Episode #649
News Items
- Space Policy Directive 1
- Group Perception
- Ticks, Dinosaurs and Amber
- Antarctic Extremophiles
- Water Cloak
Who's That Noisy
- Answer to last week: Cattle call
Science or Fiction
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Item #1
Science
Scientists report a breakthrough with hydrogen-boron fusion using lasers and predict a working prototype within 10 years. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/12/171213104941.htm
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Item #2
Fiction
Engineers at Wageningen University have developed a system by which they can harvest electricity directly from plants, and bioengineered a tree that, when mature, several together can produce enough electricity to power a small home. http://www.plant-e.com/en/plant-e-modular-system/
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Item #3
Science
Researchers demonstrate a method they claim can be used to convert 850 million tons of atmospheric CO2 into a mineral each year, using seawater and scrap metal, and producing hydrogen as a side product. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/cssc.201702087/abstract
Skeptical Quote of the Week.
‘A theory which is not refutable by any conceivable event is non-scientific. Irrefutability is not a virtue of a theory (as people often think) but a vice. Every genuine test of a theory is an attempt to falsify it, or refute it.’ — Karl Raimund Popper