A scientific fact/tidbit you recently learned that you thought was interesting

[Orphia Nay]

I learnt a few weeks ago that most microplastics in the ocean come from paint. In fact it is estimated that about 40% come from paint, and the majority of that comes from interior paint. Very little comes from ships.
Textiles and tyres are still a problem, but paint dwarfs them all in terms of how much is in the ocean.
chrome-extension://efaidnbmnnnibpcajpcglclefindmkaj/https://www.e-a.earth/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/plastic-paint-the-environment.pdf

A while back I was at an art course and we were using acrylic paints and we learned that after washing our brushes (in water in a jar) we shouldn't tip the water down the drain, but rather, on a remote garden bed. I probably need to look into that more, but at least filtering keeps it out of the water table.

 

[rjh01]

A while back I was at an art course and we were using acrylic paints and we learned that after washing our brushes (in water in a jar) we shouldn't tip the water down the drain, but rather, on a remote garden bed. I probably need to look into that more, but at least filtering keeps it out of the water table.

I googled this and I found

Never rinse used paint brushes or pour left over paint into the sink​

If you take away only one thing, please never rinse your used paint brushes (acrylic or otherwise) down the sink. Never pour left over paint or rinse palettes down the sink. Not even small amounts or ‘little bits’ should go down the sink.

This is because acrylic paint hardens when it dries, meaning not only can it block your drains and cause damage, but it can also pollute our waterways and injure our wildlife. Instead, wipe off excess paint from brushes using a rag, (rags can be used over and over again) or paper towel and then dispose of it in general waste.

Not only will this save your household water pipes and drains, but it will also reduce acrylic paint’s environmental impact. For palettes, scrape off dried paint using a knife or palette knife, or peel the acrylic paint off the palette, once the paint has dried.

10 tips for how to dispose of acrylic paint thoughtfully

Though it can be hard at times, it’s never too late to start protecting our environment. But how can we care and create at the same time? When it comes to acrylic painting, there are ways to paint more sustainably, keeping our planet in mind, so here are 10 tips on how to dispose of acrylic...

www.montmarte.com.au

 

[Jim_MDP]

I had a theory in my head last year that a possible reason we find no other intelligent, space-faring civilizations is that mico-plastics are a common/universal creation... and eventually fatal to a civilization.

You just don't discover the peril for 150 years!
Sweet dreams.

 

[shemp]

I had a theory in my head last year that a possible reason we find no other intelligent, space-faring civilizations is that mico-plastics are a common/universal creation... and eventually fatal to a civilization.

You just don't discover the peril for 150 years!
Sweet dreams.

There's probably a lot of reasons that "intelligent" civilizations self-extinct. Put together a few of them and your species is a goner. Pair that with the likelihood that the period of radio communications might be only 100-200 earth years or so, and finding an "intelligent" civilization may be like finding a needle in a haystack the size of Kansas.

Maybe someday after mankind is gone, alien explorers might arrive and find our ruins. They will investigate and come to the conclusion that we were just another civilization that made a lot of mistakes that they avoided.

 

[theprestige]

I had a theory in my head last year that a possible reason we find no other intelligent, space-faring civilizations is that mico-plastics are a common/universal creation... and eventually fatal to a civilization.

You just don't discover the peril for 150 years!
Sweet dreams.

Wouldn't that mean fossil fuels are universal? That every nascent civilization finds itself coincidentally sitting on top of a vast amount of carboniferous biomass, sequestered over a million years by geological processes?

 

[shemp]

Wouldn't that mean fossil fuels are universal? That every nascent civilization finds itself coincidentally sitting on top of a vast amount of carboniferous biomass, sequestered over a million years by geological processes?

I'm going to step in and say that I think fossil fuels are almost a requirement to reach the level of technological development we've reached. It may be possible to develop solar power, wind power, maybe even nuclear power without fossil fuels, but fossil fuels get you there fast and relatively cheap, but with the huge environmental costs.

There's nothing coincidental about sitting on top of a vast amount of carboniferous biomass. Hundreds of millions of years of plant evolution, combined with creation of new topsoil and tectonic plate movement to push it down and apply pressure, will almost certainly give you enormous quantities of fossil fuels. If there's millions of possibly habitable planets in our galaxy, it's bound to happen on a (probably small) percentage of them.

This doesn't mean that all such planets will develop "intelligent" civilizations that will reach a technology that we can detect and possibly even communicate with. Many will never develop any species capable of intelligence; others might, but they may remain in a pre-industrial level.

I just personally think that's it's extremely unlikely that there is any other "intelligent" civilization presently in our galaxy which we could detect and communicate with, and that we will probably wipe ourselves out within a few generations without having made contact.

 

[Orphia Nay]

I googled this and I found

10 tips for how to dispose of acrylic paint thoughtfully

Though it can be hard at times, it’s never too late to start protecting our environment. But how can we care and create at the same time? When it comes to acrylic painting, there are ways to paint more sustainably, keeping our planet in mind, so here are 10 tips on how to dispose of acrylic...

www.montmarte.com.au

Great tips, thanks very much!

 

[EHocking]

I googled this and I found

10 tips for how to dispose of acrylic paint thoughtfully

Though it can be hard at times, it’s never too late to start protecting our environment. But how can we care and create at the same time? When it comes to acrylic painting, there are ways to paint more sustainably, keeping our planet in mind, so here are 10 tips on how to dispose of acrylic...

www.montmarte.com.au

Coincidentally I have been recently reading a number of articles claiming that paint particles make up something like 35% of the micro plastics in the ocean. And a remarkable % of the paint are from terrestrial origins, not just ship paint and other marine building/plant, e.g.,

Painting the Ocean: More Deadly than Fun – Yale Scientific Magazine

www.yalescientific.org

 

[novaphile]

Coincidentally I have been recently reading a number of articles claiming that paint particles make up something like 35% of the micro plastics in the ocean. And a remarkable % of the paint are from terrestrial origins, not just ship paint and other marine building/plant, e.g.,

Painting the Ocean: More Deadly than Fun – Yale Scientific Magazine

www.yalescientific.org

I have been to coastal places, where temporary residents use house-paint to write graffiti on the rocks along the shore.

Now I'm wondering if that's a significant contributor to house-paint in the ocean.

My instinct is that washing brushes under running taps is much more significant.

Especially as some paint companies advertised that practice.

(I can remember seething about that as a teenager.)

Here's the first example I found, only in this case, a company that makes brushes:

Here's a dulux advert showing cleaning a paint roller in a sink:

 

[bigred]

I have been to coastal places, where temporary residents use house-paint to write graffiti on the rocks along the shore.

Now I'm wondering if that's a significant contributor to house-paint in the ocean.

I don't know but IMO they should have a very large paint brush shoved up their butt regardless. What possesses people to be such losers...

 

[arthwollipot]

American cheese was invented in Switzerland by a Canadian.

 

[arthwollipot]

I don't have a link for this, but the person I am copying from got it from an PhD candidate's oral presentation, which they were evaluating:

TIL that sickle cells cannot bind oxygen and therefore do not convert the Ferrous iron (Fe2+) in the hemoglobin into ferric iron (Fe3+). Ferrous iron is magnetic, and ferric is not. A group is studying a way to separate the sickle and normal cells in situ using a magnetic gradient. Being able to determine the relative concentration of sickle cells especially in joints etc will help patients in a crisis mode. Right now, if they go for pain relief, which is pretty much opioids, doctors are reluctant to administer because they can’t confirm if the patient is really in pain or jonesing for a fix. The goal of the study is to develop a desktop system that can analyze the red blood cells from a sample that isn’t too expensive and can be operated easily, say in a doctor’s office.

ETA Because this is an ongoing conversation on Discord, there is a followup:

They can do it in a machine with magnet gradient, in a dialysis type situation, but sickle cell patients get a lot of transfusions, so they are working on a system with hollow fibers that will cause the ferrous cells to migrate towards the walls and allow the oxygenated normal cells to flow in the middle, and return to the patient, cutting down the amount of transfused blood. I am simplifying it because I didn’t read all the equations on diffusion and magnetic and ◊◊◊◊.

 

[jadebox]

Vampire bats do not suck blood. They lick it up like a cat lapping up milk.

I just learned that from watching QI.

 

[EHocking]

Vampire bats do not suck blood. They lick it up like a cat lapping up milk.

I just learned that from watching QI.

Must have been watching it on Dave!

I picked this factoid up from Attenborough. Thought it was Life on Earth, 1979. Might be wrong, but this is the visual I remember.
To be honest, natural life is so fascinating, it’s irrelevant as to when you discover something new and interesting.

https://fb.watch/zaVu9ovcvZ

 

[Wudang]

I don't have a link for this, but the person I am copying from got it from an PhD candidate's oral presentation, which they were evaluating:



ETA Because this is an ongoing conversation on Discord, there is a followup:

Bob Park in Voodoo Science mentions this - that iron is blood is diamegnetic and so woul at best be weakly pushed away by magnets. However the magnets used by quacks are the same as fridge magnets - ie strips of alternating north-south, south-north which generates a strong field close in but dies off quickly. He said you can test this by seeing how many sheets of paper you can stick to metal using one and guage how likely (spoiler - not) for any magnetic force to get through skin.

 

[arthwollipot]

Bob Park in Voodoo Science mentions this - that iron is blood is diamegnetic and so woul at best be weakly pushed away by magnets. However the magnets used by quacks are the same as fridge magnets - ie strips of alternating north-south, south-north which generates a strong field close in but dies off quickly. He said you can test this by seeing how many sheets of paper you can stick to metal using one and guage how likely (spoiler - not) for any magnetic force to get through skin.

Yes, the presentation specified that it would be done during transfusions - in a "dialysis-like" situation where a much stronger magnetic gradient can be applied in a controlled way.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

My favorite YouTuber on humanoid evolution, Kaleigh, just posted a video on the evolution of language. A tad outside her wheelhouse, but her video is nicely centered on her particular specialty, focusing on the timing of language emergence and the probable species. Still, thought I'd check back with my go-to expert on languages and linguistics to get her take. I think JuLingo wins this one, and think her scenario toward the end is pretty spot on.

Not sure I agree with Chomsky's idea that language emerged with a single individual as a whole skill via genetic mutation. Highly unlikely, especially since there isn't one single gene involved (FOXP2 isn't the only one). Much more probable that our direct ancestors started it all (ie, use of a complex symbolic system), H. Erectus being in fact a real champ at most of the tools we used to survive and prosper, and was the longest to reign supreme. In short, a combo of the two analyses would be my take.

Of all the examples given by JuLingo of animal communication, the most impressive is that of the parrot, not a primate, and that is my tidbit for today.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

How to find an aircraft carrier in a haystack:

ITER completes world's largest and most powerful pulsed magnet system

In a landmark achievement for fusion energy, ITER has completed all components for the world's largest, most powerful pulsed superconducting electromagnet system.

phys.org

ITER project's main magnet has been assembled, and is the strongest magnet in the world: it is strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier.

 

[shemp]

Well, if it doesn't work for fusion, at least we can use it to make aircraft carriers fly!

 

[arthwollipot]

ITER project's main magnet has been assembled, and is the strongest magnet in the world: it is strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier.

Cool! One tiny step closer to sustainable fusion power. Only about ten thousand more of those to go.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

How to find an aircraft carrier in a haystack:

ITER completes world's largest and most powerful pulsed magnet system

In a landmark achievement for fusion energy, ITER has completed all components for the world's largest, most powerful pulsed superconducting electromagnet system.

phys.org

ITER project's main magnet has been assembled, and is the strongest magnet in the world: it is strong enough to lift an aircraft carrier.

I know a specialist in xyz who was brought in on issues found in the ITER project. They are game-breaking. The decision was to bury the information; the issues remain unresolved. Can't say more, but ITER is a zombie project that cannot die due to an impossible need to recover sunk costs.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

I agree that it is unlikely that ITER as it is planned will ever produce a working fusion reactor.
But it is pushing the engineering envelope on many technologies that will be used in other fusion projects.

 

[arthwollipot]

ITER's purpose is not to produce a working fusion reactor. It is to advance the science so that a working fusion reactor can be developed.

 

[The Great Zaganza]

It kinda is - not a commercially viable one, but one that consistently produces more energy than it consumes.

 

[Hlafordlaes]

ITER's purpose is not to produce a working fusion reactor. It is to advance the science so that a working fusion reactor can be developed.

That is what this specialist put in question. But who knows, failures have as many lessons as successes, often more.

 

[ahhell]

Scientists Create 3D-Printed Calamari With More Protein Than Real Squid

Scientists successfully 3D printed plant-based calamari rings using mung bean protein and microalgae, creating a seafood alternative that closely matches real squid in texture and even surpasses it in protein content.

studyfinds.org

Lots of sensationalism there if you ask me, do they really need to 3d print it? Also, seems like a limited audience for this product. I mean, the venn diagram of folks that really like calamari and want fake meat is probably pretty small.

 

[Ryan O'Dine]

Scientists Create 3D-Printed Calamari With More Protein Than Real Squid

Scientists successfully 3D printed plant-based calamari rings using mung bean protein and microalgae, creating a seafood alternative that closely matches real squid in texture and even surpasses it in protein content.

studyfinds.org

Lots of sensationalism there if you ask me, do they really need to 3d print it? Also, seems like a limited audience for this product. I mean, the venn diagram of folks that really like calamari and want fake meat is probably pretty small.

Oh, they'll be a big hit among the 3D printed dolphins.