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Researchers at Harvard have designed, built and tested a flow battery that relies on a
molecule found in plants called quinone. This battery doesn’t require metal, making it
a potentially much cheaper alternative to traditional batteries, and a possible answer
to the energy storage problem posed by the rise of intermittent renewable sources like
solar and wind.
Welcome to the daily conversation, a rundown of the most interesting news stories.
Breakthroughs in renewable energy storage can’t come soon enough as NOAA: World had
4th hottest year on record in 2013.
Powerful Multinational Corporations can take on Global Warming in unique and impactful
ways and the good news is that some are finally embracing the idea that climate change is
going to be an economically disruptive force, with companies like Nike and Coca Cola beginning
to actually lobby governments to enact more environmentally friendly policies.
Ahead of the Davos Conference - where many of the leaders of these companies gather each
year - is the report that the 85 richest people own more wealth than all of the 3.5 billion
people who make up the bottom 50% of the world, combined.
This is video of the richest man in the world, Bill Gates, getting absolutely schooled by
the world’s best chess player, Magnus Carlsen. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=84NwnSltHFo
The humble Bill Gates has used his vast fortune to try and fix the world’s biggest problems.
Thanks in large part to the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation’s $225 million donation,
India is now officially “polio-free”. This achievement is one of the most impressive
accomplishments ever in global health.
The different levels of development across human society is fascinating and has been
captured beautifully by photographer Jimmy Nelson in his book “Before They Pass Away,”
a collection of 29 cultures and tribes at risk of disappearing around the world.
One of the most mysterious disappearances in science has been the massive die-off of
honeybees that’s killed roughly a third of commercial colonies each year since 2006.
A new study has found it may be linked to a rapidly mutating virus that jumped from
tobacco plants to soy plants to bees. Honeybees are crucial to the production of many of America’s
staple crops, so solving this mystery is a huge priority.
And these are gorgeous portraits of bees native to North America. The US Geological society
used photography technology developed by the U.S. army. Now that’s an out-of-the-box
collaboration.
This spider is an out of the box thinker, building fake spiders onto its web out of
dead insects and jungle trash, but scientists aren’t sure whether they are meant to serve
as lures for prey or as an anti-predator defense system.
The Beijing Genomics Institute is, essentially, a cloning factory, producing over 500 cloned
pigs a year. It has ambitions to sequence the genomes of a million people, a million
animals and a million plants. With humanity now on the cusp of widespread cloning, what
do you think will be the unintended consequences that will arise?
Swedish researchers have proven that humans are able to smell sickness in a person whose
immune system has become highly active--While the precise chemical compounds have yet to
be identified, this interesting discovery might open up doors for understanding other
ways that infectious diseases can be detected and contained.
Another interesting discovery is that the largest asteroid in our solar system - called
Ceres - has two jets of steam erupting from it on opposite sides. Astronomers believe
they are produced either by the warmth of the sun vaporizing ice beneath the surface,
or from volcano-like ice geysers.
Closer to us, the Mars rover Opportunity - which celebrates its 10-year anniversary today - has
uncovered evidence that earth-like water flowed on the Red Planet around 4 billion years ago--meaning
it may have been capable of supporting microbial life for a period of hundreds of millions
of years in the past.
Thanks for watching the rundown of stories that had us talking today. As always, each
one is linked below so you can learn more about whichever ones interested you the most.
For the daily conversation, I’m Bryce Plank.