<![CDATA[Scivillage.com Casual Discussion Science Forum - Architecture, Design & Engineering]]> https://www.scivillage.com/ Sat, 17 Oct 2026 02:55:27 +0000 MyBB <![CDATA[If Frank Lloyd Wright had his way, the Guggenheim would not be white]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21589.html Thu, 15 Oct 2026 23:45:07 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21589.html https://www.architecturaldigest.com/stor...dead-white

EXCERPTS: Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect of the Guggenheim Museum, hated white paint. In March of 1958, Wright, who was ninety years old, made this a point of contention between himself and James Johnson Sweeney, the museum’s new director. Sweeney wanted only his office in the new building to be painted white, initially. But soon after that matter had been settled, he began to envision all the exhibition spaces being painted in the same fashion. On March 17, Wright composed a memo about this to Harry Guggenheim, who was managing the building’s construction. He implored Harry to change Sweeney’s mind about using white paint:

White—a devastating color under daylight—is the sum of all colors. Even used as a frame of reference for paintings (to say nothing of sculpture), it is a makeshift or a menace. Here by intention (and bequest) we have a great work of sculptural architecture calculated to set up a picture in the atmosphere of a harmonious series of daylighted-forms. This setting is new and may stimulate a new impulse in the art of painting whereas the old cliché of a white shroud for the painting seen by gaslight may in future well be called not only, the “grave of modern art” but now the destruction of a great building.

Wright was known to be arrogant, and his self-importance is on full display here. He certainly was not known for being compromising, and he was clearly frustrated about losing control over some aspects of the museum’s completion. Wright was confident that his building was so important that it would likely inspire a new movement in painting—even as he knew that it had been made to exhibit several concurrent “new movements” in painting. But I don’t think that’s all that is going on here.

In his letter to Guggenheim, Wright claims white paint is “devastating,” suggesting that it brings damages. He also calls it “makeshift,” implying that it is crudely fashioned for the sake of expediency. He says that using white paint would transform the building into a shroud—which is used to wrap the dead prior to burial—for the display of art. He adds that white paint is a “menace,” something that threatens the building’s progress or success. He insists that white paint is a “grave” maker, because of its ability to destroy the building outright. In Wright’s analogy, the building is alive, and white paint is a killer. While his rhetoric is a bit over the top, it also reveals the intensity of Wright’s objections. Beyond that, they disclose his way of thinking about white paint, which was vigilant. It seemed apparent to me that Wright was not just being dramatic in his condemnation of white paint. He saw a real risk in it.

On April 3, Wright wrote to Guggenheim again, this time imploring that “White is a color—the loudest color of them all. A true artist would not paint for a white background which nature seems to use most sparingly for accent only.” With this bitter note of emphasis, Wright was taking a jab at both Sweeney and the artwork he hoped to exhibit. He ended the letter with another mortal analogy, comparing a white-painted room to a tomb, to point out the absurdity of Sweeney’s choice: “Human sepulchre is white. Why?”

But Wright’s passionate letters did not change Guggenheim (or Sweeney’s) mind. [...] The conflict between Wright and Sweeney over the museum’s interior came to an end, but without the satisfaction of a resolution that resembled a shared perspective. They both felt that big things were at stake in the choice of paint colors, even as they disagreed about the most important feature of the new museum. Wright wanted people to be able to see the building’s contours in natural and electric light, so he suggested painting the interior in ivory. Sweeney wanted to draw people’s attention to the artworks, so he insisted on painting the walls in a dead-white.

At first, it seemed to me that there was not much of a variation between their preferences, but taking a closer look helped me to understand how they differ. Ivory has a warm undertone, often of yellow but sometimes of pink or brown, while a dead-white has a cool undertone, lightly inflected with gray or blue. Ivory reflects a mixed composition, while a dead-white is meant to appear “pure,” even when it is not. Ivory responds to light with a softer tone than a dead-white, which is aggressively reflective.

[...] Not all of Wright’s suggestions for painting the museum were so subtle. He initially proposed a deep pink-orange color called Cherokee Red for the exterior... (MORE - missing details)

Is the Guggenheim really worth it? The museum tour. ... https://youtu.be/KZ7qvNnW7no

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/KZ7qvNnW7no]]> https://www.architecturaldigest.com/stor...dead-white

EXCERPTS: Frank Lloyd Wright, the architect of the Guggenheim Museum, hated white paint. In March of 1958, Wright, who was ninety years old, made this a point of contention between himself and James Johnson Sweeney, the museum’s new director. Sweeney wanted only his office in the new building to be painted white, initially. But soon after that matter had been settled, he began to envision all the exhibition spaces being painted in the same fashion. On March 17, Wright composed a memo about this to Harry Guggenheim, who was managing the building’s construction. He implored Harry to change Sweeney’s mind about using white paint:

White—a devastating color under daylight—is the sum of all colors. Even used as a frame of reference for paintings (to say nothing of sculpture), it is a makeshift or a menace. Here by intention (and bequest) we have a great work of sculptural architecture calculated to set up a picture in the atmosphere of a harmonious series of daylighted-forms. This setting is new and may stimulate a new impulse in the art of painting whereas the old cliché of a white shroud for the painting seen by gaslight may in future well be called not only, the “grave of modern art” but now the destruction of a great building.

Wright was known to be arrogant, and his self-importance is on full display here. He certainly was not known for being compromising, and he was clearly frustrated about losing control over some aspects of the museum’s completion. Wright was confident that his building was so important that it would likely inspire a new movement in painting—even as he knew that it had been made to exhibit several concurrent “new movements” in painting. But I don’t think that’s all that is going on here.

In his letter to Guggenheim, Wright claims white paint is “devastating,” suggesting that it brings damages. He also calls it “makeshift,” implying that it is crudely fashioned for the sake of expediency. He says that using white paint would transform the building into a shroud—which is used to wrap the dead prior to burial—for the display of art. He adds that white paint is a “menace,” something that threatens the building’s progress or success. He insists that white paint is a “grave” maker, because of its ability to destroy the building outright. In Wright’s analogy, the building is alive, and white paint is a killer. While his rhetoric is a bit over the top, it also reveals the intensity of Wright’s objections. Beyond that, they disclose his way of thinking about white paint, which was vigilant. It seemed apparent to me that Wright was not just being dramatic in his condemnation of white paint. He saw a real risk in it.

On April 3, Wright wrote to Guggenheim again, this time imploring that “White is a color—the loudest color of them all. A true artist would not paint for a white background which nature seems to use most sparingly for accent only.” With this bitter note of emphasis, Wright was taking a jab at both Sweeney and the artwork he hoped to exhibit. He ended the letter with another mortal analogy, comparing a white-painted room to a tomb, to point out the absurdity of Sweeney’s choice: “Human sepulchre is white. Why?”

But Wright’s passionate letters did not change Guggenheim (or Sweeney’s) mind. [...] The conflict between Wright and Sweeney over the museum’s interior came to an end, but without the satisfaction of a resolution that resembled a shared perspective. They both felt that big things were at stake in the choice of paint colors, even as they disagreed about the most important feature of the new museum. Wright wanted people to be able to see the building’s contours in natural and electric light, so he suggested painting the interior in ivory. Sweeney wanted to draw people’s attention to the artworks, so he insisted on painting the walls in a dead-white.

At first, it seemed to me that there was not much of a variation between their preferences, but taking a closer look helped me to understand how they differ. Ivory has a warm undertone, often of yellow but sometimes of pink or brown, while a dead-white has a cool undertone, lightly inflected with gray or blue. Ivory reflects a mixed composition, while a dead-white is meant to appear “pure,” even when it is not. Ivory responds to light with a softer tone than a dead-white, which is aggressively reflective.

[...] Not all of Wright’s suggestions for painting the museum were so subtle. He initially proposed a deep pink-orange color called Cherokee Red for the exterior... (MORE - missing details)

Is the Guggenheim really worth it? The museum tour. ... https://youtu.be/KZ7qvNnW7no

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/KZ7qvNnW7no]]> <![CDATA[Pickles glow when you run electricity through them (electrical engineering)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21535.html Fri, 09 Oct 2026 15:00:58 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21535.html WARNING: Do not try to do it at home or anywhere else.
- - - - - - - - - - -

Pickles glow when you run electricity through them, and researchers finally figured out why
https://www.zmescience.com/science/physi...ow-orange/

EXCERPTS: Stick two metal electrodes into opposite ends of a pickle, hook them up to mains electricity, and stand back. Within seconds, the pickle begins to hiss and steam. Then one end suddenly erupts in a fierce orange glow, as if the vegetable has briefly turned into a lamp.

The “glowing pickle” has been a favorite classroom stunt for decades. The usual explanation is simple: the salty brine conducts electricity, and excited sodium ions produce the orange light. But that’s only part of the story.

After sacrificing more than 100 pickles to science, an electrical engineer at Portland State University believes he is finally closing in on an explanation. And surprisingly, it involves tiny hydrogen explosions.

Joshua Méndez Harper, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, presented the results at the Electrostatics Society of America’s annual meeting in June.

A pickle conducts electricity because its watery interior contains dissolved salt. In water, salt separates into charged particles called ions, which can carry electrical current. A fresh cucumber contains water too, but far fewer dissolved ions, so it conducts much less readily. So far, straightforward enough. But when electricity starts flowing through a pickle, things get considerably messier.

[...] Méndez Harper thinks the two explanations are connected. The electrical current produces hydrogen gas while also heating the brine enough to create vapor pockets. As those pockets form and collapse, electrical sparks can jump between the electrode and the surrounding liquid. Those sparks, he proposes, ignite the hydrogen.

In other words, the pickle may be hosting tiny bursts of combustion, with electrical discharges providing the ignition.

[...] Scientists have looked at this phenomenon for decades. A 1993 Journal of Chemical Education paper showed that the familiar yellow-orange color corresponds to sodium’s characteristic emission. A later 2005 experiment replaced sodium with other dissolved metals and produced differently colored pickles—including pink, purple, and red glows... (MORE - details)]]> WARNING: Do not try to do it at home or anywhere else.
- - - - - - - - - - -

Pickles glow when you run electricity through them, and researchers finally figured out why
https://www.zmescience.com/science/physi...ow-orange/

EXCERPTS: Stick two metal electrodes into opposite ends of a pickle, hook them up to mains electricity, and stand back. Within seconds, the pickle begins to hiss and steam. Then one end suddenly erupts in a fierce orange glow, as if the vegetable has briefly turned into a lamp.

The “glowing pickle” has been a favorite classroom stunt for decades. The usual explanation is simple: the salty brine conducts electricity, and excited sodium ions produce the orange light. But that’s only part of the story.

After sacrificing more than 100 pickles to science, an electrical engineer at Portland State University believes he is finally closing in on an explanation. And surprisingly, it involves tiny hydrogen explosions.

Joshua Méndez Harper, an assistant professor of electrical engineering, presented the results at the Electrostatics Society of America’s annual meeting in June.

A pickle conducts electricity because its watery interior contains dissolved salt. In water, salt separates into charged particles called ions, which can carry electrical current. A fresh cucumber contains water too, but far fewer dissolved ions, so it conducts much less readily. So far, straightforward enough. But when electricity starts flowing through a pickle, things get considerably messier.

[...] Méndez Harper thinks the two explanations are connected. The electrical current produces hydrogen gas while also heating the brine enough to create vapor pockets. As those pockets form and collapse, electrical sparks can jump between the electrode and the surrounding liquid. Those sparks, he proposes, ignite the hydrogen.

In other words, the pickle may be hosting tiny bursts of combustion, with electrical discharges providing the ignition.

[...] Scientists have looked at this phenomenon for decades. A 1993 Journal of Chemical Education paper showed that the familiar yellow-orange color corresponds to sodium’s characteristic emission. A later 2005 experiment replaced sodium with other dissolved metals and produced differently colored pickles—including pink, purple, and red glows... (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Cement-based supercapacitors could power next-generation ‘smart’ buildings]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21468.html Thu, 01 Oct 2026 18:51:29 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21468.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1146240

PRESS RELEASE: What if the energy powering your home or office could be generated, stored, and used all in the same place? This is the hope for the next generation of buildings, powered by renewable sources storing the energy nearby — possibly even within the concrete used to construct the building itself. Reporting in ACS Nano, researchers have developed an efficient, energy-storing cement supercapacitor that holds up as well as commercial concrete in tests.

“If building materials could not only support structures but also store energy, sense their surroundings, and even interact with people, buildings would become more than passive shelters. They could become truly smart environments.” — Jing Zhong

Supercapacitors store relatively small amounts of energy, but they take in and release that energy rapidly, and for millions of cycles in some cases. So, by incorporating these devices directly into building materials like cement, researchers are hoping that energy generated near the building (by solar panels, for example) could be stored inside of the structure, rather than in bulky batteries on the roof or in a utility room.

“If renewable energy is available to recharge [the supercapacitors] frequently enough, they could meet some energy needs through repeated charging and discharging,” says Jing Zhong, the corresponding author of the study.

Zhong and colleagues Wencai Ren and Haiping Wu first mixed carbon nanotubes, carbon black, and cement together to form a printable electrode ink. Then, using a 3D printer, they deposited the ink onto a small concrete slab in a pattern resembling interlocked fingers. As the cement within the slab was hydrated, its pores filled with water and ions that easily traveled between the electrodes. And as this design shortened the distance charged ions had to travel, the overall supercapacitor was more efficient than previous iterations.

Tests revealed that the cement-based supercapacitor had a compressive strength comparable to commercial concrete used in slabs and stairs. Three devices printed on the same slab and wired together also powered a small array of LEDs. In the future, the supercapacitors could power everything from emergency lighting to self-powered sensors.

Finally, the team discovered that the new supercapacitor operated stably under moderate heating and cooling, but at around zero degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius), its performance started to wane. Future research will focus on fortifying the supercapacitors in cold-weather conditions.

Zhong explains that “if building materials could not only support structures but also store energy, sense their surroundings, and even interact with people, buildings would become more than passive shelters. They could become truly smart environments.”

The authors acknowledge funding from the Guangdong Hailong Construction Technology Company Limited, a subsidiary of China State Construction International Holdings Limited.]]> https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1146240

PRESS RELEASE: What if the energy powering your home or office could be generated, stored, and used all in the same place? This is the hope for the next generation of buildings, powered by renewable sources storing the energy nearby — possibly even within the concrete used to construct the building itself. Reporting in ACS Nano, researchers have developed an efficient, energy-storing cement supercapacitor that holds up as well as commercial concrete in tests.

“If building materials could not only support structures but also store energy, sense their surroundings, and even interact with people, buildings would become more than passive shelters. They could become truly smart environments.” — Jing Zhong

Supercapacitors store relatively small amounts of energy, but they take in and release that energy rapidly, and for millions of cycles in some cases. So, by incorporating these devices directly into building materials like cement, researchers are hoping that energy generated near the building (by solar panels, for example) could be stored inside of the structure, rather than in bulky batteries on the roof or in a utility room.

“If renewable energy is available to recharge [the supercapacitors] frequently enough, they could meet some energy needs through repeated charging and discharging,” says Jing Zhong, the corresponding author of the study.

Zhong and colleagues Wencai Ren and Haiping Wu first mixed carbon nanotubes, carbon black, and cement together to form a printable electrode ink. Then, using a 3D printer, they deposited the ink onto a small concrete slab in a pattern resembling interlocked fingers. As the cement within the slab was hydrated, its pores filled with water and ions that easily traveled between the electrodes. And as this design shortened the distance charged ions had to travel, the overall supercapacitor was more efficient than previous iterations.

Tests revealed that the cement-based supercapacitor had a compressive strength comparable to commercial concrete used in slabs and stairs. Three devices printed on the same slab and wired together also powered a small array of LEDs. In the future, the supercapacitors could power everything from emergency lighting to self-powered sensors.

Finally, the team discovered that the new supercapacitor operated stably under moderate heating and cooling, but at around zero degrees Fahrenheit (minus 18 degrees Celsius), its performance started to wane. Future research will focus on fortifying the supercapacitors in cold-weather conditions.

Zhong explains that “if building materials could not only support structures but also store energy, sense their surroundings, and even interact with people, buildings would become more than passive shelters. They could become truly smart environments.”

The authors acknowledge funding from the Guangdong Hailong Construction Technology Company Limited, a subsidiary of China State Construction International Holdings Limited.]]> <![CDATA[Free-range paradox: The high cost of happy chickens (conflicting design outcomes)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21396.html Mon, 21 Sep 2026 13:46:46 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21396.html https://www.acsh.org/news/2026/09/18/fre...kens-50330

EXCERPTS: The resulting calculations reveal an unexpected trade-off. Housing modifications designed for animal welfare systematically increased resource consumption, emissions, and overall mortality. Could the drive for better chicken lives result in more chicken deaths?

Feed production drove most environmental impacts. As a result, any drop in feed-conversion efficiency, whether caused by cold weather, exercise, lower dietary nutrient density, or disease, compounds its ecological footprint.

Mortality outcomes were more complex. Outdoor and free-range systems leave hens exposed to pathogens carried by wild birds, such as avian influenza, as well as soil-borne parasites and infectious diseases. They also expose hens to weather extremes. Indoor flocks are more susceptible to bacterial infections and suffer irritation from air pollutants, particularly high ammonia levels from built-up floor litter. High-density uncaged populations are more prone to uncontrolled pecking and cannibalism as the natural social hierarchy is lost at these flock sizes.

Cages limit those issues. While cage systems limit behavioral freedom, their physical isolation protects birds from infectious vectors, aggression, and harsh weather—resulting in the substantially lower baseline mortality rates observed in the data. Further complicating matters, organic layers were less productive, requiring a larger population to produce the same number of eggs. This increased their overall flock sizes and contributed additional deaths from both disease and ultimately slaughter.

The best way to care for layers depended heavily on the trade-offs considered. With a strict environmental focus, furnished cages were unequivocally the best option, delivering the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, land footprint, and nutrient pollution. Free-range organic systems performed worst across nearly every ecological metric. When hen welfare is the focus, the trade-off becomes even more critical. Furnished cages minimized total flock deaths and slaughter counts. Free-range systems provided the greatest behavioral freedom but had the worst mortality rates, requiring significantly larger flock sizes.

Neither the authors nor I are calling for caging hens. As they write, “transitioning to cage-free systems without also improving factors such as mortality and feed efficiency is likely to increase environmental impacts.” The point is not that cages are good or free-range systems bad. It is that improving one thing we value can make another worse.

That is the uncomfortable reality of trade-offs and policymaking... (MORE - missing details)]]> https://www.acsh.org/news/2026/09/18/fre...kens-50330

EXCERPTS: The resulting calculations reveal an unexpected trade-off. Housing modifications designed for animal welfare systematically increased resource consumption, emissions, and overall mortality. Could the drive for better chicken lives result in more chicken deaths?

Feed production drove most environmental impacts. As a result, any drop in feed-conversion efficiency, whether caused by cold weather, exercise, lower dietary nutrient density, or disease, compounds its ecological footprint.

Mortality outcomes were more complex. Outdoor and free-range systems leave hens exposed to pathogens carried by wild birds, such as avian influenza, as well as soil-borne parasites and infectious diseases. They also expose hens to weather extremes. Indoor flocks are more susceptible to bacterial infections and suffer irritation from air pollutants, particularly high ammonia levels from built-up floor litter. High-density uncaged populations are more prone to uncontrolled pecking and cannibalism as the natural social hierarchy is lost at these flock sizes.

Cages limit those issues. While cage systems limit behavioral freedom, their physical isolation protects birds from infectious vectors, aggression, and harsh weather—resulting in the substantially lower baseline mortality rates observed in the data. Further complicating matters, organic layers were less productive, requiring a larger population to produce the same number of eggs. This increased their overall flock sizes and contributed additional deaths from both disease and ultimately slaughter.

The best way to care for layers depended heavily on the trade-offs considered. With a strict environmental focus, furnished cages were unequivocally the best option, delivering the lowest greenhouse gas emissions, land footprint, and nutrient pollution. Free-range organic systems performed worst across nearly every ecological metric. When hen welfare is the focus, the trade-off becomes even more critical. Furnished cages minimized total flock deaths and slaughter counts. Free-range systems provided the greatest behavioral freedom but had the worst mortality rates, requiring significantly larger flock sizes.

Neither the authors nor I are calling for caging hens. As they write, “transitioning to cage-free systems without also improving factors such as mortality and feed efficiency is likely to increase environmental impacts.” The point is not that cages are good or free-range systems bad. It is that improving one thing we value can make another worse.

That is the uncomfortable reality of trade-offs and policymaking... (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Can windows cool buildings without electricity?]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21384.html Sat, 19 Sep 2026 18:22:00 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21384.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1144566

PRESS RELEASE: Windows are vital to buildings because they provide daylight, views, and a connection to the outdoors, but they are also weak points in the building envelope. They can cause significant unwanted heat gain or heat loss, increasing the demand for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

Thermochromic smart windows offer a passive solution. These windows use materials that change their optical properties in response to temperature. In cold conditions, they remain more transparent, allowing daylight and solar heat into the building. In hot conditions, they reduce solar transmission, especially in the near-infrared region, helping to limit overheating and lower cooling loads. Because the response is temperature-driven, they can operate without external power, sensors, or complex control systems.

A new review article published in Science Bulletin, titled “Thermochromic smart windows toward climate-resilient and energy efficient buildings: from lab to applications,” provides a comprehensive assessment of this technology. The study was conducted by Weiqiang Ma, Sai Liu, Junqi Wang, Fariborz Haghighat, and Shi-Jie Cao from Southeast University and Concordia University.

The review summarizes major thermochromic material systems, including vanadium dioxide, halide perovskites, hydrogels, liquid crystals, and ionic liquids. Each has advantages, such as near-infrared modulation, strong optical switching, or tunable transition temperatures. However, they also face challenges including high switching temperature, color change, haze, moisture sensitivity, mechanical fatigue, and long-term instability.

According to the authors, the key challenge is no longer only finding better materials, but translating material-level performance into reliable building-scale applications. Smart windows must balance visible transparency, solar modulation, thermal-infrared regulation, switching temperature, response speed, durability, and aesthetics. Their benefits also depend strongly on climate, façade orientation, building type, and glazing design. They may be especially useful in cooling-dominated regions, while in heating-dominated climates inappropriate switching could reduce useful winter solar gains.

The review calls for a shift from material-centered optimization to deployment-oriented design. Future thermochromic smart windows should be integrated with building energy management, HVAC, lighting, and shading systems. Rather than simply being “glass that changes color,” they could become dynamic components of climate-resilient, energy-efficient building envelopes.]]> https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1144566

PRESS RELEASE: Windows are vital to buildings because they provide daylight, views, and a connection to the outdoors, but they are also weak points in the building envelope. They can cause significant unwanted heat gain or heat loss, increasing the demand for heating, ventilation, and air conditioning.

Thermochromic smart windows offer a passive solution. These windows use materials that change their optical properties in response to temperature. In cold conditions, they remain more transparent, allowing daylight and solar heat into the building. In hot conditions, they reduce solar transmission, especially in the near-infrared region, helping to limit overheating and lower cooling loads. Because the response is temperature-driven, they can operate without external power, sensors, or complex control systems.

A new review article published in Science Bulletin, titled “Thermochromic smart windows toward climate-resilient and energy efficient buildings: from lab to applications,” provides a comprehensive assessment of this technology. The study was conducted by Weiqiang Ma, Sai Liu, Junqi Wang, Fariborz Haghighat, and Shi-Jie Cao from Southeast University and Concordia University.

The review summarizes major thermochromic material systems, including vanadium dioxide, halide perovskites, hydrogels, liquid crystals, and ionic liquids. Each has advantages, such as near-infrared modulation, strong optical switching, or tunable transition temperatures. However, they also face challenges including high switching temperature, color change, haze, moisture sensitivity, mechanical fatigue, and long-term instability.

According to the authors, the key challenge is no longer only finding better materials, but translating material-level performance into reliable building-scale applications. Smart windows must balance visible transparency, solar modulation, thermal-infrared regulation, switching temperature, response speed, durability, and aesthetics. Their benefits also depend strongly on climate, façade orientation, building type, and glazing design. They may be especially useful in cooling-dominated regions, while in heating-dominated climates inappropriate switching could reduce useful winter solar gains.

The review calls for a shift from material-centered optimization to deployment-oriented design. Future thermochromic smart windows should be integrated with building energy management, HVAC, lighting, and shading systems. Rather than simply being “glass that changes color,” they could become dynamic components of climate-resilient, energy-efficient building envelopes.]]> <![CDATA[No cities on the Moon — there isn’t enough water, scientists say (habitat design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21333.html Mon, 14 Sep 2026 17:35:30 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21333.html https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2026/09...chnologies

PRESS RELEASE: The discovery of water in dark craters at the Moon's poles has sparked a ‘moon rush’ to establish bases there, and then villages, cities, and heavy industry. How sustainable is this rush?

Soon after the Moon was formed, asteroids bombarded it, creating its pockmarked topography. Near the Moon’s poles, there are dozens of crater floors that have not seen direct sunlight in about four billion years. Many of these cryogenically cold ‘pits of eternal darkness’ are below a temperature of 110K, forming ‘cold traps’ in which water ice won’t sublimate away by more than a millimeter in a billion years, even in the vacuum at the Moon’s surface. And there is water to freeze: some of those asteroids brought it along with them. Since 2013 we have known that that water is still there, possibly as much as a billion tons of it, thanks to a succession of Moon-orbiting missions that have mapped out likely locations in increasing detail.

The presence of water at the lunar poles changes everything about human visits to the Moon. Suddenly it is practical to envisage a ‘Moon village’ where people could survive without importing every last bit from Earth. They could grow their own food and have showers and functional toilets, unlike the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). This possibility has sparked ambitions from the likes of Jeff Bezos to move heavy industry to the Moon and Elon Musk’s aims to have “self-growing cities” there. These are enticing visions, but are they attainable?

The good news. We realized that we could make a first feasibility estimate simply by looking at how much power and water a large population would use on the Moon, and how long a city of 100,000 or one million people could survive there. How sustainable is a city on the Moon?

The good news is that power, even without nuclear reactors, is not a problem. That’s because the rims of the craters containing the pits of eternal darkness are in almost permanent sunlight. (That’s why they are sometimes, slightly incorrectly, referred to as the ‘peaks of eternal light’.) Up on those highly illuminated rims it would be possible to generate three gigawatts of electricity using kilometer-tall towers covered with photovoltaic arrays. It should be possible to manufacture solar panels on the Moon. There’s certainly plenty of silicon. This could even make AI data centers on the Moon possible, by placing them near these sunny peaks. That would be the start of a true lunar economy.

The bad news. The bad news is that, even assuming a generous one billion tons of water to start with, without recycling the answer to our question of sustainability is that the city would last only a few years. Even in the best-case scenario, with 98% efficient recycling of water — the same as achieved on the ISS —a one-million-person city will run out of water in just over a century. That is a problem for sustainable Moon settlement. And today’s best estimates of the amount of water on the Moon are about 30 times less than a billion tons, shortening the time to water exhaustion by the same factor. This means that even a small city would run dry after just a decade or so. A Moon village with a thousand people, or even a town with 10,000 people, would instead be sustainable for several centuries or more.

There are potential solutions. We could improve the efficiency of water recycling by a factor of five or more; lower water usage from new techniques such as vertical farming; import water, probably from accessible asteroids; or, simply, find more water. Of these it may be this last hope that is most promising. Current water surveying techniques do not reach below the surface more than a few meters, while the rubble-like rocks of the surface regolith typically extend tens of meters down and may contain water in the cold traps. If the ambitious plans of the space billionaires are to be realized, then finding more water will be the first step.

PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frspt.2026.1894104]]> https://www.frontiersin.org/news/2026/09...chnologies

PRESS RELEASE: The discovery of water in dark craters at the Moon's poles has sparked a ‘moon rush’ to establish bases there, and then villages, cities, and heavy industry. How sustainable is this rush?

Soon after the Moon was formed, asteroids bombarded it, creating its pockmarked topography. Near the Moon’s poles, there are dozens of crater floors that have not seen direct sunlight in about four billion years. Many of these cryogenically cold ‘pits of eternal darkness’ are below a temperature of 110K, forming ‘cold traps’ in which water ice won’t sublimate away by more than a millimeter in a billion years, even in the vacuum at the Moon’s surface. And there is water to freeze: some of those asteroids brought it along with them. Since 2013 we have known that that water is still there, possibly as much as a billion tons of it, thanks to a succession of Moon-orbiting missions that have mapped out likely locations in increasing detail.

The presence of water at the lunar poles changes everything about human visits to the Moon. Suddenly it is practical to envisage a ‘Moon village’ where people could survive without importing every last bit from Earth. They could grow their own food and have showers and functional toilets, unlike the astronauts on the International Space Station (ISS). This possibility has sparked ambitions from the likes of Jeff Bezos to move heavy industry to the Moon and Elon Musk’s aims to have “self-growing cities” there. These are enticing visions, but are they attainable?

The good news. We realized that we could make a first feasibility estimate simply by looking at how much power and water a large population would use on the Moon, and how long a city of 100,000 or one million people could survive there. How sustainable is a city on the Moon?

The good news is that power, even without nuclear reactors, is not a problem. That’s because the rims of the craters containing the pits of eternal darkness are in almost permanent sunlight. (That’s why they are sometimes, slightly incorrectly, referred to as the ‘peaks of eternal light’.) Up on those highly illuminated rims it would be possible to generate three gigawatts of electricity using kilometer-tall towers covered with photovoltaic arrays. It should be possible to manufacture solar panels on the Moon. There’s certainly plenty of silicon. This could even make AI data centers on the Moon possible, by placing them near these sunny peaks. That would be the start of a true lunar economy.

The bad news. The bad news is that, even assuming a generous one billion tons of water to start with, without recycling the answer to our question of sustainability is that the city would last only a few years. Even in the best-case scenario, with 98% efficient recycling of water — the same as achieved on the ISS —a one-million-person city will run out of water in just over a century. That is a problem for sustainable Moon settlement. And today’s best estimates of the amount of water on the Moon are about 30 times less than a billion tons, shortening the time to water exhaustion by the same factor. This means that even a small city would run dry after just a decade or so. A Moon village with a thousand people, or even a town with 10,000 people, would instead be sustainable for several centuries or more.

There are potential solutions. We could improve the efficiency of water recycling by a factor of five or more; lower water usage from new techniques such as vertical farming; import water, probably from accessible asteroids; or, simply, find more water. Of these it may be this last hope that is most promising. Current water surveying techniques do not reach below the surface more than a few meters, while the rubble-like rocks of the surface regolith typically extend tens of meters down and may contain water in the cold traps. If the ambitious plans of the space billionaires are to be realized, then finding more water will be the first step.

PAPER: http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/frspt.2026.1894104]]> <![CDATA[Perhaps Star Trek’s retro-future computer voice makes sense after all (design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21309.html Fri, 11 Sep 2026 11:17:18 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21309.html https://theness.com/neurologicablog/perh...kes-sense/

INTRO: For many science fiction fans the computer voice on the Enterprise is iconic, and is, in fact, “the” voice of any computer. Majel Barrett deliberately gave the computer a stilted, monotone, mechanical voice to reflect the fact that it was a non-sentient machine. But also, it reflected the technology at the time. Voice synthesizers had been around since the VODER, first debuted at the 1939 World’s Fair. They produce an electronic-sounding definitely artificial voice. Many people are also familiar with this electronic voice through Stephen Hawking’s voice synthesizer.

But now we have the technology to create artificial speech that sounds convincingly human – the voice sounds natural and not electronic and contains all the inflection and nuance of natural speech. Sesame is one example, and you can try the demo for yourself. The app adds pauses, breaths, “ums”, and other fillers to sound more natural. Essentially it is now simply not possible to tell an AI generated voice from a human generated voice. I recently rewatched Star Trek TOS and paid close attention to the futurism in the series and was struck by how dated all concepts of AI were in the show. We can already produce natural-sounding human speech, so why is the Enterprise’s computer so mechanical 200 years in the future?

However – there is another explanation (this is obviously a retcon having nothing to do with the original intent of the creators). More recently it occurred to me that we might consider the mechanical nature of the computer voice a deliberate feature, not a bug of technological limitations. In the episode Tomorrow is Yesterday the ship’s computer had recently been overhauled on Cygnet XIV and was given a female personality with a more natural sounding (albeit humorously annoying) voice. We can therefore say that the technology existed and the mechanical voice was at least partly a deliberate choice. At this point you are probably thinking, “So what?”

Well, one of the features of LLM-based chatbots is that they are getting increasingly good at imitating human interactions through language, whether with text or speech. This creates the powerful illusion that they are sentient and feeling, when they clearly are not. I know this point can be debated – how can we be sure they are not sentient? I maintain they are simply not built to be sentient. As an example, the same technology can be used to make pictures, but no one argues that Midjourney is sentient. So for the sake of discussion let’s stipulate LLMs are not sentient.

Why, then, program them to essentially pretend to be sentient? (MORE - details)]]> https://theness.com/neurologicablog/perh...kes-sense/

INTRO: For many science fiction fans the computer voice on the Enterprise is iconic, and is, in fact, “the” voice of any computer. Majel Barrett deliberately gave the computer a stilted, monotone, mechanical voice to reflect the fact that it was a non-sentient machine. But also, it reflected the technology at the time. Voice synthesizers had been around since the VODER, first debuted at the 1939 World’s Fair. They produce an electronic-sounding definitely artificial voice. Many people are also familiar with this electronic voice through Stephen Hawking’s voice synthesizer.

But now we have the technology to create artificial speech that sounds convincingly human – the voice sounds natural and not electronic and contains all the inflection and nuance of natural speech. Sesame is one example, and you can try the demo for yourself. The app adds pauses, breaths, “ums”, and other fillers to sound more natural. Essentially it is now simply not possible to tell an AI generated voice from a human generated voice. I recently rewatched Star Trek TOS and paid close attention to the futurism in the series and was struck by how dated all concepts of AI were in the show. We can already produce natural-sounding human speech, so why is the Enterprise’s computer so mechanical 200 years in the future?

However – there is another explanation (this is obviously a retcon having nothing to do with the original intent of the creators). More recently it occurred to me that we might consider the mechanical nature of the computer voice a deliberate feature, not a bug of technological limitations. In the episode Tomorrow is Yesterday the ship’s computer had recently been overhauled on Cygnet XIV and was given a female personality with a more natural sounding (albeit humorously annoying) voice. We can therefore say that the technology existed and the mechanical voice was at least partly a deliberate choice. At this point you are probably thinking, “So what?”

Well, one of the features of LLM-based chatbots is that they are getting increasingly good at imitating human interactions through language, whether with text or speech. This creates the powerful illusion that they are sentient and feeling, when they clearly are not. I know this point can be debated – how can we be sure they are not sentient? I maintain they are simply not built to be sentient. As an example, the same technology can be used to make pictures, but no one argues that Midjourney is sentient. So for the sake of discussion let’s stipulate LLMs are not sentient.

Why, then, program them to essentially pretend to be sentient? (MORE - details)]]> <![CDATA[Structural color coatings (no pigments used) just got glossy, durable and 3D-ready]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21286.html Tue, 08 Sep 2026 15:50:29 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21286.html https://www.kobe-u.ac.jp/en/news/article...medium=WEB

PRESS RELEASE: : You can now get glossy, car-paint-quality color from a coating that contains no pigment at all. The Kobe University development makes non-fading structural color applicable to complex surfaces at scale, fixes angle-dependent color and allows for applying protective layers for real-world use.

“Color coatings are expected to provide vivid color, brightness, gloss, and long-term durability, yet no existing technology satisfies all of these requirements simultaneously,” says Kobe University material engineer SUGIMOTO Hiroshi. Conventional coatings usually rely on relatively thick pigment layers that fade and add significant weight. While structural color, like that found in peacocks, isn’t subject to the photofading that affects organic pigments, it does require precise alignment and changes color depending on viewing angle. In addition, such structural arrays are incompatible with protective layers.

Sugimoto has previously developed silicon nanospheres as a completely new approach to structural color, which creates angle-independent coloration, and more recently, his group achieved ink-jet printing for this technology (link). However, so far, reflectance has been diffuse, meaning that the surfaces lacked luster, but the trick that enabled inkjet printing opened up a path to the solution. Sugimoto explains, “Packing the nano spheres in silica shells not only protects the particles but also controls their spacing and should improve self-assembly into neat arrays.” This should reduce diffuse reflectance, making the color glossy.

In a paper now published in the journal Small Structures, his team demonstrates glossiness and control over it while applying the coating to large, 3D surfaces. In addition, they showed that adding a protective coating did not significantly change the hue. “The most exciting aspect of this work is that it demonstrates glossy, non-iridescent and protection-coated structural color coatings for 3D objects in a single platform, making the technology useful for real-world applications,” explains Sugimoto.

The coatings are also impossibly light, with high opacity and brightness being achieved by just a single layer of silicon nano spheres. If this were to be applied to wide body airliners, this would make their coatings, which currently add several hundred kilograms in weight, weigh somewhere on the order of several hundred grams — less than a pack of milk for the whole plane. Also, the nano particles are made from silicon, a non-toxic material sourceable from the semiconductor industry, and silica, one of the most abundant materials in the Earth’s crust. Combine this with their non-fading nature and color coatings might become much less resource-demanding in the future.

Sugimoto is involved in setting up a company to scale up production for industrial use. Thinking about the breadth of possible applications, he explains, “The process is compatible with scalable coating methods such as spray coating, slot-die coating, and roll-to-roll processing.” But Sugimoto is also a scientist and his outlook goes beyond color coatings. He says: “We want to expand the possibility of applications for the science behind our technology beyond coloration. Looking ahead, we aim to develop multifunctional silicon nanoparticle coatings that combine structural coloration with additional optical functions such as sensing, photocatalysis and energy management.”]]> https://www.kobe-u.ac.jp/en/news/article...medium=WEB

PRESS RELEASE: : You can now get glossy, car-paint-quality color from a coating that contains no pigment at all. The Kobe University development makes non-fading structural color applicable to complex surfaces at scale, fixes angle-dependent color and allows for applying protective layers for real-world use.

“Color coatings are expected to provide vivid color, brightness, gloss, and long-term durability, yet no existing technology satisfies all of these requirements simultaneously,” says Kobe University material engineer SUGIMOTO Hiroshi. Conventional coatings usually rely on relatively thick pigment layers that fade and add significant weight. While structural color, like that found in peacocks, isn’t subject to the photofading that affects organic pigments, it does require precise alignment and changes color depending on viewing angle. In addition, such structural arrays are incompatible with protective layers.

Sugimoto has previously developed silicon nanospheres as a completely new approach to structural color, which creates angle-independent coloration, and more recently, his group achieved ink-jet printing for this technology (link). However, so far, reflectance has been diffuse, meaning that the surfaces lacked luster, but the trick that enabled inkjet printing opened up a path to the solution. Sugimoto explains, “Packing the nano spheres in silica shells not only protects the particles but also controls their spacing and should improve self-assembly into neat arrays.” This should reduce diffuse reflectance, making the color glossy.

In a paper now published in the journal Small Structures, his team demonstrates glossiness and control over it while applying the coating to large, 3D surfaces. In addition, they showed that adding a protective coating did not significantly change the hue. “The most exciting aspect of this work is that it demonstrates glossy, non-iridescent and protection-coated structural color coatings for 3D objects in a single platform, making the technology useful for real-world applications,” explains Sugimoto.

The coatings are also impossibly light, with high opacity and brightness being achieved by just a single layer of silicon nano spheres. If this were to be applied to wide body airliners, this would make their coatings, which currently add several hundred kilograms in weight, weigh somewhere on the order of several hundred grams — less than a pack of milk for the whole plane. Also, the nano particles are made from silicon, a non-toxic material sourceable from the semiconductor industry, and silica, one of the most abundant materials in the Earth’s crust. Combine this with their non-fading nature and color coatings might become much less resource-demanding in the future.

Sugimoto is involved in setting up a company to scale up production for industrial use. Thinking about the breadth of possible applications, he explains, “The process is compatible with scalable coating methods such as spray coating, slot-die coating, and roll-to-roll processing.” But Sugimoto is also a scientist and his outlook goes beyond color coatings. He says: “We want to expand the possibility of applications for the science behind our technology beyond coloration. Looking ahead, we aim to develop multifunctional silicon nanoparticle coatings that combine structural coloration with additional optical functions such as sensing, photocatalysis and energy management.”]]> <![CDATA[China's real estate system is failing, massive investor loss (unwanted architecture)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21258.html Fri, 04 Sep 2026 01:50:57 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21258.html Largest bankruptcy and property crisis in China's history. Founder judged.

PETER ZEIHAN (geopolitics)
https://youtu.be/TU7KVw9j060

VIDEO EXCERPTS: The news is that the Chinese government sentenced the former chairman of the real estate company Evergrande to life imprisonment. Because that’s what happens when you do exactly what the government tells you to do, when it doesn’t work out.

[...] There aren’t a lot of investment options for Chinese citizens. Foreign investment is sharply restricted because the Chinese know that their own system provides very poor returns. And if they opened their accounts to the world, that the money would just flow out in the tens of trillions.

And at home, everything is driven by throughput and employment rather than profitability. So if you invest in a specific company, your chances of actually getting a return are minimal because those companies are able to access subsidized loans from the government at negative real interest rates. And if you’re an investor, you get a negative real return.

[...] the Chinese citizens know that investing in the stock market in China is a fool’s errand. So the bottom line is that the Chinese government is now trying to get this money somewhere else.

They have something like 22 trillion dollars equivalent in deposit accounts. It’s just that Chinese citizens don’t know what to do with their money because they don’t want to put it in the stock market. They now know that housing is a trap. So it’s just sitting in a deposit account in their local bank.

And so the Chinese state has reduced deposit rates to below 1%. So this money isn’t really earning anything. They’re trying to force the Chinese citizens to invest in the stock markets. But [after the disaster of Evergrande] the Chinese citizens at the moment are smart enough to realize that that is a fool’s errand.

The only other possible way for it to go would be out of the country and go somewhere else where it could be more productive and be, you know, safer. But the Chinese keep that locked down.

So I always find it very amusing that people on the outside want to get their money into China to make money. But the people who are in China are desperate for any way to get the money out...

China’s real estate system is failing ... https://youtu.be/TU7KVw9j060

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/TU7KVw9j060]]> Largest bankruptcy and property crisis in China's history. Founder judged.

PETER ZEIHAN (geopolitics)
https://youtu.be/TU7KVw9j060

VIDEO EXCERPTS: The news is that the Chinese government sentenced the former chairman of the real estate company Evergrande to life imprisonment. Because that’s what happens when you do exactly what the government tells you to do, when it doesn’t work out.

[...] There aren’t a lot of investment options for Chinese citizens. Foreign investment is sharply restricted because the Chinese know that their own system provides very poor returns. And if they opened their accounts to the world, that the money would just flow out in the tens of trillions.

And at home, everything is driven by throughput and employment rather than profitability. So if you invest in a specific company, your chances of actually getting a return are minimal because those companies are able to access subsidized loans from the government at negative real interest rates. And if you’re an investor, you get a negative real return.

[...] the Chinese citizens know that investing in the stock market in China is a fool’s errand. So the bottom line is that the Chinese government is now trying to get this money somewhere else.

They have something like 22 trillion dollars equivalent in deposit accounts. It’s just that Chinese citizens don’t know what to do with their money because they don’t want to put it in the stock market. They now know that housing is a trap. So it’s just sitting in a deposit account in their local bank.

And so the Chinese state has reduced deposit rates to below 1%. So this money isn’t really earning anything. They’re trying to force the Chinese citizens to invest in the stock markets. But [after the disaster of Evergrande] the Chinese citizens at the moment are smart enough to realize that that is a fool’s errand.

The only other possible way for it to go would be out of the country and go somewhere else where it could be more productive and be, you know, safer. But the Chinese keep that locked down.

So I always find it very amusing that people on the outside want to get their money into China to make money. But the people who are in China are desperate for any way to get the money out...

China’s real estate system is failing ... https://youtu.be/TU7KVw9j060

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/TU7KVw9j060]]> <![CDATA[New research shows a neutrino laser is impossible (engineering)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21240.html Wed, 02 Sep 2026 16:46:34 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21240.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1142387

INTRO: Neutrinos are the pervasive yet intangible particles that permeate the universe, streaming through whole planets, stars, and our bodies by the trillions each second. The elementary particles are often described as “ghostly” for their near-zero mass and their elusive nature, as they have very little interaction with normal matter.

Since their discovery in 1956, neutrinos have continued to surprise physicists with their unexpected properties and behaviors. For instance, the particles come in multiple “flavors” and can morph from one to the other like subatomic shape-shifters. Neutrinos may also be their own anti-particle, in a Jekyll-and-Hyde-like quantum duality. And their extremely weak interactions make them nearly impossible to detect.

Last year, scientists seemed to add to the particle’s mystique, with a concept for a neutrino laser. They proposed that a concentrated beam of neutrinos could be produced by cooling a cloud of radioactive atoms to nanokelvin temperatures, one-billionth the temperature of interstellar space.

Slowed to a near-frozen crawl, the atoms would form a Bose-Einstein condensate and should act as one quantum, coherent whole, in a way that speeds up and amplifies their radioactive decay. The physicists assumed that neutrinos, being a natural byproduct of radioactive decay, should also be amplified, and that such a process should emit a laser-like beam of the ghostly particles.

But work by MIT physicists has now shown that the neutrino laser concept, and a similar proposal for gamma-rays, is impossible. In two companion papers appearing today in Physical Review Letters, Wolfgang Ketterle, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics at MIT, together with postdocs Hanzhen Lin and Yu-Kun Lu, presents a two-part analysis that demonstrates both concepts are physically and fundamentally not possible.

More specifically, they have shown that the neutrino laser concept is flawed, due to “recoil” (as in, the kinetic energy created by the reaction), and due to a neutrino’s fundamental “fermionic” nature. “These two papers are sort of punch one and punch two,” Ketterle says. “Each paper would have killed the proposal.”

MIT professor of physics Joe Formaggio, who put forth the neutrino laser proposal with Ben Jones, who at the time was associate professor of physics at the University of Texas at Arlington, sees the new results as a convincing and constructive challenge.

“When a new idea — such as the one we proposed — is shared, it is the duty of the community to scrutinize it. Such is the scientific process,” Formaggio says. “Indeed, it was great to see how our paper generated a lot of thinking outside of our original concept. We suspect that will continue.” (MORE - no ads)]]> https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1142387

INTRO: Neutrinos are the pervasive yet intangible particles that permeate the universe, streaming through whole planets, stars, and our bodies by the trillions each second. The elementary particles are often described as “ghostly” for their near-zero mass and their elusive nature, as they have very little interaction with normal matter.

Since their discovery in 1956, neutrinos have continued to surprise physicists with their unexpected properties and behaviors. For instance, the particles come in multiple “flavors” and can morph from one to the other like subatomic shape-shifters. Neutrinos may also be their own anti-particle, in a Jekyll-and-Hyde-like quantum duality. And their extremely weak interactions make them nearly impossible to detect.

Last year, scientists seemed to add to the particle’s mystique, with a concept for a neutrino laser. They proposed that a concentrated beam of neutrinos could be produced by cooling a cloud of radioactive atoms to nanokelvin temperatures, one-billionth the temperature of interstellar space.

Slowed to a near-frozen crawl, the atoms would form a Bose-Einstein condensate and should act as one quantum, coherent whole, in a way that speeds up and amplifies their radioactive decay. The physicists assumed that neutrinos, being a natural byproduct of radioactive decay, should also be amplified, and that such a process should emit a laser-like beam of the ghostly particles.

But work by MIT physicists has now shown that the neutrino laser concept, and a similar proposal for gamma-rays, is impossible. In two companion papers appearing today in Physical Review Letters, Wolfgang Ketterle, the John D. MacArthur Professor of Physics at MIT, together with postdocs Hanzhen Lin and Yu-Kun Lu, presents a two-part analysis that demonstrates both concepts are physically and fundamentally not possible.

More specifically, they have shown that the neutrino laser concept is flawed, due to “recoil” (as in, the kinetic energy created by the reaction), and due to a neutrino’s fundamental “fermionic” nature. “These two papers are sort of punch one and punch two,” Ketterle says. “Each paper would have killed the proposal.”

MIT professor of physics Joe Formaggio, who put forth the neutrino laser proposal with Ben Jones, who at the time was associate professor of physics at the University of Texas at Arlington, sees the new results as a convincing and constructive challenge.

“When a new idea — such as the one we proposed — is shared, it is the duty of the community to scrutinize it. Such is the scientific process,” Formaggio says. “Indeed, it was great to see how our paper generated a lot of thinking outside of our original concept. We suspect that will continue.” (MORE - no ads)]]> <![CDATA[Self-blinking ‘fairy lights’ allow DNA to be imaged at almost double (tech design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21206.html Fri, 28 Aug 2026 16:47:00 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21206.html Self-blinking ‘fairy lights’ allow DNA to be imaged at almost double helix width resolution
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1141177

EXCERPTS: Researchers have developed fluorescent molecules that permit imaging how DNA is packaged inside living cells at unprecedented resolution, and in preserved cells, close to the width of the double helix itself. The team tested the fluorescent probes on slices of bowel tissue taken from three cancer patients. These are ordinary wax-preserved samples, which is how almost all hospitals store patient biopsies.

In the tumours, the DNA was noticeably looser and more spread out than in the healthy tissue sitting right beside it. Other studies have found that DNA unpacks steadily as cancer takes hold, and the researchers suggest that how loosely a cell's DNA is folded could eventually serve as a measure of how far a tumour has progressed or how aggressive it is.

Doctors currently examine these types of biopsies by eye, using a staining method more than a century old. The advance, described today in the journal Molecular Cell, raises the possibility that one day they could also look at how DNA occupies three-dimensional space inside cells as an additional clue for diagnosing and treating cancer.

“With the same dye we can do two very different things. In a living cell we can watch DNA moving, which tells us how chromatin, the natural state of DNA in cells, behaves. In a preserved cell we can zoom in until we are almost at the scale of the DNA molecule itself. Combining both approaches helps us see one of the main layers of control in human biology in unprecedented resolution,” explains ICREA Research Professor Pia Cosma, senior author of the study.

Every cell in the human body holds two metres of DNA squeezed into a very small space. How tightly it is folded up decides which genes are switched on and which stay off. Almost all images of DNA folding come from cells that are already dead. Powerful microscope techniques needed to track individual components of DNA in cells typically require treating samples with harsh chemicals and strong laser lights that living cells cannot survive.

A team at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, the City University of Hong Kong and the Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital (Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences) Southern Medical University, found a new way to overcome this challenge by designing new fluorescent probes.

[...] An ordinary microscope blurs anything closer together than about 200 nanometres. The new probes allowed the researchers to use an advanced microscopy technology called STORM to visualise DNA at a resolution of 20 nanometres within living cells.

The team could zoom in closer still using cells killed and preserved with chemicals so that their structures are locked in place. Using a technique called MINFLUX on preserved laboratory cells, they pinpointed single dye molecules to within three billionths of a metre, or 3 nanometres, close to the width of the DNA strand itself.

[...] The fluorescent molecules have their limits. They coat the whole of the DNA rather than picking out one particular gene. The sharpest pictures required preserved cells, not living ones, though the team says it is working on that now in follow-up studies and MINFLUX has the potential to image the probes in living cells... (MORE - missing details, no ads)]]> Self-blinking ‘fairy lights’ allow DNA to be imaged at almost double helix width resolution
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1141177

EXCERPTS: Researchers have developed fluorescent molecules that permit imaging how DNA is packaged inside living cells at unprecedented resolution, and in preserved cells, close to the width of the double helix itself. The team tested the fluorescent probes on slices of bowel tissue taken from three cancer patients. These are ordinary wax-preserved samples, which is how almost all hospitals store patient biopsies.

In the tumours, the DNA was noticeably looser and more spread out than in the healthy tissue sitting right beside it. Other studies have found that DNA unpacks steadily as cancer takes hold, and the researchers suggest that how loosely a cell's DNA is folded could eventually serve as a measure of how far a tumour has progressed or how aggressive it is.

Doctors currently examine these types of biopsies by eye, using a staining method more than a century old. The advance, described today in the journal Molecular Cell, raises the possibility that one day they could also look at how DNA occupies three-dimensional space inside cells as an additional clue for diagnosing and treating cancer.

“With the same dye we can do two very different things. In a living cell we can watch DNA moving, which tells us how chromatin, the natural state of DNA in cells, behaves. In a preserved cell we can zoom in until we are almost at the scale of the DNA molecule itself. Combining both approaches helps us see one of the main layers of control in human biology in unprecedented resolution,” explains ICREA Research Professor Pia Cosma, senior author of the study.

Every cell in the human body holds two metres of DNA squeezed into a very small space. How tightly it is folded up decides which genes are switched on and which stay off. Almost all images of DNA folding come from cells that are already dead. Powerful microscope techniques needed to track individual components of DNA in cells typically require treating samples with harsh chemicals and strong laser lights that living cells cannot survive.

A team at the Centre for Genomic Regulation (CRG) in Barcelona, the City University of Hong Kong and the Guangdong Provincial People’s Hospital (Guangdong Academy of Medical Sciences) Southern Medical University, found a new way to overcome this challenge by designing new fluorescent probes.

[...] An ordinary microscope blurs anything closer together than about 200 nanometres. The new probes allowed the researchers to use an advanced microscopy technology called STORM to visualise DNA at a resolution of 20 nanometres within living cells.

The team could zoom in closer still using cells killed and preserved with chemicals so that their structures are locked in place. Using a technique called MINFLUX on preserved laboratory cells, they pinpointed single dye molecules to within three billionths of a metre, or 3 nanometres, close to the width of the DNA strand itself.

[...] The fluorescent molecules have their limits. They coat the whole of the DNA rather than picking out one particular gene. The sharpest pictures required preserved cells, not living ones, though the team says it is working on that now in follow-up studies and MINFLUX has the potential to image the probes in living cells... (MORE - missing details, no ads)]]> <![CDATA[Europe's buildings are designed for a climate that no longer exists]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21167.html Mon, 24 Aug 2026 17:44:08 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21167.html Europe's buildings are designed for a climate that no longer exists – new open dataset offers a fix
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1141223

INTRO: The weather files engineers use to design buildings are built from decades of historical measurements. The data can be over 30 years old. But a building designed today is expected to perform well in 2080, and ideally beyond. Researchers from Norway and Portugal have now released future meteorological data covering more than 5,000 European locations. The files are reliable projections of Europe’s future climate, down to specific time periods and places. The entire dataset is freely available at climatedataforbuildings.eu.

“The gap between the climate conditions we use in our calculations and the climate the building will experience could exceed half a century,” says Professor Thomas K. Thiis of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). Together, researchers from NMBU in Norway and the University of Coimbra in Portugal, have developed and evaluated future weather files that allow buildings to be designed for the climate they will experience.

A Typical Meteorological Year, or TMY, is the standard climate input for every building energy simulation, from a single house to a hospital campus. TMYs are assembled from historical observations, so they describe the climate of the past. But buildings designed today will experience a different climate. A Future Meteorological Year (FMY) applies climate-change projections to the historical baseline. It produces an hourly weather file for a specified future period and an emissions scenario that can be used directly in existing simulation software.

Not all climate models are equal. In a new study published in the Journal of Building Performance Simulation, researchers have evaluated a large pool of global and regional climate models. They identified those that reproduce summer and winter conditions across Europe satisfactorily, and only these selected models were used to generate the FMYs. The resulting files rest on the most reliable projections available for the European continent.

FMYs were produced for mid-century (2036-2065) and late-century (2066-2095) under multiple emissions pathways, spanning CMIP5 (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) and CMIP6 (SSP1-2.6 through SSP5-8.5) scenarios. The choice of scenario directly affects design conclusions. In effect, this makes it a risk decision for the building project rather than a purely scientific question.

Whether a building is designed for a low-emissions or a high-emissions scenario can influence design solutions, for example regarding solar shading and cooling... (MORE - no ads)]]> Europe's buildings are designed for a climate that no longer exists – new open dataset offers a fix
https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1141223

INTRO: The weather files engineers use to design buildings are built from decades of historical measurements. The data can be over 30 years old. But a building designed today is expected to perform well in 2080, and ideally beyond. Researchers from Norway and Portugal have now released future meteorological data covering more than 5,000 European locations. The files are reliable projections of Europe’s future climate, down to specific time periods and places. The entire dataset is freely available at climatedataforbuildings.eu.

“The gap between the climate conditions we use in our calculations and the climate the building will experience could exceed half a century,” says Professor Thomas K. Thiis of the Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU). Together, researchers from NMBU in Norway and the University of Coimbra in Portugal, have developed and evaluated future weather files that allow buildings to be designed for the climate they will experience.

A Typical Meteorological Year, or TMY, is the standard climate input for every building energy simulation, from a single house to a hospital campus. TMYs are assembled from historical observations, so they describe the climate of the past. But buildings designed today will experience a different climate. A Future Meteorological Year (FMY) applies climate-change projections to the historical baseline. It produces an hourly weather file for a specified future period and an emissions scenario that can be used directly in existing simulation software.

Not all climate models are equal. In a new study published in the Journal of Building Performance Simulation, researchers have evaluated a large pool of global and regional climate models. They identified those that reproduce summer and winter conditions across Europe satisfactorily, and only these selected models were used to generate the FMYs. The resulting files rest on the most reliable projections available for the European continent.

FMYs were produced for mid-century (2036-2065) and late-century (2066-2095) under multiple emissions pathways, spanning CMIP5 (RCP4.5 and RCP8.5) and CMIP6 (SSP1-2.6 through SSP5-8.5) scenarios. The choice of scenario directly affects design conclusions. In effect, this makes it a risk decision for the building project rather than a purely scientific question.

Whether a building is designed for a low-emissions or a high-emissions scenario can influence design solutions, for example regarding solar shading and cooling... (MORE - no ads)]]> <![CDATA[Buildings that cool like African elephants]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21135.html Wed, 19 Aug 2026 22:18:57 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21135.html https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1140610

INTRO: During sunny and sweltering summer days, much relief comes from sweat. As beads of moisture evaporate on the skin, they pull heat away almost invisibly. It feels like a nuisance, but this is one of the most efficient cooling systems in the animal kingdom.

But not all animals have the ability to sweat. The African elephant is one example, enduring intense heat out on the African savanna with dark gray, inches-thick skin. How does it stay cool?

“Wrinkles,” says Dorit Aviv, an associate professor of architecture in the Weitzman School of Design. “Elephants have a network of cracks in their skin that trap water. When they spray themselves, that water stays put and evaporates slowly, cooling them over time.”

The concept of cooling without sweat was first pitched to Aviv by her longtime collaborator Shu Yang, a materials scientist at Penn Engineering. The idea stuck with Aviv, whose research focuses on making the built environment more thermodynamically efficient in a warming world, because buildings don’t sweat.

In a paper published in Advanced Materials, Aviv, Yang, and Kun-Hao Yu of Syracuse University turned that insight into a new kind of cement-based tile that captures, holds, and slowly evaporates water, cooling surfaces without fans, compressors, or complex moving parts.

Under infrared heating and periodic watering, the temperature beneath these tiles remained a stable 89.6° Fahrenheit. By comparison, cracked commercial stucco rose to 107.6°, while non-cracked stucco climbed to 125.6°.

“In the United States, we spend roughly 90% of our time indoors, and buildings consume about 40% of primary energy—nearly half of that for heating, cooling, and ventilation,” says Yang. “A passive, bio-inspired cooling façade like this could lower surface temperatures by 10-20° Fahrenheit compared to traditional stucco.”

Unlike mechanical air conditioning, which consumes fossil fuels and contributes to outdoor heat buildup by dumping indoor warmth outside, this is a truly passive system that cools the building’s “skin” itself, she explains... (MORE - no ads)]]> https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/1140610

INTRO: During sunny and sweltering summer days, much relief comes from sweat. As beads of moisture evaporate on the skin, they pull heat away almost invisibly. It feels like a nuisance, but this is one of the most efficient cooling systems in the animal kingdom.

But not all animals have the ability to sweat. The African elephant is one example, enduring intense heat out on the African savanna with dark gray, inches-thick skin. How does it stay cool?

“Wrinkles,” says Dorit Aviv, an associate professor of architecture in the Weitzman School of Design. “Elephants have a network of cracks in their skin that trap water. When they spray themselves, that water stays put and evaporates slowly, cooling them over time.”

The concept of cooling without sweat was first pitched to Aviv by her longtime collaborator Shu Yang, a materials scientist at Penn Engineering. The idea stuck with Aviv, whose research focuses on making the built environment more thermodynamically efficient in a warming world, because buildings don’t sweat.

In a paper published in Advanced Materials, Aviv, Yang, and Kun-Hao Yu of Syracuse University turned that insight into a new kind of cement-based tile that captures, holds, and slowly evaporates water, cooling surfaces without fans, compressors, or complex moving parts.

Under infrared heating and periodic watering, the temperature beneath these tiles remained a stable 89.6° Fahrenheit. By comparison, cracked commercial stucco rose to 107.6°, while non-cracked stucco climbed to 125.6°.

“In the United States, we spend roughly 90% of our time indoors, and buildings consume about 40% of primary energy—nearly half of that for heating, cooling, and ventilation,” says Yang. “A passive, bio-inspired cooling façade like this could lower surface temperatures by 10-20° Fahrenheit compared to traditional stucco.”

Unlike mechanical air conditioning, which consumes fossil fuels and contributes to outdoor heat buildup by dumping indoor warmth outside, this is a truly passive system that cools the building’s “skin” itself, she explains... (MORE - no ads)]]> <![CDATA[What happened in Universe 25, the famous mouse utopia experiment? (psycho design)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21092.html Fri, 14 Aug 2026 16:40:13 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21092.html Universe 24 experiment (Wikipedia) ...... California, Michigan lead nation in people who don’t want kids
- - - - - - - - - -

What really happened in Universe 25, the famous mouse utopia experiment
https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/...xperiment/

EXCERPT: On day 560, the colony reached approximately 2,200 mice. Then growth stopped. The last mouse known to survive infancy was born around experimental day 600, approximately 1 March 1970. That was effectively Universe 25’s final viable generation.

The colony seemed to still function, but only superficially. The mice ate, drank, and slept. But they gave up on the social machinery entirely. They gave up on reproducing. And it gets even weirder.

Among the late-born mice, Calhoun noticed males with unusually pristine coats. They didn’t fight, so their bodies carried no scars. But they also didn’t court females. They spent their time eating, drinking, sleeping and grooming. Calhoun called them the “beautiful ones,” but it’s a chilling term, not one of endearment. They obsessed over their appearance, but showed no interest in the opposite sex.

Researchers tried moving small groups of late-stage mice into new, sparsely populated enclosures. The animals gained a lot of valuable space, but they still showed little interest in courtship, parenting, or organized social behavior — even when some received partners raised under uncrowded conditions. We shouldn’t anthropomorphize them, but the mice looked mentally broken.

By June 1972, only 122 mice remained, all relatively old. Universe 25 had become a retirement home without children.

What Universe 25 Tells Us. You’ll find all sorts of interpretations of the Universe 25 experiment. The most common one is that abundance itself caused the colony’s collapse: the mice had everything they needed, lost their purpose, withdrew from social life and eventually stopped reproducing. The mice received everything. They became decadent, society collapsed, therefore comfort corrupts.

It’s a seductive story, but also a misleading one. The mice enjoyed comfort in the beginning, but they lived in a sealed world where they couldn’t move around, and where there simply weren’t enough social roles. This lead to repeated violence and disruption that ultimately ended reproduction. Universe 25 was less a warning about luxury than about what can happen when material needs are met but agency, structure and meaningful social bonds break down.

People have used it to condemn cities, welfare systems, sexual freedom, consumer culture, falling birth rates and almost any social change they already distrusted.

Historians Edmund Ramsden and Jon Adams found that the popular story eventually overshadowed Calhoun’s more complicated interest in architecture, interaction and the design of healthier communities. The behavioural sink became a symbol of overpopulation rather than a question about how environments organise — or disorganise — social life.

Another interpretation places the blame not on abundance, but on inescapable crowding. But this doesn’t stand up too well, either. After all, there were still unused nesting boxes and ample food. Calhoun himself later stressed that population density alone was not the decisive factor; the frequency and quality of social interactions mattered more.

Others see the experiment as a story about damaged development. Young mice born during the colony’s decline encountered disrupted nests, aggressive mothers and unstable social groups. They failed to learn normal courtship, parenting and territorial behaviour. Moving some of them into less crowded surroundings was too late to restore these abilities, and more space also arrived too late: the behaviours needed to build a functioning colony had never fully developed.

Then, there is the architectural interpretation. The enclosure offered physical space, but little privacy, complexity or control. Calhoun’s wider research suggested that the design of an environment could either intensify forced contact or help animals manage it. In his own interpretation, this social collapse wasn’t unavoidable, and he became increasingly interested in how better-designed spaces might support healthier, more creative forms of group life.

Later studies seem to back the idea that more was happening.

Universe 25 became one of those studies that seemed to explain whatever people already believed. To some, it proved that overcrowding would destroy modern cities. To others, it showed that comfort breeds decadence, welfare erodes ambition or social isolation leads inevitably to demographic collapse. Each retelling stripped away another layer of complexity until the experiment became less a scientific study than a cultural Rorschach test.

The simplified version travelled well because it offered a clean moral: the mice received paradise and destroyed themselves. But Universe 25 was never paradise. It turns out, you can’t have paradise with no migration, no meaningful environmental change, and no way for young animals to create new territories beyond the reach of established adults. Food remained plentiful, yet control over space, relationships and social roles did not. Those too are important resources for a society.

But ultimately, Universe 25 was a mouse study, not a model of human civilisation. It examined one colony in an artificial, sealed enclosure, without the replicated groups and tightly controlled comparisons expected in modern experimental research. There was no control. Any attempt to turn Universe 25 into a direct prophecy about cities, welfare, technology or falling birth rates moves beyond what the experiment actually demonstrated.

But if there is an enduring lesson, then, it may not be that abundance destroys societies. It may be that material plenty cannot compensate for the loss of agency, privacy, belonging and a viable place in the social world. The myth survived because it promised a universal law. But the evidence is less tidy. If it does say anything at all, the evidence says that a population can’t survive while the structures that enrich life begin to fail. (MORE - missing details)]]> Universe 24 experiment (Wikipedia) ...... California, Michigan lead nation in people who don’t want kids
- - - - - - - - - -

What really happened in Universe 25, the famous mouse utopia experiment
https://www.zmescience.com/feature-post/...xperiment/

EXCERPT: On day 560, the colony reached approximately 2,200 mice. Then growth stopped. The last mouse known to survive infancy was born around experimental day 600, approximately 1 March 1970. That was effectively Universe 25’s final viable generation.

The colony seemed to still function, but only superficially. The mice ate, drank, and slept. But they gave up on the social machinery entirely. They gave up on reproducing. And it gets even weirder.

Among the late-born mice, Calhoun noticed males with unusually pristine coats. They didn’t fight, so their bodies carried no scars. But they also didn’t court females. They spent their time eating, drinking, sleeping and grooming. Calhoun called them the “beautiful ones,” but it’s a chilling term, not one of endearment. They obsessed over their appearance, but showed no interest in the opposite sex.

Researchers tried moving small groups of late-stage mice into new, sparsely populated enclosures. The animals gained a lot of valuable space, but they still showed little interest in courtship, parenting, or organized social behavior — even when some received partners raised under uncrowded conditions. We shouldn’t anthropomorphize them, but the mice looked mentally broken.

By June 1972, only 122 mice remained, all relatively old. Universe 25 had become a retirement home without children.

What Universe 25 Tells Us. You’ll find all sorts of interpretations of the Universe 25 experiment. The most common one is that abundance itself caused the colony’s collapse: the mice had everything they needed, lost their purpose, withdrew from social life and eventually stopped reproducing. The mice received everything. They became decadent, society collapsed, therefore comfort corrupts.

It’s a seductive story, but also a misleading one. The mice enjoyed comfort in the beginning, but they lived in a sealed world where they couldn’t move around, and where there simply weren’t enough social roles. This lead to repeated violence and disruption that ultimately ended reproduction. Universe 25 was less a warning about luxury than about what can happen when material needs are met but agency, structure and meaningful social bonds break down.

People have used it to condemn cities, welfare systems, sexual freedom, consumer culture, falling birth rates and almost any social change they already distrusted.

Historians Edmund Ramsden and Jon Adams found that the popular story eventually overshadowed Calhoun’s more complicated interest in architecture, interaction and the design of healthier communities. The behavioural sink became a symbol of overpopulation rather than a question about how environments organise — or disorganise — social life.

Another interpretation places the blame not on abundance, but on inescapable crowding. But this doesn’t stand up too well, either. After all, there were still unused nesting boxes and ample food. Calhoun himself later stressed that population density alone was not the decisive factor; the frequency and quality of social interactions mattered more.

Others see the experiment as a story about damaged development. Young mice born during the colony’s decline encountered disrupted nests, aggressive mothers and unstable social groups. They failed to learn normal courtship, parenting and territorial behaviour. Moving some of them into less crowded surroundings was too late to restore these abilities, and more space also arrived too late: the behaviours needed to build a functioning colony had never fully developed.

Then, there is the architectural interpretation. The enclosure offered physical space, but little privacy, complexity or control. Calhoun’s wider research suggested that the design of an environment could either intensify forced contact or help animals manage it. In his own interpretation, this social collapse wasn’t unavoidable, and he became increasingly interested in how better-designed spaces might support healthier, more creative forms of group life.

Later studies seem to back the idea that more was happening.

Universe 25 became one of those studies that seemed to explain whatever people already believed. To some, it proved that overcrowding would destroy modern cities. To others, it showed that comfort breeds decadence, welfare erodes ambition or social isolation leads inevitably to demographic collapse. Each retelling stripped away another layer of complexity until the experiment became less a scientific study than a cultural Rorschach test.

The simplified version travelled well because it offered a clean moral: the mice received paradise and destroyed themselves. But Universe 25 was never paradise. It turns out, you can’t have paradise with no migration, no meaningful environmental change, and no way for young animals to create new territories beyond the reach of established adults. Food remained plentiful, yet control over space, relationships and social roles did not. Those too are important resources for a society.

But ultimately, Universe 25 was a mouse study, not a model of human civilisation. It examined one colony in an artificial, sealed enclosure, without the replicated groups and tightly controlled comparisons expected in modern experimental research. There was no control. Any attempt to turn Universe 25 into a direct prophecy about cities, welfare, technology or falling birth rates moves beyond what the experiment actually demonstrated.

But if there is an enduring lesson, then, it may not be that abundance destroys societies. It may be that material plenty cannot compensate for the loss of agency, privacy, belonging and a viable place in the social world. The myth survived because it promised a universal law. But the evidence is less tidy. If it does say anything at all, the evidence says that a population can’t survive while the structures that enrich life begin to fail. (MORE - missing details)]]> <![CDATA[Nazi Germany fleet emerges from Danube due to Europe's heatwave (old engineering)]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21033.html Wed, 05 Aug 2026 16:42:10 +0000 C C]]> https://www.scivillage.com/thread-21033.html Same thing three years ago. Get accustomed to it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ghostly Nazi Germany fleet emerges from Danube due to Europe's heatwave
https://www.forcesnews.com/heritage/nava...g-heatwave

INTRO: The skeletal, rusty and sand-covered remains of several Nazi warship wrecks, laden with tonnes of unexploded ammunition and weapons, have resurfaced in the Danube River near the Serbian port town of Prahovo.

This phenomenon is occurring because the Danube is experiencing its lowest water levels in more than 50 years in certain areas of Serbia, largely due to a heatwave affecting Europe – the highest temperature recorded in Prahovo so far this summer has reached 40.0°C.

The heatwave has triggered a drought, disrupting shipping and energy production due to reduced water levels and has led to the discovery of historical artifacts, such as Nazi warships and what historians believe to be the remains of an ancient mammoth in Bulgaria.

About 200 Kriegsmarine, Nazi Germany's naval branch of the Wehrmacht, ships are resting on the Danube's riverbed because, in September 1944, Rear Admiral Paul-Willy Zieb ordered their deliberate sinking in a zigzag pattern to slow down the advancing Soviet Red Army.

The Danube, Europe's second-longest river, flows through four capital cities, links 10 countries and is considered by the European Commission as the "single most important non-oceanic body of water in Europe" and a "future central axis for the European Union".

However, the Nazi warships, which appear whenever the water levels of the Danube go down this low, have nearly halved the navigable width of the Prahovo channel – a narrow shipping route on the river... (MORE - details)

https://youtu.be/EgsRyXDuI38

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/EgsRyXDuI38]]> Same thing three years ago. Get accustomed to it.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Ghostly Nazi Germany fleet emerges from Danube due to Europe's heatwave
https://www.forcesnews.com/heritage/nava...g-heatwave

INTRO: The skeletal, rusty and sand-covered remains of several Nazi warship wrecks, laden with tonnes of unexploded ammunition and weapons, have resurfaced in the Danube River near the Serbian port town of Prahovo.

This phenomenon is occurring because the Danube is experiencing its lowest water levels in more than 50 years in certain areas of Serbia, largely due to a heatwave affecting Europe – the highest temperature recorded in Prahovo so far this summer has reached 40.0°C.

The heatwave has triggered a drought, disrupting shipping and energy production due to reduced water levels and has led to the discovery of historical artifacts, such as Nazi warships and what historians believe to be the remains of an ancient mammoth in Bulgaria.

About 200 Kriegsmarine, Nazi Germany's naval branch of the Wehrmacht, ships are resting on the Danube's riverbed because, in September 1944, Rear Admiral Paul-Willy Zieb ordered their deliberate sinking in a zigzag pattern to slow down the advancing Soviet Red Army.

The Danube, Europe's second-longest river, flows through four capital cities, links 10 countries and is considered by the European Commission as the "single most important non-oceanic body of water in Europe" and a "future central axis for the European Union".

However, the Nazi warships, which appear whenever the water levels of the Danube go down this low, have nearly halved the navigable width of the Prahovo channel – a narrow shipping route on the river... (MORE - details)

https://youtu.be/EgsRyXDuI38

https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/EgsRyXDuI38]]>