looks at him again, smiling.

Danny smiles back, and with a flick of his wrist pulls out a kunai from his sleeve. It was one of the few weapons Mother was able to pass on to him whenever she made her scarce visits. He cherishes it well, along with anything else she was capable of giving him. 

He holds the handle out to her, and watches her face shift from disbelief to shock, then back to disbelief. "Then you're gonna need a weapon to do that." 

"Of course you have a pointy object on you." She mutters, and takes the kunai and puts it in her purse. Danny makes a pleased hum, it resonates low in his core, and drops his hand. "When do you not have a pointy object on you?"

As if to make her point, Danny's hands twist near his side, and he holds his palms up to her, revealing the shobo he had also hidden on him. He gives her a shit-eating grin. "Never." He lowers his hand, and pockets the small weapon once again. 

Sam huffs, "Of course," she repeats, "thanks. I was gonna bring a knife but..."

Danny finishes the sentence for her, kicking his feet idly and knowingly. "The security at the door?" He'd seen them on his flight over the building. It wouldn't do much in the face of the Rogues, but at least they were good at keeping appearances and keeping out the smaller threats.

He rolls his eyes and turns his head away, looking up to the ugly, smog-covered skies. There was no bat signal in the air, and while that was a good thing, Danny almost wished there was. He wanted to see it. "I saw, and I would’ve called Father foolish if he hadn’t hired help. He attracts trouble almost as badly as I do."

"Maybe it's hereditary," Sam jokes, laughing under her breath. With her fries finished, she started on her veggie burger. "At least your dad isn't a vigilante like you are."

Danny smiles wryly. It felt nice to be able to talk more freely about this. That he didn't have to hide the fact that his father was Bruce Wayne, now that Sam knew it from her own accord. Maybe he could have conversations like these more often. Even if it was limited to Bruce Wayne only.

(Even if it felt a little terrifying to know that his father was so close by, close enough that Danny could reach out and touch him. To speak to him. But how would he explain that? And with an audience?)

(He’s wanted to see him since he was a kid, and he still does. It clings onto him like a cough that doesn’t go away after the cold already has, and while it has faded over the years, it clings. His mother’s words still ring in his ears however; it’s not safe. It’s not safe.)

(And isn’t that why he faked his death in the first place? So that his little brother would be safe? Why he gave up the heirship, his home, his Mother, Damian, and his chance to meet his Father? Going to see Father, even now, would be throwing that all away. He has to stay away.)

(Why is Damian with Father if staying with Father was unsafe?) 

He just needed to tell Tucker. Danny wouldn’t keep him out of the loop, he was just as much as his friend as Sam was. His eyes draw towards the door, where the golden glow of lights was still pouring through, where music was playing loudly. "Yeah, fortunately." 

They fall into a comfortable silence after that, and Danny finally cracks open his thermos. The pipe Technus impaled him with was covered in a goo that Danny didn’t recognize, but whatever it was, his injury was taking its time healing. The ectoplasm was speeding it up. 

He isn’t sure what the difference between the ectoplasm that Drs. Fenton collected and Grandfather’s Lazarus pools is, but there’s a difference. He swirls the thermos slowly, watching as the ectoplasm inside twists into a small whirlpool sluggishly. 

When left alone, it thickens into a consistency similar to egg whites, or perhaps a thick smoothie, but reverts back into a water-like substance when moved and swirled. It was strange; unexplainable. He can understand, to an extent, why the Drs. Fenton are so obsessed with studying it and the dimension it comes from. 

Sam watches him idly as he brings the thermos to his lips and drinks from it. The effect is instantaneous, a sense of relief washing over Danny as if someone had put a soothing balm onto an injury. It buzzes down to his fingertips, and when he lowers the thermos, he licks his lips and watches the tips of his fingers burn green like frostbite. 

“Your hair turned white again.” Sam comments, her hand reaching out and touching the hair on the nape of his neck. While it’s not the first time Sam’s touched his hair, it still makes him tense up with her hand so close to his throat. Instinct. dan

He ignores the urge to bat her hand away, humming thoughtfully. “I’ve noticed it does that.” He says, pulling down his bangs to see if they’ve also turned white. No, still black. He lets go. “Let me guess; my eyes are green too?” He lifts the thermos again and peers into the chrome casing. 

Sam nods, “Yep, but it’s only the, uh.” She makes a circle around her eyes with her finger. “The iris part. Everything else is fine.” 

Danny can see that. The faint reflection on the chrome casts back an intense green. He takes another sip. It chills the back of his teeth, and he can feel his canines warp and sharpen. He runs his tongue over them, and swallows. 

Sam is still watching him, her fingers drumming against the balcony railing. “What’s it taste like?” 

“Carbonated.” He says dryly, before taking a large swig. He couldn’t name a specific flavor if he tried, it changed every time he took a sip. The only thing that stayed consistent was that it tasted carbonated. And slightly sweet. When he pulls the thermos away, Danny twists his body towards her and offers it out, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Want to try?” 

Her reaction is immediate. Sam’s nose scrunches up and her mouth twists into a smile, and she makes a huffing-laugh sound. “No, thank you.” She pushes it away lightly with her fingers, “I don’t know how to explain to my parents why my hair is white.” 

Right. Danny pulls the thermos away and puts it down beside him, straining his eyes to see if the rest of his hair has changed colors. Even just his first sip would take half an hour to fade back to its normal black, and he was a halfa. He had no idea how long it’d take to fade on Sam, who was human. 

There’s movement from the corner of his eye, and Danny snaps his head towards the source. There’s a figure, small, a boy, trying to hide behind one of the curtains at the door. His form just barely peeking out from the angle Danny was sitting at. He wouldn’t have seen him if the boy hadn’t moved. 

His fingers curl tightly into the railing, and he breathes in sharp. Sam’s smile crumbles away and she turns to see what he’s looking at. “I should go.” He says, and reaches for his thermos. “There’s someone spying on us. Don’t say anything, just look at me.” 

Sam’s expression warps, twists. Her eyes widen, her jaw starts to drop before fixing itself into place, and her shoulders curl up and tense. She forces it all to smooth over, and she leans casually against the railing. There’s a tick in her jaw. “I see.” Her voice comes through teeth. “Do you think they saw you?”

“I am not sure.” Danny says. He keeps an eye on the figure as he twists himself over and grabs the Nasty Burger bag and the container. He tries not to look like he’s rushing. He is. How long has that boy been there? How much did he see? Did he hear anything? 

“Father, fortunately, has privacy films on the glass. Nobody should have seen me unless they’re specifically trying to peep through the door.” He says. The boy seems to realize that Danny was starting to leave. And, his heart beginning to sink, instead of leaving, moves to grab the door handle instead.

No. No, no, no, no, no.

Danny’s breath catches in his throat, he’s hoping that isn’t who he think it is. But how else would he have not noticed an eavesdropper on their conversation unless it was someone who was capable of bypassing those skills? He told himself that he wouldn’t fool himself into thinking that his siblings’ had poor stealth. He got distracted. 

Five years, five years. He refuses to let that go down the drain. He zips up the container and throws his legs over the other side of the railing, his back facing the door. He hears the doorknob click, and without a word to Sam, slips off down the side and down to the ground below.

Just in time. The once muffled music now sounds blaring as the door presumably is thrown open and the pull of invisibility washes over him like a second skin. He doesn't stay to see who it is.

[danggerine]

meijack appreciation post <3

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Two-faced solar panels can generate more power at up to 70% less cost

Researchers have built a new kind of two-faced (bifacial) panel. They used single-walled carbon nanotubes as both front and back electrodes. These tubes are just 2.2 nanometers across. That is slightly thinner than a strand of human DNA. A piece of paper is thicker than 45,000 nanotubes stacked on top of each other. The study is published in the journal Nature Communications, and the team included Surrey scientists working with colleagues at the University of Cambridge, the Chinese Academy of Sciences, Xidian University, and Zhengzhou University, China. Dr. Jing Zhang, research fellow at Surrey's Advanced Technology Institute, said, "Our bifacial cells can harvest sunlight from both front and back panels. This generates more energy and depends less on which angle the light hits them.

Read more.

[thewales-family]

The Prince of Wales visits Low Carbon Materials to learn more about how they are working to create low-carbon construction material alternatives since becoming a 2022 Earthshot Prize Finalist in Seaham, England -April 30th 2024.

[materiallugy]

Carburizing, also known as a case-hardening process, is a heat treatment process used to harden the surface of low carbon steel parts by infusing carbon into the surface layer of the steel. This process enhances the surface hardness and wear resistance while maintaining a tough and ductile interior. The process is crucial in applications where the wear resistance of the material is critical, such as gears, camshafts, and other high-stress components.

The primary purpose of carburizing is to increase the carbon content at the surface of a low-carbon steel part.

[allmyandroids]

he makes me feral and destroys me fr 💥❤️‍🔥

[penultimatestalematewithdeath]

Just found out the OceanGate sub hull was made with Carbon Fiber???? Can fail under compression with one poorly manufactured air bubble carbon fiber??? Subjective to failure inducing embrittlement at low temperatures carbon fiber???? That carbon fiber????

I am in absolute horrified Awe. Like. I don’t know much about submarines, but I know rockets and we use carbon fiber for hobby rockets and. You can’t?? Make a pressurized vessel out of carbon fiber?? And expect it to survive cyclical loads?? Especially one experiencing temperatures as low as the waters by the Titanic!! Like the polymer matrix would DEFFO experience embrittlement and at MINIMUM crack but more likely would fail catastrophically!! Your threasbold for acceptable cracking would be MINISCULE at that pressure; you couldn’t afford brittle cracking almost at all!!

This article goes into some detail about the safety concerns with the material used and how they were literally brought up and ignored! like. This is the literal scenario they train us for ethics wise in college! Legit the definition! Of when you should put human life before the company!!

Idk it’s just. There’s so much wrong with the situation, but like. To not perform nondestructive testing on the hull?? To ignore visible defects on a supplied material??

So many red flags, so many things that should Never have happened.

[battleangel]

💉💊🗑️Addicted To Trash🗑️💊����

Food scraps take up the most landfill space in the US. Think about that for a moment & process it. As much food insecurity as there is in the US. As many people that die from poverty & from hunger.

The millions of children that face an empty refrigerator & empty pantry every day after school. That don't have money for lunch and don't have access to a free lunch or lunch voucher program.

The parents that skip meals multiple days in a row so that their children can eat.

The sugar sandwiches, cereal with water, knocking on neighbors doors begging for food.

All so Americans that have more than they'll ever need can throw out more than they can ever eat while millions are food insecure and starve within the same country.

Buy loose fruits & vegetables at a local food market, buy food with minimal packaging, only purchase groceries & food items that you actually need & will use & avoid delivery, take out, fast food, fast casual, eating at a sit down restaurant, coffee & donut shops.

Per Google: Food waste accounts for 6% of global greenhouse gas emissions.

According to the Environmental Protection Agency, food scraps are the number one item sent to landfills in the United States.

Food waste accounts for 22% of municipal waste in the U.S.

We discard more food than any other country, even as the number of people experiencing food insecurity grows.

Food waste, which includes everything from meat and fish to fruit and vegetables, can take anywhere between one month and a year to decompose.

However, food decomposition can take longer in a landfill while releasing greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.

Americans are addicted & brainwashed. You can literally go days and even weeks as an American during hotter months without encountering air that hasnt been artificially cooled. Brainwashed!  Im 42 and my grandparents in rural Georgia that I visited and stayed with for a month every year as a kid didnt have air conditioning. Yet todays modern American life claims it isnt possible yet I did it for a month every year in my youth.

Per Google: Air conditioning, heating & refrigerators are the biggest wasters of energy in American households. The cooling industry is important, but it is also incredibly polluting – accounting for around 10% of global CO2 emissions. That is three times the amount produced by aviation and shipping combined. And as temperatures around the world continue to rise due to climate change, the demand for cooling will increase too.

The average American sets their AC to 68 to 72 degrees which is fucking absurd and ridiculous.

Set air conditioning to 78 to 80 when you are home and 80 when you are asleep and not home. 

I set my AC over the summer even during the current heat wave to 80 — I dont have central air in my 1 bedroom apartment, I have wall units in my living room & bedroom.

Use fans, wear light/minimal clothing or go naked inside your home (Ive done this) and drink 64+ ounces of water a day.

The average American keeps thermostat during winter at 72 to 80 degrees which is fucking absurd.

Per Google: Heat and air contributing to nearly half of a home’s energy usage. Today, 90% of American households have air-conditioning. America is addicted to home heating and cooling, consuming more energy for air-conditioning than the rest of the world combined.

Keep thermostat during cold months at 68 degrees. Layer clothing and wear blankets inside. 

Per Google: In the same report, the I.E.A. predicted that worldwide energy use by air-conditioners would triple by 2050, “requiring new electricity capacity the equivalent to the combined electricity capacity of the United States, the E.U. and Japan today.” 

The number of global cooling devices is estimated to increase from 3.6 billion to 9.5 billion by 2050, according to a report by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) and the IEA.

Without radical changes to the cooling industry, HFC emissions are projected to contribute warming equivalent to 20% of CO2 output in 2050, the UNEP report warns.

However, some say that refrigeration could be the number one way to reduce carbon emissions. 

Per Google: Much of the world’s recent growth in cooling capability has been an adaptive response to global warming. The problem is self-perpetuating, because the electricity that refrigerators and air-conditioners run on is mostly generated by burning fossil fuels. 

Part of the problem with refrigerants, however, is that much of the harm they cause is after we as consumers have finished using them. It occurs out of sight, and so largely out of mind.

Roughly 90% of refrigerant emissions occur at equipment’s end of life, according to Project Drawdown, a nonprofit that analyses climate solutions.

The most common HFC found in domestic fridges is HFC-134a, which has a global warming potential 3,400 times that of carbon dioxide. A typical fridge can contain between 0.05kg and 0.25kg of refrigerant, which if it leaks into the environment, the resulting emissions would be equivalent to driving 675km-3,427km (420-2,130 miles) in an average family-sized car.

Refrigerators are responsible for about 4% of a home's emissions, or 89 kg of CO2 per year.

The correlation between growth in efficiency and growth in consumption is not accidental.

Similarly to air conditioning & heating, if you've noticed a trend, just setting the temperature a few degrees higher/lower can make an extremely significant difference in terms of energy consumption, greenhouse gas emissions & your contributions to climate change.

Do people care enough to change their respective thermostats just a few degrees?

Set your refrigerator to between 35 and 38°F, and your freezer to between 0 and 5°F.

A refrigerator that's 10°F colder can use up to 25% more energy.

Ironically, as climate change progresses further, our home heating and cooling needs will continue to increase in order to insulate us from extreme weather.

"Ironically" or by design?

Home heating is the single largest source of power consumption in the home, and air-conditioning is the third.

Further, air conditioning in the U.S. accounts for 5% of total energy consumption annually, and releases approximately 100 million tons of carbon dioxide into the air.

When we asked Americans whether they program or adjust their home thermostats before they leave the house, an overwhelming majority (73%) said they do not.

The solution to so much environmental damage caused by Americans ridiculously blasting their central AC & heat is right in front of their faces and is blindingly obvious yet the mindless ecocide continues.

Why? Because you don't want to be slightly unfuckingcomfortable?

Layered clothing + blankets & lower setting central heat = Winter

Lighter minimal clothing + fans + higher setting central air = Summer

It IS that easy.

I do it every summer & winter in my 1 bedroom apartment.

Why don't 73% of Americans?

Because they don't fucking feel like it, that's why.

Avoid disposable products & avoid single use products.

Avoid ordering delivery & takeout & avoid buying food & drinks at restaurants, fast casual, fast food as it produces single use containers, cups, straws, utensils, napkins.

Avoid food packaging.

If you buy prepackaged snacks, consider making them yourselves — homemade granola bars, pop tarts, trail mix recipes, etc. can easily be found on Pinterest.

•Replace plastic water bottles with water filter + stainless steel thermos bottle. •Buy items with less packaging. •Purchase reusable containers. •Minimalism — buy needs only, not wants. •Repair instead of replace items. •Buy refurbished tech & electronic devices. •Go paperless - paper accounts for 40% of landfills in the US - 40 fucking percent!

Makeup wipes take 100 years to decompose.

Stop using make up wipes & use water, soap & a face towel instead.

Clothes can take up to 40 years to decompose!

Stop buying new clothes.

Buy used clothes only when needed from thrift shops, consignment shops, Goodwill, online thrift shops, Depop, Mercari, Poshmark.

The micro mininskirt I am wearing now is from Wet Seal and I got it when I was 17 over 25 years ago.

Outside of a missing button, it is good as new and I wear it all the time.

Stop with fast fashion.

Stop buying Shein, Fashion Nova, Romwe, Zaful. Stop going to the mall. Stop buying Forever 21 and H&M. Stop going to department stores. Stop buying Macys. Stop shopping at outlets. Stop buying from Nordstrom Rack. Stop buying clothes on Wish & Amazon.

Use and reuse the clothes you already have.

When they are no longer wearable, buy used clothes only — never new — from a thrift shop, consigment store, Goodwill or Depop, Poshmark or Mercari.

Stop buying new clothes!

Batteries can contaminate soil indefinitely -- use rechargeable batteries.

Sanitary pads are made of plastic & can take up to 800 years to decompose. 800 years!

Replace sanitary pads with period underwear (I use Proof) with ob tampons without applicators (what I do) or period cups with a stem to remove & insert (boil & sterilize after each cycle) or menstrual discs.

Pads & plastic tampon applicators have toxins, chemicals & pesticides that have been proven to cause excessive menstrual bleeding (heavy periods since 11 stopped when I switched from Always pads & Tampax tampons with plastic applicators to Proof Period Underwear & ob tampons without applicators), uterine cancer, fibroids, tumors & other reproductive issues.

Washer machines are also a problem.

Dryer sheets arent biodegradable — stop using them.

Doing laundry in a washer machine releases microplastics into the environment which ends up endangering, harming & killing oceanic creatures and polluting the ocean.

Handwash clothes when you can.

Do not own a washer and dryer as you will be encouraged to wash laundry more due to it conveniently being located inside your home.

Instead, opt for a living space without a washer and dryer (like my 1 bedroom apartment that Ive lived in for 10 years).

Limit trips to the laundromat to once a month or once every other month. Rewear clothing.

You dont have to “throw away clothes as dirty” after one use.

If it isnt stained or smelling, rewear it repeatedly.

Only go to the laundromat when you are out of clean clothes to wear.

I go about once a month to every two months.

If you already have a washer and dryer in your home, limit your use of them as much as possible.

Disposable diapers take 500 years to decompose.

500 fucking years.

Use cloth diapers.

Per Google: Yard waste is one of the top ten waste items in US landfills.

Per Google:

By weight, grass is the biggest component of yard waste, averaging half of all yard waste.

Leaves and brush each provide one quarter.

Either dont have a yard & dont live in a house as living in a house is itself wasteful, a climate change driver & overconsuming energy to simply even heat & cool such a large space.

Or if for some bizarre reason you feel you "need" a house or if you already own a house with a yard, do the following per junkloggers.com: When you mow, “grasscycle” by leaving grass clippings on your lawn instead of bagging then. The clippings will return nutrients to the soil instead of taking up space in landfills. Donate healthy plants that you want to replace to community gardens, parks and schools. Using recycled materials such as compost and recycled hardwood mulch help remove yard waste from landfills and reduces the “footprint” of your own landscape.

Follow the 5 Rs: •Refuse: Maximalism, consumerism, materialism & overconsumption, FOMO, sales & clearances, shiny new toy syndrome, shopping to impress others, trends, advertising that has intentional hypnotic messaging, includes brainwashing tactics, seductive messaging, endless repetition, psyops elements, psychological warfare to buy what they are advertising & selling. •Reuse: What you already have. •Reduce: What you buy & use therefore you will have less to throw away and recycle. •Repurpose: Fix broken glasses like I did, dont buy a new pair. I just bought a glasses repair kit for a few dollars versus wasting money on a new frame, new lenses & the fuel that would have been wasted to deliver the new pair of glasses to me. Repurpose gift bags & use reusable grocery bags as totes. Reuse junk mail and newspaper as gift wrap. •Recycle: Aluminum is indefinitely repurposable but takes 800 years to biodegrade. Wash out containers, check recycling numbers, separate items.  Recycling uses oil!

Keep in mind that Exxon and the oil industry relentlessly promoted recycling before it became ubiquitious because oil is needed to recyle.

Recycling uses a huge amount of energy and is itself a contributor to climate change.

Its important to do all five Rs.

Dont just mindlessly buy use throw away recycle like big oil and capitalism endlessly brainwash you to do. All those times that you threw trash away as a kid in school, did you ever think where it was going? All those times your dad took the trash out and left it by the curb when you were young, did you ever think about where that trash was going? Did you ever think about landfills? Oceanic pollution & waste? Air pollution & air quality? Non biodegradable waste? Greenhouse gas emissions? Methane gas emissions? Landfills burning? Mountains of trash? Ofcourse not. If youre American, it was, out of sight out of mind. Im 42. When I was in school playing sports, it was throw out the empty plastic Gatorade bottle and back to softball practice. Back to track practice. Throw away trash, return lunch tray, on to my next class. Mindless. Brainwashed. Addicted to trash. Air quality near landfills is also poor and can be hazardous to humans and wildlife. The unwelcome sights, sounds, and smells of landfills make life unpleasant for nearby residents and reduce the land’s purpose. Overfull landfills may require clearing arable land and forests to create more room. Mindless. Brainwashed. Addicted to trash.

A plastic straw takes 400 years to decompose.

Did you ever think about that on your birthday at the McDonalds playground as a child as you sipped on your Hi-C Orange from your plastic straw?

Programmed.

Plastic wrap takes 1000 years to decompose.

Do you think about the amount of plastic used to wrap bottled water, packaged items, consumer goods? Or do you buy, consume, use, throw away?

Mind controlled.

Ziploc bags take 1000 years to decompose. Did you think about that as a kid in the cafeteria when you removed the PB&J sandwich that your mother made for you every day?

Brainwashed.

Stop vacationing - airplanes, cruises & automobiles are enormous drivers of climate change. Stay local - go to a library, state fair, amusement park, carnival, museum, science center, have a staycation - movie marathon at home etc, take a local class - dancing, pottery, painting, etc., visit local farms & parks.

Deprogram yourself from the belief that you need to take annual vacations, summer trips, tropical vacations, exotic vacations or that you “need to get away” —

Get away from what? 

Zombified.

Avoid driving as much as you can. Automobiles and the fossil fuels to drive them are a huge contributor to climate change. Wherever possible, do not drive and use as minimal gas as you can. Walk, ride your bike or a scooter, skateboard, roller skate or rollerblade or take public transportation where available if you have to use a car try to carpool or rideshare. Question if you really have to go wherever youre driving and is it worth the additional contributions youre making to climate change. 

Can you recreate wherever youre going at home? Can you watch the sporting event on TV, stream the concert, watch the movie when it releases to VOD? Do you need to meet up in person or can you do a video call on Twitch or Whatsapp if they are not a walkable distance from you? Can you cook instead of eating out? Can you take an online class vs driving to the class? Can you walk to a local food market vs driving to a grocery chain or big box retail store?

If you dont need to drive where youre going, dont drive.

There are millions of cars on the roads in America every day contributing endlessly to climate change so if you dont have to contribute dont and minimize your contributions as much as possible. If you can sell or donate your car then do so. If you live in an area with minimal public transportation, then drive it as little as possible. 

Stop going out to just go out or socialize or be seen as its pointless & unnecessary. 

Do your hair yourself and/or cut your hair off (I shave my head bald every 3 to 6 months) & stop driving to the hair salon.

Shave your eyebrows (what I do) and stop driving to the nail salon to get eyebrows waxed or threaded or stop shaping your eyebrows.

Stop painting your nails (what I do) or paint them yourself and stop driving to the nail salon.

Stop buying new stuff and stop driving to the mall.

Stop eating out and stop driving to restaurants.

Stop getting massages and stop going to massage parlors.

Go paperless wherever you can and stop going to the post office.

Stop going to bars and nightclubs, its pointless & a waste of time.

Eliminate bars, nightclubs, shopping malls, restaurants, movie theaters, hair salons, nail salons, massage parlors, post office, grocery stores, big box retail from your life and that should minimize the driving you do.

Dont have children.

By far, human beings are the biggest contributors to climate change so why would you ever willingly produce one (or more than one) given the amount of ecological destruction & climate change humans have already caused?

If everyone avoided having children, we could voluntarily make ourselves go extinct and save planet earth vs the current trajectory of the earth being inhabitable within 100 years and then humanity colonizing Mars and then other planets then destroying those planets in a few thousand years then moving on to the next.

Wash rinse repeat. Stop the cycle.

People are financially rewarded for ecocidal practices so this wont stop so we need to voluntarily stop ourselves and stop reproducing and stop endlessly propagating our species — human — that has been responsible for over 75k animal species going extinct, the destruction of the ozone layer, climate change, greenhouse gas emissions, endless landfills, deforestation, oceanic & air pollution, etc. 

Leather shoes & rubber leather soles take 50 to 80 years to decompose.

Buy flats and wear them until they are unusable. Once that occurs, buy new flats.

You should only be doing this once every few years like I am.

If you stand at work, buy high quality sneakers and only replace when they are breaking down.

I havent bought shoes in over five years & sneakers in over ten years.

Cut hair off like I do and stop using any hair products.

I shave my head bald every 3 months and do not do any hair maintenance. I dont use shampoo, conditioner, grease, oil, moisturizer, hair wraps, brushes, etc and as you can see my hair is perfectly fine.

Buy refurbished tech & electronic devices.

Dont ever buy new.

Look up cobalt mines in Congo and how the materials to make batteries for cell phones, EVs, TVs etc (cobalt) is causing a genocide in Congo as it is the only country that has this mineral so Apple, Samsung, Tesla etc desperately need it for their devices.

Look up the warlords fighting over these mines and the civilians being murdered as a result.

Look up the conditions of the cobalt mines — they employ women and children, no protective gear is issued despite them working in underground mines, no labor laws so they are working 12 to 16 plus hour shifts up to seven days a week exposed to dangerous conditions, toxins, chemicals with no protective gear, clothing or eyewear, they are worked like absolute slaves and are dying in these mines.

They are literally dying for your pink iPhone.

Fuck IKEA. Stop buying furniture to impress people who don't give a fuck if you live or die much less what your fucking furniture looks like.

Per Google: Most furniture is made of non biodegradable & non recyclable materials like treated wood that can't be recycled.

It takes treated wood years to decompose, and any synthetic fabrics from covers or cushions also take a long time to break down.

A polyurethane seat cushion will take up to 1,000 years to decompose.

Only replace furniture if it is broken beyond the point of repair.

In ten years of living in my 1 bedroom apartment, I have only purchased furniture once.

Dont purchase furniture to impress people, for entertaining purposes, to keep up with your social circle, to flex.

Brainwashed. Mindless. Addicted to trash. Consumerist.

Overconsumption. Materialistic. Out of sight, out of mind.

Who cares if we destroy earth, we're colonizing Mars.

An 80 year human life is worth more than 75k extinct animal species and is worth thousands of tons of plastic that will take hundreds of years to break down in landfills and 6 football fields worth of forests being destroyed via deforestation.

Speciesism is cool as long as its humans being valued among all other species on the planet and even the planet itself.

Ecocide is cool. Environmental damage is whatever.

The destruction of the environment is just part of my brat girl summer.

Has anyone seen MaXXXine?

Who are the greys, Reptilians, minders & keepers?

[virtual-cloud]

[cipherexists]

i spent way too long learning to draw humans that i got fustrated and went back to drawing the robot feller. i need him taken apart, carnally. who said that

[thepastisalreadywritten]

The Prince of Wales Visits The Northeast Of England

Prince William visits Low Carbon Materials to learn more about how they are working to create low-carbon construction material alternatives since becoming a 2022 Earthshot Prize Finalist on 30 April 2024 in Seaham, England.

📷: Oli Scarff - WPA Pool / Getty Images

Prince William visits James' Place Newcastle on 30 April 2024 in Newcastle upon Tyne, England.

The charity's new centre in Newcastle, which was opened by the Prince of Wales today, will provide help to men experiencing suicidal crisis in the region.

📷: Ian Forsyth / Getty Images

[foxyou-too]

Ben White

[materialsscienceandengineering]

A chloroplast-mimicking nanoreactor for enhanced CO₂ electrocatalysis

Chloroplast, which is a double-membrane-bounded organelle, is the main site for CO2 fixation via photosynthesis in green plants. The double-membrane configuration can regulate the transport of substances into and out of the chloroplasts with the aid of functional units like lipid bilayer and transmembrane proteins. Inspired by the ingenious structure and functionality of chloroplasts, Professor Xu Zong of Dalian Maritime University, Professor Chenghua Sun of Swinburne University of Technology, and Professor Lianzhou Wang of the University of Queensland recently reported the construction of a catalytic nanoreactor capable of achieving highly selective and efficient reduction of CO2 to CO by mimicking chloroplasts in green plants. This work appears in Science Bulletin as a short communication titled "Chloroplast-mimicking nanoreactor for enhanced CO2 electrocatalysis."

Read more.

[thewales-family]

The Prince of Wales visits Low Carbon Materials to learn more about how they are working to create low-carbon construction material alternatives since becoming a 2022 Earthshot Prize Finalist in Seaham, England -April 30th 2024.

[mindblowingscience]

Carbon in its myriad forms has long captivated the scientific community. Besides being the primary component of all organic life on earth, material forms of carbon have earned their fair share of breakthroughs. In 1996, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry went to the discoverers of fullerene, a superatomic symmetrical structure of 60 carbon atoms shaped like a soccer ball; in 2010, researchers working with an ultra-strong, atom-thin version of carbon, known as graphene, won the Nobel Prize in Physics.

Today, in work published in Nature, researchers led by Columbia chemists Xavier Roy, Colin Nuckolls, and Michael Steigerwald with postdoc and first author Elena Meirzadeh have discovered a new version of carbon that sits somewhere in between fullerene and graphene: graphullerene. It's a new two-dimensional form of carbon made up of layers of linked fullerenes peeled into ultrathin thin flakes from a larger graphullerite crystal—just like how graphene is peeled from crystals of graphite (the same material found in pencils).

"It is amazing to find a new form of carbon in the year 2022," said Nuckolls. "It also makes you realize that there is a whole family of materials that can be made in a similar way that will have new and unusual properties as a consequence of the information written into the superatomic building blocks."

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