Horizon

We've all seen how helpful solar panels are in renewable energy. From a consumer perspective, solar power is still an up-and-coming challenger to the existing fossil fuel infrastructure that most power generation systems take advantage of. The University of Michigan estimates that as little as 1.8% of US power generation in 2019 came from solar sources. Part of the reason this number is so low is why more commercial users haven't tapped into the technology. It makes little sense to go to the expense of installing a solar generation system based on the returns that it offers. However, that may soon change, based on new advances in technology.

Antarctica’s fourth largest ice shelf, the Larsen C Ice Shelf located on the Antarctic Peninsula, risks collapse due to mountain winds, according to a recent presentation at annual meeting of the European Geophysical Union.

When 23andMe was in its most ridiculous phase of existence, the co-founder was telling FDA to talk to the hand while she assumed campaign donations to members of Congress would exempt them from being told to stop lying about their tests allowing consumers to “take steps toward mitigating serious diseases” like breast cancer.

The ClinicalTrials.gov data bank, managed by the National Institutes of Health (NIH)/National Library of Medicine, requires trial sponsors to register applicable clinical trials within 21 days after the first human subject is enrolled and submit certain summary results information for those trials, generally no later than one year after the study’s completion date unless a deadline extension is obtained.

Artwork is one of the newest purchasable commodities on the crypto market, thanks to a new technology known as non-fungible tokens (NFTs). NPR informs us that an NFT is a crypto token that isn't interchangeable but is tied to a specific commodity. The easiest way to think about them is an analog to how they're being used. For the first time in its history, blockchains can be used to hold and trade collectibles. Yet, the trade of these collectible tokens brings with it some alarming environmental concerns.

Tons of Power Consumption

The Six Foot Rule is only a rule in a 'rule of thumb' way; it's okay for an estimate but you use a real ruler to build a house. 

Analyses instead show that the most important things are a mix of masks and ventilation. What about outdoors where ventilation is terrific? The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention  has now relaxed its guidelines and are in line with what the science says; namely that unless you're in a protest unmasked, you'll be fine. And the Biden administration wants to use that to promote vaccines as well.

About 23,000,000 years ago, something hit the giant Asteroid 4 Vesta(1) some 120,000,000 miles away and the impact sent huge rocks into space. In 2018, one such meteorite from that time hit Botswana.

It was not unique. Over 30 percent of such Howardite-Eucrite-Diogenites (HED) meteorites that hit Earth year come from just the impact that formed the Antonia crater on Vesta. And then there is everything else happening outside our atmosphere piling on.

Thanks to cosmic rays that created radioactive isotopes while it was in space, an asteroid on an impact trajectory with Earth On June 2, 2018 was detected before it arrived. 

Thanks to the isotopes in those fragments, researchers determined that 2018 LA, called such by the University of Arizona's Catalina Sky Survey as part of NASA's Planetary Defense program, was a solid rock about 1.5 m in size, which reflected about 25 percent of sunlight.

Eight hours later, a video camera in South Africa recorded a bright fireball over Botswana and the hunt was on for surviving meteorites deep inside the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. The first meteorite they found 18 grams and about 3 cm in size.

Antibiotics won't help with COVID-19 because the disease is not caused by bacteria but instead a virus. However, a new study finds that some antibiotics can prevent the entry of the SARS-CoV-2 virus into cells. The Drug Design and Molecular Topology Unit group of the University of Valencia found that certain macrolide antibiotics like clarithromycin and azithromycin (used in respiratory tract infections) does just that.

There were a lot of rules introduced during the COVID-19 pandemic that originated during late 2019 in Wuhan, China. Some were pretty Draconian. China welded the homes of people shut and destroyed 16,000 coronavirus samples at the world's largest coronavirus lab nearby.  Some were pointless, like everyone carrying Clorox wipes around.  Most were less intrusive and at least somewhat helpful; wear a mask, stay six feet apart.