Short Takes – 6-20-24

Hydroxide-loaded sponge soaks up atmospheric carbon dioxide. ChemistryWorld.com article. May be more useful for other, point-source atmospheric scrubbing applications. Pull quote: “García points out that the adsorption capacity of the charged sponges is ‘approximately one fourth of the uptake reported for current benchmarks’, including amines. Moreover, the capture capacity is almost halved if humidity increases from 10 to 40%, which would be problematic if capturing carbon dioxide in climates with high humidity, for example in the UK where the average humidity is over 70%. ‘Such problematic performance could also hugely hinder applications in point-source carbon capture, [where] gas streams are normally saturated in water,’ explains García López. However, she sees the tuneability, quick kinetics, and simple preparation of the system as major benefits. ‘The method has a huge potential to achieve very good results in the future,’ she adds.”

Electronic Weapons: SpaceX Stifles Russian Use of Starlink. StrategyPage.com article. Pull quote: “Early in the war American defense officials admitted that if the Starlink satellite internet service were government run, it would not have remained operational over Ukraine because government regulations do not allow for the quick responses Starlink management used to defeat Russian electronic attacks and keep Starlink operational in Ukraine.”

Titan Disaster Forces Global Rethinking of Deep Sea Exploration. NYTimes.com article. Pull quote: ““It has to be mandatory,” Alfred S. McLaren, a retired Navy submariner, submersible pilot and president emeritus of the Explorers Club, said of the proposed upgrade. “Until you get these testing and certification rules in place, it’s a wide open sea, and stupid things are going to happen.””

Mathematicians Are Suddenly Rethinking the Equal Sign. PopularMechanics.com article. Slightly geeky, but may have implications outside of academia. Pull quote: “If that sounds like overthinking, you’re right—using the highly intuitive and context-adapting human mind, we can do it pretty much without thinking at all. But math is an abstract field of study, and computer programming is arguably even more so. The machines we rely on to solve complicated problems need a lot more direction than our flexible human minds, and Buzzard’s career project is converting human-written math proofs into all of the algorithmic steps that are required to code them with a computer.”

Safety Fitness Determinations; Virtual Public Listening Sessions. Federal Register FMCSA virtual meeting notice. Summary: “FMCSA announces that it will host two virtual public listening sessions pertaining to development of an updated methodology to determine when a motor carrier is not fit to operate commercial motor vehicles in or affecting interstate commerce. Specifically, the Agency would like to hear from members of the public on issues of concern relating to the current Safety Fitness Determination (SFD), including, for example, the three-tiered rating system (Satisfactory, Unsatisfactory, Conditional) versus changing to a proposed single rating only when a carrier is found to be Unfit; utilizing inspection data and FMCSA's Safety Measurement System (SMS); incorporating driver behavior into SFD ratings; and revising the list of safety violations used to calculate the rating, and adjusting the weights allocated to particular violations including increasing the weight for unsafe driving violations.” First meeting date: June 25^th, 2024.

Massive underwater drone skates off California coast. Axios.com article. Extremely sparse language. Pull quote: “The drone is modular, meaning it is easily taken apart and reassembled in the field. The Manta Ray prototype was shipped cross-country in pieces for at-sea assessments earlier this year.”