science

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.blahaj.zone/post/35976836

Ninety-four percent of participants in a new study stood firm in their trans identity after five years, and "detransitioning" is rare.

A new global review argues that many “transition” projects touted by oil and gas companies, such as hydrogen hubs, biofuels, or carbon capture and storage, are doing more to lock in the fossil economy than to wind it down.

Drawing on 48 environmental conflict cases across continents, researchers from ICTA-UAB and the University of Sussex examined a range of fossil fuel “transition” initiatives.

The team found that these projects often fall short of climate goals, deepen environmental injustice, and entrench the political power of the very companies driving the crisis.

The authors argue this isn’t a sideshow – it’s the strategy. By coupling new “low carbon” facilities to existing refineries, pipelines, and gas-fired power stations, companies can justify running legacy assets for decades.

The proposed H2Med pipeline from Barcelona to Marseille is emblematic: marketed for hydrogen, it could also carry fossil gas, extending the life of old networks under a green banner.

In practice, many projects operate as add-ons: “blue” hydrogen dependent on fossil methane; biofuels that displace forests or food; offsets that permit ongoing emissions elsewhere.

Michaela Benthaus from Germany soared 65 miles above the Earth’s surface in 10-minute Blue Origin flight

A paraplegic engineer from Germany blasted off on a dream-come-true rocket ride with five other passengers on Saturday, leaving her wheelchair behind to float in space while beholding Earth from on high.

Severely injured in a mountain bike accident seven years ago, Michaela Benthaus became the first wheelchair user in space, launching from west Texas with Jeff Bezos’s company Blue Origin. She was accompanied by a retired SpaceX executive also born in Germany, Hans Koenigsmann, who helped organize and, along with Blue Origin, sponsored her trip. Their ticket prices were not divulged.

An ecstatic Benthaus said she laughed all the way up – the capsule soared more than 65 miles (105km) – and tried to turn upside down once in space.

"Until recently, the terahertz range was considered a blank area in the electromagnetic spectrum.... positioned between microwaves (used, for example, in Wi-Fi) and infrared .... it holds immense potential for applications that include inspecting packages without harmful X-rays, superspeed 6G communication, and spectroscopy and imaging of organic compounds..."

As cool to me as learning about the double slit experiment when I was 12

Whale breath collected by drones is giving clues to the health of wild humpbacks and other whales.

Scientists flew drones equipped with special kit through the exhaled droplets, or "blows", made when the giants come up to breathe through their blowholes.

They confirmed for the first time that a potentially deadly whale virus, known as cetacean morbillivirus, is circulating above the Arctic Circle.

The disease is highly contagious and spreads easily among dolphins, whales, and porpoises causing severe disease and mass deaths.

Importantly, participants in our study only turned off their Facebook or Instagram accounts. Much of the freed-up time was shifted to other smartphone apps, including other social media.

An experiment that restricted access to a wider set of apps could have had larger effects

https://web.stanford.edu/~gentzkow/research/emotional_state_op_ed.pdf

“These findings help explain why swearing is so commonplace,” said Stephens. “Swearing is literally a calorie-neutral, drug-free, low-cost, readily available tool at our disposal for when we need a boost in performance.” The team next plans to explore the influence of swearing on public speaking and romantic behaviors, since these are situations where most people are more hesitant and less confident in themselves, and hence more likely to hold back.

【Research Overview】

A research team of Prof. Eijiro Miyako at the Japan Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (JAIST) has discovered that the bacterium Ewingella americana, isolated from the intestines of Japanese tree frogs (Dryophytes japonicus), possesses remarkably potent anticancer activity. This groundbreaking research has been published in the international journal Gut Microbes. While the relationship between gut microbiota and cancer has attracted considerable attention in recent years, most approaches have focused on indirect methods such as microbiome modulation or fecal microbiota transplantation. In contrast, this study takes a completely different approach: isolating, culturing, and directly administering individual bacterial strains intravenously to attack tumors--- representing an innovative therapeutic strategy. The research team isolated a total of 45 bacterial strains from the intestines of Japanese tree frogs, Japanese fire belly newts (Cynops pyrrhogaster), and Japanese grass lizards (Takydromus tachydromoides). Through systematic screening, nine strains demonstrated antitumor effects, with E. americana exhibiting the most exceptional therapeutic efficacy.

cross-posted from: https://pawb.social/post/36581424

On Tuesday, the head of the Office of Management and Budget, Russell Vought, announced that a major climate research center will be “broken up.” The National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NCAR, is a significant contributor to research on the weather, climate, and other atmospheric phenomena. The move will be a crippling blow to climate research in the US and is being widely decried by scientists.

Vought initially gave a statement regarding NCAR to USA Today and later confirmed the outlet’s reporting on social media. Calling it “one of the largest sources of climate alarmism in the country,” Vought also decried what he termed “woke” activities at NCAR. These appear to be fairly typical efforts made to attract underrepresented groups to the sciences—efforts that were uncontroversial prior to the current administration.