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Curious layman

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Posts posted by Curious layman

  1. Full story at link....https://phys.org/news/2019-08-filter.html Original story by Erica K. Brockmeier, University of Pennsylvania.

    IMG_1667.JPG.75650e9de74b95d84a73a22b9e6defd5.JPG

    a diagram of how the nanofilters are made (top panel) and their microscopic structure (bottom panel) after

     

    Quote

    More than 800 million people lack access to clean and safe water. Recent advances in water filtration technology have created new ways to filter water and make it drinkable. But  many of these applications are too costly and cumbersome....Reverse osmosis, for example, can make sea water drinkable, but the process is incredibly expensive and requires a large amount of energy...

    Abstract.....Post docs Xunda Feng, now at Donghua University, and Yizhou Zhang and graduate student Qaboos Imran, have conducted a study at the lab of Chinedum Osuji which describes a new way to create nanoscale water filters, which as well as being flexible and robust, also have anti microbial properties.

    When designing a nanoscale filter, engineers usually start with something that resembles a microscopic strainer or a sieve. Water travels through individual holes that are spread along the strainer and are held together by a solid material that fills the space around them.

    Osuji's group, experts in modifying the chemistries of block polymers, large chains of molecules with large "blocks" of repeated sequences, found something unexpected while studying a similar material. Their discovery led them to "inverting" their design strategy: turning the "holes" of the strainer into solid fibres, leaving the previously solid portions of the structure open.

    The material was engineered with cross links between individual fibres to add support. Also included in the polymer are chemical structures that give it antimicrobial properties, which will prevent it from being clogged by bacteria.

    Osuji says.. "Reverse osmosis is highly developed and very efficient at removing all but the most challenging contaminants, but there are places where it is not cost effective, such as in the treatment of brackish water, treatment of industrial wastewater before discharge, or water softening, there is a possibility to push these new membranes into those regimes".

     

  2. Maybe they could use the same technology as this for the canoes, wave energy:

    IMG_1666.JPG.4a4ac70832186a221081bcd36256de97.JPG

    Instead of using the electricity to power homes, they could use it to collect and pump the desalinated water to the shore. 

  3. No, wasn't that, I've heard of that, thought that was just another cold fusion. I.e. Wishful thinking. 

    somebody worked out that if you could squeeze a molecule of water through an extremely small space it would produce electricity. The problem was working out how to attract them through. 

    Ill keep searching, I've definitely read about it.

  4. Hi, got a query, I remember reading about two types of energy a while ago, and I can't find them anywhere. I'm not even sure if I imagined them or not. All I get from web searches are different types of fusion, renewable energy or energy companies. 

    Can anybody tell me the names of them please, sorry for poor descriptions, 

    1) apparently if you can squeeze water through a really tiny space it will produce electricity?

    2) this one involves vibrating an atom, I think, to produce electricity?

     

    again, sorry for really rubbish descriptions but that's all I can remember, that's why I was searching for them. Was going to post in news.

    The second one seems a lot easier and cheaper than fusion but I never hear anything about it! and I was wondering if graphene would enable the first one to make progress.

  5. On 5/9/2018 at 10:31 AM, Enthalpy said:

    I used to play the violin, the piano, the saxophone, the flute, the contrabass tuba and the bassoon but stopped all when I moved to a hotel in Munich. I will play the winds again some time.

    Wow:eek:, impressive...The last time I played the winds was in school. I played the flute also in the army cadets band (and at home), i wanted to play the side drum but they made me play flute instead. I actually really enjoyed it, I got pretty good, wish I'd kept playing. This is a seriously impressive thread, you'd make one hell of a one man band. 

    Its makes me want to learn to play an instrument again. Always fancied the banjo or saxophone. Do you like jazz? If you do, enjoy....

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=vmDDOFXSgAs

    err..if you don't, sorry for ruining your thread. And thanks for the reply the other day.

  6. For me, lately the purpose of life is to find purpose. Sometimes life feels overwhelming. But it's always the small things that lift me. People saying hello, helping me out when they have no reason to, being nice, small things like that.

    So I guess my purpose would be to remember you only have to do small things to really help someone.

    And try to be less of a socially awkward dick too, that would help.

  7. I never used to feel like this, but I become more and more disillusioned by the day, I understand brexit and Trump supporters, I wouldn't vote for either but I understand their frustrations.

    Im actually quite positive about robots/AI. I think they'll help uneducated/disabled people get better jobs not worse. There'll be a transition period of course. Robots and people together is a better combination than either alone. More practical for most businesses too.

    It's the capabilities of emerging tech people should focus on. look at the emerging/new industries like space tourism, driverless cars, or drones for example.

    Not to mention the greatest use for a robot I can think of... taking my job.

  8. I must be the only one in this thread who has a crappy job (to go with my crappy education). Personally I can't wait for a robot to walk in and apply for a job where I work. It can have my job, no problems what so ever. I'm being serious as well. 

    I cant even begin to describe just how bad my job is or what it does to me mentally. I feel physically and mentally crushed most nights. The same repetitive motions, no music, dusty factory, can't leave your bench, always too hot, the senior management seem to be completely inept and are either resigning or being sacked, low wages (can't save), a turnover rate over 60%, over 90% of employees are still agency workers (with some having worked here for 5+years!), no communication, we have no idea if our jobs will still be here in 6 months, chronic back ache, leg pains from standing in same place, the list goes on...

    And it's not as simple as getting another job, unless it a company like Rolls Royce, a factory job is a factory job- same shit different place. I live in a little town in North Wales so choices are limited.

    Education isn't really an option either 1- can't afford it, 2- I've got avoidance personality (and other stuff) so the idea of being in college around all the people is hugely stressful to me (why I work nights), it's just not going to happen. 

    Im fine being poor(ish), uneducated (my fault), living in a small town (can leave whenever i want), I'm even fine giving my job to a robot or AI, so are most of the people who work on my shift in fact, we can't wait for the robot revolution. If it means I'm even poorer as a result, I still don't care, just as long as it happens.

  9. Milky way's black hole just flared, growing 75 times as bright for a few hours

    Abstract...

    Quote

    Even though the black hole at the center of the Milky Way is a monster, it's still rather quiet. Called Sagittarius A, it's about 4.6 million times more massive than the sun. Usually, it's a brooding behemoth. But scientists observing Sgr. A with the Keck Telescope just observed it's brightness blooming to over 75 times normal for a few hours.

    milkywaysbla.jpg.c06f2a1bcc5aefdfa878538bf2b5a34d.jpg

     four images from the paper. Over about a 2 hour period.

    The flaring is not visible in optical light, it's all happening in the near-infrared...Astronomers have been watching Sgr. A for 20 years, and though the black hole does have some variability in its output, this flaring event is like nothing astronomers have observed before. This peak was over twice as bright as the previous peak flux level....The team saw Sgr. A flaring at 75 times normal for a two-hour period on May 13th. At first, astronomer Tuan Do thought that they were seeing a star called SO-2 rather than Sgr. A. SO-2 is one of a group of stars called S-stars that orbits the black hole closely.....The question is, what made Sgr. A flare like this?.....It's likely that something disrupted the black hole's usually quiet neighbourhood, and there are at least a couple of possibilities.

    The first is not actually a disruption, but an inaccuracy in the statistical models used to u understand the black hole...

    The second possibility is where things get interesting: Something has changed in the black hole's neighbourhood.

    2-milkywaysbla.jpg.591d41116747a37e946584e10c17ebb1.jpg

    The group of stars that orbit close to Sgr. A are called S stars. SO-2 made it's closest approach about a year ago.

    The previously mentioned star SO-2 is a prime candidate. It's one of two stars that approach very closely to Sgr. A in an elliptical orbit...Its possible that SO-2's close approach disrupted the way material flows into Sgr. A. But astronomers aren't certain, SO-2 is not a very large star and it see s unlikely to cause this type of disruption

    Another possibility is a gas cloud. Back in 2002 astronomers saw what they thought might be a hydrogen gas cloud approaching the center of Sgr. A. By 2012 astronomers were more certain..and it was named G2. They measured the temperature of the cloud at 10,000 degrees Kelvin...in 2013 it would travel close enough to the black hole that the tidal forces would rip it apart.

    In the final analysis, this flaring may just be the natural result of a variable flow of material into Sgr. A which is expected to be lumpy......more at link

    https://phys.org/news/2019-08-milky-black-hole-flared-bright.html

     

     

     

     

  10. Sorry I can't contribute to the post but seriously.....Holy s#-t, there's  some serious math in this post:o my poor old iPad took at least 5 mins just to load it all up. That doesn't even happen on math forums I go to. I'm seriously envious of people who can do math/physics at this level. If you can understand this thread, I hope your ugly...:D

  11. I'm confused, the obvious answer is click remove or go on manage search history. But your previous posts make you out to be pretty smart, what gives? This a trick question?

    Or do you mean the history of your posts on this site? They don't delete posts I'm afraid, PM a mod and ask if it is.

  12. On 8/11/2019 at 7:52 PM, Strange said:

    When people say "new physics", do they mean a completely new branch of physics, something completely new, like the theory of relativity or evolution, or do they mean new ways of looking at current methods/ideas?

  13. Nice, could have uses for people with Dementia/Alzheimer's as well I reckon. Interesting that they didn't use AI (I imagine they will do when released), gives it double the impact. 

     

  14. How can they "hear" you listening to them? If they can hear you, and you can hear them, does that mean you can talk to each other?. I think you need to rationalise it. Like you said:-

    15 minutes ago, StopListeningToOurConversa said:

     

     ....and that there is no circumstance in which I can not hear them. No desolate forest, no sound-proof room,  no use of loud machinery while wearing hearing protection... 

    ...It's all in your head, so you need to speak to someone who specialises/has knowledge in mental conditions i.e. Doctor, psychologist, psychiatrist...only in theory of course.

  15. 3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

    We definitely need a more European attitude about spending on social requirements (which I feel healthcare is). In the US, we let capitalism build the paths our socialism takes, and wonder why all our money gets leeched away.

    The Japanese model would be better for America I reckon. It's just as advanced, although their mental health treatment is dated.

    IMG_1641.PNG.fb54ad789430e410f742bcd5930e2a7c.PNG

    .... The care system in Japan provides healthcare services, including screening examinations, prenatal care and infectious disease control, with the patient accepting responsibility for 30% of these costs while the government pays the remaining 70%.......All residents of Japan are required by the law to have health insurance coverage......Hospitals, by law, must be run as non-profit and be managed by physicians. For-profit corporations are not allowed to own or operate hospitals. Clinics must be owned and operated by physicians.

    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Health_care_system_in_Japan

     

  16. On 8/8/2019 at 7:49 AM, beecee said:
    Another Interesting article.....
     
    ALMA and VLT Find Evidence for Stars Forming Just 250 Million Years After Big Bang
     
    Astronomers have used observations from the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) and ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) to determine that star formation in the very distant galaxy MACS1149-JD1 started at an unexpectedly early stage, only 250 million years after the Big Bang. This discovery also represents the most distant oxygen ever detected in the Universe and the most distant galaxy ever observed by ALMA or the VLT. The results will appear in the journal Nature on 17 May 2018.
     
    the paper:
     
    A fundamental quest of modern astronomy is to locate the earliest galaxies and study how they influenced the intergalactic medium a few hundred million years after the Big Bang1–3 . The abundance of star-forming galaxies is known to decline4, 5 from redshifts of about 6 to 10, but a key question is the extent of star formation at even earlier times, corresponding to the period when the first galaxies might have emerged. Here we present spectroscopic observations of MACS1149-JD16 , a gravitationally lensed galaxy observed when the Universe was less than four per cent of its present age. We detect an emission line of doubly ionized oxygen at a redshift of 9.1096±0.0006, with an uncertainty of one standard deviation. This precisely determined redshift indicates that the red rest-frame optical colour arises from a dominant stellar component that formed about 250 million years after the Big Bang, corresponding to a redshift of about 15. Our results indicate the it may be possible to detect such early episodes of star formation in similar galaxies with future telescopes.

    Maybe in future they could use this~ 

    Space Telescope:

    abstract...Astronomer David Kipping of Colombia University has worked out that a 1-meter space telescope, positioned beyond the moon, could use the focusing power of the ring of the atmosphere seen around the edge of the planet to amplify the brightness of dim objects by tens of thousands of times. More at link....

    Sound exciting to me, there's still alot of issues to solve but it sounds really promising.

     

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