The Endless Frontier: Sparking a National Conversation About Science and Discovery - Aspen Institute

After conquering a country in ruins and containing sectarian strife, Syria’s postrevolutionary government is facing its most serious crisis yet – at the pumps. Energy prices that have spiked because of the Iran war forced the interim government this month to raise fuel prices by 26% and diesel by 40%, sparking nationwide protests that echo others around the world. The unrest has upset a string of recent government successes, including Washington’s lifting of the last sanctions on the country in August and the official reintegration of the breakaway Kurdish northeast. The crisis has put a spotlight on the core struggle facing cash-strapped Damascus: opening up a long-closed economy while also protecting the most vulnerable Syrians, 90% of whom live under the poverty line and subsist on less than $2 per day. The recent rise in fuel and diesel prices adds to Syrians’ economic woes: a 13% hike in electricity prices this year and inflation caused by fluctuations in Syria’s currency.

Des chercheurs indiens transforment la soudure de déchets de circuits imprimés en nanoparticules d'oxyde d'étain de 7,6 nm pour la dégradation des colorantsDes chercheurs à Goa, en Inde, ont converti de l'étain récupéré de soudures de cartes de circuits imprimés usagées en nanoparticules fonctionnelles de dioxyde d'étain, comme le rapporte le Journal of Nanoparticle Research. La lixiviation acide met l'étain en solution avant sa conversion en SnO2 nanostructuré. La diffraction des rayons X a confirmé une phase rutile tétragonale et la spectroscopie photoélectronique X a montré que l'étain se trouve presque entièrement sous forme Sn(IV). La microscopie électronique a révélé des particules quasi sphériques d'un diamètre moyen de 7,6 nm, offrant une grande fraction surfacique pour la photocatalyse. Sous lumière UV, le matériau a éliminé 100 % de la rhodamine B en 165 minutes et réduit la demande chimique en oxygène de 95,2 %, indiquant une quasi-minéralisation ; la cinétique était de pseudo-premier ordre avec une constante de vitesse de 0,0114 par minute. L'efficacité est restée à 91,96 % après cinq cycles.

)The immortal jellyfish is capable of winding back its lifecycle to become young again. Scientists are unlocking its cellular secrets for new strategies to treat diseases of old age. The tiny translucent jellyfish Turritopsis dohrnii is surprisingly hard to kill. The marine biologist Maria Miglietta of Texas A&M University at Galveston has cut them, boiled them, starved them, overloaded their tanks with salt or plopped them in fresh water – but the nifty creatures seem to cheat death every time. Under duress, they stop in their tracks and fall to the bottom of their tank. Then something astonishing happens: the animals transform into balls of cells that bear no resemblance to the tentacled umbrella shape of adult jellyfish, known as the medusa. Within one to three days, a structure called a polyp – an early jellyfish life stage – buds off from this ball of cells and then grows into a colony, which will eventually sprout new medusae. "From one jellyfish that doesn't die, then you get this colony that can form hundreds more," Miglietta says.