Hello again science fans,
سلام بازهم علاقمندان علم
(Over 50,000 Bay Area residents speak Persian at home. Only about 60% of Bay Area residents speak English at home.)
ARCHAEOLOGY
The 6 tonne “Altar Stone” of Stonehenge may have been quarried and transported about 750 km from northern Scotland about 48 centuries ago. That’s a long way during an era before the invention of the wheel. Transport by sea to southern England would have been far easier than an overland route, and is consistent with archaeological evidence of sea trade during that era. [Since you are a SciSchmooze reader, i’m guessing you strongly doubt UFOs did the heavy lifting.] A team of mineralogists from Western Australia and England used textural analysis, U-Pb (uranium-lead) dating, and Lu-Hf (lutetium-hafnium) dating of the minerals apatite, zircon, and rutile (titanium oxide) to match the Altar Stone to rock outcroppings in Scotland.
More fossils have been found of the ‘Hobbits’ (Homo floresiensis) that lived on Flores Island of Indonesia a hundred centuries ago. These meter-high, bipedal, tool users may have diverged a thousand centuries ago from a population of Homo erectus erectus (Java Man) that lived 750 km away. (Hmmm. This is the second time i’ve typed “750 km”.)
ENVIRONMENT
Last month, the White House announced that US government agencies would phase out using single-use plastics by 2035 but would not support a United Nations treaty to curb the production of plastics. In a quick about-face, the US Government announced this week that it will indeed work to draft and support such a treaty. The president of the American Chemical Council responded, “With today’s shift in position to support plastic production caps and regulate chemicals via the UN Plastics Agreement, the White House has signaled it is willing to betray U.S. manufacturing and the hundreds of thousands of jobs it supports.” Nations will be sending representatives to Busan, South Korea in November to work on drafting the treaty.
The practice of allowing some portion of farmland to go fallow – unplanted – for a season or two increases the health of the soil, but it also means sacrificing some immediate income. Along come solar panels to the rescue. The strategy is to cover a portion of farmland with easels of solar panels which earn income by selling electricity to the regional power company. After a year or so, move the panels to a different plot of land, and put the refreshed plot back into growing crops. Another benefit is an increase in the populations of native insects to pollinate the crops.
This year, farmers in 6 states planted soybean seeds covered with a fungus supplied by an Australian company. Weird, huh. This particular species of fungus helps to improve the soil and also sequesters extra carbon from the atmosphere. If all goes as expected, the practice could become worldwide with a variety of crops.
Grocery stores and other retailers in the U.S. toss out over 2 million tonnes of food every year. There’s an app for that. FlashFood and Too-Good-to-Go will connect you with stores that set aside food nearing the toss-by date.
CLIMATE
Improving the efficiency of the engines used in those big 18-wheeler tractor-trailer rigs is a good way to reduce the amount of CO2 being pumped into the atmosphere. ¿Right? Wrong! Careful modeling revealed that improving their fuel mileage would make hauling by truck more profitable and result in fewer goods being transported by rail – a far more climate-friendly alternative. Powering those trucks with electric motors, however, would greatly reduce CO2 emissions.
About 8% of greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. come from the health care sector.
Major contributors:
- single-use plastics
- single-use surgical instruments and medical kits
- desflurane (an anesthetic that is a powerful greenhouse gas)
- poor practices in the production and transportation of pharmaceuticals
- unnecessary medical tests
- asthma inhalers containing hydrofluoroalkane (equivalent to half a million cars)
A huge benefit would come from virtual/Zoom visits when appropriate. The US Department of Health and Human Services has called for a 50% reduction in carbon emissions of the health care sector by the end of this decade.
¿Want climate change optimism? Watch this 11-minute video featuring the deputy editor of Our World in Data and an Oxford University scientist, Hannah Ritchie, PhD. (Hint: I turned on subtitles to cope with the Scottish accent.)
RIGHT NOW!
This issue would not be complete without including two newsworthy items.
A spectacular full moon Monday night.
A worrisome outbreak of a more contagious mpox virus in Africa. The mpox virus outbreak two years ago was mostly spread by sexual contact, but this one spreads far more easily and is deadlier. Unlike COVID, however, mpox is not spread by airborne transmission.
FUN (?) NERDY VIDEOS
Problems with Microplastics – The Right Chemistry – Joe Schwarcz – 4 mins
Quantum Origin of Galaxies – Veritaseum – Derek Muller – 5 mins
Dark Matter Matters – Sabine Hossenfelder – 5.5 mins
Battery Advances – Just Have a Think – Dave Borlace – 11 mins
Greenland’s Glacial Rivers – NASA – 12 mins
Pure Information Emits Heat – Up and Atom – Jade Tan-Holmes – 17 mins
Jigsaw Puzzle Robot – Mark Rober – 20 mins
We’re All Plastic People People Now – PBS – 56 mins
Name-calling and casting aspersions is not what i expect of myself nor of those who represent me.
Have a great week,
Dave Almandsmith, Bay Area Skeptics
“Dubito, ergo sum, vel, quod idem est, cogito, ergo sum.”
(I doubt, therefore I exist – or what is the same – I think, therefore I exist.)
René Descartes (1596 – 1650) French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician
48 centuries ago by boat? Seems like sea transport would have been pretty difficult to move those large slabs that weighed more than a ton each. I think it was aliens…from Wales.