142 articles from MONDAY 23.5.2022

Glass and the energy reform: Sustainable production thanks to electricity?

2022 is the international year of glass. And yet many glass factories are struggling to survive. High energy costs and considerable CO2 emissions mean that glass production faces a challenging future. Researchers at FAU and Technische Hochshchule Nürnberg Georg Simon Ohm are currently conducting research aimed at finding a solution to make glass production more sustainable without relying on...

Microbes can degrade the toughest PFAS

Engineers now report selective breakdown of a particularly stubborn class of PFAS called fluorinated carboxylic acids (FCAs) by common microorganisms. Under anaerobic conditions, a carbon-carbon double bond is crucial for the shattering the ultra-strong carbon-fluorine bond by microbial communities. The resulting products could be relayed to other microorganisms for defluorination under in aerobic...

New study explains how to broaden strategy to avert catastrophic climate change

Slashing emissions of carbon dioxide, by itself, cannot prevent catastrophic global warming. But a new study concludes that a strategy that simultaneously reduces emissions of other largely neglected climate pollutants would cut the rate of global warming in half and give the world a fighting chance to keep the climate safe for humanity.

New 'CRISPR-Combo' method boosts genome editing power in plants

Ten years ago, a new technology called CRISPR-CAS9, made it possible for scientists to change the genetic code of living organisms. As revolutionary as it was, the tool had its limitations. Like the first cell phones that could only perform one function, the original CRISPR method can perform one function: removing or replacing genes in a genetic sequence. Later iterations of CRISPR were developed...

Charting a safe course through a highly uncertain environment

Researchers have developed a trajectory-planning system for autonomous vehicles that enables them to travel from a starting point to a target location safely, even when there are many different uncertainties in the environment, such as unknown variations in the shapes, sizes, and locations of obstacles.

Small adaptations, major effect: Researchers study potential of future public transportation

Being mobile individually, at any time -- without owning a car: To facilitate this, public transportation authorities cooperate with service providers for new forms of mobility such as bicycle sharing, car sharing, or ridepooling. Researchers have studied how publicly available mobility options in the Karlsruhe region in the future can optimally fulfill the citizens' needs. The result: Widespread...

South Asia's intense heat wave a 'sign of things to come'

The devastating heat wave which has baked India and Pakistan in recent months was made more likely due to climate change, according to a study by an international group of scientists on Monday. This, they say, is a glimpse of what the future holds for the region.

Low-cost gel film can pluck drinking water from desert air

More than a third of the world's population lives in drylands, areas that experience significant water shortages. Scientists and engineers at The University of Texas at Austin have developed a solution that could help people in these areas access clean drinking water.