Telescope #116

SUSTAINABILITY

• Taking a day flight could be a swift way to limit the climate impact of a holiday, as new research suggests vapour trails produced by jets can cool the planet during the daytime. Soot particles emitted by jet engines can trigger the formation of ice crystals, causing a condensation trail that can spread and last for hours. These persistent contrails, as they are known, block heat from escaping from below, causing warming. But in the daytime, they help to reflect solar radiation back to space, which has a cooling effect. By using artificial intelligence to identify and analyse the net warming effect of 700,000 contrails from satellite imagery, researchers have now determined that the cooling effect outweighs the warming for daytime contrails. But this doesn’t factor in the warming effect of carbon emissions from flying. DETAIL

• California Governor Gavin Newsom announced that he has signed a new bill into law obligating large companies that do business in the state to disclose their value chain emissions and report on climate-related financial risks, and retaining an initially proposed start date for reporting to begin, despite previously expressing concerns about companies’ abilities to meet the deadline. DETAIL
• Sweep and Capgemini Invent surveyed 554 sustainability leaders from businesses and financial institutions of various sizes. Here’s what they found: 78% of companies still use spreadsheets to track their emissions. Gathering sustainability data remains a significant challenge. The key priority for 2025 is leveraging data to drive climate action. DETAIL
• California is tackling the problem of textile and fashion waste with the country’s first law that requires clothing companies to implement a recycling system for the garments they sell. Governor Gavin Newsom recently signed SB 707, the Responsible Textile Recovery Act. The new law requires a clothing, apparel and textile extended producer responsibility (EPR) program, as defined by lawmakers, reported Waste Today. DETAIL

• Most people in the United States can expect wetter winters with more extreme weather and precipitation due to global heating, a new study has found. The research team — led by Akintomide Akinsanola, an assistant earth and environmental sciences professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) — used climate models to look at how winter precipitation in America will change this century. DETAIL

• Rising sea levels threaten to completely submerge Tuvalu in the coming decades. Facing an unprecedented crisis, officials are not only trying to preserve a shrinking country but attempting to ensure the nation, as well as its culture and traditions, will still exist, even if its land doesn’t. DETAIL

• A team of researchers has developed a more sustainable and affordable way to recycle metal found in electronic waste. Researchers used electrothermal chlorination, or flash Joule heating (FJH), and carbochlorination to save several metals from e-waste by heating a material with an electric current. They published their findings in the journal Nature Chemical Engineering. DETAIL

• The European Union has officially pushed back the enforcement of its pivotal Regulation on Deforestation-free Products (EUDR), a move confirmed by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.? Originally set for December 2024, the new regulation aims to ensure that major commodities such as palm oil, soy, and wood entering the EU market do not contribute to deforestation post-2020. DETAIL

HEALTH

• A woman with Type 1 diabetes who was treated with her own stem cells subsequently started producing insulin on her own, making her the first person with this type of diabetes to reverse her condition using this new treatment. DETAIL
• Dozens of tigers and lions in captivity died in the past month in southern Vietnam with tests showing they were positive for bird flu, health ministry and state media said on Thursday. DETAIL
• One million adults in the UK who do not smoke regular cigarettes have now taken up vaping, according to a new study. Estimates from a survey published in the journal Lancet Public Health on Thursday reveal a sevenfold increase in the number of adults who do not smoke regular cigarettes turning to vaping since 2021. DETAIL

DIGITAL / TECHNOLOGY / SCIENCE / ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE

• Genetically engineered bacteria can work together to spot prime numbers, identify vowels or even work out the maximum number of slices a pizza can be cut into. The researchers behind the study say tiny biological computers like these can outcompete traditional computer chips in terms of both size and cost. Sangram Bagh and his colleagues at the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kolkata, India, genetically engineered bacteria derived from Escherichia coli that could be combined in various ways to solve problems. These “bactoneurons” were then arranged in various combinations in experiments to do 12 tasks. DETAIL
• In the arms race over sportswear technology, an advanced form of footwear has recently disrupted the racing scene, giving short and long distance runners a distinct advantage. New research shows that so-called 'super spikes' on soles can also increase running speeds across middle distances by as much as 3.1 percent. DETAIL

• The study, published in the journal Nature, examined some of the leading commercial LLMs in the industry: OpenAI's GPT, and Meta's LLaMA, along with an open source model called BLOOM created by the research group BigScience. While it found that their responses are in many cases becoming more accurate, they were across the board less reliable, giving a higher proportion of wrong answers than older models did. DETAIL
• Samsung has unveiled a small-sized solid-state battery for wearable devices, touted as the world’s first. Samsung Electro-Mechanics reportedly developed the device after three years of research and development. DETAIL

• A major geomagnetic storm is barreling its way towards Earth for the second time in five months, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warned on Wednesday. On the bright side, it could mean a reappearance of those spectacular auroras many of us witnessed earlier this year. DETAIL

ENERGY / TRANSPORTATION

• The British battery materials and recycling company Altilium Metals has announced a cooperation contract with the automotive group Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). Pouch cells produced by Atilium using recovered cathode active materials will be tested in JLR's battery test facilities. DETAIL
• A simple way to extend the life of lithium-ion batteries by 50 percent has been discovered as part of a study conducted in the US. The study revealed that charging batteries with high currents before leaving the factory can significantly increase their life. DETAIL
• The U.S. Department of Defense has broken ground on the Project Pele prototype mobile microreactor at the Idaho National Laboratory (INL). The move will see the U.S.’s first electricity-producing Fourth Generation reactor become operational in 2026. Project Pele is run by the U.S. Department of Defense’s Strategic Capabilities Office (SCO). The program aims to power U.S. battlefields. DETAIL

CYBERSECURITY

• A Bank of America outage has resulted in some accounts showing $0 account balances. The outage started at around 9:30 a.m. PST on Wednesday, according to Downdetector; 45 minutes later, it had logged over 20,000 user complaints. Numerous Bank of America customers have since posted screenshots of empty balances. DETAIL

HUMANITY / CURIOSITY

• An international team of researchers, including those from the United States, Switzerland and Israel, has regrown a lost plant mentioned in the Bible and believed to have healing properties. By germinating a nearly 1,000-year-old seed found by archaeologists in a cave in the Judean countryside 40 years ago and dating from 993 AD to 1202 AD, researchers have succeeded in bringing back to life the mystical plant known in the Bible as the "tsori tree." DETAIL

• The? Tokyo government has launched a new dating? app for smartphones that uses artificial intelligence to match people who are serious about marriage based on their values. Tokyo Enmusubi, meaning Tokyo matchmaking, is available for people over 18 who live in or commute to the Japanese capital. Users undergo an online interview upon registration, and they must also submit photo identification and documents proving their income and that they are legally single to ensure security on the platform. DETAIL
• The show, which was carried out with 10,197 drones in Shenzhen Bay Park in Shenzhen, Guangdong Province, China, amazed the audience. The show, which was held before the National Day celebrations, broke the Guinness World Record twice. DETAIL

• A bomb from World War II exploded at the Miyazaki Airport in southwestern Japan on Wednesday. No one was injured but more than 80 flights have been canceled. Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshimasa Hayashi said he expects flights to resume on Thursday. DETAIL