TIZER'S SCIENCE NEWS

[Stanley]

I heard that report. The thought of queuing being bad for your health intrigues me!

[Tizer]

Research to convert waste plastics polymers back to the original monomers or other useful chemicals has been going on for some time but this looks like useful technique...
`The battle to break plastic's bonds' LINK

[Stanley]

I wish them well with the research and hope they make a fortune! God knows we need to do something. "A million tonnes created every day"!

[Tizer]

`Great Orme copper mine 'traded widely in Bronze Age'' LINK
`North Wales was Britain's main source of copper for about 200 years during the Bronze Age, new research has found. Scientists analysed metal from the Great Orme, Conwy, and found it was made into tools and weapons, and traded across what is today's Europe...'

[Stanley]

Small addition Tiz, it refers to a 200 year period when "Experts now believe there was a bonanza from 1600-1400 BC, with artefacts found in Sweden, France and Germany."
Lots of examples as early as the Stone Age, there was a thriving trade with Europe in flint axes from organised 'factories' in the Lake District.
Research by Barry Cunliffe reveals evidence of trade from the Mediterranean as far as Iceland at the same time.
Archaeologists were surprised to find amphora that had contained olive oil and wine when they excavated settlements in Orkney dating to well before the arrival of the Romans.

[Stanley]

See THIS interesting report on the theory that deep sleep triggers pulses of spinal fluid that, in effect, wash toxins out of the brain and could be a factor in preventing or alleviating the onset of Altzheimer's Disease which it is thought is due to the build up of these toxins. This knowledge may have an influence on research into the treatment of the disease.

[Stanley]

THIS report about Voyager 1 & 2 caught my attention. Voyager 1 stopped transmitting in 1980 but Voyager 2 is still sending data back to us over unimaginable distances. I find it all fascinating!

[Tizer]

The tea bag makers are playing around with different materials but often don't know enough about them. I detect a distinct whiff of virtue signalling.
`Teabags: Is there plastic in yours?' LINK

[Stanley]

You've got me wondering again about going back to loose tea.....I use Co-op tea and can't find any information about them. (Correction, found THIS which says Co-op bags are OK.)

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on research done by the University of Kentucky which has found a gene that modifies taste, making green vegetables taste unbearably bitter. It can apply to other flavours as well and could account for the fact that some people have an aversion to certain foods, some of them essential to good nutrition.

[plaques]

That's me, Everything mentioned plus others. I get no pleasure from chocolate or bear and coffee. Now that I'm getting older my tastes are mellowing a bit and I can manage small amounts but generally only to be sociable. The advantage is there's no urge to over indulge in the things that doctors advise you to ease up on.

[Tizer]

I get no pleasure from chocolate or bear and coffee...

I'd give up the bear if I were you! I seem to be going the other way; I used to like bitter drinks (even Gammel Dansk!) but now find most of them unpalatable. Although I still like tonic water, so it must depend on the specific bitter component.

This is yet another article about the Glomar Explorer, CIA conspiracies and manganese nodules on the sea bed. It comes round every few years. At least now though they say more about the dangers to the marine environment of mining the nodules. It worries me that the `miners' will destroy pristine environments and kill off species of animal and plant that we've never yet had the chance to discover exist. Note in particular this:
`But today, Pardo’s vision is becoming reality as the UN’s International Seabed Authority has drawn up maps dividing the ocean into blocks. There are 29 exploration areas, licensed for mineral prospecting for 15 years. In total they stretch over an astonishing 500,000 square miles (1.3m sq km) of seabed in the Pacific, the Atlantic and the Indian Ocean. Ventures from 19 different countries have paid for the rights to investigate them. China has four of them. Russia and South Korea each have three. France and Germany have two. And so does the UK, via a company called UK Seabed Resources. The company’s owner, Lockheed Martin, has an interesting connection. It was one of the contractors secretly hired by the CIA to retrieve the Soviet submarine – and it has remained genuinely interested in manganese nodules ever since.'

I've seen highly critical reports about the UN International Seabed Authority, claiming that it has little power to control what's going on.

`The secret on the ocean floor' LINK

[Stanley]

There's a good film on Youtube describing the Glomar expedition.

[Tizer]

This morning there's more on the subject of deep sea mining...
`Electric car future may depend on deep sea mining' LINK

[Stanley]

Interesting. I scent a bit of PR here but also the seemingly inevitable fact that one advance towards a cleaner world triggers an expansion of more attacks on resources and subsequent damage in another area.
I heard an interesting discussion about oil yesterday...
THREE decades ago, the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) sent oil prices rocketing. By 1980, a barrel cost $30, ten times the price in 1970. Consumers suffered, whereas oil producers reaped an enormous windfall. Many assumed then that oil was a gift of God that would transform poor countries into flourishing economies within a generation. Yet even during those heady early days there were doubts. Juan Pablo Pérez Alfonso, a founder of OPEC, complained in 1975: “I call petroleum the devil's excrement. It brings trouble...Look at this locura—waste, corruption, consumption, our public services falling apart. And debt, debt we shall have for years.”
He wasn't far wrong.

[Stanley]

See THIS BBC report on a large trial of an alternative to chemotherapy, immunotherapy. As a recipient of this therapy I can testify that it is nowhere near as damaging as the examples of chemotherapy I have witnessed. It's a hopeful development and one the doctors have been seeking for a long time, they have long known and regretted the effects and problems with what are basically poisons to treat cancer but they had no alternative.

[Tizer]

This is a simple but clever idea and it's led by Exeter University scientists...
`One Way to Lure Fish Back to Damaged Reefs? Play the Sounds of Living Coral' LINK

[plaques]

A lot of research is going into temperature resistant corals. Here is an old one from the Guardian Corals Selective inter breeding with temperature resistant strains may be a quick short term answer.

[Stanley]

Could anyone have guessed 50 years ago that preserving corals would be a pressing matter? Is what we have to report, progress?

[Tizer]

`Brian Cox: Why I've been exploring our scientific past' LINK
`The UK's Royal Society has launched a project called People of Science to tell the stories of extraordinary scientists through interviews and access to the society's rich archive. Here, Professor Brian Cox explains some of the contributions to knowledge by researchers featured in the project....'.

[Stanley]

Wonderful. Good luck to the project, the more the better!

[Tizer]

`'World's first' fully-electric commercial flight takes off' LINK
`An all-electric powered seaplane has taken flight in Vancouver, Canada, in what the operators describe as a "world first" for the aviation industry. The short test flight by Harbour Air and magniX involved a six-passenger aircraft fitted with an electric motor. The companies said it was a first step to building the "world's first all-electric commercial fleet". The push to electric could help slash carbon emissions in the high-polluting aviation sector. "This historic flight signifies the start of the third era in aviation - the electric age," Harbour Air and magniX said in a statement. The flight involved a six-passenger DHC-2 de Havilland Beaver with a 750-horsepower (560 kW) magni500 propulsion system...'.

This was an earlier news story in June in a flight magazine...
`The Largest Seaplane Fleet in North America is Going All-Electric' LINK

[Stanley]

Wonderful. It's a good start and I wish them well. One thing is certain, something has to change!

[Tizer]

It's amazing what you can now learn from a `black-brown lump of birch pitch'....
`DNA from Stone Age woman obtained 6,000 years on' LINK

[Cathy]

Love that, very interesting. She looks tiny.