<![CDATA[Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum - Architecture, Design & Engineering]]>

<![CDATA[Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum - Architecture, Design & Engineering]]> https://www.scivillage.com/ Mon, 13 Jul 2026 23:37:19 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[Weird result: The 66 billion trees China planted in a huge wall (Gobi Desert design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20843.html Sun, 12 Jul 2026 00:28:35 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20843.html Something weird is going on with the 66 billion trees China planted in a huge wall
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolog...r-AA27fS0e

INTRO: Over the past five decades, China has planted 66 billion trees in a massive wall that spans the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts. This reforestation effort intended to stop the deserts’ spread is working — but, it turns out, with a surprising twist.

In a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers found that the trees planted in the so-called “Great Green Wall” appear to grow faster than trees in natural forests, possibly because they respond to the rising CO2 levels in our atmosphere better.

Still, it’s mysterious. Study lead author Yuhang Luo, a landscape ecologist at Peking University in Shenzhen, told Live Science that it’s unclear how the artificial forests different from the natural ones, raising questions about their effectiveness at sucking up carbon.

The Great Green Wall project began in 1978 and is expected to be completed by 2050. The original intent was to slow the desertification of the country’s grasslands, of which the Gobi devours over a thousand square miles every year. In its early stages, the initiative struggled to get off the ground, as some of the trees chosen for their quick growth turned out to be poorly suited for the environment and died off.

But Chinese scientists pushed on. In a monumental feat of planning and perseverance, the verdant barrier has continued to grow instead of dying off — a fate that commonly befalls other green wall initiatives that learned that you can’t brute force your way into planting as many trees as possible. Forest cover in the regions the wall touches has ballooned from 5 percent in 1978 to 14 percent in 2023, according to a Nature article, which has helped cut down on dust storms and improve the air quality in downwind cities, including Beijing.

The Great Green Wall, however, wasn’t originally intended as a climate change mitigation measure. So Luo and his colleagues were curious to see how the planted forests hold up in that regard... (MORE - details)]]> Something weird is going on with the 66 billion trees China planted in a huge wall
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technolog...r-AA27fS0e

INTRO: Over the past five decades, China has planted 66 billion trees in a massive wall that spans the Gobi and Taklamakan deserts. This reforestation effort intended to stop the deserts’ spread is working — but, it turns out, with a surprising twist.

In a new study published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters, researchers found that the trees planted in the so-called “Great Green Wall” appear to grow faster than trees in natural forests, possibly because they respond to the rising CO2 levels in our atmosphere better.

Still, it’s mysterious. Study lead author Yuhang Luo, a landscape ecologist at Peking University in Shenzhen, told Live Science that it’s unclear how the artificial forests different from the natural ones, raising questions about their effectiveness at sucking up carbon.

The Great Green Wall project began in 1978 and is expected to be completed by 2050. The original intent was to slow the desertification of the country’s grasslands, of which the Gobi devours over a thousand square miles every year. In its early stages, the initiative struggled to get off the ground, as some of the trees chosen for their quick growth turned out to be poorly suited for the environment and died off.

But Chinese scientists pushed on. In a monumental feat of planning and perseverance, the verdant barrier has continued to grow instead of dying off — a fate that commonly befalls other green wall initiatives that learned that you can’t brute force your way into planting as many trees as possible. Forest cover in the regions the wall touches has ballooned from 5 percent in 1978 to 14 percent in 2023, according to a Nature article, which has helped cut down on dust storms and improve the air quality in downwind cities, including Beijing.

The Great Green Wall, however, wasn’t originally intended as a climate change mitigation measure. So Luo and his colleagues were curious to see how the planted forests hold up in that regard... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Error-prone AI is already mediating between doctors & patients (health care design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20803.html Mon, 06 Jul 2026 15:58:05 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20803.html AI mistakes can cost doctors time when writing to patients
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1134481

EXCERPTS: Artificial intelligence is spreading rapidly in health care, with the goal of streamlining critical but onerous clerical tasks such as note-taking and charting so that physicians and nurses can devote more time to patients.

But even when AI can free up doctors to correspond with patients, it may fall short in helping them do it by introducing errors and extraneous details into their messages, according to a new Dartmouth study presented at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and published in the conference proceedings.

The result is that physicians may spend more time editing responses than it would've taken to write them, the researchers report. "We find that AI can sound like a doctor but not think like one," says Sarah Preum, an assistant professor of computer science and the study's co-corresponding author with Parker Seegmiller, a graduate researcher in Preum's PersistLab at Dartmouth.

[...] The team reports that AI-generated answers frequently misalign with what clinicians would actually write. This includes automated responses that are too long, don't ask follow-up questions, and use irrelevant or inaccurate medical details.

"There are smaller studies that say, 'Oh, AI is amazing,' but we realized there is a gap in the existing literature of a large-scale evaluation of this technology," Preum says. "We didn't just want to measure a platform's accuracy, but whether it actually helps with the workload, which in this case is measured by how much editing the physician is doing."

[...] The researchers show, however, that adapting AI to how individual physicians communicate can improve accuracy by 33% and reduce editing by 26%.

"If message generation is really efficient and high quality, if it asks the right things, then it really has potential to improve efficiency," says co-author Tim Burdick, an associate professor of community and family medicine in Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine and a family medicine physician at Dartmouth Health.

"I don't foresee a time when the portal can respond to a patient without a clinician editing it first. But as we make the models better, we'll be able to address portal messages much more quickly and with less mental energy," Burdick says.

The study shows that there are such things as "good" AI responses and provides a framework for implementing them into patient-physician portals, Preum says. These platforms are increasingly common among large health care systems and often customized, she says... (MORE - missing details, no ads)]]> AI mistakes can cost doctors time when writing to patients
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1134481

EXCERPTS: Artificial intelligence is spreading rapidly in health care, with the goal of streamlining critical but onerous clerical tasks such as note-taking and charting so that physicians and nurses can devote more time to patients.

But even when AI can free up doctors to correspond with patients, it may fall short in helping them do it by introducing errors and extraneous details into their messages, according to a new Dartmouth study presented at the 2026 Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics and published in the conference proceedings.

The result is that physicians may spend more time editing responses than it would've taken to write them, the researchers report. "We find that AI can sound like a doctor but not think like one," says Sarah Preum, an assistant professor of computer science and the study's co-corresponding author with Parker Seegmiller, a graduate researcher in Preum's PersistLab at Dartmouth.

[...] The team reports that AI-generated answers frequently misalign with what clinicians would actually write. This includes automated responses that are too long, don't ask follow-up questions, and use irrelevant or inaccurate medical details.

"There are smaller studies that say, 'Oh, AI is amazing,' but we realized there is a gap in the existing literature of a large-scale evaluation of this technology," Preum says. "We didn't just want to measure a platform's accuracy, but whether it actually helps with the workload, which in this case is measured by how much editing the physician is doing."

[...] The researchers show, however, that adapting AI to how individual physicians communicate can improve accuracy by 33% and reduce editing by 26%.

"If message generation is really efficient and high quality, if it asks the right things, then it really has potential to improve efficiency," says co-author Tim Burdick, an associate professor of community and family medicine in Dartmouth's Geisel School of Medicine and a family medicine physician at Dartmouth Health.

"I don't foresee a time when the portal can respond to a patient without a clinician editing it first. But as we make the models better, we'll be able to address portal messages much more quickly and with less mental energy," Burdick says.

The study shows that there are such things as "good" AI responses and provides a framework for implementing them into patient-physician portals, Preum says. These platforms are increasingly common among large health care systems and often customized, she says... (MORE - missing details, no ads)]]> <![CDATA[European cities short on shade as heat intensifies (urban design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20756.html Tue, 30 Jun 2026 15:27:19 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20756.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1134174

EXCERPTS: More than four in five homes and workplaces across 25 European cities have less nearby tree canopy than what is needed for meaningful cooling, according to an open-data analysis by an urban greening expert. Dr Thami Croeser from RMIT University in Australia has mapped tree canopy within 60 metres of 5.5 million buildings across France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Greece and the UK.

His analysis found 84% of buildings fall below the 30% nearby canopy threshold identified in urban heat literature as important for reducing dangerous urban heat island effects. Croeser, from the RMIT Centre for Urban Research, said Europe's heatwaves are exposing a structural problem in the way cities have been designed.

"More than four in five homes and workplaces in the cities we analysed do not have the nearby tree canopy that urban heat research indicates is needed for meaningful cooling," he said. "When severe heat hits, a leafy park three blocks away is too far away to help an apartment building surrounded by baking asphalt."

Cologne and Hamburg performed best, with about 45% of buildings above the 30% threshold. Nice followed at 41%, largely due to hillside vegetation. After that, the picture deteriorates rapidly.

At the other end of the ranking, Sevilla, a city that regularly faces extreme summer heat, had 98% of buildings below the threshold. [...] Croeser said density is not the problem.

“When we compared neighbourhoods with similar dwelling densities, the areas with mature trees were up to 10 degrees cooler than nearby hotspots,” he said. “We found dense urban areas with apartments, shops, offices and activity centres that stayed much cooler because they had proper shade. The difference is whether trees were protected, planted and given enough space and water to grow.”

Croeser said cities needed to focus on three priorities: planting trees close to where people live and work, giving trees enough soil and water to thrive, and protecting mature canopy. “The trees cooling cities today were planted decades ago,” he said... (MORE - missing details, no ads)

PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70723-6]]> https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1134174

EXCERPTS: More than four in five homes and workplaces across 25 European cities have less nearby tree canopy than what is needed for meaningful cooling, according to an open-data analysis by an urban greening expert. Dr Thami Croeser from RMIT University in Australia has mapped tree canopy within 60 metres of 5.5 million buildings across France, Spain, Italy, Germany, Portugal, Greece and the UK.

His analysis found 84% of buildings fall below the 30% nearby canopy threshold identified in urban heat literature as important for reducing dangerous urban heat island effects. Croeser, from the RMIT Centre for Urban Research, said Europe's heatwaves are exposing a structural problem in the way cities have been designed.

"More than four in five homes and workplaces in the cities we analysed do not have the nearby tree canopy that urban heat research indicates is needed for meaningful cooling," he said. "When severe heat hits, a leafy park three blocks away is too far away to help an apartment building surrounded by baking asphalt."

Cologne and Hamburg performed best, with about 45% of buildings above the 30% threshold. Nice followed at 41%, largely due to hillside vegetation. After that, the picture deteriorates rapidly.

At the other end of the ranking, Sevilla, a city that regularly faces extreme summer heat, had 98% of buildings below the threshold. [...] Croeser said density is not the problem.

“When we compared neighbourhoods with similar dwelling densities, the areas with mature trees were up to 10 degrees cooler than nearby hotspots,” he said. “We found dense urban areas with apartments, shops, offices and activity centres that stayed much cooler because they had proper shade. The difference is whether trees were protected, planted and given enough space and water to grow.”

Croeser said cities needed to focus on three priorities: planting trees close to where people live and work, giving trees enough soil and water to thrive, and protecting mature canopy. “The trees cooling cities today were planted decades ago,” he said... (MORE - missing details, no ads)

PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41467-026-70723-6]]> <![CDATA[SpaceX and NASA leaders hail antimatter propulsion rockets (engineering)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20706.html Wed, 24 Jun 2026 15:24:55 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20706.html Seems like much ado over just a simple statement that no actual investment has been attached to yet.
- - - - - - - - - - - -

SpaceX and NASA leaders hail antimatter propulsion rockets for journeys beyond Mars
https://interestingengineering.com/innov...ys-to-mars

EXCERPTS: The world’s first trillionaire, Elon Musk, has predicted that trillions of dollars will be spent on antimatter propulsion in the future as humanity attempts to travel to other star systems. The idea was supported by NASA’s top boss, Jared Isaacman, setting the tone for what could come in the near future.

Using antimatter propulsion to travel to far-away solar systems might sound straight out of science fiction, but that’s exactly how big ideas come to life. A human settlement on the Moon has been used multiple times in sci-fiction, and it is most likely to become a reality in the coming decade, if not earlier.

Musk’s own success in recent years has come from pushing ideas that sound straight out of science fiction into reality. Whether the electric car or a rocket powerful enough to send a human mission to Mars, Musk has been predicting them to come true. Recently, the SpaceX founder and CEO shared a new prediction about antimatter propulsion on the social media platform X and received overwhelming support.

[...] As Gizmodo pointed out, startups like Positron Dynamics have already claimed that their positron-based technology makes rocket engines 1,000 times more efficient than state-of-the-art ion thrusters.

This is where Isaacman’s support could help. While NASA has supported theoretical research on antimatter, if Isaacman and the team at NASA could sharpen the focus on antimatter propulsion, more money could flow into its research... (MORE - missing details)]]> Seems like much ado over just a simple statement that no actual investment has been attached to yet.
- - - - - - - - - - - -

SpaceX and NASA leaders hail antimatter propulsion rockets for journeys beyond Mars
https://interestingengineering.com/innov...ys-to-mars

EXCERPTS: The world’s first trillionaire, Elon Musk, has predicted that trillions of dollars will be spent on antimatter propulsion in the future as humanity attempts to travel to other star systems. The idea was supported by NASA’s top boss, Jared Isaacman, setting the tone for what could come in the near future.

Using antimatter propulsion to travel to far-away solar systems might sound straight out of science fiction, but that’s exactly how big ideas come to life. A human settlement on the Moon has been used multiple times in sci-fiction, and it is most likely to become a reality in the coming decade, if not earlier.

Musk’s own success in recent years has come from pushing ideas that sound straight out of science fiction into reality. Whether the electric car or a rocket powerful enough to send a human mission to Mars, Musk has been predicting them to come true. Recently, the SpaceX founder and CEO shared a new prediction about antimatter propulsion on the social media platform X and received overwhelming support.

[...] As Gizmodo pointed out, startups like Positron Dynamics have already claimed that their positron-based technology makes rocket engines 1,000 times more efficient than state-of-the-art ion thrusters.

This is where Isaacman’s support could help. While NASA has supported theoretical research on antimatter, if Isaacman and the team at NASA could sharpen the focus on antimatter propulsion, more money could flow into its research... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Hard drives & RAM are costly & scarce due to data centers (surveillance design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20669.html Thu, 18 Jun 2026 22:29:04 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20669.html https://youtu.be/aXy8mQeuObk

VIDEO EXCERPTS: Now, I typically use solid-state hard drives that are 4 to 8 terabytes, and the kind I use are Samsung. When I bought these, let's say a year ago, they costed, I don't know, $250 for a 4TB and maybe $430 for an 8TB.

So, I haven't bought any in a while. And I was like, I'm going to buy some stuff [...] So, I go into this place. ... I look in the cabinet, I see $2,000.

And I said to the guy, "$2,000? What's that for?"

He goes, "That's for the 4TB hard drive."

I'm like, "$2,000? That's insane." And I see the 8TB one. $4,000 for an 8TB. $4,000. They had a couple of them in there. I said, "What's up?"

He said, "Oh, yeah. Uh, they've gone up 1000% since last October."

1000%? And you have almost none in there.

Yeah, because we can't even get them anymore. .. Because they're using them in the data centers. They've already been bought up. They're buying them before they even get manufactured.

So, they can't even get any. The same thing is happening with RAM. Go try and buy RAM at places. It's incredibly expensive if they even have it. So, if you're trying to build a computer, it's almost impossible to do that. SD cards for cameras have tripled in price, too.

[...] And the manufacturers, the people that build these computers, Apple, Google, HP, Microsoft, all these companies are building computers that can run local LLMs because 90% of what most people need to do, they can just run on their computer on a local LLM. You don't need a data center to do that.

Now, another thing is going on at the same time. Kids, not only my kids, all my kids' friends and college students ... so many people I've talked to, they hate AI. They don't just hate AI slop, AI videos, things like that. They hate the concept of AI. They hate AI music. Anytime they see anything related to AI, they want to run from it as quickly as possible.

I'm not saying that people are not using AI or kids not are not using AI, but there's a real anti-AI movement out there, as you can see from these clips of people...

[...] So, if kids don't want to use AI and you can run AI locally on your computer, not connected to the internet, what are these data centers for? Obviously, you need to train these AI programs, but do you need data centers that are the size of 60 football fields for that?

[...] there cameras are basically taking your license plate. They can do all this surveillance stuff. ... You go to the airport, you have your picture taken getting on the plane, you have it taken getting off the plane, you go to another country, they take your pictures. All of it is facial recognition. All this stuff is being stored. I guess it's being stored at these data centers. I don't know why they need it. I need hard drives to store my videos on so I can make stuff for YouTube here...

I was right about AI ... https://youtu.be/aXy8mQeuObk

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/aXy8mQeuObk]]> https://youtu.be/aXy8mQeuObk

VIDEO EXCERPTS: Now, I typically use solid-state hard drives that are 4 to 8 terabytes, and the kind I use are Samsung. When I bought these, let's say a year ago, they costed, I don't know, $250 for a 4TB and maybe $430 for an 8TB.

So, I haven't bought any in a while. And I was like, I'm going to buy some stuff [...] So, I go into this place. ... I look in the cabinet, I see $2,000.

And I said to the guy, "$2,000? What's that for?"

He goes, "That's for the 4TB hard drive."

I'm like, "$2,000? That's insane." And I see the 8TB one. $4,000 for an 8TB. $4,000. They had a couple of them in there. I said, "What's up?"

He said, "Oh, yeah. Uh, they've gone up 1000% since last October."

1000%? And you have almost none in there.

Yeah, because we can't even get them anymore. .. Because they're using them in the data centers. They've already been bought up. They're buying them before they even get manufactured.

So, they can't even get any. The same thing is happening with RAM. Go try and buy RAM at places. It's incredibly expensive if they even have it. So, if you're trying to build a computer, it's almost impossible to do that. SD cards for cameras have tripled in price, too.

[...] And the manufacturers, the people that build these computers, Apple, Google, HP, Microsoft, all these companies are building computers that can run local LLMs because 90% of what most people need to do, they can just run on their computer on a local LLM. You don't need a data center to do that.

Now, another thing is going on at the same time. Kids, not only my kids, all my kids' friends and college students ... so many people I've talked to, they hate AI. They don't just hate AI slop, AI videos, things like that. They hate the concept of AI. They hate AI music. Anytime they see anything related to AI, they want to run from it as quickly as possible.

I'm not saying that people are not using AI or kids not are not using AI, but there's a real anti-AI movement out there, as you can see from these clips of people...

[...] So, if kids don't want to use AI and you can run AI locally on your computer, not connected to the internet, what are these data centers for? Obviously, you need to train these AI programs, but do you need data centers that are the size of 60 football fields for that?

[...] there cameras are basically taking your license plate. They can do all this surveillance stuff. ... You go to the airport, you have your picture taken getting on the plane, you have it taken getting off the plane, you go to another country, they take your pictures. All of it is facial recognition. All this stuff is being stored. I guess it's being stored at these data centers. I don't know why they need it. I need hard drives to store my videos on so I can make stuff for YouTube here...

I was right about AI ... https://youtu.be/aXy8mQeuObk

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/aXy8mQeuObk]]> <![CDATA[Soil fungi would stretch a billion times from Earth to Sun (ecosystem engineering)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20621.html Thu, 11 Jun 2026 20:30:29 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20621.html One billion times the distance from the Earth to the sun: First global map of mycorrhizal fungi reveals true scale of underground networks across the planet
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1131131

INTRO: Mycorrhizal fungi form underground networks that sustain plant life and help regulate Earth’s climate by drawing carbon into soils. In a study published today in Science, an international team of researchers produced the first global maps estimating the distribution and mass of the Earth’s arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal networks.

Published alongside an interactive visualization that helps reveal the scale of this underground fungal infrastructure, the research will help scientists and decision makers understand where these vital fungal systems are thriving and where they are threatened.

Researchers found:

Global topsoils contain ~110 quadrillion kilometers of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal network - made up of tubular cells known as hyphae. This distance is almost a billion times the distance from the Earth to the sun.
Grassland ecosystems are home to an estimated ~40% of Earth’s arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal infrastructure. The flooded grasslands of South Sudan, the Everglades in Florida, and the Tibetan plateau have exceptionally high predicted network density.
AM fungal networks transport an estimated ~4 billion tons of CO2e into soils each year (equivalent to 11% of all human-related carbon-dioxide emissions).
On average, large-scale agricultural crop lands are predicted to be associated with ~50% lower network densities. While more work is needed to link specific farming practices to mycorrhizal health, scientists worry that less dense networks diminish a soils’ ability to store carbon, cycle nutrients, and resist stress.

Global topsoils contain ~110 quadrillion kilometers of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal network - made up of tubular cells known as hyphae. This distance is almost a billion times the distance from the Earth to the sun.
Grassland ecosystems are home to an estimated ~40% of Earth’s arbuscular mycorrhizal fungal infrastructure. The flooded grasslands of South Sudan, the Everglades in Florida, and the Tibetan plateau have exceptionally high predicted network density.
AM fungal networks transport an estimated ~4 billion tons of CO2e into soils each year (equivalent to 11% of all human-related carbon-dioxide emissions).
On average, large-scale agricultural crop lands are predicted to be associated with ~50% lower network densities. While more work is needed to link specific farming practices to mycorrhizal health, scientists worry that less dense networks diminish a soils’ ability to store carbon, cycle nutrients, and resist stress.

Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (known as AM fungi) form symbiotic trade relationships with ~70% of plant species on Earth. The fungi provide nutrients and water in exchange for carbon produced by plants.

As ecosystem engineers, these networks form a critical living infrastructure that draws carbon into soils and supports much of life on Earth. Last year, in Nature, researchers published global analyses of the diversity patterns of underground mycorrhizal fungal communities accompanied by a digital tool, the Underground Atlas, to help decision-makers locate predicted underground biodiversity hotspots. But until now, no-one has attempted to predict and visualize the physical density and global distribution of AM fungal networks... (MORE - no ads)]]> <![CDATA[Test on Bohmian mechanics continues to spark debate (experiment design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20588.html Fri, 05 Jun 2026 19:13:44 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20588.html Experiment that may or may not disprove Bohmian mechanics continues to spark debate
https://physicsworld.com/a/experiment-th...rk-debate/

EXCERPT: Despite these philosophical differences, Bohmian mechanics makes the same predictions as the Copenhagen interpretation. Except maybe it doesn’t. Occasionally, a bright theorist hypothesizes that, under very specific circumstances, one could distinguish them. Very occasionally, a bright experimentalist conducts an experiment that claims to actually do so.

This is what happened last year when Jan Klärs and colleagues at the University of Twente in the Netherlands sent photons from a laser down one of two coupled waveguides towards a potential step. When the photons reached the step, they could pass through it by quantum tunnelling. They could also pass into the other waveguide. The researchers interpreted the distance the photons travelled through the barrier before tunnelling into the other waveguide as a measurement of their speed.

The key result was that, when the wave functions on both sides of the barrier were the same, the photons still tunnelled at, ahem, light speed – matching the Copenhagen notion that tunnelling occurred equally in both directions. However, the Twente team calculated that Bohmian mechanics predicted that photons inside the step – where the guiding equation didn’t have a real-valued frequency – would be at rest and get stuck. Interferometric measurements showed that wasn’t happening.

Game, set and match to Copenhagen? Er, no. Proponents of Bohmian mechanics immediately disputed the team’s definition of velocity. “It’s just an operational definition,” says Aurélien Drezet of the CNRS University of Grenoble-Alps in France. “It has the units of velocity…but that doesn’t mean that Bohmian mechanics can interpret the result.”

In a “Matters Arising” article in Nature, Drezet and two colleagues at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa now add an experimental qualm. The fact that the Twente team was able to produce an image shows that radiation must be leaking out of the cavity, Drezet claims: “If you go to higher approximations and include cavity losses, you explain the experiment completely using Bohmian mechanics,” he says.

Klärs, who is preparing a formal response, is unconvinced... (MORE - missing details)]]> Experiment that may or may not disprove Bohmian mechanics continues to spark debate
https://physicsworld.com/a/experiment-th...rk-debate/

EXCERPT: Despite these philosophical differences, Bohmian mechanics makes the same predictions as the Copenhagen interpretation. Except maybe it doesn’t. Occasionally, a bright theorist hypothesizes that, under very specific circumstances, one could distinguish them. Very occasionally, a bright experimentalist conducts an experiment that claims to actually do so.

This is what happened last year when Jan Klärs and colleagues at the University of Twente in the Netherlands sent photons from a laser down one of two coupled waveguides towards a potential step. When the photons reached the step, they could pass through it by quantum tunnelling. They could also pass into the other waveguide. The researchers interpreted the distance the photons travelled through the barrier before tunnelling into the other waveguide as a measurement of their speed.

The key result was that, when the wave functions on both sides of the barrier were the same, the photons still tunnelled at, ahem, light speed – matching the Copenhagen notion that tunnelling occurred equally in both directions. However, the Twente team calculated that Bohmian mechanics predicted that photons inside the step – where the guiding equation didn’t have a real-valued frequency – would be at rest and get stuck. Interferometric measurements showed that wasn’t happening.

Game, set and match to Copenhagen? Er, no. Proponents of Bohmian mechanics immediately disputed the team’s definition of velocity. “It’s just an operational definition,” says Aurélien Drezet of the CNRS University of Grenoble-Alps in France. “It has the units of velocity…but that doesn’t mean that Bohmian mechanics can interpret the result.”

In a “Matters Arising” article in Nature, Drezet and two colleagues at the Technion–Israel Institute of Technology in Haifa now add an experimental qualm. The fact that the Twente team was able to produce an image shows that radiation must be leaking out of the cavity, Drezet claims: “If you go to higher approximations and include cavity losses, you explain the experiment completely using Bohmian mechanics,” he says.

Klärs, who is preparing a formal response, is unconvinced... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Here’s why the failure of Blue Origin’s New Glenn rocket is so catastrophic (design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20547.html Sat, 30 May 2026 17:19:01 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20547.html https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/he...astrophic/

EXCERPTS: There’s a reason why, before the very first launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018, SpaceX founder Elon Musk defined success as the vehicle clearing the launch pad. “I hope that it makes it far enough away from the pad that it does not cause pad damage,” he said. “I would consider even that a win to be honest.”

[...] Big rockets produce big explosions. And ground infrastructure is a challenging and underrated component of a rocket launch. Blue Origin does not have another launch site for New Glenn. ... Those projects are just getting started. ... One source familiar with pad rebuilds estimated that 15 months was a “best case” scenario.

You might wonder what the big deal is. SpaceX has been blowing up Starship rockets left and right, and the space nerds seem to be cheering them on.

The reality is that Blue Origin took a more traditional design route with New Glenn, as opposed to SpaceX’s iterative design, which seeks to test, fly, fail, and fix hardware. The New Glenn first stage had performed nearly flawlessly during its first three flights. It is a mature design.

[...] With the Vulcan rocket also currently offline due to an anomaly, it once again places all of the US medium- and heavy-lift launch capacity in SpaceX’s basket, with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.

Speaking of Vulcan, if this is a problem with the BE-4 engine—and early indications are that the anomaly leading to Thursday night’s failure originated in the central engine of the booster—it would further compound United Launch Alliance’s difficulties in getting the large rocket back into service.

[...] Could Blue Moon Mark 1 launch on other rockets? SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan vehicles both likely have the lift capacity to push the vehicle to the Moon. But Vulcan is also sidelined at present and has a long line of Space Force payloads in the queue. So what of Falcon Heavy?

The Mark 1 lander is powered by the BE-7 engine, which runs on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. There may be compatibility issues related to the Falcon rocket’s kerosene-powered upper stage, although this has not been confirmed. Also, it is unlikely that Blue Origin would partner with a direct rival, SpaceX, in this manner.

Due to the Mark 1 issues outlined above, there will either be significant delays to, or the need to restructure the early phases of, the Moon Base program. The lunar rovers under development by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost, for example, have a mass of about 1 ton. Only Mark 1 and SpaceX’s Starship have that kind of delivery capacity. There are also major implications for the main Artemis crewed missions.

[...] it’s now all but certain that a Blue Moon lander will not be ready ... NASA will need to decide whether to wait on Blue Origin or press ahead solely with a Starship mission... (MORE - missing details)]]> https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/he...astrophic/

EXCERPTS: There’s a reason why, before the very first launch of the Falcon Heavy rocket in 2018, SpaceX founder Elon Musk defined success as the vehicle clearing the launch pad. “I hope that it makes it far enough away from the pad that it does not cause pad damage,” he said. “I would consider even that a win to be honest.”

[...] Big rockets produce big explosions. And ground infrastructure is a challenging and underrated component of a rocket launch. Blue Origin does not have another launch site for New Glenn. ... Those projects are just getting started. ... One source familiar with pad rebuilds estimated that 15 months was a “best case” scenario.

You might wonder what the big deal is. SpaceX has been blowing up Starship rockets left and right, and the space nerds seem to be cheering them on.

The reality is that Blue Origin took a more traditional design route with New Glenn, as opposed to SpaceX’s iterative design, which seeks to test, fly, fail, and fix hardware. The New Glenn first stage had performed nearly flawlessly during its first three flights. It is a mature design.

[...] With the Vulcan rocket also currently offline due to an anomaly, it once again places all of the US medium- and heavy-lift launch capacity in SpaceX’s basket, with its Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets.

Speaking of Vulcan, if this is a problem with the BE-4 engine—and early indications are that the anomaly leading to Thursday night’s failure originated in the central engine of the booster—it would further compound United Launch Alliance’s difficulties in getting the large rocket back into service.

[...] Could Blue Moon Mark 1 launch on other rockets? SpaceX’s Falcon Heavy and United Launch Alliance’s Vulcan vehicles both likely have the lift capacity to push the vehicle to the Moon. But Vulcan is also sidelined at present and has a long line of Space Force payloads in the queue. So what of Falcon Heavy?

The Mark 1 lander is powered by the BE-7 engine, which runs on liquid hydrogen and liquid oxygen. There may be compatibility issues related to the Falcon rocket’s kerosene-powered upper stage, although this has not been confirmed. Also, it is unlikely that Blue Origin would partner with a direct rival, SpaceX, in this manner.

Due to the Mark 1 issues outlined above, there will either be significant delays to, or the need to restructure the early phases of, the Moon Base program. The lunar rovers under development by Astrolab and Lunar Outpost, for example, have a mass of about 1 ton. Only Mark 1 and SpaceX’s Starship have that kind of delivery capacity. There are also major implications for the main Artemis crewed missions.

[...] it’s now all but certain that a Blue Moon lander will not be ready ... NASA will need to decide whether to wait on Blue Origin or press ahead solely with a Starship mission... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Analyst on China’s spent rocket stages: “Things only continue to get worse” (design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20524.html Wed, 27 May 2026 18:57:19 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20524.html https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/an...get-worse/

EXCERPTS: Up until a decade ago, China had never launched as many as 20 orbital rockets a year. But beginning in 2022, the Asian country launched 64 rockets and last year reached a record total of 93, marking it as the second-most productive space power in the world.

Further growth is anticipated from both the company’s state-owned enterprises as well as a rapidly expanding number of private launch companies. There is nothing wrong with this, as China’s rapid growth in launch has been mirrored by the United States and, in particular, SpaceX.

However there is an issue with these launches, as China appears to be ignoring long-established norms about disposing of the upper stages of rockets. These are the parts of the vehicle that separate from the first stage of a rocket and push a satellite or spacecraft into orbit. [...] In the past five years, the mass of Chinese rocket bodies in long-lived orbits has risen from less than 100 metric tons to 252, according to a new analysis by Space Domain Awareness expert Jim Shell.

“China… continues to abandon many rocket bodies in high low-Earth orbit,” Shell wrote on LinkedIn early Monday. “The total mass of orbital debris is a key variable influencing the long-term sustainment of space. There is broad agreement that abandoning rocket body upper stages in long-lived orbits is not a best practice. In fact, all the major space-faring nations have acknowledged this.” (MORE - missing details)]]> https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/an...get-worse/

EXCERPTS: Up until a decade ago, China had never launched as many as 20 orbital rockets a year. But beginning in 2022, the Asian country launched 64 rockets and last year reached a record total of 93, marking it as the second-most productive space power in the world.

Further growth is anticipated from both the company’s state-owned enterprises as well as a rapidly expanding number of private launch companies. There is nothing wrong with this, as China’s rapid growth in launch has been mirrored by the United States and, in particular, SpaceX.

However there is an issue with these launches, as China appears to be ignoring long-established norms about disposing of the upper stages of rockets. These are the parts of the vehicle that separate from the first stage of a rocket and push a satellite or spacecraft into orbit. [...] In the past five years, the mass of Chinese rocket bodies in long-lived orbits has risen from less than 100 metric tons to 252, according to a new analysis by Space Domain Awareness expert Jim Shell.

“China… continues to abandon many rocket bodies in high low-Earth orbit,” Shell wrote on LinkedIn early Monday. “The total mass of orbital debris is a key variable influencing the long-term sustainment of space. There is broad agreement that abandoning rocket body upper stages in long-lived orbits is not a best practice. In fact, all the major space-faring nations have acknowledged this.” (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Loophole: A physical warp drive was supposed to be impossible (engineering)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20487.html Fri, 22 May 2026 18:37:36 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20487.html https://www.popularmechanics.com/science...-possible/

EXCERPTS: In a surprising paper from 2021, scientists Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire suggested that they’d nailed down a physical model for a warp drive, which flew in the face of what we’ve long thought about the crazy concept of warp speed travel: that it requires exotic, negative forces. The paper proposed a broader way to classify warp-drive spacetimes.

In some subluminal cases, the authors argued, a warp bubble could be described using positive energy rather than the exotic negative energy that has haunted the idea since Miguel Alcubierre’s famous 1994 proposal. To best understand what the breakthrough means, you’ll need a quick crash course on the far-out idea of traveling through folded space—because warp drive has always sounded cleaner in science fiction than it does in general relativity.

[...] Essentially, an Alcubierre drive would expend a tremendous amount of energy—likely more than what’s available within the universe and, more awkwardly, negative energy—to contract and twist space-time in front of it and create a bubble. ... For years, the negative-energy requirement was the bugaboo. Alcubierre’s original concept was mathematically allowed, but it demanded the kind of matter and energy budget no one knows how to supply.

[...] That’s why Bobrick and Martire’s 2021 paper drew so much attention. ... While newer research hasn’t killed the idea of a physical warp drive, it’s certainly thrown some cold water on it. ... Finally, there’s still the problem of stability... So, none of this gives engineers a warp drive. The concept is still in the “far future” zone of possibility, made of ideas that scientists still don’t know how to construct in any sense... (MORE - missing details)]]> https://www.popularmechanics.com/science...-possible/

EXCERPTS: In a surprising paper from 2021, scientists Alexey Bobrick and Gianni Martire suggested that they’d nailed down a physical model for a warp drive, which flew in the face of what we’ve long thought about the crazy concept of warp speed travel: that it requires exotic, negative forces. The paper proposed a broader way to classify warp-drive spacetimes.

In some subluminal cases, the authors argued, a warp bubble could be described using positive energy rather than the exotic negative energy that has haunted the idea since Miguel Alcubierre’s famous 1994 proposal. To best understand what the breakthrough means, you’ll need a quick crash course on the far-out idea of traveling through folded space—because warp drive has always sounded cleaner in science fiction than it does in general relativity.

[...] Essentially, an Alcubierre drive would expend a tremendous amount of energy—likely more than what’s available within the universe and, more awkwardly, negative energy—to contract and twist space-time in front of it and create a bubble. ... For years, the negative-energy requirement was the bugaboo. Alcubierre’s original concept was mathematically allowed, but it demanded the kind of matter and energy budget no one knows how to supply.

[...] That’s why Bobrick and Martire’s 2021 paper drew so much attention. ... While newer research hasn’t killed the idea of a physical warp drive, it’s certainly thrown some cold water on it. ... Finally, there’s still the problem of stability... So, none of this gives engineers a warp drive. The concept is still in the “far future” zone of possibility, made of ideas that scientists still don’t know how to construct in any sense... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Electricity could produce cement with almost no carbon footprint (construction)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20439.html Thu, 14 May 2026 16:59:14 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20439.html https://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/...print.html

PRESS RELEASE: As the world works to alter the trajectory of climate change, most attention focuses on reducing humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Yet a major source of carbon dioxide (CO2) is cement production, which accounts for 8% of global CO2 emissions.

Now, researchers reporting in ACS Energy Letters have manufactured cement that lowers input energy demand by 70% and reduces CO2 emissions by 98% compared with traditional production methods. Curtis Berlinguette: "This work defines an electrified path for cement production that could reduce the industry’s massive carbon footprint by as much as 98% when using waste cement as a feedstock.”

“Our team was motivated to address cement production emissions at the source,” says Curtis Berlinguette, the corresponding author of the study. “We used electricity and recycled cement to make precursors that formed a type of cement called belite at lower temperatures than were previously known. Belite-rich cement is important for massive structures like dams.”

Cement is an essential ingredient for making concrete a durable construction material, because when mixed with water, it strongly binds sand and gravel. And the starting material for cement is typically limestone. However, producing cement traditionally demands a great deal of energy as limestone (made of calcium carbonate, or CaCO3) and silica-containing minerals are heated in two stages to more than 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit (1,450 degrees Celsius). These processes release significant amounts of CO2 as a by-product when limestone breaks down.

Taking a different approach, Berlinguette and a research team at the University of British Columbia used electricity to lower the energy requirements of the chemical conversion of limestone and silica into a cement precursor. The electrochemistry approach allowed the reaction to take place at 140 F (60 C). The product of this reaction was then converted into belite in a kiln at 1,200 F (650 C). The lower temperatures of this new method reduced the thermal energy required by 70% as well as cut CO2 emissions compared to the traditional processes.

To further reduce emissions, the team tested the electrochemistry process on recycled waste cement, using it instead of limestone. This demonstration dropped emissions of the new method to 20 kilograms CO2 per ton — a 98% reduction in emissions compared to the 800 kilograms CO2 per ton cement released during conventional processes.

The researchers note that the electrochemical reactions produced hydrogen, which could be burned to provide the thermal energy for the second step of cement production, thus replacing fossil fuels.]]> https://www.acs.org/pressroom/presspacs/...print.html

PRESS RELEASE: As the world works to alter the trajectory of climate change, most attention focuses on reducing humanity’s reliance on fossil fuels and lowering greenhouse gas emissions. Yet a major source of carbon dioxide (CO2) is cement production, which accounts for 8% of global CO2 emissions.

Now, researchers reporting in ACS Energy Letters have manufactured cement that lowers input energy demand by 70% and reduces CO2 emissions by 98% compared with traditional production methods. Curtis Berlinguette: "This work defines an electrified path for cement production that could reduce the industry’s massive carbon footprint by as much as 98% when using waste cement as a feedstock.”

“Our team was motivated to address cement production emissions at the source,” says Curtis Berlinguette, the corresponding author of the study. “We used electricity and recycled cement to make precursors that formed a type of cement called belite at lower temperatures than were previously known. Belite-rich cement is important for massive structures like dams.”

Cement is an essential ingredient for making concrete a durable construction material, because when mixed with water, it strongly binds sand and gravel. And the starting material for cement is typically limestone. However, producing cement traditionally demands a great deal of energy as limestone (made of calcium carbonate, or CaCO3) and silica-containing minerals are heated in two stages to more than 2,600 degrees Fahrenheit (1,450 degrees Celsius). These processes release significant amounts of CO2 as a by-product when limestone breaks down.

Taking a different approach, Berlinguette and a research team at the University of British Columbia used electricity to lower the energy requirements of the chemical conversion of limestone and silica into a cement precursor. The electrochemistry approach allowed the reaction to take place at 140 F (60 C). The product of this reaction was then converted into belite in a kiln at 1,200 F (650 C). The lower temperatures of this new method reduced the thermal energy required by 70% as well as cut CO2 emissions compared to the traditional processes.

To further reduce emissions, the team tested the electrochemistry process on recycled waste cement, using it instead of limestone. This demonstration dropped emissions of the new method to 20 kilograms CO2 per ton — a 98% reduction in emissions compared to the 800 kilograms CO2 per ton cement released during conventional processes.

The researchers note that the electrochemical reactions produced hydrogen, which could be burned to provide the thermal energy for the second step of cement production, thus replacing fossil fuels.]]> <![CDATA[This superconductor has properties never seen before (design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20330.html Thu, 30 Apr 2026 14:53:46 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20330.html https://connectsci.au/news/news-parent/9...chresult=1

INTRO: A quantum material’s bizarre properties have been explained for the first time, opening the door to next-generation technologies.

Uranium ditelluride (UTe2) is a superconductor – a material which, at low enough temperatures, allows electric current to flow without any resistance. It is also part of a special class of “unconventional superconductors” which display superconductivity not explained by the quantum Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory which is normally used to describe the physics of superconductors.

For example, the theory explains that superconductors lose their zero-resistance state in the presence of magnetic fields. Even among unconventional superconductors, UTe2 is unique. It is the only superconductor known to have a special superconducting state which reappears at extremely high magnetic fields.

UTe2 loses its superconductivity at magnetic fields of about 10 Telsa. It re-enters a superconducting state at fields between 40 and 70T. For comparison, 1T is strong enough to lift a car. Researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) sought to understand what is happening when UTe2 is exhibiting this “re-entrant superconductivity” phenomenon.

Their findings are published in Nature Communications. UTe2 was discovered in 2019. Its properties have had materials scientists scratching their heads ever since... (MORE -details)]]> https://connectsci.au/news/news-parent/9...chresult=1

INTRO: A quantum material’s bizarre properties have been explained for the first time, opening the door to next-generation technologies.

Uranium ditelluride (UTe2) is a superconductor – a material which, at low enough temperatures, allows electric current to flow without any resistance. It is also part of a special class of “unconventional superconductors” which display superconductivity not explained by the quantum Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer theory which is normally used to describe the physics of superconductors.

For example, the theory explains that superconductors lose their zero-resistance state in the presence of magnetic fields. Even among unconventional superconductors, UTe2 is unique. It is the only superconductor known to have a special superconducting state which reappears at extremely high magnetic fields.

UTe2 loses its superconductivity at magnetic fields of about 10 Telsa. It re-enters a superconducting state at fields between 40 and 70T. For comparison, 1T is strong enough to lift a car. Researchers at the Institute of Science and Technology Austria (ISTA) sought to understand what is happening when UTe2 is exhibiting this “re-entrant superconductivity” phenomenon.

Their findings are published in Nature Communications. UTe2 was discovered in 2019. Its properties have had materials scientists scratching their heads ever since... (MORE -details)]]> <![CDATA[Only antimatter provides the energy we need for interstellar travel (engineering)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20270.html Fri, 24 Apr 2026 15:42:50 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20270.html https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...ar-travel/

KEY POINTS: With the successful Artemis II mission now complete, humanity has traveled farther from Earth than ever before: to beyond the far side of the Moon at its most distant, by thousands of kilometers. But if our goal is to eventually extend our reach not just to the other worlds of our Solar System, but to exoplanets around other stars, we’ll need a different, more efficient method of propulsion than chemical-based rockets can supply. The most efficient form of energy generation, theoretically, is to reach 100%, and only one fuel is capable of doing that: matter-antimatter annihilation. Here’s why that’s the ultimate dream, and how we might conceivably get there.

EXCERPT: Three main challenges arise in the endeavor to use antimatter as rocket fuel, all of which must be overcome if we actually want to have humans embark on an interstellar journey.

The creation of antimatter. We know how to do this one in laboratory settings, and although it does require much more energy to make the antimatter than we eventually release from its annihilation, that’s not really a problem. What is a problem is that we would have to make antimatter in large amounts. If you add up all the antimatter ever made in all the labs in the history of Earth, you end up with just about a microgram’s worth of antimatter. We’d need many millions of times more to power an interstellar journey.

The storage of antimatter. The very thing that makes antimatter such a fantastic fuel source — its propensity for annihilating with any normal matter that it contacts — makes it a liability for use as a fuel source. Somehow, we have to store this antimatter in a safe, stable way, and then transport it into a place where it undergoes a controlled annihilation with an equal-and-opposite amount of normal matter.

The usability of energy derived from matter-antimatter annihilation. Assuming we can overcome these first two problems, we then have to turn that energy of annihilation into useful thrust: ideally by shunting the post-annihilation particles in the opposite direction we want the spacecraft to accelerate.

Let’s look at these problems a little more in depth, one at a time... (MORE - details)]]> https://bigthink.com/starts-with-a-bang/...ar-travel/

KEY POINTS: With the successful Artemis II mission now complete, humanity has traveled farther from Earth than ever before: to beyond the far side of the Moon at its most distant, by thousands of kilometers. But if our goal is to eventually extend our reach not just to the other worlds of our Solar System, but to exoplanets around other stars, we’ll need a different, more efficient method of propulsion than chemical-based rockets can supply. The most efficient form of energy generation, theoretically, is to reach 100%, and only one fuel is capable of doing that: matter-antimatter annihilation. Here’s why that’s the ultimate dream, and how we might conceivably get there.

EXCERPT: Three main challenges arise in the endeavor to use antimatter as rocket fuel, all of which must be overcome if we actually want to have humans embark on an interstellar journey.

The creation of antimatter. We know how to do this one in laboratory settings, and although it does require much more energy to make the antimatter than we eventually release from its annihilation, that’s not really a problem. What is a problem is that we would have to make antimatter in large amounts. If you add up all the antimatter ever made in all the labs in the history of Earth, you end up with just about a microgram’s worth of antimatter. We’d need many millions of times more to power an interstellar journey.

The storage of antimatter. The very thing that makes antimatter such a fantastic fuel source — its propensity for annihilating with any normal matter that it contacts — makes it a liability for use as a fuel source. Somehow, we have to store this antimatter in a safe, stable way, and then transport it into a place where it undergoes a controlled annihilation with an equal-and-opposite amount of normal matter.

The usability of energy derived from matter-antimatter annihilation. Assuming we can overcome these first two problems, we then have to turn that energy of annihilation into useful thrust: ideally by shunting the post-annihilation particles in the opposite direction we want the spacecraft to accelerate.

Let’s look at these problems a little more in depth, one at a time... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Trump's proposed gawdy Washington eyesore]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20211.html Fri, 17 Apr 2026 01:31:25 +0000 Magical Realist]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20211.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ejC4ACB78]]>
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a7ejC4ACB78]]> <![CDATA[The first homes on Mars may be alive (fungus as construction material)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20110.html Fri, 03 Apr 2026 17:37:57 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-20110.html https://bigthink.com/science-tech/the-fi...-be-alive/

EXCERPTS: Off-world construction runs into one overwhelming constraint: the upmass problem.

[...] Though reusable rockets are driving down the cost of sending cargo into space, it is still incredibly high. With every extra kilogram of payload adding to mission costs, astronauts are severely limited in what they can bring. “The whole idea of bricks and cinder blocks isn’t going to fly,” says Jim Head, a planetary geologist at Brown University who played an integral role in NASA’s Apollo program.

Mushroom-forming fungi are master decomposers, capable of breaking down woody fibers that few other organisms can touch — they can then turn that tough, dead material into nutrients that fuel their growth. Mycelium also turns out to be a remarkably useful, sustainable material: As it spreads, it naturally binds together whatever it grows through, forming a tough, lightweight biological scaffold. In recent years, startups like Ecovative and MycoWorks have concocted fungi-based replacements for wood, packing material, and even leather.

Some fungi even show remarkable resistance to radiation. In 1997 and 1998, scientists exploring the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster discovered black, blue, and brown fungal molds growing on the inner walls and ceilings of contaminated buildings, seemingly indifferent to the gamma radiation in the area. In the contaminated soil just outside, they found fungal filaments growing toward radioactive particles, similar to the way a plant’s leaves will reach toward sunlight.

A few scientists suggested that these dark fungi might actually harness radiation as an energy source — a still-controversial claim — but one thing is clear: They can tolerate intense radiation. The melanin pigments that they produce — distantly related to the melanin that colors human skin — can absorb and mitigate not only UV radiation, but also far more potent gamma rays.

Taken together, these traits make fungi more than a scientific curiosity. For a small group of researchers at NASA, they’ve begun to look like a lifeline for survival beyond Earth.

[...] The goal of the Mycotecture Off Planet project is to develop a lightweight fabric structure with an interior divided into compartments, seeded with dehydrated fungal spores and starter nutrients. The structure could then be folded like origami, packed into a rocket, and flown to the Moon or Mars. Once unfolded, water — potentially mixed with local dirt — would be flushed through the compartments. As the fungi grow, they would expand to fill the compartments, inflating the building into a squarish dome in which humans could work and sleep.

[...] Rothschild has already moved on to growing her fungi with synthetic dirts that mimic lunar and Martian mineral compositions. Maikel Rheinstädter, an astrobiologist at McMaster University in Canada, is testing how well these fungi tolerate the high radiation levels and extreme temperature swings they would experience during the lunar day-night cycle. The fungi blocks and sheets that they’ve produced are already good thermal insulators — critical for a human habitat on the Moon or Mars.

Given the remarkable radiation tolerance displayed by the molds discovered at Chernobyl, fungi might also provide radiation shielding — Maurer imagines growing thin layers of them inside the inflated buildings to shield the astronauts living within. Another team, led by Radames Cordero and Arturo Casadevall, biologists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is developing composite materials made with fungal melanin and mycelia, which they have tested as radiation shields on the International Space Station.

[...] The work is still early, and significant engineering hurdles remain, but the promise is clear: Fungi thrive in harsh environments, tolerate extremes that would destroy most organisms, and can continually grow and repair themselves over time. If that resilience can be harnessed for off-world construction, it could reduce the need to haul massive quantities of building material across space — bringing the dream of long-term habitats on the Moon or Mars closer to reality... (MORE - missing details)]]> https://bigthink.com/science-tech/the-fi...-be-alive/

EXCERPTS: Off-world construction runs into one overwhelming constraint: the upmass problem.

[...] Though reusable rockets are driving down the cost of sending cargo into space, it is still incredibly high. With every extra kilogram of payload adding to mission costs, astronauts are severely limited in what they can bring. “The whole idea of bricks and cinder blocks isn’t going to fly,” says Jim Head, a planetary geologist at Brown University who played an integral role in NASA’s Apollo program.

Mushroom-forming fungi are master decomposers, capable of breaking down woody fibers that few other organisms can touch — they can then turn that tough, dead material into nutrients that fuel their growth. Mycelium also turns out to be a remarkably useful, sustainable material: As it spreads, it naturally binds together whatever it grows through, forming a tough, lightweight biological scaffold. In recent years, startups like Ecovative and MycoWorks have concocted fungi-based replacements for wood, packing material, and even leather.

Some fungi even show remarkable resistance to radiation. In 1997 and 1998, scientists exploring the ruins of the Chernobyl nuclear disaster discovered black, blue, and brown fungal molds growing on the inner walls and ceilings of contaminated buildings, seemingly indifferent to the gamma radiation in the area. In the contaminated soil just outside, they found fungal filaments growing toward radioactive particles, similar to the way a plant’s leaves will reach toward sunlight.

A few scientists suggested that these dark fungi might actually harness radiation as an energy source — a still-controversial claim — but one thing is clear: They can tolerate intense radiation. The melanin pigments that they produce — distantly related to the melanin that colors human skin — can absorb and mitigate not only UV radiation, but also far more potent gamma rays.

Taken together, these traits make fungi more than a scientific curiosity. For a small group of researchers at NASA, they’ve begun to look like a lifeline for survival beyond Earth.

[...] The goal of the Mycotecture Off Planet project is to develop a lightweight fabric structure with an interior divided into compartments, seeded with dehydrated fungal spores and starter nutrients. The structure could then be folded like origami, packed into a rocket, and flown to the Moon or Mars. Once unfolded, water — potentially mixed with local dirt — would be flushed through the compartments. As the fungi grow, they would expand to fill the compartments, inflating the building into a squarish dome in which humans could work and sleep.

[...] Rothschild has already moved on to growing her fungi with synthetic dirts that mimic lunar and Martian mineral compositions. Maikel Rheinstädter, an astrobiologist at McMaster University in Canada, is testing how well these fungi tolerate the high radiation levels and extreme temperature swings they would experience during the lunar day-night cycle. The fungi blocks and sheets that they’ve produced are already good thermal insulators — critical for a human habitat on the Moon or Mars.

Given the remarkable radiation tolerance displayed by the molds discovered at Chernobyl, fungi might also provide radiation shielding — Maurer imagines growing thin layers of them inside the inflated buildings to shield the astronauts living within. Another team, led by Radames Cordero and Arturo Casadevall, biologists at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, is developing composite materials made with fungal melanin and mycelia, which they have tested as radiation shields on the International Space Station.

[...] The work is still early, and significant engineering hurdles remain, but the promise is clear: Fungi thrive in harsh environments, tolerate extremes that would destroy most organisms, and can continually grow and repair themselves over time. If that resilience can be harnessed for off-world construction, it could reduce the need to haul massive quantities of building material across space — bringing the dream of long-term habitats on the Moon or Mars closer to reality... (MORE - missing details)]]>