Successfully synthesize new antibiotics, treat infections effectively

And this is the stepping stone for creating an effective antimicrobial drug.

Back in 2015, a team of scientists discovered a special antibiotic called teixobactin. Now a multinational team has for the first time succeeded in synthesizing compounds and used it to treat bacterial infections in mice. This is a milestone in the search for and developing a new drug to fight the antibiotic-resistant virus.

"When teixobactin was discovered, it evolved itself into a new antibiotic capable of destroying undetectable bacteria, including viruses like MRSA, but natural teixobactin did not work. for human beings, "explains the scientist involved in the study, Ishwar Singh.

At the end of last year, a team at Lincoln University said they had successfully developed a new synthetic version of teixobactin, with a simpler synthesis process that accelerated the process from more than 30 hours to less than full. 10 minutes. At that time, the efficacy of the drug was only demonstrated in vitro.

Now researchers from the Singapore Eye Research Institute have shown that the compound can successfully kill Staphylococcus aureus in test mice. This drug may also reduce the severity of serious infections in animals, which is surprising because the clinical substitution with moxifloxacin is not available.

"The fact that we succeeded in bringing the results from the laboratory to reality is a leapfrog in the development of new birth pills and has brought us closer to the hidden potential of teixobactin," Singh said. .

Teixobactin represents a new generation of antibiotics, the first generation that was isolated from bacteria 30 years ago. Since the discovery of teixobactin in 2015, scientists have come up with a new class of antibiotics called malacidins in early 2018. The finding is still in its early stages and there are still many more years to come. On our medical clinics.

"A significant amount of work remains to develop teixobactin into an antibiotic for human use, and it takes 6 to 10 years to produce a medication that doctors can prescribe for the patient. . But this is a big step forward, helping to open the door to improved drugs used in the body, "Singh said.

This study was published in the Journal of Medicinal Chemistry.

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Danish Startup invented underwear for weeks without washing

You read correctly - underwear can be worn for weeks without washing. But the purpose of this product is not for the lazy young people!

The purpose of this product, you have probably guessed, is to protect the environment.

"The classic way we've been - buying, wearing, washing, and throwing out our sky-high panties - is a form of wasteful natural resources. And it's especially dangerous for the environment, "said Mads Fibiger, 27, CEO and co-founder of startup from Danish Organic Basics.

Laundry and drying are responsible for two-thirds of the total impact on the environment, and that's why Organic Basics started out with panties. The special material they use is silver. This metal is antimicrobial, and that's why NASA uses silver to sterilize the astronauts' water.

The pant is covered with a silver-plated formula that is capable of killing 99.9% of the bacteria and dirt that often clings to clothing.

"It's really effective, you can wear our underwear a long time before you have to carry it, you'll save time and money, while we reduce the amount of water and energy wasted." - explains Mads Fibiger.

The panties are made from 100% recycled materials

Organic Basics launched its first product collection in 2017 following a successful public-relations campaign in Scandinavia. This year, this startup comes back with the new generation of Silverlight 2.0.

Their products are made from 100% recyclable materials, and silver treatments are proven by the Bluesign system suitable for sustainable textile production.

"We use nylon recycled automation, which is the perfect choice for textiles with extremely durable properties." The raw material of nylon is made from recycled nylon that is developed in Italy from waste Industrial spinning, spinning from spinning mills, and waste from weaving plants. And we use a seamless knitting technology to make clothing more comfortable to wear, even for a long time. "

The fashion industry, or the environment as well, needs a more sustainable direction. At present, the trend of this industry is developing towards a negative impact on the environment. A study by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation predicted that the textile industry would triple its energy consumption by 2050 and therefore account for 26 percent of global emissions, a 2 percent increase. with 2015.

Companies like Organic Brands are betting on consumers, especially the young, choosing sustainable solutions instead of iconic brands such as Calvin Klein and Diesel. And time seems to be on their side. A 2015 study by Niesel shows that 66% of global consumers are willing to pay extra for sustainable brands, and that this figure is even higher among young millennials. 1980 to 2000), up to 73%.

"We believe that the fashion industry is a 'dirty' industry that does not contribute to making the environment better, and we want to showcase great products at reasonable prices, which is 100% sustainable, is entirely possible. "

In terms of price, two boxes of SilverTech boxer briefs for men are priced at $ 64 (about $ 1.45 million), while two women's underwear boxes cost $ 56 ($ 1.27 million). To date, Organic Basics has sold over 200,000 panties to about 50,000 customers. This startup is also launching its 4th Kickstarter campaign.

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As far back as 4 months, humans have used up renewable energy on Earth in 2018

Red Alert, the speed "eating" our natural resources more and more terrible

Earth has its own limits. But human desire, it seems, is not limited. The Global Footprint Network (GFN) is evaluating how much of Earth's resources we use, from fresh to clean air, and the day a year exceeds the annual self-replication potential of the planet. This crystal.

Humans have surpassed this year's natural "budget" since the early 1970s, and each year that "extra day" is a bit earlier. By 2018, the number is 1/8.

Every minute that passes from 'over' is equivalent to 'capital deficits' rather than 'living on a profit'. "One year is not enough to replicate the annual human needs of the planet, including using data sets with caution," GFN reported.

To account for that over-abundance, GFN divides the planet's biological capacity (renewable ecological resources) on the total demand for human resources. They use 15,000 data points collected from the United Nations for each country since 1961, classified into four main categories: How much we consume, how do we make good , population, and productivity of nature. You can explore the complete dataset here

By 2018, we will use 1.7 times as much Earth to serve human civilization. At the current pace, two new earths will be sufficient for the year 2030. The current degradation is evident in deforestation, fisheries collapse, droughts, and greenhouse gas emissions, causing disturbance. Great economic losses and species extinction across the planet.

The GFN estimates that 86% of countries are living in excess of their own resources, creating so-called ecological deficits. Some countries are worse off than others. If the world consumes resources at the level of the United States, excess days will fall on ... 15/3 (only five countries are worse than the United States)

But bright spots also appear. If we all live in Vietnam or Morocco, the day may exceed mid-December. Meanwhile, in many countries, economic development is separating itself from energy consumption and consumption. Human raw materials are diversified from steel to ... cardboard. In recent years, European and American nations are continuing to grow economically while using less energy (although international trade contributes to this improvement). Partly thanks to changes in lifestyle in rich countries. Power train wins. Renewable fuel is competitive, or cheaper, than petroleum. Population is saturated, even declining, while poverty levels decline the fastest in human history.

According to GFN's Amanda Diep, reducing the use of natural resources does not mean a reduction in living standards. "Everybody can live well with what is available on this earth."Where will we go, this question will be the battle between "The Prophet and the Witch." In the book, Charles C. Mann uses these terms to describe the bipolar scenario of our future: believers can revolutionize the way we use them. their resources through science and technology, and those who believe that crossing that boundary will cause catastrophes (the Prophet). Yet we seem to be trapped in the debate about choosing a scenario based on the complete negation of the remaining perspective. "There may be both, but it does not seem to happen," he said. The reason is because, this is a debate about value.

Mann points out the tension between the community and freedom. For example, if we address the issue of climate change, do we support renewable energy and dump nuclear energy, or do we use "patched" technologies on a global scale? C02 emissions or geo-engineering?

The first option matches the value of the Prophet: distribution solution, effective within the limits of nature and communities. The second option is to match the Witch, seeking answers to the environmental problem by optimizing the freedom of thought of individuals, even if it does not reflect the limits of nature.

There are no physical laws that say you can not have both, "Mann asserted." But it's hard because these value questions lie at the heart of the problem. "

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Martian reclamation at this time is impossible because of the lack of CO2

Science fiction has long dreamed of a human day that could turn Mars into a second Earth where humans could live without heavy astronauts.

Many believe that the easiest way to make that happen is to use the carbon dioxide (CO2) available on Mars to create a new atmosphere. But recently, scientists have confirmed that it is impossible.

Turning up Mars to make its surface as Earth-friendly would have two main tasks: increasing temperature and surface pressure by adding an atmosphere created by greenhouse gases. heat retention. The only greenhouse gases that exist on Mars with significant amounts of CO2 and water vapor - both are frozen.

"If we had enough CO2 we could warm up to Mars 100 years from the start," said Chris McKay of NASA's Ames Research Center in California. "We know how to warm up a planet. - and doing it on Earth. The important question here is, is that enough gas? "

No, the answer is harsh. Bruce Jakosky at the University of Colorado at Boulder, and Christopher Edwards at the University of Northern Arizona used results from multiple spacecraft to create a full carbon dioxide inventory on Mars, finding out if Removing all of this gas from the ground into the atmosphere, we can create high temperatures and pressures for life.

Not enough pressure

Currently, Martian atmospheric pressure is about 6 millibars - very small compared to a bar in the sea of ​​the Earth.

"We will need something like a million gallons of CO2 that stretches about 1,000 km to reach a pressure of 1 bar," Jakosky said.

At a pressure of 1 bar, the temperature will be just over 0 degrees Celsius, allowing liquid water and thus life to rise on the surface of Mars. This atmosphere will not allow people to breathe, but an oxygen mask will solve that, not a bulky travel kit. Moreover, at this time, trees are free to grow, slowly producing oxygen for a period of several centuries.

But Jakosky and Edwards have found that there is a possibility that CO2 in polar ice, dust and rocks on Mars is only enough to increase the atmospheric pressure to a maximum of 20 millibar. Therefore, we can not improve Mars with current technology, the reason is simply not enough CO2.

"It is not impossible to reform itself, as it is not easy, as people say," Jakosky said. "We can not just blow up some nuclear bombs at the polar ice cap. "

It is possible that Mars still has carbon stocks somewhere deep below the surface of the planet, according to Harvard University's Harvard Wordsworth.

"If you can develop the technology to find and extract them, we can get closer to the goal, but it's like fishing - there's no guarantee they exist."

Without enough carbon, we will have to warm up Mars in other ways, perhaps through the production of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) or bombing the planet with comets or meteors. That would be very difficult, and even if it did not, it would not be enough to actually turn Mars into a new home for humans. We will need Nitrogen, and to this point, it is not clear how many Nitrogen is there!

"Without enough CO2, it would take thousands of years or more, but it's still possible," McKay said. "If you do not have enough Nitrogen, you'll need Star Trek. beam to pull Nitrogen from Jupiter's atmosphere, it's science fiction! "

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Eating fat does not make you fat, but eating sugar does

People often think that nutritious foods like butter cream or salmon butter sauce will make you gain weight. Likewise, eating lots of sugary foods like sugar-rich cereals or carb-rich donuts is certainly not good for your waistline.

But scientists are working to find out what happens in our bodies if they are loaded with large amounts of sugar or fat.

In many parts of the world, these two ingredients are rarely eaten separately. Donut cake is an example. When you donate a carbohydrate-filled donut to the oil pan, you will gain a delicious sugar combos that few can deny.

But more and more evidence in the human body shows that when eaten separately, fat does not cause you to gain weight. In contrast, dozens of studies have shown that sugar alone contributes significantly to your waistline.

"One thing we know about fat is that fat consumption does not increase the body's ability," says Aaron Carrol, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine. It can actually help us lose a few pounds. "

That means that foods like butter cream, fatty salmon, and salty seeds can be added to your diet. If you've stopped using them in the low fat diet in the 1990s, it's time to bring them back.

To determine which ingredients - fat or sugar - are the main causes of dehydration, we need to compare diets in low-fat and low carb diets. -card).

Over and over again, the results show that people who cut off not only do not lose weight, they also do not get health benefits such as reducing the risk of illness.

In contrast, people who eat a lot of fat but cut down on refined carbs like sugar, white bread and white rice tend to achieve both benefits.

In other words, the evidence that sugar is linked to weight gain lies in the pudding - literally. Why?

The scientists compared more than 135,000 people in 18 different countries on low fat and low carb diets. People who eat less fat will be more likely to die of any cause; They also have a higher risk of dying from heart disease and heart disease. Conversely, people who eat less carbs have significantly lower rates of these diseases.

Because of these unexpected results, the authors of the study concluded that "diet guidelines worldwide need to be rethought"!

That's even more true when we find out what happens when people try to cut down on fat from a diet. Normally, they only change fatty ingredients and creams with sugar and carbohydrates.

During a follow-up visit of up to eight years, with nearly 50,000 women participating, scientists gave half of them a low-fat diet. These people not only lose a lot of weight (if it is reduced), the risk of diseases such as breast cancer, colorectal cancer, or cardiovascular disease is not reduced, while these are normal results. advertised will appear if there are healthy eating plans.

Part of the problem lies in what happens to the rest of the diet when we suddenly try to eat only fatty foods. Most of the "fast food" in the low fat list are full of sugar and carb. Try looking at the nutrition labels for cereals, oats, and yogurt. They are rich in sugar and carbs, despite the low fat content.

Meanwhile, the test showed that both of these ingredients were linked to weight gain. In a review of 50 studies on diet and weight gain, it was found that, on average, a person eats more refined grains (such as processed cereal and oats), the more they eat gain more weight during the trial period.

Therefore, even though low-fat products are advertised as a weight loss tool, they actually contribute more to weight gain compared to a more fat but less refined carb product.

Fat is a vital ingredient in dieting, while sugars - though present everywhere in dozens of foods - are not. That means that while reducing sugar is a persistent task, it is still a good idea to do it if you want to lose weight, instead of focusing on fat reducti

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Waste from plastic that destroys the ocean can be used as fuel for cars

Large amounts of plastic waste can be recycled into automotive fuel and save the oceans from pollution.

The use of plastics in the world is costing us and the ocean is suffering from the plastic waste.

But thanks to the scientists at Swansea University, people are prepared to have a solution to the kind of waste that can kill thousands of marine life each year.

The new study, led by Dr. Moritz Kuehnel, will turn plastic waste into hydrogen. If we were lucky, someday we would use this amount of hydrogen to fuel the car.

Dr Kuehnel told the BBC: "There are a lot of plastic used every year - billions of tons - and only a fraction of it is being recycled, and we are trying to find a way to use it for recycling." .

The researchers cut the resin, roughen it and add a catalyst to create a material that can absorb sunlight and turn it into chemical energy.

"Our process is based on the principle of" photoreforming. "It uses semiconductor nanoparticles (called quantum dots) to turn solar energy into electricity," said Kuehnel. into chemical energy.

The researchers then put the resin into an alkaline solution and use a sunlight or a solar simulation lamp to create hydrogen bubbles on the surface.

"Quantum dots can promote two simultaneous chemical reactions: producing hydrogen gas from water and decomposing the structure of plastics, the process is actually very simple: The plastic is dropped into the plastic and then placed in an alkaline solution. "After the light hits the plastic, hydrogen bubbles appear." At that time, we could use hydrogen to fuel the car.

One drawback to plastic bottle recycling is that they are usually made from PET, polyethylene terephthalate, which needs to be cleaned to be recycled into a new, transparent bottle. But the university's process does not need to clean the material, so it can reduce the amount of waste that is harmful to the environment.

This process is also cheaper than plastic recycling - often it is burnt or buried to save money - specifically, it costs about $ 4,000 to recycle 1 ton of plastic.

Advances in the field of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles could help the industry sell about 1 million electric cars and fuel cells by 2030. In Japan, Toyota will launch a bus run A fuel cell is called Sora in 2020. They design a fuel cell to combine hydrogen and oxygen into electricity.

The project to produce recycled plastic fuel may take several years before it can be commercialized. The researchers have received some funding from the Swindon Board of Physical and Engineering Sciences and an Austrian petrochemical company.

Dr. Kuehnel said that his team is now looking at expanding the scale from small research (milligram plastic) to more practical dimensions in order to advance the use of this process in practice.

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The solar-powered "low tech" web site is inaccessible

Low-Tech Magazine - Low-Tech Magazine but runs the web with the power of modern technology: solar energy.

The amount of electrical energy consumed during the time you read this article is very much. Your device sends an access request to the server, to receive the signal from the sending server. In the information sent there are each font, each high resolution image, the characters, the links and the video. Modern web sites also have plugins and scripts that make the website more functional, but also cost more.

Simple and static interface like HTML is not that expensive. The amount of energy your device needs to load HTML web site is much less than the flashy website of the present.

Any page is the same, not necessarily the article you are reading. Websites exist thanks to wireless and wireline wiring, connecting the huge server buildings. They live by the power we produce. Data centers in the United States alone consume 70 billion kilowatts of energy per year (estimated by the US Department of Energy in 2016). That's equivalent to 1.8% of the nation's electricity consumption

"Internet" is something invisible, abstract. There is a project aimed at making it more visible, so people can easily feel it: their "love glass" is a blog called Low-Tech Magazine. Kris De Decker has been running Low-Tech Magazine since 2007, running it on Wordpress. It has a web-based version of the site called "Low-Tech," which runs entirely on solar energy, using as little energy as possible.

In a Skype interview with the motherboard, De Decker says he believes network users are unaware of how much power they are consuming.

"Some people think that the Internet is non-material, something that is suspended in the cloud," De Decker said. "Yes, it is invisible to consume real energy, tangible resources to be seen, in fact, to use more."

The static "static-web" version of the site, which means that every day, it has only one version, dynamic websites will be real-time pages, constantly updated throughout the day. Low-Tech uses the default font and pixelized images to display web content. Looks like it smells like the old Internet, where gray images use less power than high-resolution images of up to 10x.

The whole site runs on solar energy, a solar panel located in Barcelona. If one day the clouds clutter up the skies of Bacelona, ​​Low-Tech Magazine will close the "sales" holiday.

De Decker says his long-term goal is to "move the house", putting the content of Low-Tech's 11 years into a new website. "The online magazine, as you see it, is easy to imagine," said De Decker. "There is a server, a solar panel facing the window, you can see them, you can touch, touch and even destroy it."

If you ask why no one saves electricity like Decker? Because it's harder than you think. The current version works thanks to the hands of two web designers Roel Roscam Abbing and Marie Motsuka, who spent one year preparing and $ 4,600 to fund the "infrastructure".

"I'm not sure if the idea of ​​'offline' is ever lacking in renewable energy," De Decker said sadly. We are not aware of how much energy each site consumes.Still, there are those who suggest that a lightweight web site should be developed, but the use of electricity is not the main reason for making more low-tech Web sites. In fact, scientists at the US Department of Energy say that the amount of computer power consumed is small, too small for heavy machinery to consume power - they refer to cars and planes. There are people who raise another opinion: lightweight website to help people with slow internet experience better. This is also an idea.

"I received emails like 'My house is still using dial-up networking, but your site loads fast,'" De Decker said. "It's interesting, since more than half of all Internet users in the world have a stable Internet connection, meaning that using the Web is less of a waste of energy, connect with many people ".

In the United States alone, 24 million people do not have high-speed Internet, many live in remote areas, inaccessible villages or low-income areas. With them, they can not find work, look for sources, can not use the Internet as convenient as we do.

De Decker's Low-Tech Magazine website is also designed to use less energy so that it remains functional in the absence of sunlight. "We created a blog that uses energy so efficiently that you can use its offline mode; we build the generators that allow Low-Tech Magazine to work at night."

Decker acknowledged that the site "closed every time it was shady" for advertising purposes only, so that people understood the meaning of the project. You look back on the past to find inspiration, not just nostalgic.

"In the immediate future, the user feedback is still very positive," De Decker said cheerfully. People still see the meaning of the project, have gradually understood the current energy consumption is how large.

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