Show Notes 1 September 2023
Story 1: Scientists strengthen concrete by 30 percent with used coffee grounds
Source: Engadget.com Story by Andrew Tarantola
Additional source: https://www.rmit.edu.au/news/all-news/2023/aug/coffee-concrete
- Humans produce around 4.4 billion tons of concrete every year. That process consumes around 8 billion tons of sand.
- At the same time, we generate about 10 billion kilograms [22.05 billion pounds] of used coffee grounds each year — coffee grounds which a team of researchers from the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology [RMIT] University in Australia have discovered can be used as a sand substitute in the concrete production process that, in the proper proportions, yields a significantly stronger chemical bond than sand alone.
- But, coffee grounds can’t simply be mixed in raw with standard concrete as they won’t bind with the other materials due to their organic content.
- In order to make the grounds more compatible, the RMIT University team experimented with pyrolyzing the materials at 350 and 500 degrees celsius [that’s 662 degrees and 932 degrees Fahrenheit], then substituting them in for sand in 5, 10, 15 and 20 percentages (by volume) for standard concrete mixtures.
- Side note, definition of pyrolyzing – to make or become decomposed through heating to a high temperature.
- According to the team’s study, published in the September issue of the Journal of Cleaner Production, 350 celsius degrees is perfect temperature to produce a 29.3 percent enhancement in the compressive strength of the composite concrete blended with coffee biochar.
- Study co-author Dr Shannon Kilmartin-Lynch noted, “The concrete industry has the potential to contribute significantly to increasing the recycling of organic waste such as used coffee. Our research is in the early stages, but these exciting findings offer an innovative way to greatly reduce the amount of organic waste that goes to landfill, where its decomposition would generate large amounts of methane, a greenhouse gas 21 times more potent than carbon dioxide”.
- Fun Fact – you can use coffee grounds [I do for our lawn] as a fertilizer for your garden. See: https://fullcoffeeroast.com/use-coffee-grounds-as-fertilizer/
Story 2: NASA moves forward with plans for supersonic planes that could fly from New York to London in 1.5 hours
Source: Business Insider Story by Marianne Guenot
Link: https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-plan-supersonic-plane-fly-london-nyc-under-2-hours-2023-8
- NASA has determined that there is a passenger market for supersonic flights on about 50 existing commercial flight routes.
- With that application in mind, NASA has reached another milestone in its plans to develop supersonic planes that could take passengers from London to New York in under 1.5 hours.
- The agency announced on Tuesday, August 22 that Boeing and Northrop Grumman had been awarded contracts to develop roadmaps to make “Mach 2-plus travel a reality.”
- Side note – Mach 2 is approximately 1,534 miles-per-hour
- The companies, along with other industry partners, will develop concepts for planes that could reach up to 3,045 miles per hour — or up to Mach 4.
- By comparison, modern-day aircraft travel up to roughly 600 miles per hour.
- The Concorde, a discontinued supersonic jet [ending January 2003], had a top cruise speed of about 1,340 miles per hour, or just above Mach 2.
- Reality Check – To make supersonic flight acceptable [especially for over land travel], it needs to become quieter. To that end, NASA’s X-59, developed with Lockheed Martin, has been designed to break the sound barrier while reducing the loud sonic boom to a “sonic thump.”
- A sonic boom can produce around 110 decibels of noise, about the same amount as an explosion or a thunderclap, according to NASA.
- This is an important experiment because non-military supersonic flight over land has been banned by federal regulations for more than 50 years in the US.
- NASA said the X-59 was moved out of its construction site and is now being subjected to ground tests to ensure it is safe for flight.
- The agency aims to fly the X-59 over select communities in 2025 to see if they find the noise acceptable.
- NOTE: The Business Insider article I’ve just quoted was published on August 25. On August 28 it was announced that Flight-control issue prompts NASA and Lockheed to move X-59 back inside for troubleshooting. See: https://www.flightglobal.com/airframers/flight-control-issue-prompts-nasa-and-lockheed-to-move-x-59-back-inside-for-troubleshooting/154719.article
Story 3: New paint gives extra insulation, saving on energy, costs, and carbon emissions
Source: Newsweek Story by Robyn White
Link: https://www.newsweek.com/scientists-invent-paint-energy-bills-1820162
Stanford University announcement: https://news.stanford.edu/press-releases/2023/08/14/paint-keeps-heatr-outside-summer/
- My note: Back in July we talked about how a team of researchers from Purdue University has developed the whitest paint on Earth, which reflects 98 percent of sunlight back out into space – with the goal of helping to keep buildings cool and reduce AC energy consumption.
- Now the news is about how scientists have invented a paint that could potentially help replace air conditioning and heating while cutting energy bills in the process.
- The paint, invented by scientists at Stanford University, works by regulating a building’s heat—keeping it cooler in the summer and warmer in the winter.
- The use of these paints could help act as an alternative for air conditioning and heating, which hugely contribute to global greenhouse gas emissions.
- Based on experiments to date, the use of the new Stanford University paints, which come in a variety of colors, reduced total energy used for cooling by about 21 percent.
- To study the performance of their invention, the Stanford scientists tested the paint in an artificially warm environment that mimicked apartment buildings across the U.S.
- When the paint was used on walls and roofs of the simulated apartments, energy use from heating and air conditioning declined by 7.4 percent over a year.
- Paints designed to help regulate a building’s temperature already exist but to date have only come in silver or gray colors, making them less aesthetically pleasing and therefore less attractive to use.
- Stanford’s new paints, however, offer different colors. To do this, the paints consist of two levels. One layer consists of infrared reflectives, using aluminum flakes, and the other layer is ultrathin, infrared, and transparent, which allowed scientists to use nanoparticles in a wide range of colors.
- If a user wants to keep heat out, the paint should be used on exterior walls and on roofs because infrared light from the sun will pass through the colored layer and bounce off the lower layer. That prevents the building from absorbing the heat.
- To conserve heat, the paint can be used on the interior walls. This then acts in reverse, where the lower layer reflects infrared waves.
- The paint will reflect about 80 percent of the high mid-infrared light, Stanford University reported.
- Following the tests, scientists found that the new paints were 10 times more effective than others in reflecting infrared light.
- These paints can also be used on other surfaces, such as trucks and trains, for the same purpose.
- Following the breakthrough invention, the Stanford University team will continue researching how to refine the paint application.
Story 4: A.I. Helps Paralyzed Woman Speak for First Time in 18 Years
Source: Newsweek Story by Aristos Georgiou
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTZ2N-HJbwA
- Artificial intelligence is helping a severely paralyzed woman to speak again for the first time in 18 years.
- Eighteen years ago, when Ann was 30 years old, she suffered a brainstem stroke that left her severely paralyzed. She lost control of all the muscles in her body and was unable to even breathe on her own initially. Doctors still do not know the cause of the stroke, which came on suddenly.
- Ann is now participating in research at the University of California San Francisco where a novel new technology is being developed.
- The system, described in a study published in the journal Nature, involves a brain implant that connects to computers and enables Ann to communicate via a human-like digital avatar on a screen.
- The brain-computer interface decodes Ann’s brain signals and turns them into synthesized speech that the digital avatar speaks out loud while simultaneously recreating natural facial movements.
- Building on previous research, the UCLA team first implanted a set of more than 250 electrodes onto the surface of her brain, covering a region that is critical for speech. These electrodes intercept brain signals that Ann produces when she is trying to speak.
- Then they decoded her brain signals into actual speech, as well as recreating the associated facial movements with an avatar.
- The implant is connected to computers via a cable plugged into a specially designed port that protrudes from her skull.
- Over a period of several weeks, Ann worked with the researchers to train an artificial intelligence system to recognize her unique speech brain signals.
- To do this, Ann repeated different phrases from a set of more than 1,000 words so that the AI algorithm could recognize the patterns of brain activity associated with the basic sub-units of speech, known as phonemes.
- The system the UC team have developed, at present, can decode brain signals into text at a rate of nearly 80 words per minute. This is significantly faster than her current text-based communication system, which can only produce around 14 words per minute.
- The UC San Francisco scientists hope their research could one day lead to an FDA-approved system that would enable patients like Ann—who are cognizant but physically unable to speak—to communicate more naturally in near real-time.
Honorable Mentions:
Revolutionary flying car that will cost $789,000 just started test flights
Source: Business Insider Story by Tim Levin
Link: https://www.businessinsider.com/flying-car-faa-test-flights-aska-a5-photos-2023-8
- Northern California-based startup Aska is trying to finally deliver what humans have been dreaming about for decades: A car that can drive on the road and then, with the flip of a switch, take off into the sky, “Back to the Future” style.
UN report: Wastewater is a hidden solution to the climate crisis
Source: Earth post on MSN Story by Chrissy Sexton
- Wastewater has been identified as a potential climate and nature solution, despite its growing threat to health and the environment, according to a recent report from the UN Environment Program (UNEP) and GRID-Arendal.