Youtube summarizes pop culture, so I can do other stuff February 5, 2023
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Efficient hydrolysis using Chromium and Cobalt on seawater February 4, 2023
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Right. A Chinese team has performed direct electrolysis of untreated seawater, achieving long-term stability exceeding 100 hours at 500 mA cm−2 and performance similar to a typical PEM electrolyzer operating in high-purity water. This is achieved by introducing a Lewis acid layer (for example, Cr2O3) on transition metal oxide catalysts to dynamically split water molecules and capture hydroxyl anions. Such in situ generated local alkalinity facilitates the kinetics of both electrode reactions and avoids chloride attack and precipitate formation on the electrodes. A flow-type natural seawater electrolyzer with Lewis acid-modified electrodes (Cr2O3–CoOx) exhibits the industrially required current density of 1.0 A cm−2 at 1.87 V and 60 °C. Managing this without filtering the seawater or alkalizing it first is the real key, here. The efficiency is near 100%, the first step towards green hydrogen production at scale. You are seeing the first glimpse of the sun-fueled future, where solar power is stored as hydrogen.
Hpomework: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41560-023-01195-x
Full-body medical scanner February 4, 2023
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A company was founded by Hjalmar Nilsonne and Daniel Ek has created a 360-degree body scanner comes equipped with over 70 sensors that collect more than “50 million data points on skin, heart, vessels, respiration, microcirculation and more.” This data is then analyzed by a “self-learning AI-powered system” created by Neko Health.
This sort of thing seems vaguely familiar.
Inside the Fantasy Genre Writer’s Head December 23, 2022
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…or, maybe not.
Alienoid November 15, 2022
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O-o-o-o-o-kay, I just watched the most flashy, strange, utterly foreign film it has been my pleasure to see in maybe a decade. “Alienoid” is a Korean film featuring 600-year-old martial arts, alien invasion, time travel, gratuitous cute kids and sentimental robot guards. Also, downtown Seoul is sliced and diced by alien spaceships.
Ancient magicians fight alien criminals in non-stop action. Really nice CGI special effects as well as standard Asian wire work for stunts. It all rolls along so quickly you can barely read the subtitles.
Science News, and Trivial Commentary November 8, 2022
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30% of FDA regulations are not made from data
According to a team of US researchers their results (based on an examination of drug safety signals identified by the FDA from 2008 to 2019) show that the FDA is either taking regulatory measures on information that has not been made public or that more comprehensive safety evaluations may be required when possible safety signals are identified. Less than a third (30%) of regulatory actions were corroborated by at least one relevant published research study
Homework: “Characterization and corroboration of safety signals identified from the US Food and Drug Administration Adverse Event Reporting System, 2008-19: cross sectional study” by Meera M. Dhodapkar, Xiaoting Shi, Reshma Ramachandran, Evan M. Chen, Joshua D. Wallach and Joseph S. Ross, 5 October 2022, The BMJ.
DOI: 10.1136/bmj-2022-071752
Eight harvests from one rice planting in China and Uganda
New strains of rice are being used in Uganda and China, which can be harvested for several years (as opposed to current practice of planting yearly). With few exceptions, perennial rice yield was equivalent to annual rice over the first four years. Yield began to drop off in the fifth year due to various factors, leading the researchers to recommend re-sowing perennial rice after four years.
But because they didn’t have to plant each season, farmers growing perennial rice put in almost 60% less labor and spent nearly half on seed, fertilizer, and other inputs. This is a potential game changer for poorer farmers.
Homework: “Sustained productivity and agronomic potential of perennial rice” 7 November 2022, Nature Sustainability.
DOI: 10.1038/s41893-022-00997-3
Carbon nanotubes grown vertically–in quantity
The Department of Energy’s Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) are scaling up the production of vertically aligned single-walled carbon nanotubes (SWCNT), useful in rechargeable batteries, sporting goods, and auto parts, boat hulls and water filters.
Homework: “Synthesis of wafer-scale SWCNT forests with remarkably invariant structural properties in a bulk-diffusion-controlled kinetic regime” by Sei Jin Park, Kathleen Moyer-Vanderburgh, Steven F. Buchsbaum, Eric R. Meshot, Melinda L. Jue, Kuang Jen Wu and Francesco Fornasiero, 29 September 2022, Carbon.
DOI: 10.1016/j.carbon.2022.09.068
Treatments for senescent cells
University College London scientists have discovered a new mechanism that slows down and maybe even prevents the normal aging (of immune cells only; don’t get too excited).
A telomere transfer reaction between two types of white blood cells, in ‘extracellular vesicles’ (small particles that facilitate intercellular communication) had an antigen-presenting cell (APC), consisting either of B cells, dendritic cells, or macrophages, function as a ‘telomere donor’, to the T lymphocyte – the telomere recipient cell. Upon transfer of these telomeres, the recipient T cell became long-lived and possessed memory and stem cell attributes, enabling the T cell to protect a host against lethal infection in the long term.
The telomere transfer reaction extended certain telomeres about 30 times more than the extension exerted by telomerase.
Homework: “An intercellular transfer of telomeres rescues T cells from senescence and promotes long-term immunological memory” by Alessio Lanna, Bruno Vaz, Clara D’Ambra, Salvatore Valvo, Claudia Vuotto, Valerio Chiurchiù, Oliver Devine, Massimo Sanchez, Giovanna Borsellino, Arne N. Akbar, Marco De Bardi, Derek W. Gilroy, Michael L. Dustin, Brendan Blumer, and Michael Karin, 15 September 2022, Nature Cell Biology.
DOI: 10.1038/s41556-022-00991-z
Executable Circuitry From Fruitfly Brains December 28, 2021
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Science marches on: FlyBrainLab is an interactive computing platform for studying the function of executable circuits constructed from fruit fly brain data. The FlyBrainLab UI runs in your browser and officially supports Ubuntu, MacOS and Windows.
Like other well-made computing platforms it boasts documentation, tutorials, datasets, curated examples and a troubleshooting section.
Drosophila melanogaster: is there anything it can’t do?
Additional Homework : https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.62362
Ant-man’s Camera December 1, 2021
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Oh sure, it needs a nice camera bag. But at least it works well enough for Science.
Chip fabrication in the garage August 24, 2021
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This fellow has succeeded in making a chip prototype in a home setup…not your ordinary garage, it’s true; he’s got equipment I bet you haven’t got. Still, none of it is truly impossible to get if you want to spend a little money.
No title, just watch and see August 20, 2021
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I really enjoy deadpan delivery and self-deprecating humor and therefore watch Integza on Youtube…but this guy has help with deadpan from his hilariously barely-patient pregnant wife, whose archery skills are really, really good…compared to his especially. Naturally, his competitive nature will not tolerate that…
Human Biology and the Iron Man Suit April 16, 2021
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Robert Sapolsky is a genius lecturer and neuroendocrinolgist at Stanford whose lectures are part of Stanford’s video lessons. Check him out here (maybe start with Lecture 24, like I did, and then start again from Lecture 1. Trust me).
Alex Burkan is “some mad Russian guy” who is building an Iron Man suit in in a cave from a box of scraps his machine shop with oddly compelling first choices for prototyping muscles (from electrolyzed water for high-pressure hydrogen) for the exoskeleton, using high-pressure hydrogen for a repulser (nearly blowing off his arm) and launching missiles…also, he’s hilarious.
Finally, my handwriting sucks so I thought I would practice journalling to work on it. Then I thought about stuffilike.net and how I never post anymore (see “Bad Things” earlier in time) and it occurred to me that I could kill two birds with one virus, er, stone. So, here’s a first go at making my journalling/handwriting practice relevant to stuffilike.net.
OCR results will vary. All the free ones (not counting Evernote, because I haven’t tried it yet) yield crap:
Onlineocr.com version:
“,04’r it:V= :1
Inq
•
e-77’1111W4.1′
in-F. , }-fr
-PXV 7(4 )
27,777, ), , 7M• .-“y -a -.1P7-
–(—–15-977 , _ r , -0 -1–. –) 7, K7,- 11:?)/’ ,)91 7 ,) +7′ r 1 ) .6,77 – d ,4) jp, :}0 / .4-,,,,,77hr- -,n211 1 i .. 7 ), p_,,ii-rip oto rw:- -1/1,–rY ) 7Y) 1 j / 6 / – v4- ,,,, 1 ,,,..)–r ( ;1.71…/i7 ?1,
r”
This does not surprise me.
Google Docs version:
“& watched both Robert Aapolsky and a hilarious Russian fellow named Alex who is beilding an
Dron Man suit in lix machine shop using eldrolysed water to generate high prescere bydrogen for cutificial muscles and to
pouse “repulsors (besically, expelling a budioflydogenlonger mettere al igniting it dont try this at home] He’s nuts and very entertaining in a manic Russian sout of ruaz Also, this gadgets seem to mork, Oddly enough, I can see his stastegy morking hartwith lots and lots of the ratione for the mechanicals, and beige benouits of had baile for stie contrals (can you francese the store Hedding valued)”
It is possible I could use this method (take picture or scan to .pdf, then “open in Google Docs”) if my handwriting improves. We shall see.
Google Lens version:
“an I wat led both Robert Aapolsky and a hilarious Russian fellow Maned Alok whle is building. Is a Man suit is his machine stop using al dialyd water to generate high-prosesse hyclroger for autficial muscles and the “mepulests” (levicallys expuelling a level of and iquiting it don’t by this at home ), He’s nuts, as I very entertaining in a mavic Pussian sout of way. Also, this gadgets seem to work. Oedly enough, I can see his strategy working, just with lots and lots of the ration the nechcemicals, and burge of feedback for the contrale tear you imagine the software beting in valued i”
Well, I did say my handwriting was pretty poor. And it was attempting to read cursive, a style which I understand is no longer taught in USA schools (you poor kids. Are you going to be able to neatly print in time to write enough to pass essay exams?).
Ju-u-u-ust About There December 30, 2020
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Exciting update:
Ion-propelled Aircraft December 8, 2020
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Yanked from the scripts of Star Trek with embarrassing plagiarism, researchers from MIT have created a proof of concept aircraft propelled by ionic thrust. They have only tested it in a (pretty large) gymnasium, but it’s impressive nonetheless.
Simple in concept[0], a wire with 20Kv ionizes air in front of an airfoil while the oppositely-charged airfoil draws the air over itself:
The amount of thrust generated by this system is pretty small admittedly, so there are several airfoils stacked atop one another to provide enough lift for sustainable flight.
An intriguing design, it is possibly a first step of a solution to the problem of noisy propeller-driven flight. If we imagine a future with drones filling our skies, I sure hope they are quiet[1]
[0] to be honest
[1] unlike my wife’s drone
Free Time November 22, 2020
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I used to write these posts here about Stuff I Like during my lunchtime before a number of Bad Things happened to me. The Bad Things got steadily worse for awhile, and I got out of the habit of writing frequently. I haven’t posted much in the last few years because of timing issues, moving twice, taking eighteen months off work (partly related to the aforementioned Bad Things) to travel and generally letting writing fall onto a back burner. Don’t forget, this blog started out as just an example for my sister to follow to monetize her medical experience without having to have an actual job; I just got a little carried away.
Well, every once in a while I get enthusiastic enough to rise from my pit of despair to write up more Stuff I Like…like this little gem:
This gent has taken the longest possible route to boot his PC. The writeup is fairly detailed, with GitHub sources and self-mocking humor. I would say more, but I’m only just a little bit out of my pit of despair and I’m not charming nor am I witty lately.
COVID-19 Cracked by A.I. November 7, 2020
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The Summit computer at Oak Ridge has looked at scads and scads of data about Covid and pretty much figured out what Covid is and what to do about it therapeutically. There is an excellent writeup of it on Medium.com which I am not going to plagiarize, but tell you all to read right here.
Finally! November 2, 2020
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H@ck Skool Security Training
April 21, 2020
Posted by stuffilikenet in Applications, Geek Stuff, Toys.
add a comment
For all aspiring script kiddies security researchers: the demo site for web vulnerabilities from OWASP, OWASP_Broken_Web_Apps_VM_1.2, is available on SourceForge. Set it up as a virtual machine using VMWare or VirtualBox (if your mom’s purse doesn’t have a few hundred bucks in it company doesn’t have a budget for VMWare), run it as a website inside your box, then set up Kali Linux as another virtual machine and attack it.
Fun for all.
Game-changing engineered PET enzyme to break down and recycle plastic bottles April 13, 2020
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Nature published a paper by researchers at Carbios and Université de Toulouse that describes an enzyme that breaks down PET plastics (the kind in those clear water bottles that everyone uses…and throws away–like 800 billion tons, which is only an estimate) really, really fast and efficiently. They made the protein which “achieves, over 10 hours, a minimum of 90 per cent PET depolymerization into monomers, with a productivity of 16.7 grams of terephthalate per liter per hour (200 grams per kilogram of PET suspension, with an enzyme concentration of 3 milligrams per gram of PET)” with good, old-fashioned genetic engineering to solve a recycling problem two generations in the making.
Carbios plans to begin testing its enzyme in 2021 in a demonstration plant near Lyon, France.
The paper is available at Nature (not just the abstract, if using the link below), and is fairly readable by a layman.
Homework: An engineered PET depolymerase to break down and recycle plastic bottles: V. Tournier, C. M. Topham, A. Gilles, B. David, C. Folgoas, E. Moya-Leclair, E. Kamionka, M.-L. Desrousseaux, H. Texier, S. Gavalda, M. Cot2, E. Guémard, M. Dalibey J. Nomme, G. Cioci, S. Barbe, M. Chateau, I. André , S. Duquesne & A. Marty
Electric, Adjustable Waterproof Glue March 6, 2020
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The title is quite a promise, isn’t it? Bruce Lee, associate professor of biomedical engineering at Michigan Tech, is a part of the Office of Naval Research’s (ONR) Young Investigator Program (YIP) and showed how to use pH to make smart underwater adhesives (similar to mussels’ adhesives). He and Saleh Akram Bhuiyan developed a new method using an electrical current to turn off the adhesion of a catechol-containing material.
For extra coolness the adhesive turns red when it’s shut off. For ultimate coolness, they can turn it back on.
Homework: Md. Saleh Akram Bhuiyan et al, In Situ Deactivation of Catechol-Containing Adhesive Using Electrochemistry, Journal of the American Chemical Society (2020). DOI: 10.1021/jacs.9b11266
Artificial Intelligence Finds an Antibiotic February 20, 2020
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In a news flash from M.I.T. scientists announce the discover of a (potentially) low-toxicity molecule which interferes with bacteriological cell walls’ ability to maintain electrochemical gradients, which are essential to creating ATP, the main energy molecule in, well, everything: the cells would starve. An A.I. was trained on 2,500 molecules and then scanned the Broad Institute’s Drug Repurposing Hub, a library of about 6,000 compounds. The model picked out one molecule that was predicted to have strong antibacterial activity and had a chemical structure different from any existing antibiotics. Using a different machine-learning model, the researchers also showed that this molecule would likely have low toxicity to human cells.
It worked very well in vitro and in mouse models on a bunch of stubborn microbes that are getting to be pretty resistant to everything we have: Clostridium difficile, Acinetobacter baumannii, and Mycobacterium tuberculosis. The drug apparently worked on EVERYTHING they tested, except Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Stuffilike.net 