News of the week selected by Impactscool – September 23rd
23 September 2019 | Written by La redazione
Cement is a material with a long history and could soon reach new goals. Its ability to protect a structure from radiation and temperature fluctuations is well known and in future colonies on the Moon and Mars this feature could be very useful. It is therefore important to understand how this material behaves in situations with gravities other than Earth. The “Microgravity Investigation of Cement Solidification” experiment carried out on the International Space Station serves precisely this purpose. The results for now show that the cement is able to solidify but that its structure is more porous. To know if and how much this affects the resistance of the material it will be necessary to wait for the analyzes of the samples.
An experiment in modifying the genome of some mosquitoes was an epic fail
The idea was as simple as it was clear: to try to put a halt to the spread of disease-carrying mosquitoes in Brazil, in the Jacobino area, a research group modified the genome of some of them so that their progeny would not survive at birth. However, something went wrong and some specimens not only survived but also reproduced, giving descendants some resistance to this type of approach. These mosquitoes are not necessarily carriers of diseases, but the uncertainty surrounding this result is certainly worrying.
Russia: there has been an accident in a laboratory of deadly viruses
On Monday, September 16, a fire broke out at the Vektor plant, the Russian centre for state research on virology and biotechnology, famous for being one of the only two structures in the world that host the smallpox virus. The fire would have broken out due to a gas leak during some renovations; a worker who was working at the construction site was injured.
According to the authorities, the area of the accident would be far from where biological materials such as ebola, HIV, hepatitis and smallpox are kept and therefore there would be no danger of dispersing these pathogens.
Amazon is committing to tackle climate change
Jeff Bezos, founder and CEO of Amazon, said that his company would commit to achieving zero emissions by 2040. To succeed, the company will follow several steps. In fact, by 2024 they will aim to use 80% of energy from renewable sources, a percentage that will have to rise to 100% by 2030. To this end, 100 thousand electric trucks from Rivian, a startup that produces electric vehicles, have already been ordered.
