Show Notes 10 June 2022
Story 1: Scientists grow the first plants in moon dirt
Source: ScienceNews.com Story by Maria Temming
Link: https://tinyurl.com/bdvdnjc7
Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sHrUw1sBm1U
- NASA’s upcoming plans to send astronauts back to the moon as part of its Artemis program has prompted a new effort to see if dirt brought back from the moon would be able to grow food and help support human occupation on the lunar surface.
- But here’s the challenge – moon dirt is basically a gardener’s worst nightmare.
- It’s not full of the nitrogen, phosphorus or much else plants need to grow.
- And it’s also comprised of a fine powder of razor-sharp bits that are full of metallic iron, rather than the oxidized metallic iron here on Earth that is palatable to plants.
- In addition, moon dirt is full of tiny glass shards forged by space rocks pelting the moon.
- To find out if food plants could possibly be grown in moon dirt, researchers at the University of Florida in Gainesville recently planted thale cress seeds in tiny pots that each held about a gram of dirt gathered by the Apollo 11, 12 and 17 missions.
- Miraculously, plants grew in all the pots of lunar dirt, but, reality check, and no surprise, none of the test plants grew as well as those cultivated in Earth soil.
- However, a key finding of the research was that the test plants planted in moon dirt that came from areas with less exposure to the impact of space rocks, and therefore containing far less growth inhibiting glass shards and metallic iron, yielded the best results.
- This discovery could guide future moon mission planners to choose a landing and occupation site with minimal such exposure to space rock impacts – giving growing food using moon dirt inside a controlled environment a better chance for success.
Story 2: Discovery of bacteria linked to prostate cancer hailed as potential breakthrough
Source: The UK’s Guardian Newspaper
- Researchers led by the University of East Anglia in the UK recently performed sophisticated genetic tests on the urine and prostate tissue of more than 600 men with and without prostate cancer.
- And what they discovered is five species of bacteria linked to rapid progression of the disease.
- And three of the five bacteria were unknown to scientists before this genetic research effort!
- Men who had one or more of the bacteria species in their urine, prostate, or tumor tissue were 2.6 times more likely to see their early-stage cancer progress to advanced disease than men who did not.
- Genetic information on the bacteria microbes has led the team to develop half a dozen theories around how the bacteria could cause prostate cancer.
- But here’s what’s really exciting — The research team reported “If we can demonstrate that these newly identified bacteria can not only predict, but actually cause aggressive prostate cancer, for the first time we may actually be able to prevent prostate cancer occurring”.
Story 3: High-Speed Carbon Dioxide Catcher Heralds New Era in Fight Against Climate Change
Source: Newsweek Story by Joseph Golder
- Researchers at Tokyo Metropolitan University have created what they claim is the world’s fastest carbon dioxide capturing system, at least twice as fast as today’s leading systems that pull carbon dioxide out of the air.
- The research team says their new system, which could play a key role in the fight against climate change, uses isophorone diamine in a “liquid-solid phase separation” process that can remove carbon dioxide at the low concentrations contained in the atmosphere with 99-percent efficiency.
- The Tokyo Metropolitan University research team claims their new system has the potential to not only help achieve “net zero” but actually go beyond that goal.
- Remember, net zero refers to a state in which the amount of greenhouse gases going into the atmosphere is counter-balanced by the removal of the same amount out of the atmosphere.
- Going beyond net zero means taking out more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere than we humans are putting in!
Story 4: Waste wood can now be chemically recycled to produce a material stronger than steel
Source: NewScientist.com Story by Alex Wilkins
- Millions of tons of scrap wood go into landfills each year.
- Earlier this year we talked about MIT’s bone-hard material made from wood waste.
- Now scientists at the University of British Columbia have invented a process to chemically recycle wood scraps to produce an even stronger super building material.
- The process they created dissolves lignin, a glue-like component inside wood cell walls.
- Dissolving lignin exposes cellulose nano fibrils, which are tiny fibers also found in wood cell walls.
- The method involves a solvent called dimethylacetamide, used in conjunction with lithium chloride.
- When two pieces of wood treated in this way are brought together, the nanofibrils bind to create what the University of British Columbia researchers call a “healed” piece of wood.
- Although the new material no longer looks like natural wood, it is more resistant to breaking than stainless steel or titanium alloys!
- The researchers noted that “We get a mechanical strength that supersedes the strength of the original material. It works because we use the inherent properties of cellulose, which is a material that binds together very strongly by something called hydrogen bonding.”
- But wait, there’s more! Not only can waste wood treated this way be re-used to create new objects, but the treatment process can be performed repeatedly on the same pieces of treated wood, making it possible to recycle them indefinitely.