Diamond dust could cool Earth

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In this newsletter

• DareDevil? You can learn echolocation in 10 weeks! …

• Diamond dust could cool Earth

• Atomic Mash-up creates livermorium

• Gambling is a global health issue

DareDevil? You can learn echolocation in 10 weeks! 

If you thought that the superhero character Daredevil was a piece of science fiction, then you’d be shocked to know that echolocation in humans is quite common. 

Dolphins, and bats are often cited as examples of echolocators, but humans blind since birth have been known to play basketball and ride bikes using their tongue clicking to perceive their environment. Now, a study says that even people with sight can learn to echolocate and this rewires their brains. 

Researchers at the Durham University in the UK trained 14 sighted and 12 blind individuals to echolocate over a 10 week period. The training involved using tongue clicks to determine the size or orientation of objects and navigation virtual mazes as well. 

Brain scans of the participants taken before and after the training showed increased auditory cortex activation in response to sound and higher grey matter density. More interestingly, participants showed visual cortex activation in response to echoes as well. 

The research findings were published in the journal Cerebral Cortex.  

Diamond dust could cool Earth

A warming planet has divided scientists on whether efforts need to be made to reduce carbon emissions, or a planet-wide intervention to cool the Earth needs to be drummed up.  

Commonly referred to as geo-engineering, the second option looks promising, since it can immediately arrest the effects of the warming planet and diamond dust could be key to achieving this. 

A modelling study published earlier this month found that shooting 5 million tons of diamond dust each year, could cool the planet by 1.6 degrees Centigrade and technically is the best solution that we have. 

Previous modelling efforts have thrown up sulfur dioxide as a cost-effective option but the gas can mix with water to form acid rain or even clump up in the air to create larger pockets of heat. 

Diamond dust on the other hand won’t have the same side effects and can be made artificially in the lab. The only hurdle is that it would cost about $175 trillion to deploy this in real life, almost six times the size of the US economy. 

This makes the project quite unfeasible to deploy but does help explore what options we have in the future. 

The research findings were published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters

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Atomic Mash-up creates livermorium

Researchers at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California shot titanium ions at a plutonium foil. This created a lot of shrapnel consisting of either titanium or plutonium but on two occasions, they created livermorium (atomic number 116), a radioactive material with a half-life of just 9 milliseconds. 

The aim of the experiment wasn’t to create a short-lived atom but to explore how new atoms could be made. So far, the heaviest element made in the lab is oganesson with an atomic number of 116 by shooting calcium atoms at californium. 

But to make elements heavier than that scientists would have to work with elements like einsteinium or fermium, both of which are rare and unstable. 

The feat achieved with livermorium could help scientists make elements heavier than oganesson in the future. 

The research findings were published in the journal Physics Reviews Letters

Gambling is a global health issue

A systematic review and meta-analysis conducted by researchers at Monash University, University of Glasgow, UNSW Sydney and Harvard University suggests that as many as 448.7 million adults experience risk gambling - individuals experience atleast one adverse personal, social or health consequence due to their gambling behavior. 

Recent estimates suggest that harms from gambling are worse than previously estimated and net consumer losses could amount to US$700 billion annually by 2028. Australians spend the most per head when it comes to gambling with expenditures amounting to $AUD 1,555 per head per year. 

The review also found that gambling disorder affected nearly 16 percent adults and over 26 percent adolescents. An estimated 80 million adults experience gambling disorder or problematic gambling which could cause gambling harm which includes physical and mental health problems, relationship breakdown, heightened risk of suicide and domestic violence, increased rates of crime, loss of employment, and financial losses. 

With mobile-based gambling increasing in recent years, the researchers call for effective gambling regulation in all countries and an affordable and universal support system and treatment for gambling harms. 

The research findings were published in The Lancet. 

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Until next time,
Ameya