Month: February 2019

Enlarge (credit: Aurich / Getty)

An Arizona crematorium became polluted with a plume of radiation after operators inadvertently incinerated the remains of a cancer patient who had undergone a radioactive treatment just days before his unexpected death.

The Phoenix-based Mayo Clinic doctors who reported the contamination were further alarmed when they found that the crematorium’s operator also had trace amounts of radioactive material in his urine—but from a different isotope than the one found in the recently cremated cancer patient. The doctors published their findings Tuesday in a JAMA research letter.

While the levels of radiation they detected in the crematorium and its operator were unlikely to cause harm, the doctors say the issue needs more attention. They conclude:

Breakfast spots, coffee shops, and watering holes pepper the daily commutes of modern urban humans, but we try to remember the ones where we get the best food or drinks. If we do longer journeys routinely, we also keep track of the best grazing grounds—a diner, a gas station with the best snacks, and so on.

Blue whales, according to research published in PNAS this week, seem to make similar mental notes. On their annual migration, their path takes in the spots that have proven to be the most reliable feeding grounds over the years. In doing this, the whales may bypass hotspots that pop up and fade from one year to the next, suggesting that they rely heavily on memory to find a solid meal. But in a world where “normal” is shifting rapidly, the endangered whales may no longer be able to rely on the abundance of those old, faithful feeding grounds.

Why do whales go where they go?

Blue whales are the largest animal that we know to have lived, and that means they need colossal amounts of food. Despite this, they’re picky eaters, feeding almost exclusively on small crustaceans called krill, which they eat by lunging through a large swarm with an open mouth, trapping the animals in their mouths while the sea water filters back out. And they manage to find sources of food while migrating from a summer near the poles to a winter spent closer to the equator.

Fans of Netflix's 2016 surprise hit series The OA, rejoice—the first trailer for Part II just dropped. Be forewarned: it's fairly spoiler-y for those who haven't already seen Part I. Then again, there are probably people who are still puzzling over what, exactly, happened in Part I of this genre-busting show—is it science fiction? Fantasy? A supernatural drama? So perhaps a refresher would be welcome.

(Warning: major spoilers for season 1 of The OA below.)

Part I opened with an adopted young woman, Prairie Johnson (Brit Marling), miraculously returning home after being missing for seven years. Her adoptive parents are thrilled and perplexed, not just about where she's been all this time, but because now their once-blind daughter can see. Prairie befriends several misfits from the local high school: four boys (Steve, French, Buck, and Jesse) and a teacher, Betty Broderick-Allen (Phyllis Smith), dubbed "BBA." Over the rest of the season, she tells them her story, beginning with a near-death experience (NDE) when she was a child, the same accident that left her blind.

Enlarge / The Coradia iLint, the world's first hydrogen multiple-unit train for regional transport, is located at Basdorf station. Thanks to its fuel cell drive, the train runs completely emission-free and quietly. The Niederbarnimer Railway aims to use this climate-friendly train on the Heidekrautbahn, thus making the non-electrified line even more environmentally friendly. (credit: Bernd Settnik/picture alliance via Getty Images)

Hydrogen gas has been the pipe dream fuel of clean-energy advocates for decades. Splitting electrons from H₂ molecules creates electricity and a waste product: pure H₂O. It has the added benefit of being storable (albeit at high pressures or low temperatures), and it can refuel a car or a generator in minutes, as opposed to batteries, which can take hours to recharge.

Unfortunately, most of the hydrogen that is mass-produced today is made by synthesizing it from natural gas (more specifically, methane, or CH₄). But it's also possible to make hydrogen using electricity and water, using an electrolyzer. If that electricity is renewable electricity, hydrogen can be nearly carbon neutral in its lifecycle.

The problem is that the electrolyzers that can make hydrogen from renewable energy have historically been prohibitively expensive. But that's changing, according to a new paper in Nature Energy.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | pixhook)

The maker of a supposed fat-blocking weight-loss pill that didn't help much with weight loss paid for fake Amazon reviews to push its false and misleading claims, the Federal Trade Commission said in a lawsuit announced yesterday.

It's the first time the FTC has filed a lawsuit "challenging a marketer's use of fake paid reviews on an independent retail website," the agency said. The FTC complaint was filed against Cure Encapsulations, Inc. and its owner, Naftula Jacobowitz, in US District Court for the Eastern District of New York. The defendants have agreed to settle the case, pay a $50,000 fine, and notify past customers that there's no scientific evidence backing up the weight-loss claims. Customers may get refunds, but it's not definite.

The FTC said its complaint "alleges that the defendants made false and unsubstantiated claims on their Amazon product page, including through the purchased reviews, that their garcinia cambogia product is a 'powerful appetite suppressant,' 'Literally BLOCKS FAT From Forming,' causes significant weight loss, including as much as twenty pounds, and causes rapid and substantial weight loss, including as much as two or more pounds per week.

Enlarge / The Energizer Power Max P18K Pop. Too thick? (credit: GSMArena)

Mobile World Congress has been home to some truly unique smartphone designs this year, and one of the strangest has to be the Energizer PowerMax P18K Pop, an attention-grabbing brick of a smartphone with an 18,000mAh battery.

I know what you're going to ask: "Wait, Energizer makes phones?" Yes, this is something like the 45th announced Energizer phone. Energizer Holdings licenses its brand to Avenir Telecom for mobile phones, and this French company has been using the brand to pump out generic-looking feature phones and smartphones since 2016.

The Energizer Mobile page is here, but it does not acknowledge the existence of the P18K anywhere. The only official info we have to go on is a BusinessWire press release with a single (comically misleading) picture. I think some skepticism of Energizer Mobile is warranted since last year at Mobile World Congress when the company showed off the Power Max P16K Pro, a phone with a 16,000mAh battery. The company gave it a launch date of September 2018 and a $738 price tag, but it never made it to market and, according to GSMArena, has been cancelled. Avenir also brought what looks to be a plastic mockup of a foldable 5G phone to MWC, which doesn't seem to have a high chance of actually hitting the market.