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A new analysis suggests that if it could be extracted with complete efficiency, lithium from the wastewater of Marcellus shale gas wells could supply up to 40% of the country's demand.

Strongly interacting systems play an important role in quantum physics and quantum chemistry. Stochastic methods such as Monte Carlo simulations are a proven method for investigating such systems. However, these methods reach their limits when so-called sign oscillations occur. This problem has now been solved using the new method of wavefunction matching.

A team of researchers has developed a drone that flies autonomously using neuromorphic image processing and control based on the workings of animal brains. Animal brains use less data and energy compared to current deep neural networks running on GPUs (graphic chips). Neuromorphic processors are therefore very suitable for small drones because they don't need heavy and large hardware and batteries. The results are extraordinary: during flight the drone's deep neural network processes data up to 64 times faster and consumes three times less energy than when running on a GPU. Further developments of this technology may enable the leap for drones to become as small, agile, and smart as flying insects or birds.

A team of researchers has developed a drone that flies autonomously using neuromorphic image processing and control based on the workings of animal brains. Animal brains use less data and energy compared to current deep neural networks running on GPUs (graphic chips). Neuromorphic processors are therefore very suitable for small drones because they don't need heavy and large hardware and batteries. The results are extraordinary: during flight the drone's deep neural network processes data up to 64 times faster and consumes three times less energy than when running on a GPU. Further developments of this technology may enable the leap for drones to become as small, agile, and smart as flying insects or birds.

Planetary scientists perk up whenever methane is mentioned. Methane is produced by living things on Earth, so it’s considered to be a potential biosignature elsewhere. In recent years, MSL Curiosity detected methane coming from the surface of Gale Crater on Mars. So far, nobody’s successfully explained where it’s coming from.

NASA scientists have some new ideas.

Ever since Curiosity landed on Mars in 2012, it’s been sensing methane. But the methane displays some odd characteristics. It only comes out at night, it fluctuates with the seasons, and sometimes, the amount of methane jumps to 40 times more than the regular level.

The ESA’s ExoMars Trace Gas Orbiter entered a science orbit around Mars in 2018, and scientists fully expected it to detect methane in the planet’s atmosphere. But it didn’t, and it has never been detected elsewhere on Mars’ surface.

If life was producing the methane, it appears to be restricted to the subsurface under Gale Crater.

There’s no convincing evidence that life exists on Mars. It may have in the past, and it’s possible that some extant life clings to a tenuous existence in subsurface brines or something. But we lack evidence, so life is basically ruled out as the methane source. Especially since the evidence shows life would have to be under Gale Crater and nowhere else.

Scientists have been trying to determine the source of methane, but so far, they haven’t come up with a specific answer. It has something to do with subsurface geological processes involving water, most likely.

This image illustrates possible ways methane might get into Mars’ atmosphere and also be removed from it: microbes (left) under the surface that release the gas into the atmosphere, weathering of rock (right), and stored methane ice called a clathrate. Ultraviolet light can work on surface materials to produce methane as well as break it apart into other molecules (formaldehyde and methanol) to produce carbon dioxide. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/SAM-GSFC/Univ. of Michigan

“It’s a story with a lot of plot twists,” said Ashwin Vasavada, Curiosity’s project scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California, which leads Curiosity’s mission.

Alexander Pavlov is a planetary scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center who leads a group of NASA scientists studying the Martian Methane Mystery. In recent research, they suggested that the methane is stored underground. They didn’t explain what produced it, but they showed that methane can be sealed underground by salt solidified in the Martian regolith.

This figure from research published in 2024 illustrates how a salt cap could form and trap methane under the Martian surface. There’s strong evidence of subsurface water on Mars, and it can migrate to the surface and evaporate. Some of the salt in the ground is transported to the surface with the water. Once the water or ice is gone, the salt is left behind in the upper few centimetres of soil. The researchers hypothesized that the salt can become cemented into the same type of duricrust that the InSight lander struggled with. Image Credit: Pavlov et al. 2024.

They suggested that the methane could be released from its subsurface reservoir by the weight of the Curiosity rover itself. The rover’s weight could break the salt seal and release methane in puffs. That’s an interesting proposition, but it doesn’t explain the seasonal and diurnal fluctuations. That makes sense since the Gale Crater is one of only two regions where a rover is working. The other is Jezero Crater, where the Perseverance Rover is working, but it doesn’t have a methane detector. (Neither will the ESA’s Rosalind Franklin rover, which is scheduled to land on Mars in 2029.)

The research group addressed those fluctuations by suggesting that seasonal and daily heating could also break the seal and release methane.

Their potential explanations stem from research Pavlov conducted in 2017. He grew bacteria called halophiles, which grow in salty conditions, in simulated Martian permafrost. The simulated soil was infused with salt, replicating conditions on much of Mars. The microbe growth was inconclusive, but the researchers noticed something else. As the salty ice sublimated, a layer of solidified salt remained, forming a crust.

“We didn’t think much of it at the moment,” Pavlov said.

But he remembered it when MSL Curiosity detected an unexplained burst of methane on Mars in 2019.

“That’s when it clicked in my mind,” Pavlov said. Then, he and a team of researchers began testing conditions that could form the hardened salt seals and then break them open.

Perchlorate is a chemical salt that’s widespread on Mars. Pavlov and his fellow researchers recreated different simulated Martian permafrosts with varying amounts of perchlorate. Inside a Mars simulation chamber, they subjected the samples to different temperatures and atmospheric pressures to see if they would form seals.

In their experiments, they used neon as a methane analog and injected it under the soil. Then, they measured the gas pressure below and above the soil. They found that the pressure was higher under the soil, meaning the gas was being trapped by the salty permafrost. Furthermore, they found that seals formed in samples containing as little as 5% or 10% perchlorate, and they formed within 3 to 13 days. Those are compelling results.

This image shows one of the Mars analog samples with a hardened crust of salt sealing the surface. The lighter colour is where the sample has been scratched. The lighter colour indicates drier soil, and once it was exposed to air outside the Mars Chamber, it quickly absorbed moisture and turned brown. Image Credit: Pavlov et al. 2018.

While 5-10% perchlorate doesn’t sound like much, it’s actually a higher concentration than in Gale Crater, where the methane has been detected. But perchlorate isn’t the only salt in Martian regolith. It also contains sulphates, another type of salt mineral. Pavlov says he and his team will test sulphates next for their ability to form a seal.

The Martian Methane Mystery is commanding a lot of attention. It’s a juicy mystery, and once it’s solved, our understanding of methane as a biosignature or false positive will be much improved. NASA’s 2022 Planetary Mission Senior Review recommended that the issue of methane production and destruction at Mars be investigated further.

The type of work that Pavlov and his colleagues are doing is important, but it’s being held back. Pavlov says that they need more consistent methane measurements. The problem is that Curiosity’s SAM (Sample Analysis at Mars) instrument, which senses the methane, is busy with other tasks. It only checks for methane a few times per year. It’s mostly occupied with drilling samples and testing them, a critical and time-consuming part of the rover’s mission.

The Tunable Laser Spectrometer is one of the tools within the Sample Analysis at Mars (SAM) laboratory on NASA’s Curiosity Mars rover. By measuring the absorption of light at specific wavelengths, it measures concentrations of methane, carbon dioxide and water vapour in Mars’ atmosphere. (Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)

“Methane experiments are resource intensive, so we have to be very strategic when we decide to do them,” said Goddard’s Charles Malespin, SAM’s principal investigator.

Curiosity’s mission wasn’t designed to measure methane fluctuations. In 2017, NASA said its SAM instrument only sampled the atmosphere 10 times in 20 months. That’s a very inconsistent sample that leaves lots of unanswered questions.

Scientists think another mission is needed to advance their understanding of Martian methane. Rather than one sensor taking irregular methane readings from one location, we need multiple testing stations on the surface that regularly monitor the atmosphere. Nothing like it is in the works.

“Some of the methane work will have to be left to future surface spacecraft that are more focused on answering these specific questions,” Vasavada said.

The post New Answers for Mars’ Methane Mystery appeared first on Universe Today.

Artificial compound eyes made without the need for expensive and precise lenses could provide cheap visual sensors for robots and driverless cars

All farmland in the Indian state of Sikkim, shown in these images, has been certified organic since 2016, and local authorities say the change is already improving wildlife populations and the area's arid soil

What makes some people so creative? There are many common beliefs about the neuroscience of innovation, but they fail to capture its true complexity, says Anna Abraham in her book The Creative Brain: Myths and truths

The US has been honing its psychological warfare skills since the 19th century, when it started sending anthropologists onto battlefields, says Annalee Newitz

Feedback gets wind of new research into flatulence, and reminds us all of past studies into "the gas-producing ability of Boston baked beans"

The new Climate Fiction prize aims to reward the best novels about climate change, because books can shift the narrative on global warming, says Tori Tsui

Craig Kirkpatrick-Whitby's cancer diagnosis added urgency to his project, as part of musical collective Mining, to turn weather and sea data into music

Ageism is a widespread global prejudice. It's about time we started acknowledging our unconscious bias towards old age – not least because our own future health depends on it

I present this list of demands, coming from students in one Canadian university, without comment, but readers are welcome to weigh in below.  Click on the screenshot (taken from The Coast Halifax) to go to the article, and I’ll just re-post what the students are demanding at one school.

The list of demands below comes from students at Nova Scotia College of Art and Design (usually called NSCAD University), but the text gives shorter lists from two other universities.

Excerpt indented:

On Friday, May 10, student groups from four Halifax universities–NSCAD, Dal, King’s and SMU–formed a shared group online, called Students for the Liberation of Palestine – Kjipuktuk/Halifax. In a post, they call on their universities “to immediately disclose and divest from any investments that sustain settler-colonial projects, including the Zionist state known as Israel.”

As of May 12, three of these schools have issued specific demands of their own university through specific student groups. At NSCAD, the student union–SUNSCAD–and the Student Action Group released a series of 12 demands to their university, as follows:

We demand:

1. Public disclosure of the entirety of the Nova Scotia College of Art and Design University investment portfolio.
2. Immediate divestment from all weapons manufacturing, military supplying, and companies operating in Israel or the occupied Palestinian territories.
3. In response to emails sent from Dr. Shannon regarding the rights and responsibilities for students and faculty to speak truth to power, and exercise their academic freedom: an apology from, and the resignation of, the President of NSCAD University, Dr. Peggy Shannon.
4. Anti-oppression training for ALL faculty and administration at NSCAD, focusing particularly on Queerness, indigeneity, and anticolonialism.
5. Free tuition for all students.
6. Free housing for all students.
7. The implementation of a Palestinian Art History course.
8. A scholarship offering free tuition and housing for one student currently living in Palestine.
9. That the NSCAD Board of Governors be made up entirely of students, faculty, and staff, with at least 50% +1 seat on the Board being held by students.
10. That NSCAD university moves all its banking to a credit union.
11. The immediate breaking of the lease of NSCAD with the Port Authority, regarding NSCAD’s Port campus, and a commitment of no financial dealings with the Port Authority going forward.
12. That all funds divested through the process of realizing the above demands be reinvested in the rebuilding of universities from the Gaza Strip that have been destroyed.

h/t: Luana

Researchers have developed a new method that can lead to significant energy savings in buildings. The team identified 28 major heat loss regions in a multi-unit residential building with the most severe ones being at wall intersections and around windows. A potential energy savings of 25 per cent is expected if 70 per cent of the discovered regions are fixed.

By studying how bubbles form in a drop of biodiesel, researchers can help future engines get the most energy out of the fuel.

Astronomers have just discovered a new Earth-sized exoplanet around SPECULOOS-3, an 'ultracool dwarf' star as small as Jupiter, twice as cold as our Sun, and located 55 light-years from Earth. After the famous TRAPPIST-1, SPECULOOS 3 is the second planetary system discovered around this type of star.

Thirteen years after the nuclear disaster at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant (FDNPP), a breakthrough in analysis has permitted a world first: direct imaging of radioactive cesium (Cs) atoms in environmental samples.

New modelling reveals that low-carbon concrete can recycle double the amount of coal ash compared to current standards, halve the amount of cement required and perform exceptionally well over time.

Research could pave the way for a prosthetic hand and robot to be able to feel touch like a human hand. The technology could also be used to help restore lost functionality to patients after a stroke.