Risk It for the Plastic
Scientists Turn Plastic Waste Into Edible Cookies Because That’s the Future We Deserve
Nothing goes to waste.
https://futurism.com/future-society/plastic-waste-edible-cookies?fbclid=IwdGRjcAT5iN9jbGNrBPmInHBkb2YFZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAc3J0YwZhcHBfaWQMMzUwNjg1NTMxNzI4AAEexV4i3b9Gioug1RxB9-AlU3Nx7DqMrZ_QzQCwn1YrCM5VO8ES2lhzzu6c4EU_aem_SSDeCNQq4vq1cRkDlY0riQ

The future of food is looking a little grim.

In the event we turn all arable land on this planet into a barren heath incapable of growing food, humankind may have to resort to reaping what we sowed by eating our own plastic pollution.

A team of researchers at Southern Illinois University Carbondale just demonstrated that this was possible by using specially engineered yeast to create tasty — and yes, edible — cookies which they 3D printed out of plastic waste.

China is testing an electricity transmission technology that could eventually eliminate the need for most grid infrastructure entirely — wireless power transmission using microwave or laser beams to move electricity through the air over distances of kilometres, tested initially for connecting offshore islands and remote facilities without subsea cables.

Wireless power transmission — the concept of sending electricity through the air using electromagnetic waves rather than copper conductors — has been theoretically understood since Nikola Tesla’s experiments in the 1890s. Commercial applications have been limited to centimetre-scale transfers for consumer electronics charging. The engineering challenge of scaling wireless power to grid-relevant distances and powers is formidable: atmospheric absorption, beam spreading, and conversion efficiency losses accumulate with distance in ways that make long-range wireless transmission far less efficient than conductor-based alternatives at present technology levels.

China’s State Grid Research Institute has demonstrated microwave wireless power transmission at 1 kilometre range with 90 kilowatts of received power — a record distance and power level for ground-based wireless transmission. The technology uses a phased array transmitting antenna that focuses the microwave beam precisely on a receiving rectenna — a rectifying antenna that converts microwave energy directly to direct current electricity. The conversion efficiency across the complete system reached 22% — low by conductor transmission standards but sufficient to enable applications where no cable alternative exists.

The immediate applications are niche but commercially significant: offshore platform power supply from shore without subsea cable installation, power delivery to remote monitoring equipment, and emergency power supply in disaster scenarios where physical infrastructure is disrupted. China’s strategic interest extends to space-based solar power transmission — using microwave beams from orbital solar arrays to ground stations — where wireless transmission is not an efficiency competitor to wires but the only physical option available. China is building the technology from short-range terrestrial demonstrations upward toward orbital applications.

Source: State Grid Corporation of China Research Institute / Chinese Academy of Sciences, 2024

Suomalaisissa yliopistoissa tutkijat opettavat ja opettajat tutkivat. Hyvän tutkijan ja hyvän opettajan ominaisuudet eivät aina yhdisty samassa ihmisessä.

Osin siitä johtuen opetus ei aina ole pedagogisesti tasokasta tai innostavaa, sanoo hallintotieteen professori Timo Aarrevaara Lapin yliopistosta.

”Se on hinta, joka me maksetaan tutkimuksen ja opetuksen yhdistämisestä, mutta se kannattaa maksaa”, Aarrevaara sanoo.

Aarrevaara ajattelee, että ilman tutkimuksen tuomaa kosketuspintaa alan kehityksessä voi olla vaikea pysyä mukana. Monilla aloilla mennään eteenpäin niin nopeasti, että kun opetus perustuu toisten tekemään julkaistuun tutkimukseen, se on jo jäljessä.

”Kun tutkijat ryhtyvät opettajiksi, opetus ei aina ole tasaista. Mutta tutkimukseen perustuvassa opetuksessa parasta ennen -päivämäärä ei umpeudu nopeasti.”

Yliopiston tutkimus- ja opetushenkilöstöltä ei kattavasti vaadita pedagogista pätevyyttä. Aarrevaaran mukaan pedagogisia opintoja ovat kuitenkin käyneet nykyään lähes kaikki, jotka akateemiselle uralle haluavat. Ilman niitä esimerkiksi opetuksen kehittämistä käsittelevään keskusteluun osallistuminen ei onnistu, sillä käsitteet ovat niin vaikeita.

”En tiedä, onko se hyvä asia”, hän naurahtaa.

Flashing light and sound 40 times a second can flush out Alzheimer’s proteins.

Researchers at MIT have spent nearly a decade investigating whether stimulation at exactly 40 hertz, or 40 times per second, could help the brain fight Alzheimer’s disease.

The idea centers on gamma waves.

Brain cells communicate through rhythmic electrical activity, and gamma rhythms around 40Hz are associated with processes including attention, learning and memory. In people with Alzheimer’s, this activity can become disrupted.

Researchers discovered that exposing mice to light flickering and sounds pulsing at 40Hz could strengthen those gamma rhythms.

What happened next was unexpected.

In multiple Alzheimer’s mouse models, the stimulation reduced buildup of amyloid and tau, protected neurons and connections between brain cells, and improved memory.

Researchers later found evidence for one possible mechanism.

The 40Hz stimulation appeared to increase activity in the brain’s glymphatic system, a network that helps move waste out of brain tissue. In mice, that increased the clearance of amyloid, one of the proteins associated with Alzheimer’s disease.

The much bigger question was whether any of this would translate to humans.

Small MIT trials found that people with Alzheimer’s could use synchronized 40Hz light and sound safely at home. Participants receiving the stimulation showed signs of slower brain atrophy, stronger connectivity between some brain regions and improvements on certain measures compared with controls.

A later follow-up produced another intriguing result.

Five patients continued using the treatment for roughly two years. Among the three with late-onset Alzheimer’s, several cognitive measures declined more slowly than in comparable patients outside the trial. Two patients with early-onset Alzheimer’s did not show the same benefit.

That study was extremely small, so it cannot prove the treatment works.

But the research has advanced far enough that a separate MIT spinout, Cognito Therapeutics, is testing 40Hz audiovisual stimulation in a large randomized phase III trial.

And unlike drugs that must enter the bloodstream, the experimental treatment is completely noninvasive.

Learn more:
“Evidence that 40 Hz gamma stimulation promotes brain health is expanding.” MIT News.

The battery of the future is made from a yellow powder that’s a byproduct of oil refining. Lithium-sulfur chemistry has long been a holy grail: incredibly high theoretical energy density, ultralow cost, and no nickel or cobalt. The problem has always been rapid degradation — until now. Recent breakthroughs at Drexel University and in commercial startups have stabilized the sulfur cathode using a solid-state electrolyte, achieving 500 Wh/kg in prototype cells that survive hundreds of cycles. Sulfur is the 10th most abundant element in the Earth’s crust and is currently stockpiled as a waste product from petroleum refining and gas processing. Turning it into high-performance batteries would slash battery costs, make electric flight viable, and create a circular use for an industrial byproduct. The first pilot production lines are being built in the U.S. and South Korea, targeting aerospace and long-range EVs. The days when a battery’s value depended on mining a handful of conflict minerals may soon be over — the future is lighter, cheaper, and smells faintly of sulfur. #lithiumsulfurbattery #solidstatebattery #batteryinnovation #cleanstorage #sustainablebatteries

Steel, the backbone of cities and wind turbines, is about to go green. H2 Green Steel’s Boden plant in northern Sweden, now under construction, is the world’s first large‑scale steel mill to replace coal with green hydrogen. In a conventional blast furnace, iron ore is smelted with coking coal, producing nearly two tonnes of CO₂ per tonne of steel. The Boden process instead uses hydrogen produced from renewable electricity to reduce iron ore directly, emitting water vapor instead of carbon dioxide. The plant will produce 5 million tonnes of green steel annually by 2030, enough for Europe’s automotive and construction sectors. Volvo, Mercedes‑Benz, and BMW have already signed supply agreements. Sweden’s abundant hydropower and wind make the hydrogen truly zero‑carbon. The plant site will also host one of Europe’s largest electrolyzer installations. Steelmaking, responsible for 7% of global emissions, has long been considered “hard to abate” — but Boden is proving it can be built, financed, and sold at a premium. The first low‑carbon steel beams will soon hold up buildings that don’t cost the earth. #greensteel #h2greensteel #swedishindustry #greenhydrogen #cleanmanufacturing

A New Scientist investigation published August 10, 2026, drawing on research from University College London Professor Glen Jeffery and a peer-reviewed study in Scientific Reports, has confirmed that standard LED lighting is systematically undermining human metabolic health. The core problem is spectral imbalance: LEDs emit heavy blue-wavelength light between 420 and 450 nanometres while stripping out the red and near-infrared wavelengths that mitochondria depend on to generate energy, regulate blood sugar, and control the pace of cellular aging. The result is slowed metabolism, increased insulin resistance, elevated blood glucose, reduced oxygen consumption, and impaired vision, all measurable consequences of what Jeffery calls “infrared starvation.”

When Jeffery’s team replaced LEDs with incandescent bulbs in a windowless workspace at UCL, visual function improved significantly across all participants. A separate experiment found that brief exposure to deep red light lowered blood glucose levels by stimulating mitochondria to consume more glucose and oxygen. Jeffery has called the situation an asbestos-level public health crisis. Simple mitigations include spending more time in natural daylight, especially before noon, using incandescent or full-spectrum bulbs indoors, and limiting LED screen exposure in the hours before sleep.

Sources: New Scientist, NewsNation, Scientific Reports, University College London, May to August 2026