Story 1: World’s first ammonia-powered tractor with zero greenhouse gas emissions
Source: Forbes Story by Alex Knapp
Source: Amogy press release
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cgXHbf_XpGw
And here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4D8u4oULeCE&t=6s
- Booklyn, New York-based Amogy recently demonstrated a John Deere tractor retrofitted with a system comprised of a standard liquid-storage tank and highly efficient ammonia-cracking modules integrated into a hybrid fuel cell system.
- The “ammonia cracking” modules convert the ammonia into hydrogen plus nitrogen.
- The hydrogen produced from the ammonia is then used to power the tractor’s engine with zero harmful emmissions exhaust.
- Amogy’s experimental tractor can use “any” ammonia to produce hydrogen fuel.
- That includes today’s fossil-fuel based conventional ammonia [called grey ammonia] that is typically produced using hydrogen from natural gas.
- But here’s what’s really compelling: Amogy’s system can also use something called green ammonia, a non-fossil fuel-based, climate friendly alternative.
- Green ammonia is produced by using renewable solar, wind, or hydropower to generate electricity that then runs an electrolyzer that extracts hydrogen from water, while nitrogen is extracted from the air using an air separation unit.
- According to the Amogy team, green ammonia will become increasingly attractive as production ramps up, and it becomes cost-competitive sometime between 2025-2030.
- So, in the not-to-distant future, we could see heavy utility and transportation vehicles with systems converting green ammonia into hydrogen, thanks to innovators like Amogy, and global companies now working on producing green ammonia in Germany, Norway, the United States, the UK, and France.
Story 2: New high-tech handheld optical milk scanner to help dairy farmers
Source: MIT News Story by Zach Winn
Link: https://news.mit.edu/2022/labby-dairy-farmers-cows-0603
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IxsjFq3m8co&t=10
- To get the most accurate measurements of cow health and milk quality, dairy farmers typically have to ship milk samples to labs once a month or wait for a technician to come to the farm to collect milk samples from each cow.
- Now a startup called Labby has created a handheld device that can test a cow’s milk on site in less than 10 seconds!
- Labby’s handheld milk scanner and analyzer solution, called “Milkey” uses an optical sensing technology called mobile spectroscopy.
- The system analyzes a cow’s milk sample for milk fat, protein, and somatic cell count, and in seconds presents results on a dairy farmer’s smartphone, tablet, or PC.
- By the way, a “somatic cell” is any cell of a living organism other than the reproductive cells.
- Knowing the somatic cell count levels for each cow is particularly important as they can indicate the presence of mastitis [which is an inflammation of a cow’s udder tissue] — or another infection that farmers can treat before it spreads to the rest of the herd.
- Data gathered by Labby’s handheld Milkey system could also give veterinarians historical health data for each cow, and help dairy farmers identify best practices.
Story 3: NASA scientists keep discovering new, exotic worlds beyond our solar system
Source: Mashable.com Story by Mark Kaufman
Link: https://mashable.com/article/space-planets-exoplanets-discovery-2022
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qDg5uHk-4c&list=PLTiv_XWHnOZrNBx4W9OMDy7SPlPcKWUq_
- Recently NASA reported that the total count of exoplanets discovered so far just surpassed 5,000. Exoplanets are alien worlds beyond our solar system.
- These include, as NASA stated, “strange and wonderful planets” with a highly diverse mix, including super-Earths, gas giants like Jupiter, “ice giants” like Neptune, and more.
- Here’s NASA’s breakdown of the 5,000 plus exoplanets identified to date:
- 30% are gas giants the size of Saturn or Jupiter, or many times bigger
- 31% of the planets range in size between Earth and Neptune
- 35% are similar in size to Neptune and Uranus.
- and 4% are considered “terrestrial”, being small, rocky planets about the size of Earth, or smaller.
- And here’s what’s really exciting: In the coming year, the James Webb Space Telescope — the most powerful space telescope ever built — will peer into the atmospheres of some of these planets, giving scientists unprecedented insights into these still largely mysterious exoplanets.
- Discovering 5,000 [and counting] is a great achievement but consider this: planetary scientists say it’s likely there are more than a trillion exoplanets in our Milky Way galaxy alone!
Story 4: Small cancer drug trial sees tumors disappear in 100 percent of patients tested
Source: Washington Post Story by Kim Bellware
Link: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/06/08/cancer-drug-trial/
See video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GJZ61cEHXWQ
- The recently released results of a small drug trial revealed that after six months of an experimental treatment, cancer tumors vanished in all 14 patients diagnosed with early-stage rectal cancer.
- This amazing outcome was recently reported in the New England Journal of Medicine.
- The patients all shared the same genetic instability in their rectal cancer and had not yet undergone treatment.
- Each was given nine doses of intravenous dostarlimab, a relatively new drug designed to prevent a cancer cell from producing a specific protein that causes our immune system to withhold its cancer-fighting response.
- Dostarlimab is known as a “checkpoint inhibitor,” which means that instead of killing cancer cells outright, it allows a person’s immune system to kill the cancer cells on its own.
- After six months of intravenous dostarlimab treatment, scans that once showed knotty, discolored tumors in the 14 patients instead revealed smooth, pink tissue.
- No traces of cancer were detected in scans, biopsies, or physical exams.
- The results were so successful that none of the 14 patients who completed the trial needed follow-up chemo-radiation or surgery, nor did any have significant complications from the drug.
- And here’s what’s really encouraging: This groundbreaking development could lead to new treatments for other cancers as well!