Australian (ASX) Stock Market Forum

The Science Thread

Jump to new
A new high energy Neutrino particle has been detected by a telescope at the bottom of the sea off the french coast , reports Nature magazine .
ABC " Just In News " report 14 hrs ago " Record -breaking high energy Neutrino spotted by telescope deep in Mediterranean Sea "
Where did it come from ? Nobody knows , so far .
 

Chinese scientists have successfully developed and tested the world’s first Oblique Detonation Engine (ODE), a hypersonic propulsion system that could allow aircraft to reach speeds of up to 20,000 km/h.

This advancement, published in China's Journal of Experiments in Fluid Mechanics, has the potential to revolutionize air travel and space exploration.
 
Welcome to The Brave New World Order of Scientific Research.

I suppose this means that any organization that receives any funds/investment from the current US Government will need to fulfill similar requirements to ensure they faithfully follow the edicts of the Trump administration.

Australian researchers asked to confirm they align with Trump administration interests if they receive US funding

Researchers told to respond within 48 hours to more than 30 questions, including on DEI, gender and climate
www.theguardian.com
 
basilio said:
Of course the above criteria are also directed to US research. I imagine similar directives have gone to every other country which shares research programs with the US. Europe, Asia, Canada, Timbuktu...

Government Agencies, Universities, Nonprofits Pause Critical Work Over Trump Administration Executive Orders

America's status as a global science leader is in doubt as the administration freezes funding and targets research that references climate or diversity
www.scientificamerican.com
Click to expand...

The USA has the right to stop funding research in different areas based on ideology or fear of it being stolen by the Chinese (who are quite effective in Australia doing this).

I think most of it is a box ticking exercise. Just go along with it to keep the research going. If you did have a transgender scientist which is exceedingly rare, then work it out for that case.
 
Knobby22 said:
The USA has the right to stop funding research in different areas based on ideology or fear of it being stolen by the Chinese (who are quite effective in Australia doing this).

I think most of it is a box ticking exercise. Just go along with it to keep the research going. If you did have a transgender scientist which is exceedingly rare, then work it out for that case.
Click to expand...
Interesting take. But I don't buy it. Fact is the people sending the demand statements will just word check any applications and refuse to support anything with the wrong word in it. They don't even bother reading the context.

The transgender scientist ? Do you believe they are asking about the gender of the scientists on the research team and demanding they only be provable Male and Female ? I thought they were just nixing any research that might investigate any mention of these issues .
 
basilio said:
Interesting take. But I don't buy it. Fact is the people sending the demand statements will just word check any applications and refuse to support anything with the wrong word in it. They don't even bother reading the context.

The transgender scientist ? Do you believe they are asking about the gender of the scientists on the research team and demanding they only be provable Male and Female ? I thought they were just nixing any research that might investigate any mention of these issues .
Click to expand...
Didn't say they were being smart.
Just what we should do.
 

Scientists have achieved a major milestone in energy storage after developing a nuclear battery that can convert atomic waste into electricity.

A team in the US has already tested the next-generation battery with a prototype device capable of harvesting enough nuclear radiation to power microchips.

Nuclear batteries have been hailed for their potential to generate electricity for decades without the need for charging or maintenance.

The breakthrough battery, built by researchers at Ohio State University, works by taking ambient gamma radiation from spent nuclear fuel and converting it to light via scintillator crystals. This light is then converted into electricity through solar cells.

“We’re harvesting something considered as waste and by nature, trying to turn it into treasure,” said Raymond Cao, a professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State University, who led the research.

The battery does not incorporate radioactive materials, meaning it is safe to touch, however it is not being developed for public use. Instead, the researchers said they envisioned the batteries being used on nuclear systems for space and deep sea exploration.
 
sptrawler said:

Scientists have achieved a major milestone in energy storage after developing a nuclear battery that can convert atomic waste into electricity.

A team in the US has already tested the next-generation battery with a prototype device capable of harvesting enough nuclear radiation to power microchips.

Nuclear batteries have been hailed for their potential to generate electricity for decades without the need for charging or maintenance.

The breakthrough battery, built by researchers at Ohio State University, works by taking ambient gamma radiation from spent nuclear fuel and converting it to light via scintillator crystals. This light is then converted into electricity through solar cells.

“We’re harvesting something considered as waste and by nature, trying to turn it into treasure,” said Raymond Cao, a professor in mechanical and aerospace engineering at Ohio State University, who led the research.

The battery does not incorporate radioactive materials, meaning it is safe to touch, however it is not being developed for public use. Instead, the researchers said they envisioned the batteries being used on nuclear systems for space and deep sea exploration.
Click to expand...
Now that would be something if it can be made to work at scale.
Perhaps they could use one to charge the elcetric fence around the nuclear waste dumps.
Mick
 
The James Webb Space Telescope has found the earliest galaxy ( so far ) that existed just 330 million years after the big bang , according to Nature magazine .

See ABC NEWS JUST IN ( 7hours ago )
 
This discovery has turned science on its head. It turns out that a huge source of natural oxygen production (which we normally associate with photosynthesis and plants ) --- is

Da Da. in the oceans darkest depths.

Oxygen discovery defies knowledge of the deep ocean​

23 July 2024


Victoria Gill
Science correspondent, BBC News•@vic_gill
Getty Images Sunlight shining into an ocean cave
Getty Images
Until this discovery, it was believed that oxygen could not be produced without sunlight

Scientists have discovered “dark oxygen” being produced in the deep ocean, apparently by lumps of metal on the seafloor.
About half the oxygen we breathe comes from the ocean. But, before this discovery, it was understood that it was made by marine plants photosynthesising - something that requires sunlight.

Here, at depths of 5km, where no sunlight can penetrate, the oxygen appears to be produced by naturally occurring metallic “nodules” which split seawater - H2O - into hydrogen and oxygen.
Several mining companies have plans to collect these nodules, which marine scientists fear could disrupt the newly discovered process - and damage any marine life that depends on the oxygen they make.

High-seas drama over an ocean treasure trove​


Norway approves controversial deep-sea mining​


Historic ocean treaty agreed after decade of talks​


NOC/NHM/NERC SMARTEX Metallic nodules on the Pacific seafloor at 4,000m depth
NOC/NHM/NERC SMARTEX
The potato-sized metal nodules look like rocks, littering parts of the deep seabed

“I first saw this in 2013 - an enormous amount of oxygen being produced at the seafloor in complete darkness,” explains lead researcher Prof Andrew Sweetman from the Scottish Association for Marine Science. “I just ignored it, because I’d been taught - you only get oxygen through photosynthesis.

“Eventually, I realised that for years I’d been ignoring this potentially huge discovery,” he told BBC News.
He and his colleagues carried out their research in an area of the deep sea between Hawaii and Mexico - part of a vast swathe of seafloor that is covered with these metal nodules. The nodules form when dissolved metals in seawater collect on fragments of shell - or other debris. It's a process that takes millions of years.

Dark oxygen made by deep sea 'batteries'

The discovery that lumps of metal on the seafloor produce oxygen raises questions over plans to mine the deep ocean.
www.bbc.com
 

Hulking machine built to fight climate change is sitting silent

In a warehouse near the border of Victoria and NSW is a decommissioned machine that sums up how hard it is to find solutions to the climate crisis.
www.theage.com.au
In a warehouse somewhere near the border of Victoria and NSW sits a hulking machine built to fight the climate crisis.

When it ran, it ran perfectly, taking carbon that would have entered the atmosphere and sequestering it in the ground – essentially forever.

Today, it is silent. Decommissioned.
The machines heat material in very low-oxygen environments. Without oxygen, pyrolysis – thermochemical decomposition – is attained instead of combustion. The water and volatile compounds within the wood boil away, chemical bonds break down, and what is left is a relatively unreactive lattice of mostly carbon atoms known as biochar. It looks like dirt or charcoal.

Biochar is an intriguing substance for two reasons. The carbon atoms are baked together into a highly stable structure – think of it as locking the carbon together. It can be buried in the soil and the carbon should stay there, instead of being released into the atmosphere, for thousands of years.
The second attribute is more unexpected and more exciting. Industrial agriculture strips nutrients from the soil, which farmers replace with fertiliser (fertiliser production is responsible for 1 to 2 per cent of global emissions). Biochar’s carbon lattice can hold nutrients in the soil, where they can be slowly released to support plant growth.

While plants respond differently to biochar, studies of its application show it led to an average increase of 20 per cent in crop yield. Plus, biochar generation can earn high-quality carbon credits, which traded at $US165 ($257) per metric tonne in 2024.

So why is Campbell’s biochar machine sitting silent?
Balwant Singh, a professor of soil science at the University of Sydney, might be best placed to explain that.
“I have researched almost every aspect of biochar. We have published more than 20 papers on this. I published a book,” he says. “It has very little potential if you consider all the factors and processes.”
The problem, as with many purported climate solutions, is not the final product – biochar seems to work. It is the extraordinary difficulty of building a low-cost, zero-carbon supply chain in a carbon-addicted world.

Loading
Biochar production is enormously energy-intensive. And you need vehicles to gather the waste, distribute the biochar and bury it in the soil. “It all costs energy – and energy is CO2,” says Singh.
To get the price down, you need scale. But different feedstocks – wood, straw, manure, waste food – produce different biochars that are suitable for different soils and crops. There are concerns about contamination.
The federal government has funded two national biochar initiatives. “I was part of both. We finished them seven or eight years ago. If it was a very viable technology, it would have been taken up,” says Singh.
Former climate commissioner Tim Flannery was one of biochar’s strongest early advocates. But as more has become known about the difficulty of scaling the technology up – particularly achieving economies of scale – his enthusiasm has cooled.

“If you’re looking at scalable solutions, it is not ready yet and may not be in the future. It will always have a niche role. But it’s not going to be a scalable solution,” Flannery says.
This is also the problem Campbell’s machine faced: after energy, labor and fuel costs are factored in, his machine is simply too expensive to run. It has become a stranded solution. “The figures don’t add up.”
 
sptrawler said:

Hulking machine built to fight climate change is sitting silent

In a warehouse near the border of Victoria and NSW is a decommissioned machine that sums up how hard it is to find solutions to the climate crisis.
www.theage.com.au
In a warehouse somewhere near the border of Victoria and NSW sits a hulking machine built to fight the climate crisis.

When it ran, it ran perfectly, taking carbon that would have entered the atmosphere and sequestering it in the ground – essentially forever.

Today, it is silent. Decommissioned.
The machines heat material in very low-oxygen environments. Without oxygen, pyrolysis – thermochemical decomposition – is attained instead of combustion. The water and volatile compounds within the wood boil away, chemical bonds break down, and what is left is a relatively unreactive lattice of mostly carbon atoms known as biochar. It looks like dirt or charcoal.

Biochar is an intriguing substance for two reasons. The carbon atoms are baked together into a highly stable structure – think of it as locking the carbon together. It can be buried in the soil and the carbon should stay there, instead of being released into the atmosphere, for thousands of years.
The second attribute is more unexpected and more exciting. Industrial agriculture strips nutrients from the soil, which farmers replace with fertiliser (fertiliser production is responsible for 1 to 2 per cent of global emissions). Biochar’s carbon lattice can hold nutrients in the soil, where they can be slowly released to support plant growth.

While plants respond differently to biochar, studies of its application show it led to an average increase of 20 per cent in crop yield. Plus, biochar generation can earn high-quality carbon credits, which traded at $US165 ($257) per metric tonne in 2024.

So why is Campbell’s biochar machine sitting silent?
Balwant Singh, a professor of soil science at the University of Sydney, might be best placed to explain that.
“I have researched almost every aspect of biochar. We have published more than 20 papers on this. I published a book,” he says. “It has very little potential if you consider all the factors and processes.”
The problem, as with many purported climate solutions, is not the final product – biochar seems to work. It is the extraordinary difficulty of building a low-cost, zero-carbon supply chain in a carbon-addicted world.

Loading
Biochar production is enormously energy-intensive. And you need vehicles to gather the waste, distribute the biochar and bury it in the soil. “It all costs energy – and energy is CO2,” says Singh.
To get the price down, you need scale. But different feedstocks – wood, straw, manure, waste food – produce different biochars that are suitable for different soils and crops. There are concerns about contamination.
The federal government has funded two national biochar initiatives. “I was part of both. We finished them seven or eight years ago. If it was a very viable technology, it would have been taken up,” says Singh.
Former climate commissioner Tim Flannery was one of biochar’s strongest early advocates. But as more has become known about the difficulty of scaling the technology up – particularly achieving economies of scale – his enthusiasm has cooled.

“If you’re looking at scalable solutions, it is not ready yet and may not be in the future. It will always have a niche role. But it’s not going to be a scalable solution,” Flannery says.
This is also the problem Campbell’s machine faced: after energy, labor and fuel costs are factored in, his machine is simply too expensive to run. It has become a stranded solution. “The figures don’t add up.”
Click to expand...
Good find. I was always interested in Bio char. It seemed like an elegant way to firstly capture and store carbon long term and then significantly improve the soil structure adding long term productivity to the farm. Great outcomes.

Now it seems the "figures don't add up". I'm disappointed to hear that. I suspect the "figures" relate to more commercial elements of profitability and possibly don't acknowledge the longer term improvements in soil structure and productivity. Perhaps its the sort of project that works on individual farms with committed owners who see the long term future of their land as critical.

I remember when biochar was identified as very similar to the deep black soils created by South American Indian tribes in the amazon.
 


Write your reply...

Similar threads

SirRumpole
Fun with ChatGPT
2
Replies
23
Views
2K
frugal.rock
frugal.rock
J
The 'plan'
Replies
5
Views
2K
ducati916
ducati916
R
First, Kill Your Ideas
Replies
2
Views
2K
finicky
finicky
R
Best Books I Read Last Year
Replies
18
Views
4K
MDWake
MDWake
R
21 Lessons in Investing
Replies
6
Views
3K
divs4ever
divs4ever
Top