Month: July 2023

At the start of his third year of graduate school, Kazi Albab Hussain became a father. As a new dad and a PhD student studying environmental nanotechnology, plastic was on his mind. The year before, scientists had discovered that plastic baby bottles shed millions of particles into formula, which infants end up swallowing (while also sucking on plastic bottle nipples). “At that time,” Hussain says, “I was purchasing many baby foods, and I was seeing that, even in baby foods, there are a lot of plastics.”

Hussain wanted to know how much was being released from the kinds of containers he’d been buying. So he went to the grocery store, picked up some baby food, and brought the empty containers back to his lab at the University of Nebraska—Lincoln. In a study published in June in Environmental Science & Technology, Hussain and his colleagues reported that, when microwaved, these containers released millions of bits of plastic, called microplastics, and even tinier nanoplastics.

Plastics are complex cocktails of long chains of carbon, called polymers, mixed in with chemical additives, small molecules that help mold the polymers into their final shape and imbue them with resistance to oxidation, UV exposure, and other wear and tear. Microwaving delivers a triple whammy: heat, UV irradiation, and hydrolysis, a chemical reaction through which bonds are broken by water molecules. All of these can cause a container to crack and shed tiny bits of itself as microplastics, nanoplastics, and leachates, toxic chemical components of the plastic.

The human health effects of plastic exposure are unclear, but scientists have suspected for years that they aren’t good. First, these particles are sneaky. Once they enter the body they coat themselves with proteins, slipping past the immune system incognito, “like Trojan horses,” says Trinity College Dublin chemistry professor John Boland, who was not involved in this study. Microplastics also collect a complex community of microbes, called the plastisphere, and transport them into the body.

Our kidneys remove waste, placing them on the front lines of exposure to contaminants. They are OK at filtering out the relatively larger microplastics, so we probably excrete a lot of those. But nanoplastics are small enough to slip across cell membranes and “make their way to places they shouldn’t,” Boland says.

“Microplastics are like plastic roughage: They get in, and they get expelled,” he adds. “But it’s quite likely that nanoplastics can be very toxic.”

Once they’ve snuck past the body’s defense systems, “the chemicals used in plastics hack hormones,” says Leonardo Trasand, a professor at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and the director of the Center for the Investigation of Environmental Hazards. Hormones are signaling molecules underlying basically everything the body does, so these chemicals, called endocrine disruptors, have the potential to mess with everything from metabolism to sexual development and fertility.

“Babies are at greater risk from those contaminants than full-grown people,” Hussain says. So to test how much plastic babies are exposed to, Hussain’s team chose three baby-food containers available at a local grocery store: two polypropylene jars labeled “microwave-safe” according to US Food and Drug Administration regulations, and one reusable food pouch made of an unknown plastic.

Around a third of human-generated greenhouse gas emissions comes from the global food system, and lost or wasted food is known to contribute some amount—but it has never been clear to exactly what degree. Now, by following specific foods through their entire life cycle, researchers have determined just how much this wasted food adds to emissions through phases such as harvest, transportation and disposal.

For a study in Nature Food, Xunchang Fei of Singapore’s Nanyang Technological University and his colleagues used 164 countries’ food supply data from 2001 to 2017 to estimate emissions across 54 food commodities and four categories: cereals and pulses; meat and animal products; vegetables and fruits; and root and oil crops.

Roughly a third of food is lost during harvest, storage and transportation or is wasted by consumers. The team found this food was responsible for greenhouse gases equivalent to 9.3 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide—about half the global food system’s total emissions—in 2017. Four countries (China, the U.S., India and Brazil) contributed 44.3 percent, mainly owing to their dietary habits and large populations. Of the four food categories, meat and animal products were the source of almost three quarters of emissions that occurred during the supply-chain phase for food that was ultimately lost.

The study considered emissions across nine postfarming stages, which vary among regions—for instance, developed countries’ advanced waste-treatment technologies can create fewer emissions. Such intricate details show how “different countries should set different targets for [food loss and waste] reductions,” Fei says—such as reducing meat production in some areas, and switching from landfills to anaerobic digestion or composting processes in others.

Food systems expert Prajal Pradhan of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research in Germany notes that the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals aim to halve food waste in the coming years—which Pradhan says wouldn’t be enough to limit global warming but would be a start. Based on this study, he says, emissions could decrease if “high-income countries could focus on saving food discarded by consumers, and low- and middle-income countries could prioritize avoiding food loss during harvesting, processing, storage and transport.”

A major system of ocean currents that ferries heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic could shut down far sooner than expected, according to new predictions. Such a collapse would prove catastrophic for Earth’s climate.

The system, known as the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) had previously been measured to be dramatically weakening in conjunction with rising ocean temperatures. Despite this, however, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) recently announced that climate scientists don’t expect the AMOC to totally switch off within the century. 

But a new study is now challenging that conclusion, raising the specter of a halted AMOC to as early as 2025.

“Shutting down the AMOC can have very serious consequences for Earth’s climate, for example, by changing how heat and precipitation are distributed globally,” study leader Peter Ditlevsen, from the Niels Bohr Institute at the University of Copenhagen, said in a statement.

Related: Climate change may be changing the color of Earth’s oceans

Finding that direct measurements of the AMOC’s strength have only been made for the past 15 years, Ditlevsen’s team applied sophisticated statistical tools to ocean temperature data going all the way back to the 1870s for an enhanced dataset. This detailed analysis ultimately suggested significant warning signs of the AMOC shutting down between 2025 and 2095, with a staggering certainty of 95%. More specifically, the team’s results evidenced that the most likely time for this collapse would be around 2057.

Still, other climate scientists remain cautious, saying that there are still uncertainties in the data that could affect its accuracy. However, it’s worth considering that even the mere possibility of the AMOC shutting down so soon is rather alarming.

The AMOC, which includes the Gulf Stream as part of its system, is our planet’s main mode of transporting heat away from the tropics. Without it, the tropics would rapidly increase in temperature while vital tropical rains get disrupted. Such rains are essential for the environments of South America, western Africa as well as in India and other regions of south Asia.

Meanwhile, northern and western Europe would lose their source of warm water from the tropics, leading to more storms and severely cold winters in these areas. The loss of the Gulf Stream in particular would also result in rising sea levels on the US’ eastern seaboard. 

“Our result underscores the importance of reducing global greenhouse gas emissions as soon as possible,” Ditlevsen said.

In recent years, we’ve already seen the dangers of human-induced climate warming play out as heatwaves grip much of the northern hemisphere. And although the loss of the AMOC may see northern and western Europe cool, “this shutdown will contribute to an increased warming of the tropics,” Ditlevsen said, “where rising temperatures have already given rise to challenging living conditions.”

The findings were published on Tuesday (July 25) in the journal Nature Communications.

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Apple is responsible for an ever-growing number of truly intriguing (re: nonsensical) patent applications. These usually cause Apple fans’ heads to turn like a dog hearing the quiet skittering of a nearby squirrel. However, the latest approved patent from the Cupertino, California-based company may take the prize as its strangest yet.

In the patent, first filed in June of 2021 and approved Tuesday, Apple talks up its ideas for “Modularized Computing and Input Devices.” This kind of kickstand would act as a kind of slotted dock that could accept multiple screens and keyboards, and potentially more. It’s all configured around some kind of base device that can connect both displays or keyboards in multiple configurations. The base itself would be hinged to allow these devices to swivel.

Some of the included diagrams show how you could connect a keyboard and display to the base to form a kind of tablet with a keyboard setup. Others show how you could attach two or even three screens together, which itself gives the same energy as a fantasy barbarian dual-wielding two shields. As described in the patent, one screen could display content while the other could act as a drawing tablet or keyboard.

Now, it’s at this point we should mention that Apple filing a patent does not mean it ever intends to follow up on its design. Apple files quite a few patents for its wearables, phones, and many more device applications. Considering the time between when Apple files the patents and when it receives approval, these patents aren’t necessarily indicative of where Apple is moving with its technology.

Gizmodo reached out to Apple for comment about this latest patent, but we did not immediately hear back.

One of the funkiest aspects of the patent is the inclusion of a large, classic-style vinyl turntable. The application itself describes this as merely an “input device” that can provide information to the base. Essentially, the base would allow physical or wireless communication with the attached device, in this case, a turntable usable by “disc jockeys,” or anybody working the decks on their device.

The patent further describes how “The computing device can be utilized by a music producer, a disc jockey, an audio engineer, or the like to generate music in one configuration while also being modular to permit the user to remove the input device.” The patent references how the base would connect with that turntable device to respond to certain toggles like physical buttons and knobs.

Another part of the patent describes keeping the connected laptop upright, like a book. Any connected device can collapse on top of each other like a laptop. Another configuration includes one screen attached to a shorter keyboard. Joined to the keyboard is described as another touchscreen that could act as a kind of drawing tablet. We’ve seen these extra hinges on other experimental designs like this laptop with a foldable wristrest. Companies like Framework have tried out laptops with replaceable keyboards and slots for computer upgrades. Considering all the questions of comfort of usability, it’s no wonder why no major company has tried to iterate on an ultra-customizable laptop.

The thing is, you can already buy iPads with physical, attachable keyboards, so a completely customizable device seems like a pipe dream and a rather ill-considered dream at that. The connection points for such a device would need to be strong indeed, but what would make the most sense is if such a dock were compatible with existing Apple hardware.

A NASA mission has observed a supermassive black hole pointing its highly energetic jet straight toward Earth. Don’t panic just yet, though. As fearsome as this cosmic event  is, it’s located at a very safe distance of about 400 million light-years away.

Actively feeding supermassive black holes, including the one at hand, are surrounded by swirling disks of matter called accretion disks which gradually feed them over time. Some of the material they don’t swallow is then channeled toward their poles, where it’s subsequently blasted out at near-light,  or relativistic,  speed. This creates highly energetic and extremely bright electromagnetic radiation. In some cases, like with NASA’s latest muse, that jet is pointed straight at Earth. Those events are known as blazars.

This blazar, designated Markarian 421 and located in the constellation Ursa Major, was observed with NASA’s Imaging X-ray Polarimetry Explorer (IXPE), which launched in December 2021. IXPE observes a property of magnetic fields called polarization, which refers to the fields’ orientation. The polarization of the jet blasted out by Markarian 421 revealed a surprise for astronomers, showing that the part of the jet where particles are being accelerated is also home to a magnetic field with a helical structure. 

Blazar jets can stretch across space for millions of light-years, but the mechanisms that launch them aren’t yet well-understood. However, these new discoveries surrounding the jet of Markarian 421 could shed some light on this extreme cosmic phenomenon. 

Related: X-ray view shows how supermassive black holes speed up particles in jets

“Markarian 421 is an old friend for high-energy astronomers,” lead researcher behind the discovery and Italian Space Agency astrophysicist, Laura Di Gesu, said in a statement. “We were sure the blazar would be a worthwhile target for IXPE, but its discoveries were beyond our best expectations, successfully demonstrating how X-ray polarimetry enriches our ability to probe the complex magnetic field geometry and particle acceleration in different regions of relativistic jets.”

IXPE dives deeper into the twisted structure of blazar jets

The main reason jets of feeding supermassive black holes are so bright is that particles approaching the speed of light give off tremendous amounts of energy and behave according to the physics of Einstein’s theory of special relativity. 

Blazar jets also get an extra boost to such brightness because their orientation towards us causes wavelengths of light associated with their jets to “bunch up,” increasing both their frequencies and energies. This is similar to how sound waves from the siren of an approaching ambulance “bunch up” to cause an increase in frequency that makes it sound more high-pitched. 

As a result of these two effects, blazars can often outshine the combined light of every star in the galaxies that house them. And now, IXPE has used that light to paint a picture of the physics going on at the heart of Markarian 421’s jet and even identify the glowing beam’s point of origin.

Previously, models of blazar jets had hinted that they’re accompanied by helical magnetic fields, almost like DNA in living cells, except single- rather than double-stranded. What wasn’t predicted, however, was the fact that the magnetic helix would host areas where particles are being accelerated. 

“We had anticipated that the polarization direction might change, but we thought large rotations would be rare, based on previous optical observations of many blazars,” research co-author and Massachusetts Institute of Technology physicist, Herman Marshal, said. “So, we planned several observations of the blazar, with the first showing a constant polarization of 15%.”

Even more remarkably, analysis of IXPE’s data showed that the polarization of the jet dropped to 0% between its first and second observations. This showed the team the magnetic field was turning like a corkscrew. 

“We recognized that the polarization was actually about the same but its direction literally pulled a U-turn, rotating nearly 180 degrees in two days,” Marshall said. “It then surprised us again during the third observation, which started a day later, to observe the direction of polarization continuing to rotate at the same rate.”

During these maneuvers, measurements of electromagnetic radiation in the form of optical, infrared and radio light showed no effect on the stability and structure of the jet itself, even when X-ray emissions did change. This implied a shockwave traveling along the twisted magnetic field from Markarian 421.

Hints of such a phenomenon have once been seen in the jet of another blazar witnessed by IXPE, Markarian 501, but the team’s new findings represent more clearcut evidence that a helical magnetic field does indeed contribute to a traveling shockwave that’s accelerating jet particles to relativistic speeds.

The team behind the work intends to continue studying Markarian 421 as well as  identify other blazars to find some with similar qualities in pursuit of revealing a mechanism that powers the extreme and bright outflows characteristic of these phenomena.

“Thanks to IXPE, it’s an exciting time for studies of astrophysical jets,” Di Gesu concluded.

The team”s research was published on Monday (July 17) in the journal Nature Astronomy.