4 November 2022
Story 1: New startup will make imitation leather out of mushrooms for General Motors
Source: CNN Story by Peter Valdes-Dapena
Link: https://tinyurl.com/3ed733zt
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vcrKZrNFVDA
Learn about MycoWorks here: https://www.mycoworks.com/
Learn more about MycoWorks and GM here: https://www.mycoworks.com/mycoworks-gm-ventures
- The worldwide shoe industry uses the most leather, and that’s no surprise, but it turns out that the auto industry is the second largest user, according to data from the International Council of Tanners.
- That’s why General Motors’ venture capital arm recently invested in a California startup called MycoWorks that’s making imitation leather from mushrooms!
- The goal is to provide an alternative to costly leather made from cattle, and artificial leather made from plastics.
- The material is made using the root-like structures of mushrooms, called mycelia.
- In the world of botany, mycelia is the vegetative body of fungi: a mass of branching filaments (hyphae) that spread throughout the nutrient substratum.
- What is hyphae? A delicate filament in fungi many of which may form either a loose network (mycelium) or a tightly packed interwoven mass of pseudoparenchyma, as in the fruiting body of mushrooms. Hyphae may be branched or unbranched and may or may not possess cross walls.
Source of image: gamesmartz.com
- MycoWorks has developed a remarkable process that grows these threadlike mushroom mycelia into flexible, leather-like sheets. The end product sheets are named Reishi.
- The mycelia are grown in trays of organic material, such as wood pulp, that the mycelia break down and consume as they grow.
- Using a company-secret process, the mushroom, root-like mycelia structures are made to interweave as they grow, forming sheets of leather-like material.
- The resulting material can be made in various thicknesses, feels like leather, is very durable, and can be colored as well using processes that do not involve harmful substances.
Story 2: Scientists create the world’s largest digital camera
Source: CNET Story by Andy Altman
Link: https://www.cnet.com/science/inside-the-worlds-largest-digital-camera/#ftag=CAD-09-10aai5b
- Scientists at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center Laboratory [usually just shortend to the acronym SLAC] in Menlo Park, California are now putting the final touches on the world’s largest digital camera.
- Next year, the giant digital camera will be used for a new space exploration telescope at the Vera C. Rubin Observatory in the mountains of Chile.
- Time out, who was Vera C. Rubin?
- Vera Florence Cooper Rubin (born July 23, 1928 – died December 25, 2016) was an American astronomer who pioneered work on galaxy rotation rates. She uncovered the discrepancy between the predicted and observed angular motion of galaxies by studying galactic rotation curves. Identifying the galaxy rotation problem, her work provided the first evidence for the existence of dark matter. These results were confirmed over subsequent decades. Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_Rubin
- The result of seven years of work, the camera, which is called the Legacy Survey of Space and Time camera, is the size of a small car and weighs about three tons, and at five feet across, the lens of the camera now holds a Guinness World Record.
- The 3,200 megapixel camera [remember a megapixel is one million pixels], is powerful enough to spot a golf ball 15 miles away!
- To put that into perspective, the camera in the latest iPhone 14 Pro and Pro Max, which takes beautiful photos, is a 48 megapixel camera!
- The pixel — a word invented from picture element — is the basic unit of programmable color on a computer display or in a computer image. Think of it as a logical — rather than a physical — unit. Pixels are the smallest unit in a digital display. Source: https://www.techtarget.com/whatis/definition/pixel
- For the next 10 years it will map the entire southern sky, and ultimately create an amazing 3D movie.
- Scientists predict the Legacy Survey of Space and Time camera will help them discover 17 billion new stars, as well as 6 million new objects in our own solar system.
Story 3: An Australian startup wants to help California’s water shortage by “reclaiming” water wasted making tomato paste and ketchup
Source: CBS News
Link: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/an-australian-startup-is-growing-water-for-drought-parched-california/
Photo shows Ingomar Packing Company’s tomato production facility in Los Banos, CA.
- Recently an Australian company called Botanical Water Technologies formed a partnership with Ingomar Packing Company – which turns tons of San Joaquin Valley-grown tomatoes into ketchup and tomato paste.
- The goal of this new collaboration is to salvage the vast amounts of water that to date has been discarded during the manufacturing of ketchup and tomato paste.
- The two companies plan to use Botanical Water Technologies’ advanced water purifying system to capture the tomato water evaporative condensate, and then run it through a purification process.
- The team says they will be making the world’s first plant-based reclaimed water.
- Botanical Water Technologies’ water purification system is housed in a self-contained unit, which fits inside a standard portable shipping container.
- One system alone can make up to 250-million gallons of drinkable water from harvested tomatoes in a 90-day period.
- The cleaned water can then flow through pipelines or be trucked to cities, reservoirs, farms, and industrial sites.
- And tomatoes are just the start, as this technology can also be applied to the processing of other fruits and vegetables.
Story 4: Delta, MIT Partner to Erase Planet-Warming Aircraft Contrails
Source: Bloomberg News Story by Omose Ighodaro
- The aviation sector’s burning of fossil fuels isn’t the only way it contributes to climate change: Contrails, the white linear clouds that trail behind jet airplanes, are known by researchers to trap heat from the Earth’s surface in the atmosphere.
- Contrails are formed when the hot, humid exhaust from a jet engine mixes with high altitude cold air, and their environmental impact is significant.
- Delta Air Lines and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics recently announced a partnership to discover new ways to eliminate persistent contrails — that is, the roughly 10% of contrails that stay in the sky for longer than usual and have a more pronounced heating effect.
- The group will use an advanced computer algorithm developed by MIT to predict the altitudes and locations where contrails are likely to form.
- The joint research group has already completed more than 40 testing flights and has plans for live experiment flights and simulations.
- Trials and simulations to date has already revealed that 70 to 90% of all contrails could be avoided through flight and altitude adjustments.
- And here’s what makes this a truly noble effort – The tools and technology developed during this study will be created under an open-source license, which means that when the technology is finalized it can be freely used, modified, and shared.