Short Takes – 1-18-23

Ionic cooling offers way to end greenhouse gas use in refrigeration. ChemistryWorld.com article. Pull quote: “In the new work, Drew Lilley and Ravi Prasher, both at UC Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, used an alternative ‘ionocaloric refrigeration’ scheme. Instead of applying a field externally, they used the electrochemical binding between the ions in a salt (in this case sodium iodide) and a solvent (ethylene carbonate). When the salt is added to the partially-frozen solvent, it begins to dissolve. To do so, however, the solvent must melt, and this requires energy. ‘[The solvent] wants to become a liquid, but it needs energy to do so, so it steals it from itself and cools down,’ explains Lilley.”

When It Comes to Cybersecurity, the Biden Administration Is Getting Much More Aggressive. Slate.com article. Pull quote: “Under the new strategy, the U.S. will “disrupt and dismantle” hostile networks as part of a persistent, continuous campaign. This campaign will be coordinated by the FBI’s National Cyber Investigative Joint Task Force working in tandem with all relevant U.S. agencies—a systematic collaboration that has rarely been attempted and never before publicized. Private companies—both firms that are frequent targets of cyberattacks and firms that specialize in cybersecurity methods—will be full partners in this effort, both to alert the government task force of intrusions and to help repel them. (In the past, many of these firms, especially in Silicon Valley, have been reluctant to be seen cooperating with the government on these issues.)”

Jackson, Mississippi’s water crisis persists as national attention and help fade away. NBCNews.com article. Pull quote: “Months before the water outage in August, residents endured a cold snap in 2021, with extremely low temperatures freezing pipes and leaving many without water. And last month, residents were yet again under a boil notice after a winter storm and broken pipes left thousands without running water.” Not all water system problems are cyber related.