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- Dolphiciency | Poop Fuel | Sharknado
I’m in Amsterdam! Here’s what to expect…
Find this week’s news in Clickables below
Stories featuring transportation and sustainability (inspired by Amsterdam’s cycling and EV networks)
Special edition next week 👀
Geniet van wetenschap in joggingbroek!
-Steve
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cool bridge I saw while exploring Amsterdam!
Dolphiciency
Dolphins are helping reduce CO2 emissions. Propeller coatings mimicking their skin improved oil tanker fuel efficiency.
Dolphin skin is covered in mucus and microstructures
Reduces hydrodynamic drag
Coated propellers used 2% less fuel across 35k miles
The $20k propeller cut CO2 emissions by 900 tonnes and saves $140k annually, per ship. Researches are working on scaling production to other maritime shipping industries. Thanks Flipper, PhD!
Quick! (vote)Cooler place to use dolphin mucus to get around? |
Check out last week’s results in “Unnatural Selection” below
Poop Fuel
The poop-to-protein pipeline could be shorter than we think. Scientists grew microalgae using frass as fertilizer.
Frass = insect poop
Frass + water - solids = fertilizer
Insect farming is less resource intensive than livestock
Microalgae grown with frass performed similarly to those grown with chemical fertilizer. More research will inform the scalability of this sustainable alternative to protein. And if it tastes better with hot sauce.
Sharks can’t fly, yet, but their skin is ready just in case. AeroShark is bringing evolution’s skin “tech” to airplanes.
Created a thin film emulating shark-skin “riblets”
Riblet: 50 micrometers high (aka 1/500th of an inch)
Covering 950’ of a Boeing 777 reduces fuel consumption by 1%
Swiss and Lufthansa use AeroShark’s film on 22 planes to reduce CO2 emissions by over 29k tons while saving money on ~9k tons of jet fuel. This small step towards zero-emissions airliners will remain useful regardless of engine technology. Cool, now make it look like a whale shark.
Why are you seeing this ad? Because poop jokes (surprisingly) don’t pay the bills. So I personally review all ads for potential value to you. Plus, checking them out helps support the cost of running casualSTEM 🤓
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Clickables
🚀 Watch - first civilians to walk in space!
🎮️ Video game controller surgery from over 5k miles away
🐟️ Could you survive being eaten by a fish?
🖨️ Building blocks - first metal printed in space
Unnatural Selection
Last week: “Which M&M is luckier?”
I'm blue, da ba dee da ba di, I’m lucky da ba di…
Make sure you vote up top for next week’s “Unnatural Selection”!
st3v on site
Floral Cycle
More like “st3v Off-Site”! 😂 While st3v is on PTO, check out this cool bike-art I stumbled upon! (fun fact: my primary bike is named “Flower”)
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