Author: Ranveer Kumar

There is no doubt about it. We have a plastic problem. According to Plastics Europe, 350m tonnes of plastic is produced annually, and only 9% of that plastic is ever recycled. This plastic pollutes our oceans and shows up everywhere as microplastics. More alarmingly, according to the World Economic Forum, this problem is predicted to increase tenfold by 2025 if solutions aren’t found. This leaves us all wondering: why isn’t anyone doing anything about plastic pollution? It turns out that someone finally is. This Thursday, UK-based technology company Mura announced that construction has begun on the world’s first commercial-scale plant to use a new “hydrothermal” process that can recycle all…

Deforestation dropdown of 18% gets high appraisal in African countries after organizations signed a subscription to receive satellite run data and warning to forecast and reduce deforestation. Reduction in deforestation cut the loss of money between $149 million and $696 million. The reason behind this is the lower carbon emission in the atmosphere in the tropical forest cover. The Global Land Analysis and Discovery System (GLAD) came up with the research findings, available on the Global Forest Watch. GLAD, launched in 2020, is capable of providing hi-res warnings once it detects a drop in forested areas. Governments and other organizations…

The plastics industry is lying about recycling, says John Oliver ‘Our personal behavior is not the main culprit here, despite what the plastics industry has spent decades and millions of dollars trying to convince us,’ the TV host said John Oliver tackled the failure that is plastic recycling during Sunday’s episode of Last Week Tonight, pointing out that the United States recycles less than 9 per cent of items but “the plastics industry has managed to convince us all that it’s our fault”. Plastic production is booming with more than half of all plastic ever made created within the last two decades. Vast…

A research team, led by YSE professor Yuan Yao and Liangbing Hu from the University of Maryland, has created a high-quality bioplastic from wood byproducts that they hope can solve one of the world’s most pressing environmental issues YALE SCHOOL OF THE ENVIRONMENT Efforts to shift from petrochemical plastics to renewable and biodegradable plastics have proven tricky — the production process can require toxic chemicals and is expensive, and the mechanical strength and water stability is often insufficient. But researchers have made a breakthrough, using wood byproducts, that shows promise for producing more durable and sustainable bioplastics. A…

New study finds that the state’s strict regulations have lowered the expected number of deaths linked to diesel exhaust by 50%, with lower income communities of color benefitting the most UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – BERKELEY Berkeley — Extending California’s stringent diesel emissions standards to the rest of the U.S. could dramatically improve the nation’s air quality and health, particularly in lower income communities of color, finds a new analysis published today in the journal Science. Since 1990, California has used its authority under the federal Clean Air Act to enact more aggressive rules on emissions from diesel vehicles and engines compared…

Using electrodes to stimulate people’s brains with electrical currents while they slept, researchers at a neuroscience lab in Oregon successfully lengthened the amount of time the subjects stayed in the deep sleep stage, which can potentially improve memory and decrease the risk of dementia in older adults. In a paper published March 8 in Sleep Medicine, a team of neuroscientists at the Brain Electrophysiology Laboratory Company in Oregon tested the effect of electrically stimulating the limbic cortex region of the brain on deep sleep quality in adults. They found that even low-level electrical stimulation through electrodes can significantly increase the…

Ignoring the signs of climate change will lead to unprecedented, societally disruptive heat extremes in the Middle East and North Africa The Middle East and North Africa Region (MENA) is a climate change hot spot where summers warm much faster than in the rest of the world. Some parts of the region are already among the hottest locations globally. A new international study led by scientists from the Climate and Atmosphere Research Center of the Cyprus Institute and the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry predicts that ignoring the signals of climate change and continuing business-as-usual with increasing greenhouse gas emissions will…

Philanthropy among the elite class in the United States and the United Kingdom does more to create goodwill for the super-wealthy than to alleviate social ills for the poor, according to a new meta-analysis. A group of U.K. researchers reviewed 263 journal articles, books and studies on elite philanthropy to better understand the role it plays in this new age of inequality. In the United States, the wealth gap between richest and poorer families has more than doubled since the 1980s, and in the United Kingdom, the incomes of the richest fifth are 12 times as much as the incomes…

Abstract Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is used in the treatment of a variety of autoimmune neurological disorders and is generally regarded as safe. We present a case series where IVIG causes transaminitis. The adverse effects are mostly due to the stabilizing agent used to prepare the IVIG (e.g., maltose in this series). While the adverse effects are usually self-limiting, physicians should be cautious in administering an IVIG preparation to these patients. Introduction Intravenous immunoglobulin (IVIG) is used as an immunomodulatory agent in many neurological autoimmune disorders, such as Guillain-Barré (GBS) syndrome, chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy, multifocal motor neuropathy, inclusion body myositis,…

Investigative food journalist Barry Estabrook is best known for his 2011 award-winning book, Tomatoland: How Modern Industrial Agriculture Destroyed Our Most Alluring Fruit, and other deep dives into the way our food system works. But when confronted with obesity and maxed out on blood pressure and cholesterol medications, he decided to turn the lens on himself. In his new book, Just Eat: One Reporter’s Quest for a Weight-Loss Regimen That Works, he documents his sometimes funny but very real failures at today’s popular diets. Estabrook talks with diet gurus and sifts through dieting history and the latest nutrition studies. He discovers that unfortunately, these…