Bayard
Bayard's JournalThis nature-inspired wind turbine is shaped like a tree
NewWind has designed a generator with 63 micro wind turbines that look like leaves on a tree. The company wants to encourage sustainable living in urban environments with its quiet, aesthetically pleasing prod
Wind power is one of the fastest growing forms of alternative energy in the world. More and more, wind power mills are seen in the countryside, in large wind farms and for the most part, away from city life. But a new form of wind power is now designed to work in an urban environment.
http://mashable.com
These almost look like sculptures.
Sergeant Surprises Son In Taekwondo Lesson
George Takei on Facebook's cash-for-lies ad policy
GeorgeTakei
"I’m going to pay for a political ad on Facebook announcing that a tortured Mike Pence has finally come out. False ad? Well, you decide."
I would personally like to see what Zuckerberg would do if someone placed an ad saying he was a pedophile or some such. Think he'd take it down?
No more fillings as miracle gel regrows tooth enamel
The days of fillings may be numbered as a new gel proves it has the ability to make teeth regrow lost enamel.
We all know that, with our adult teeth, once they’re gone, they’re gone. Dentists have told us this, parents and teachers and concerned strangers have all stressed the importance of good oral hygiene and regular flossing in order to stop us from waving goodbye to the ability to chew. In spite of this, the Western world is riddled with cavities, as well as disappointingly high quantities of fillings, gum disease, and tooth decay. Years of good, solid science telling us what foods to avoid and the best products to use to protect our teeth and still dental health remains an issue that causes people concern, with tooth decay standing as one of humanity’s most common chronic diseases. In fact, 82% of the 20-64 year olds in the US have one or more dental filling and roughly a quarter of adults in the UK have had one or more teeth removed. Fillings are the most common solution to our Western problem with tooth decay. However, they are a far from an ideal replacement for the tooth’s original enamel as they are made from foreign materials, such as resin, porcelain or, traditionally, a metal which requires affixing to the tooth in a way that can cause more damage to fit and from which they often come loose. Which is where Ruikang Tang of Zhejiang University in China, with his team of researchers, step into the breach. They have designed and tested a new gel, containing phosphate and calcium, amongst other ingredients, to mimic the building blocks of enamel, and which may allow teeth to repair themselves.
Tang and team took a selection of teeth (which had already been removed from their previous owners’ mouths) and, after subjecting them to acid damage, placed them in a fluid, replicating conditions inside the human mouth. Within just 48 hours in this environment, after having the new gel applied to them, the teeth showed signs of having regrown lost enamel. The enamel coating gained was admittedly very thin, at just 3 micrometers (one four-hundredth the thickness of regular, undamaged enamel) but it’s a unique and impressive start and may be replicable sufficient to build layer after layer of healthy new enamel.
When inspected under the microscope, the newly grown enamel showed the characteristic ordering of calcium and phosphate particles that are found in regular enamel. Tang believes the gel creates a disordered layer of calcium and phosphate, mirroring the conditions in which conventional enamel develops, its ability to cling to the tooth, allowing it to fuse with the native enamel. The calcium and phosphate are combined in tiny ion clusters, roughly 1.5 nanometres wide, and suspended in ethanol with triethylamine added to the mix to prevent the calcium-phosphate clusters from clumping into larger particles. Earlier experiments by other researchers using these same elements have all been unsuccessful. This may have simply been due to the use of larger particles that were not able to cling to the surface of the tooth in the same way. These calcium-phosphate particles need to be in situ for sufficient time to allow crystals of enamel to form or rebuild. Enamel is the hardest tissue in the human body and is formed initially by a biological process but then becomes what is known as ‘acellular,’ thus making it impossible to repair by re-mineralizing (unlike other tissue which can generally be regenerated). The process involves ameloblasts, very particular cells, which secrete proteins that eventually harden into enamel. Enamel’s incredibly specific fish scale-like structure is what makes it so hard (even harder than bone) but also what has made it impossible for human science to replicate so far, as Tang’s paper in Science Advances points out.
But now Tang may finally have hit the jackpot, finding the solution to cavities that we have long dreamed of. Already Tang’s team have moved the gel beyond the artificial mouth environment that proved the concept and have begun testing it on live mice. With time they hope to move on to human subjects, though whether the gel can survive the rigors of eating, drinking, and the myriad other ways humans use their mouths remains to be seen.
https://www.wouldsayso.com/no-more-fillings-miracle-gel-regrows-tooth-enamel/
Amazing Modern Prosthetics
Dianceht is a prosthetics company based in Guadalajara, Mexico. They make a range of incredibly realistic prosthetics. Each prosthesis is silicon-based which means they're elastic and resistant to breaking. Every one is custom made and hand-painted, the process takes days to complete. Each finger has matching fingerprints and realistic veins and freckles.
The ears and other prosthetics are attached using medical glue. The glue lasts up to seven days and is shower proof. A prosthetic finger or toe costs £520, an ear or nose would cost just over £1000.
See more from Dianceht: http://www.manosydedos.com/index_home..
This is how dental implants are inserted
Yikes! Looks more like an oil change. Anyone have this done?
The solution to climate change is just below our feet
Agriculture has played a major role in the climate crisis—about a quarter of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions come from land use and agriculture combined—but farmers are uniquely situated to be part of the solution. While the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has reached its highest level in human history, plants can draw down the carbon and restore the soil’s organic carbon content—in the right conditions. If enough farmers adopted regenerative farming practices, they could begin to reverse the effects of climate change.
That’s the vision guiding The Terraton Initiative, a global movement with an ambitious goal: to capture one trillion tons (a teraton) of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and restore carbon to the soil through regenerative farming practices. The effort is the brainchild of agriculture-tech startup Indigo Ag.
“There are many solutions we should be pursuing to reduce and reverse the effect of climate change,” says Indigo CEO David Perry. “But sequestering atmospheric carbon in agricultural soils represents the only solution I know of that is scalable, affordable, and immediate.”
snip
Regenerative farming practices have real potential to change the course of climate change, but it’s not only up to farmers. Businesses and consumers can help by purchasing carbon credits, buying sustainably grown food, pushing for policy changes, and spreading the message.
“Success in The Terraton Initiative will require collaboration from within the agricultural industry and from outside of the industry, but it’s completely within our hands,” says Perry. “We’re not waiting for a new technical breakthrough. We don’t need advances that aren’t here today. We just have to decide collectively that we’re going to make it happen.”
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/science/2019/10/partner-content-solution-to-climate-change-below-our-feet/?
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