So you think wind turbines are ugly?

From ZME Science

Oil field in California. Image credits: Babette Plana.

In the face of a global challenge like climate change and a sheer energy crisis, disliking one solution because it’s not aesthetically appealing seems horribly shallow. Yet this is still one of the important opponents to wind energy — and yet, oil fields look like that.

Or like this.

Oil field in Azerbaijan. Image via Wiki Commons.

The concept of “Not In My Back Yard” (NIMBY) has played a significant role in the resistance to wind turbine installations. NIMBYism refers to the opposition by residents to new developments close to their homes, often due to perceived negative impacts.

In the case of wind turbines, some people argue that these structures mar the natural beauty of the landscape and disrupt their view, which they believe could reduce property values and degrade the aesthetic quality of their surroundings. This opposition can be particularly strong in scenic rural areas or coastal regions where the natural environment is highly valued for its beauty and tranquility.

The NIMBY opposition overlooks the broader environmental and societal benefits that wind turbines provide. While the immediate visual impact may be a concern for some, the long-term gains in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, decreasing reliance on fossil fuels, and contributing to energy security far outweigh the aesthetic objections.

But even when it comes to aesthetic objections, oil fields are not the most pleasant of alternatives.

Oil fields near Stanton, Texas. Image via Wiki Commons.

Image credits: Karsten Würth.

[Read more here]

A natural sugar reverses balding

 From ZME Science

In good news for men anxious about their thinning hair, scientists have identified a naturally occurring sugar that could be a game-changer for treating male pattern baldness.

While working on an altogether different project about how wounds heal, researchers at the University of Sheffield and COMSATS University Pakistan observed that hair around treated wound patches grew faster than untreated areas. Upon closer inspection, they found that the sugar 2-deoxy-D-ribose (2dDR), which is naturally produced by the human body, was responsible for the hair regrowth observed in the mice.

Currently, one of the only FDA-approved treatments for hair loss is minoxidil, also known by the brand name Rogaine. While effective to an extent (but much less so with older patients), this drug can have nasty effects, including hair shedding and scalp irritation. However, using a natural sugar like 2dDR may turn out to reverse hair loss without the side effects.

“Male pattern baldness is such a common condition, affecting men all over the world, but at the moment there are only two FDA licensed drugs to treat it. Our research suggests that the answer to treating hair loss might be as simple as using a naturally occurring deoxy ribose sugar to boost the blood supply to the hair follicles to encourage hair growth,” said Professor Sheila MacNeil, who is a professor of tissue engineering at the University of Sheffield.

“The research we have done is very much early stage, but the results are promising and warrant further investigation. This could offer another approach to treating this condition which can affect men’s self-image and confidence.”

In experiments, the researchers used mice with testosterone-induced hair loss. The mice were divided into groups. These were a control group, a minoxidil-treated group, a 2dDR-treated group, and a combination of 2dDR and minoxidil.

After 20 days, mice being treated with 2dDR showed similar hair regrowth to those treated with minoxidil. The 2dDR group also exhibited an increase in blood vessels, hair follicle length, and density. The treatment also enhanced the amount of hair in the anagen (growth) stage, which is important maintaining hair density.

The researchers believe that 2dDR upregulates vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), known to promote hair growth. They see it as a natural alternative to minoxidil for male pattern hair loss. But it also could be promising for treating chemotherapy-induced hair loss. However, further studies are needed to understand the exact mechanisms of 2dDR on hair regeneration. And, of course, we must assess whether it works on actual people in clinical trials.

 

Source: BBC, Getty Images
A piece on another breakthrough discovery which doesn't seem to have gone anywhere!

Neanderthals turned forest to grassland 125K years ago

Credit: Pixabay.

From ZME Science

Many scientists believe we’ve now crossed a new geological epoch known as the Anthropocene, in recognition of the fact that, despite their short time on Earth, humans have fundamentally altered the physical, chemical, and biological makeup of the planet. Agriculture, urbanization, deforestation, and pollution have all caused extraordinary changes on Earth. But, perhaps, ironically it may have all started with a different, extinct species of humans.

The earliest evidence of ecosystem change at the hands of hunter-gathers has been pinpointed at a lignite quarry near Halle in Germany, where researchers found Neanderthal activities from 125,000 years ago transformed closed forests into open grasslands. The deforestation seems to have been mostly done through fire.

“Archeologists have long been asking questions about the character and temporal depth of human intervention in our planet’s ecosystems. We are increasingly seeing very early, generally weak signs of this,” says Wil Roebroeks, an archeology professor at Leiden University in the Netherlands.

Roebroeks and colleagues have analyzed evidence collected over the decades at the Neumark-Nord quarry, including hundreds of slaughtered animals, numerous stone tools, and charcoal remains. Some 130,000 years ago, the region experienced a prosperous warm spell that promoted the growth of thick deciduous forests stretching from the Netherlands to Poland, which were inhabited by deer and cattle, but also elephants, lions, and hyenas.

These forest lands attracted communities of Neanderthal hunter-gatherers, who rapidly moved in, especially into areas with lakes. They effectively competed with other carnivores and occupied their own ecological niche until the region was occupied by advancing ice 115,000 years ago.

Compared to forested regions where Neanderthals didn’t live, the scientists found that the Neanderthal-inhabited regions experienced a significant decrease in tree cover. Instead of dense forests, the Neanderthal habitat was much lighter and open. There are also signs that these ancient people settled at least semi-permanently in the region, which is unusual in itself since Neanderthals are thought of as highly mobile groups. Perhaps the open landscape, which attracted plenty of game and offered reasonable shelter, was attractive enough to keep some Neanderthal groups more or less settled in one place.

However, there’s a chicken or egg problem. While it’s tempting to look at the charcoal data and imagine Neanderthal activity burned the local vegetation, they could have also moved into more advantageous open areas after wildfires did all the hard work for them.

Whether or not the Neanderthals initiated the deforestation, one thing is at least clearer: they kept these areas open, and they did so for at least 2,000 years. At similar neighboring lakes where there was no Neanderthal activity, such as hunting, collecting wood, making tools, and building shelters, the dense forest vegetation remained largely intact.

There’s ancient evidence that modern humans altered the landscape much in the same way, but these kinds of practices were seen only in the past 50,000 years. In contrast, the new findings point to much earlier artificial ecosystem changes at the hand of Neanderthals.

The ability of humans to alter nature is obvious today when our cities stretch over hundreds of square miles and carbon emissions from our activities have grown to such copious amounts that we’ve come to change the climate. The origin of this long process of changing the planet to suit our needs is typically considered the advent of agriculture, which appeared about 10,000 years ago. But recent research, such as the present study, increasingly suggests environmental alteration by hominins started much earlier, albeit at a smaller scale. Neumark-Nord is, perhaps, the earliest example of such interventions.

“It also adds something to the behavioral spectrum of early hunter-gatherers. They weren’t simply ‘primal hippies’ who roamed the landscape picking fruit here and hunting animals there. They helped shape their landscape,” says Roebroeks.

The findings appeared in the journal Science Advances.

Peanuts, herbs and spices--good for your gut

From ZME Science

Imagine a busy city on a weekday morning, with sidewalks packed with people rushing to get to work. Now, imagine this at a microscopic level and you’ll understand what the microbiome looks like inside our bodies. It has trillions of microorganisms of thousands of different species, including not just bacteria but also fungi, parasites, and viruses.

These “bugs” coexist peacefully in a healthy body, in fact recent research is showing that they influence a great deal of bodily processes. They’re also largely influenced by what we eat. Processed and fried food can damage the gut equilibrium, while vegetables and fruits help maintain it. Now, researchers found that adding a daily teaspoon of herbs and spices and an ounce of peanuts to the diet can also have a positive impact on your gut.

“Research has shown that people who have a lot of different microbes have better health, and a better diet, than those who don’t have much bacterial diversity,” Penny Kris-Etherton, a professor of Nutritional Sciences at Penn University, and one of the researchers behind the two new studies on microbiome health, said in a statement.

In their first study, Kris-Etherton and her colleagues compared the effects of snacking 28 grams (one ounce) of peanuts per day versus a higher carbohydrate snack (like cheese bits or pretzels for instance). At the end of six weeks, those who ate peanuts had an increased abundance of Ruminococcaceae — a bacterium linked to healthier liver metabolism.

A total of 50 participants completed the study, with the researchers assessing fecal bacterial diversity. Nuts (including tree nuts, peanuts, and nut butter) are usually recommended as part of healthy dietary patterns. Peanuts are the most consumed nut in the US. But this was the first study to look at their effect on microbiota composition.

In the herbs and spices study, the researchers analyzed the impact of adding blends of herbs and spices (such as ginger, cinnamon, cumin, turmeric, rosemary, oregano, basil, and thyme) to the diets of participants at risk of cardiovascular disease. Herbs and spices have been previously associated with a healthy gut, but not actually investigated.

The researchers looked at three doses — about 1/8 teaspoon per day, a little more than 3/4 teaspoon per day, and about 1 1/2 teaspoon per day. By the end of the four-week experiment, participants had an increase in gut bacteria diversity, including an increase in Ruminococcaceae, especially those eating the highest doses of herbs and spices.

“It’s such a simple thing that people can do,” said Kris-Etherton in a statement. “Everyone could benefit by adding herbs and spices. It’s also a way of decreasing sodium in your diet but flavoring foods in a way that makes them palatable and, in fact, delicious! Taste is really a top criterion for why people choose the foods they do.”

Scientists are still learning about the connection between gut microbiota and a range of health factors, from blood pressure to weight. A lot more research is still needed, said Kris-Etherton. In the meantime, we can all start looking at our diets and think of ways to make changes. It’s never too late to start eating a healthier diet.

The two studies were published in the Journal of Nutrition and the Journal of Clinica Nutrition.

If you do eat peanut butter, make sure it hasn't been 'stabilised', i.e., hydrogenated.
There should be oil separated out in the peanut butter.
If there isn't, the unsaturated fatty acids in the peanut butter have been turned
into trans fats, which are bad for you.

 

Only half the world's roof area needed for solar

 From ZME Science

Rooftop solar panels are up to 79% cheaper than they were in 2010. These plummeting costs have made rooftop solar photovoltaics even more attractive to households and businesses who want to reduce their reliance on electricity grids while reducing their carbon footprints.

But are there enough rooftop surfaces for this technology to generate affordable, low-carbon energy for everyone who needs it? After all, it’s not just people who own their own houses and want to cut their bills who are in need of solutions like this. Around 800 million people globally go without proper access to electricity.

Our new paper in Nature Communications presents a global assessment of how many rooftop solar panels we’d need to generate enough renewable energy for the whole world – and where we’d need to put them. Our study is the first to provide such a detailed map of global rooftop solar potential, assessing rooftop area and sunlight cover at scales all the way from cities to continents.

We found that we would only need 50% of the world’s rooftops to be covered with solar panels in order to deliver enough electricity to meet the world’s yearly needs. [Which flatly disproves the assertion by some commentators that the entire countryside would have to be covered with solar panels to power the world]

We designed a programme that incorporated data from over 300 million buildings and analysed 130 million km² of land – almost the entire land surface area of the planet. This estimated how much energy could be produced from the 0.2 million km² of rooftops present on that land, an area roughly the same size as the UK.

We then calculated electricity generation potentials from these rooftops by looking at their location. Generally, rooftops located in higher latitudes such as in northern Europe or Canada can vary by as much as 40% in their generation potential across the year, due to big differences in sunshine between winter and summer. Rooftops near the equator, however, usually only vary in generation potential by around 1% across the seasons, as sunshine is much more consistent.

This is important because these large variations in monthly potential can have a significant impact on the reliability of solar-powered electricity in that region. That means places where sunlight is more irregular require energy storage solutions – increasing electricity costs. [Or simply more capacity.  If output is 40% less in winter, increase capacity 40%, and use the surplus power in summer to produce green methane or green hydrogen.  Maximum cost increase is 40%, or less if the summer surplus is used in this way and not curtailed.]

Our results highlighted three potential hotspots for rooftop solar energy generation: Asia, Europe and North America.

Of these, Asia looks like the cheapest location to install panels, where – in countries like India and China – one kilowatt hour (kWh) of electricity, or approximately 48 hours of using your laptop, can be produced for just 0.05p. This is thanks to cheap panel manufacturing costs, as well as sunnier climates.

Meanwhile, the costliest countries for implementing rooftop solar are USA, Japan and the UK. Europe holds the middle ground, with average costs across the continent of around 0.096p per kWh.

Rooftop solar panels look like they’d be equally useful in areas with low population as they would be in urban centres. For those living in remote areas, panels help top up or even replace supply from potentially unreliable local grids. And for those in cities, panels can significantly reduce air pollution caused by burning fossil fuels for energy.

It’s vital to point out that global electricity supply cannot rely on a single source of generation to meet the requirements of billions of people. And, thanks to changeable weather and our planet’s day and night cycle, a mismatch between solar energy demand and supply is unavoidable. [However, wind and solar are to some extent  complementary, both seasonally and day to day.  So a grid powered by both sources has more stable output than one powered by just one.  This is less true near the equator because of the stability of insolation in these latitudes. There, solar will be enough.]

The equipment required to store solar power for when it’s needed is still extremely expensive. [But excess capacity is much cheaper, as I mentioned above] Additionally, solar panels won’t be able to deliver enough power for some industries. Heavy manufacturing and metal processing, for example, require very large currents and specialised electricity delivery, which solar power won’t yet be able to provide.

Despite this, rooftop solar has huge potential to alleviate energy poverty and put clean, pollution-free power back in the hands of consumers worldwide. If the costs of solar power continue to decrease, rooftop panels could be one of the best tools yet to decarbonise our electricity supply. (From The Conversation.)

Self-healing concrete draws CO2 from the air

 From ZME Science

Examples of self-healing concrete whose cracks have been filled with calcium carbonate made from CO2 from the air and catalyzed by a red blood cell enzyme. Credit: Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Using an enzyme normally found in red blood cells, researchers have designed a concrete mixture that can automatically seal cracks in the construction material by absorbing CO2 from the air and converting it to calcium carbonate crystals. The resulting concrete is almost four times more durable than traditional concrete, vastly extending the life of structures and slashing the huge upkeep costs required for repairs or replacements.

Concrete is the most ubiquitous construction material in the world. We use it to build everything from skyscrapers to sidewalks due to its durability and low cost. However, concrete is far from perfect, being prone to cracking due to continuous exposure to the elements. Humidity, sunlight, and stress from use slowly chip away at concrete. Over time, harmless microcracks can expand and lead to a loss of structural integrity. In the case of dams and bridges, concrete cracks could threaten the lives of countless people.

“If tiny cracks could automatically be repaired when they first start, they won’t turn into bigger problems that need repair or replacement. It sounds sci-fi, but it’s a real solution to a significant problem in the construction industry,” said Nima Rahbar, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute.

Rahbar is the lead author of a new study that took inspiration from nature to find a solution to this problem. The research centered around carbonic anhydrase (CA), an enzyme found in red blood cells that quickly transfers CO2 from the cells to the bloodstream. 

The researchers simply added the enzyme to a conventional concrete powder before it was mixed with water and poured. These experiments showed that the enzyme acts as a catalyst, triggering a chemical reaction between atmospheric CO2 and molecules in the concrete to create calcium carbonate crystals.

Calcium carbonate is a common substance found in rocks such as the minerals calcite (a major component of limestone) and aragonite. It is also the main component of eggshells, snail shells, seashells, and pearls. Its atomic matrix is very similar to that of concrete, so when the calcium carbonate forms inside gaps in the concrete, the structural integrity of the material is preserved.

“We looked to nature to find what triggers the fastest CO2 transfer, and that’s the CA enzyme,” said Rahbar, who has been researching self-healing concrete for five years. “Since enzymes in our bodies react amazingly quickly, they can be used as an efficient mechanism to repair and strengthen concrete structures.”

According to Rahbar, the patented method described in the journal Applied Materials Today heals millimeter-scale cracks within 24 hours. 

The mixture can also be applied to already-set traditional concrete to mend bigger cracks or holes.

The concrete industry is one of the most environmentally damaging in the world, accounting for 9% of total global CO2 emissions in 2018. Nearly 80% of concrete’s carbon emissions come from cement, which accounts for about 8% of the world’s carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions.

If the cement industry were a country, it would be the third-largest emitter in the world — not far behind China and the US. It contributes more CO2 than aviation fuel (2.5%) and is not far behind the global agriculture business (12%). But, overall, the construction industry, which includes not only the manufacturing of cement but also the transportation of heavy materials across the world, was responsible for a staggering 38% of all carbon emissions in 2019, according to the United Nations Environment Programme.

The enzyme-based mixture developed at the Worcester Polytechnic Institute extracts a negligible quantity of CO2. However, the mixture would offset a sizable amount of CO2 currently associated with the concrete industry by extending its life.

Rahbar makes a bold claim, predicting self-healing concrete could extend the life of a structure from 20 years, for example, to 80 years.

 

Fascinating stuff. But I'm wondering whether this technique can be used to extract CO2 from the air in other contexts.   This might be a lot cheaper than trying to remove it from the air via various other industrial processes.