We have many kinds of pills available these days to treat all kinds of different disorders. Of course, the problem with pills is that they don’t work if you don’t take them. Even Worse, for some medicines, missing a dose can cause all kinds of undesirable withdrawl effects and set back a patient’s treatment.
Smart pills aim to fix this problem with a simple monitoring solution that can tell when a patient has taken their medication. They’re now publicly available and authorized for use, so let’s look at how they work.
After decades of delays and false starts, NASA is finally returning to the Moon. The world is eagerly awaiting the launch of Artemis I, the first demonstration flight of both the Space Launch System and Orion Multi-Purpose Crew Vehicle, which combined will send humans out of low Earth orbit for the first time since 1972. But it’s delayed.
While the first official Artemis mission is naturally getting all the attention, the space agency plans to do more than put a new set of boots on the surface — their long-term goals include the “Lunar Gateway” space station that will be the rallying point for the sustained exploration of our nearest celestial neighbor.
Launched aboard an Electron rocket in June, the large CubeSat will hopefully become the first spacecraft to ever enter into a NRHO. By positioning itself in such a way that the gravity from Earth and the Moon influence it equally, maintaining its orbit should require only periodic position corrections. This would not only lower the maintenance burden of adjusting the Lunar Gateway’s orbit, but reduce the station’s propellant requirement.
CAPSTONE is also set to test out an experimental navigation system that uses the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter (LRO) as a reference point instead of ground-based stations. In a future where spacecraft are regularly buzzing around the Moon, it will be important to establish a navigation system that doesn’t rely on Earthly input to operate.
So despite costing a relatively meager $30 million and only being about as large as a microwave oven, CAPSTONE is a very important mission for NASA’s grand lunar aspirations. Unfortunately, things haven’t gone quite to plan so far. Trouble started just days after liftoff, and as of this writing, the outcome of the mission is still very much in jeopardy.
Floppies may be big in Japan, but nostalgic and/or needful Stateside floppy enthusiasts needn’t fret — just use AOL keyword point that browser toward floppydisk.com. There, you can buy new floppies of all sizes, both new and old, recycle your disks, or send them in to get all that precious vintage stuff transferred off of them.
That delightfully Web 1.0 site is owned by Tom Persky, who fancies himself the ‘last man standing in the floppy disk business’. Who are we to argue? By the way, Tom has owned that address since approximately 1990 — evidently that’s when a cyber-squatter offered up the domain for $1,000, and although Tom scoffed at paying so much as $1 for any URL, his wife got the checkbook out, and he has had her to thank for it ever since.
My business, which used to be 90% CD and DVD duplication, is now 90% selling blank floppy disks. It’s shocking to me. — Tom Persky
Tom also owns diskduper.com, which is where he got his start with floppies — by duplicating them. In the 80s and 90s, being in this business was a bit like cranking out legal tender in the basement. As time wore on and more companies stopped selling floppies or simply went under, the focus of Tom’s company shifted away from duplication and toward sales. Whereas the business was once 90% duplication and 10% floppy sales, in 2022, those percentages have flopped places, if you will.
Long after the enemy forces have laid down their arms, peace accords have been signed and victories celebrated, there is still a heavy toll to be paid. Most of this comes in the form of unexploded ordnance, including landmines and the severe pollution from heavy metals and other contaminants that can make large areas risky to lethal to enter. Perhaps the most extreme example of this lasting effect is the Zone Rouge (Red Zone) in France, which immediately after the First World War came to a close comprised 1,200 square kilometers.
Within this zone, contamination with heavy metals is so heavy that some areas do not support life, while unexploded shells – some containing lethal gases – and other unexploded ordnance is found throughout the soil. To this day much of the original area remains off-limits, though injuries from old, but still very potent ordnance are common around its borders. Clean-up of the Zone Rouge is expected to take hundreds of years. Sadly, this a pattern that is repeated throughout much of the world. While European nations stumble over ordnance from its two world wars, nations in Africa, Asia and elsewhere struggle with the legacy from much more recent conflicts.
Currently, in Europe’s most recent battlefield, more mines are being laid, booby traps set and unexploded shells and other ordnance scattered where people used to live. Clearing these areas, to make them safe for a return of their inhabitants has already begun in Ukraine, but just like elsewhere in the world, it is an arduous and highly dangerous process with all too often lethal outcomes.
The other day, a medical office needed my insurance card. I asked them where to e-mail it and they acted like I had offered them human flesh as an appetizer. “We don’t have e-mail! You have to bring it to us in person!” They finally admitted that they could take a fax and I then had to go figure out how to get a free one page fax sent over the Internet. Keep in mind, that I live in the fourth largest city in the United States — firmly in the top 100 largest cities in the world. I’m not out in the wilderness dealing with a country doctor.
I understand HIPAA and other legal and regulatory concerns probably inhibit them from taking e-mail, but other doctors and health care providers have apparently figured it out. But it turns out that the more regulations are involved in something, the more behind-the-times it is likely to be.
Although water is often scarce for human consumption and agriculture, this planet is three-quarters covered by the stuff. The problem is getting the salt out, and this is normally done by the Earth’s water cycle, which produces rain and similar phenomena that replenish the amount of fresh water. Roughly 3% of the water on Earth is fresh water, of which a fraction is potable water.
Over the past decades, the use of desalination has increased year over year, particularly in nations like Saudi Arabia, Israel and the United Arab Emirates, but parched United States states such as California are increasingly looking into desalination technologies. The obvious obstacles that desalination faces – regardless of the exact technology used – involve the energy required to run these systems, and the final cost of the produced potable water relative to importing it from elsewhere.
Other issues that crop up with desalination include the environmental impact, especially from the brine waste and conceivably marine life sucked into the intake pipes. As the need for desalination increases, what are the available options to reduce the power needs and environmental impact?
Reducing emissions from human activity requires a great deal of effort in many different sectors. When it comes to land transport, the idea is generally to eliminate vehicles powered by combustion engines and replace them with electric vehicles instead. At a glance, the job is simple enough. We know how to build EVs, and the technology is getting to the point where they’re capable of replacing traditional vehicles in many applications.
Of course, the reality is not so simple. To understand the problem of converting transportation to electric drive en masse, you have to take a look at the big numbers. Focus in on the metrics of copper, and you’ll find the story is a concerning one.
