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Mars living

There’s too much carbon dioxide on Earth and not enough oxygen on Mars.

Inspired by photosynthesis in plants, in which carbon dioxide is converted into oxygen and glucose, a team of researchers at Nanjing University uses lithium to split CO2 into elemental carbon and oxygen.

Watch: Pioneering Oxygen from CO2

The team developed an electrochemical device: CO2 goes in, oxygen and carbon come out. Separately.

The device was tested using pure carbon dioxide and mixed gases, including a simulated flue gas and simulated gas from Mars, where the atmosphere consists primarily of CO2.

The test results are encouraging, and this device, if powered with renewable energy, could be instrumental in achieving carbon neutrality on Earth and supporting life on Mars.

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On Star Wars Day, visit the alien
landscapes in your own backyard

Fans of the Star Wars franchise on May 4 celebrate Star Wars Day, named for the pun “May the Fourth be with you,” a play on the series’ catchphrase “May the Force be with you.”

If you celebrate, you might dress up as a Jedi, drink blue milk and binge the series’ films and TV shows. But if you’re in the UAE, you could also visit some of the sites featured in scenes from 2015’s “Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens” and mix a little geological science with your science-fiction.

Abu Dhabi’s westernmost Al Dhafra region stood in for the alien desert planet Jakku in the movie. The real Jakku, Rub’ al Khali, also known as the Empty Quarter, is the world’s largest uninterrupted sand mass. The area, 583,000 kilometers, is about the size of France and has about as much sand as the Sahara Desert. It also reaches into Oman, Saudi Arabia and Yemen.

Here, like the film’s hero Rey, you can slide down enormous dunes on a sled. Be warned: You’ll need a 4-wheel-drive vehicle and desert savvy.

According to NASA’s Earth Observatory, the sand may come from different sources. The reddish sand in the southern part may have traveled via wadis, streams that form during the rainy season. Other sands may have accumulated as sea levels rose and fell, exposing grains in the Persian Gulf that may have been carried to the desert by winds.

CAPTION: Al Wathba Fossil Dunes IMAGE: Shutterstock

Crews also filmed Al Wathba fossil dunes on the outskirts of Abu Dhabi city.

The 4 million-year-old dunes formed during a glacial period when water levels were higher and rainfall more plentiful than now. Water permeated the calcium carbonate in the sand dunes and erosion of the lightly cemented sand over millennia created the ethereal, otherworldly forms that caught location scouts’ eyes.

Earth visitors can see them up close at a reserve in an industrial area a short drive from the UAE capital. Colored uplights enhance the twisting shapes at night. Coffee trucks may be on site to sell drinks and snacks to savor while you take in the view.

“Force Awakens” director J.J. Abrams had good things to say about shooting the film in the UAE.

“Filming in Abu Dhabi was an incredible thing. Star Wars is a Western and a fairy tale, and shooting in Abu Dhabi was just that!” he said.

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Sneaky sea life

Broadclub cuttlefish use a dynamic camouflage technique to stay hidden even as they creep up on their prey. The “passing stripe” display involves dark stripes flowing down their bodies, which confuses their prey, masking the motion cues that usually trigger escape.

Lab experiments by the team at the University of Bristol showed that crabs, the cuttlefish’s common prey, were less likely to react when presented with looming stimuli overlaid with moving stripes compared to static patterns or no stripes at all.

In the field (the sea), the team found that cuttlefish use this display only during the final phase of their hunting approach, adjusting the stripe frequency depending on how fast they move.

Instead of trying to blend into the background, the cuttlefish overwhelms its prey with misleading visual noise and this strategy may even be unique among predators.

More like this: Clownfish use ‘Trojan Horse’ strategy to avoid stings

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Drugged up water

With the global population on the rise, the demand for food is increasing. Meeting this demand requires sustainable agricultural practices, including water management. Reusing industrial and municipal wastewater for irrigation presents a practical solution, but while this practice mitigates the environmental and economic burdens of agriculture, it also brings its own significant environmental challenges.

Wastewater is exactly that: water that has been used in the home, a business or industrial process. It’s not necessarily clean or the ideal water for agricultural irrigation, but 65 percent of irrigated lands around the world are dependent on wastewater, and 82 percent of these lands are found in regions where less than 75 percent of wastewater is treated.

Wastewater can be polluted with heavy metals or dyes from industrial applications, for example, but a growing concern is pharmaceutical pollution found in both treated and untreated wastewater. The persistence of pharmaceuticals in the environment is well-documented, and these pollutants have far-reaching implications, including the potential to impact soil health, plant nutrient uptake and the development of antimicrobial resistance across the wider food chain.

The introduction of pharmaceuticals into the environment predominantly occurs through treated wastewater because treatment facilities are ill-equipped to remove these substances. Medications not fully absorbed by the human body are excreted and end up in sewage systems, while improper disposal of medications — down the sink, flushed or even thrown in the bin — contributes further.

Researchers at Dartmouth Medical School, United States, found that the constant release of pharmaceutical waste into water bodies was impacting aquatic life: Estrogen-caused vitellogenesis in male Japanese medaka fish, caused more male fish to convert into female fish and led to an increased mortality rate. Further research found an increased prevalence of breast and testicular cancer in areas with drinking water contaminated with pharmaceutical waste.

Wastewater treatment plants are not designed to remove every environmental pollutant possible, but new treatment processes could be introduced to combat the impact of pharmaceuticals. Reducing contamination at the source is one option and programs for responsible, proper medication disposal and public education should reduce the volume of pharmaceuticals entering the waterways in the first place. Surveys conducted by UC Santa Barbara suggest a willingness among the American public to support these initiatives, but there remains the need to remove those drugs that have already made their way into the water system.

Fortunately, there are methods available.

Anaerobic wastewater treatment is deemed to be the most cost-efficient technology for treating organically polluted effluents from industrial use, according to researchers from Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology, India. Biodegradable material is digested into biogas and “sludge,” which can then be removed.

Advanced oxidation processes use ozone to remove antibiotics, acetaminophen (paracetamol) and hormones from wastewater. These processes use photocatalysis to remove penicillin and can even be solar-powered. Electrochemical conversion removal techniques can also modify pharmaceutical particles into biodegradable compounds.

The World Atlas of Desertification estimates that only 18 percent of cultivated lands are irrigated. But these irrigated lands produce 40 percent of all food.

Another way to remove antibiotics involves composite membranes made from 2D nanomaterials and MXenes. MXenes are a family of 2D materials that can be used as sheets and stacked on top of each other into flexible and stable films. Researchers from Khalifa University designed membranes to tackle the removal of pharmaceuticals from hospital wastewaters.

“The excessive release of antibiotics has been alarmingly correlated to the problem of ‘superbugs,’” Shadi Hasan, lead author of the study, tells KUST Review.

Algal-based treatment technologies are also on the rise. Microalgae are already used to remove excess nutrients from wastewater, such as nitrogen, phosphorus and carbon, as a natural disinfection process. The algal biomass absorbs the nutrients and can then be harvested and used as a bio-fertilizer. Studies have shown algae can absorb lipophilic pharmaceuticals, which could make them a viable alternative for removing certain drugs like artificial hormones from wastewater.

Finally, nanotechnology could have great potential in adsorbing contaminants from wastewater. Silver and titanium dioxide nanoparticles have been applied for disinfection and decontamination of organic compounds, while iron nanoparticles can be used to remove heavy metals. Nano-based technologies could make industrial wastewater treatment more efficient, cost-effective and eco-friendly.

More like this: 2 promising approaches to treating wastewater

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Tired of tire waste

In 2021, 274 million tires were scrapped in the USA alone, with 17 percent of them ending up in landfill: That’s 1 billion pounds of tire material, wasting space and posing potential threats including chemical leaching and auto-ignition.

One third of scrapped tires are chemically recycled through pyrolysis, but this process also presents serious health and environmental concerns due to its byproducts. Researchers at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, however, have developed a new chemical process that deconstructs used rubber into useful building blocks for new materials without relying on harsh conditions or toxic byproducts.

Their recycling method works at lower temperatures and uses water-based conditions to break the material into smaller, soluble fragments. These can then be used to make epoxy resins for coatings, adhesives and even aerospace components. When tested, they were just as strong as their commercial counterparts.

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