Links for 2022-07-29
“We have expanded the Alphafold database by including structures for almost every known protein; over 200 million of them.” https://www.deepmind.com/blog/alphafold-reveals-the-structure-of-the-protein-universe
MIT Discovers Semiconductor That Can Perform Far Better Than Silicon https://scitechdaily.com/mit-discovers-semiconductor-that-can-perform-far-better-than-silicon/
New findings reveal how neurons build and maintain their capacity to communicate. Nerve cells regulate and routinely refresh the collection of calcium channels that enable them to send messages across circuit connections. https://news.mit.edu/2022/how-neurons-build-maintain-capacity-to-communicate-0721
Toward 4D Nanoprinting with Tip-Induced Organic Surface Reactions https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.accounts.6b00307
Large-scale Volcanism and the Heat Death of Terrestrial Worlds https://arxiv.org/abs/2204.12475
“...researchers around the world spent a total of 100 million hours on reviewing papers in just 2020 alone...In the top economics journals, the process takes even longer – a staggering 34 months, or almost three years.” https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2022/07/peer-review-facts-of-the-day.html
Bell's spaceship paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bell%27s_spaceship_paradox
A youtube playlist of Calculating Device Demonstrations https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLLFpXNanTP9X6lHrX9qoJroqGAQRDDvV9
The relationship between corporate tax rates and economic growth is roughly zero once you correct for publication bias. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0014292122000885
During the Jurassic era, atmospheric CO2 was very high, forests extended all the way to the North pole. Even so, there were freezing winters https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/sciadv.abo6342
Yesterday has been Earth Overshoot Day, allegedly the date on which humanity's resource consumption for the year exceeds Earth’s capacity to regenerate those resources that year. This claim is nothing more than propagandistic disinformation.
Here are some relevant stats:
1. There are 4 billion tons of uranium in seawater that can fuel a thousand 1,000-MW nuclear power plants for a 100,000 years. This uranium is replenished continuously. Recent technological breakthroughs that enable the economic extraction of uranium from seawater, therefore, make nuclear power fully renewable.
Nuclear fuel will last us for billions of years.
2. The sun beneath our feet: Crustal thermal energy reserves are estimated to be at 15 million zetajoules. To put this in perspective, there is "23,800 times as much geothermal energy in Earth’s crust as there is chemical energy in fossil fuels everywhere on the planet". And even if you include the planet’s reserves of uranium, seawater uranium, lithium, thorium, there is still "41 times as much crustal thermal energy than energy in all those sources combined."
3. This might sound crazy but, without violating the known laws of physics or inventing anything fundamentally new, you can fairly easily fit 10 quadrillion (10^16) people on Earth, all living pretty luxurious lives.
Sources:
1. https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1515325071124045829.html
2. https://elidourado.com/blog/geothermal/
3. https://hereticalupdate.substack.com/p/is-earth-running-out-of-resources