Short Takes – 8-12-24

Seven people have been taken to hospital with breathing difficulties following a major fish tank leak in east London. LBC.co.uk article. Pull quote: “It's believed that halide lights, commonly used to sustain coral in domestic fish tanks, can spark what's known as heat stress in corals not submerged in water. The process leads to the release of palytoxin, the toxin involved in the leak.” Palytoxin geeky reference.

Weapons: Red Sea Rebels Switch to Bomb Boats. StrategyPage.com article. Pull quote: “Because the USVs explode at the waterline, the damaged ship portions quickly fill with water and the ship often sinks. Since November 2023 the Yemeni rebels have launched more than 70 attacks with missiles and USVs. The attacks are uncoordinated and often inept but quantity has a quality all its own and, so far, two cargo ships have been sunk and two ships captured and held for ransom by the rebels. One captured ship was released while the other remains in rebel custody.”

Blue Origin tests out New Glenn rocket recovery crane at Port Canaveral. Phys.org article. Pull quote: “The 375-foot-tall crane arrived to the port from Germany last October and will be used when New Glenn's booster returns to the port on its "sea-based landing platform," similar to how SpaceX lands its Falcon 9 boosters on droneships.”

Can Dirt Clean the Climate? NYTimes.com article (free). Pull quote: “To Alan Richardson, a soil biologist at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization, a government agency in Australia, the concept of using fungi to store carbon underground makes sense. But it would work only if farmers applied the fungi year after year, allowing the soil to build carbon over many years.”

Nights in Las Vegas Are Becoming Dangerously Hot. NYTImes.com article. Pull quote: “That growth has translated to more roads, more cars, more houses — across a sprawling area — creating one of the most intense urban heat island effects in the United States. At night, the heat trapped inside asphalt and buildings exhales back into neighborhoods, making the city 20 to 25 degrees hotter than the surrounding desert.”