Purdue University engineers have developed a "batch reverse osmosis" process that promises better energy efficiency, longer-lasting equipment and the ability to process water of much higher salinity, Tech Xplore reports. It could end up a difference maker in water security around the world. Reverse osmosis is used in many countries; in arid places such as the Middle East, more than half of the fresh drinking water supplies come from desalination facilities. "About a third of the lifetime cost of...
Deep underground in eastern France, a four-legged bundle of energy named Scar, loaded with sensors, steps gingerly through vast caverns. It's an ideal training ground for the robotic dog being groomed by researchers at the Ecole des Mines engineering school, reports Tech Xplore. On Tuesday, a team from the university tested out Scar's abilities at the Cigeo lab 500 metres below the village of Bure, slated to become a permanent home for thousands of tonnes...
If there is a more eloquent journalist in Canada than Rex Murphy, I welcome your nominations. In his piece in the National Post today, Rex tells the story of a movement gone too far.
https://nationalpost.com/opinion/rex-murphy-when-the-woke-come-for-conservatives-of-colour
Fouling of filtration membranes used in desalination and separating of dairy products occurs when particles get deposited on the filter over time, clogging the system and limiting its effectiveness and efficiency. Efforts to clean, or de-foul, these membranes have typically relied on chemical processes, which result in losses in productivity and profit while raising environmental and workplace safety concerns associated with waste disposal. A team of researchers from the MIT Department of Mechanical Engineering has found...
A cyberattack that knocked out the main oil pipeline supplying the U.S. Eastern Seaboard and the potential shutdown of a major Canadian conduit could send fuel prices soaring, the Financial Post reports The outage on the Colonial Pipeline could be exacerbated by a Michigan state order forcing Enbridge Inc.’s Line 5 pipeline — supplying oil to Michigan, Ohio, Ontario and Pennsylvania refineries — to shut down on Wednesday, which could further strain U.S. oil...
Abigail Tucker’s article in Smithsonian Magazine is a fascinating look at how offspring affect their mothers’ hearts and brains in deep and enduring ways. New research sheds light on why hearts of recently delivered human mothers have shown a remarkable ability to recover from cardiac events. In tests on mice at Mount Sinai Hospital lab, cardiologist Hina Chaudhry and her research team discovered something astonishing: heart cells with DNA that doesn’t match the mother’s own. The...
When given a choice, animals rarely avoid mating with their cousins or siblings, according to a new study published in the journal Nature Ecology & Evolution. The study was a meta-analysis that collected and analysed information from 139 studies on mate choice, conducted over 40 years looking at 88 different species, from fruit flies to chimpanzees, CBC reports. Canadian researcher John Fitzpatrick, an associate professor of zoology at Stockholm University, told Quirks & Quarks host Bob McDonald that he was motivated to understand...
A cyberattack has taken down the main pipeline that carries gasoline to the U.S. East Coast, elevating concern about how vulnerable critical systems are to hacking assaults, reports CNET. Colonial Pipeline, which operates pipes that carry refined petroleum products said in a statement that it has taken "certain systems offline to contain the threat, which has temporarily halted all pipeline operations, and affected some of our IT systems." It is unclear whether criminal hackers...
Researchers at the University of Central Florida have developed a sarcasm detector, Tech Xplore reports. The team taught the computer model patterns that often indicate sarcasm and combined that with teaching the program to correctly pick out cue words in sequences that were more likely to indicate sarcasm. They taught the model to do this by feeding it large data sets and then checked its accuracy. "The presence of sarcasm in text is the main...
A review of what is known about COVID-19 and the way it functions suggests the virus has a unique infectious profile, which explains why it can be so hard to treat and why some people experience so-called "long COVID," struggling with significant health issues months after infection, Medical Xpress reports. Growing evidence indicates that the virus infects the upper and lower respiratory tracts — unlike "low pathogenic" human coronavirus sub-species, which typically settle in the upper respiratory tract...
