Science

Covid Air Extraction Spread

El Pais published another set of informative Covid infection animations, this time illustrating how communial air extraction pipes in apartment buildings can facilitate the spread of Covid from different apartments in an air suction loop. Apartment buildings built prior to 1975 in Spain contain these communical air pipes in bathrooms.

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Podcast of the Week: NPR Shortwave on The Sperm Race Fairytale

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This recent episode of NPR Shortwave is mind-blowing. As it turns out, the sperm race story of contraception that we all learn in school is not what happens in reality, and is littered with mysogonistic bias. The Shortwave team do a great job in this episode describing how the biological process actually works.

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Natrium Molten Salt HALEU Nuclear Reactor

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Nuclear reactor company Natrium, which is backed by Bill Gates' Terrapower, has received a US$80m Department of Energy grant to build a demonstration reactor by the mid 2020s. The 345MWe reactor can power 225,000 homes and uses molten salt as an energy storage and transfer system, which is safer than pressurised water and removes the need for a large amount of concrete shielding.

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Sound of Mars

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The NASA Sound of Mars website simulates how a range of sound clips sound on Mars versus on Earth. The differences in atmosphere and temperature mean sounds are attenuated, lower in volume, and slower.

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17th Century Letter X-Ray

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Researchers from MIT, King’s College London, Queen Mary University London, Utrecht and Leiden used X-ray microtomography scans of a 17th century folder letter locked letter to unfold and read the letter virtually without ever opening it. As amazing as this is, it is even better that the letter contained a complaint! :-)

History

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Fastest Random Number Generator

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Researchers have built the fastest random number generator by firing a laser into a translucent semionductor shaped like a bowtie and measuring the fluctuations in the intensity of the resulting scattered beam, at a rate of 250 terahertz.

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Vaccine Efficacy Explained

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The New York Times published a vaccine efficacy explainer, using the Johnson & Johnson vaccine as an example, that describes how the different percentage figures are calculated.

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USB DNA Sequencing

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Using a nanopore sequencer on a USB dongle and new open-source fuzzy logic UNCALLED software, scientists can selectively sequence DNA samples in three days or less without the need for large expensive lab equipment.

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Whale Song Ocean Floor Mapping

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Researchers at Oregon State University have demonstracted how to map the ocean floor using whale song! The 190 dB song of fin whales takes the form of second long bursts in the 20Hz range separated by dozens of seconds and typically last for hours.

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Printed Paper Speaker

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Scientists at Chemnitz University of Technology in Germany have developed paper thin speakers which can be printed on rolls of paper called T-Paper. The paper holds two layers of conductive organic polymer with a piezoelectric layer in between that vibrates to create the sound. T-paper can be shaped into a circle and act as a hanging loudspeaker at events like tradeshows or as part of museum exhibits to broadcast audio information.

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