S27E35: Red Planet Revelation: Mars Hides an Ancient Volcanic Behemoth

[00:00:00] This is SpaceTime Series 27 episode 36 for broadcast on the 20th of March 2024.

[00:00:07] Coming up on SpaceTime, discovery of a giant volcano on Mars,

[00:00:13] a new radar mission for the European Space Agency and could a robotic chemist create oxygen

[00:00:19] from resources already on Mars?

[00:00:22] All that and more coming up on SpaceTime!

[00:00:26] Welcome to SpaceTime with Stuart Gary!

[00:00:46] Scientists have discovered what appears to be a giant, ancient volcano and glacial ice

[00:00:51] sheet buried in the eastern part of the Martian fastest volcanic province near the red planet's

[00:00:56] equator.

[00:00:57] Amazingly, the structure has remained undetected, literally hiding in plain sight, despite

[00:01:03] being repeatedly imaged by orbiting spacecraft going all the way back to Mariner 9 in 1971.

[00:01:10] Siders say it was never identified as a volcano simply because it was so deeply eroded

[00:01:15] beyond any easy recognition.

[00:01:17] Still, for decades this giant volcano is being one of Mars's most iconic regions.

[00:01:23] It's right at the boundary of the highly fractured maze-like Noctis-Laborinthus, the

[00:01:28] Labyrinth of the Night and the monumental Valley's Marinerans or Valley's of the Mariner canyons

[00:01:34] which form a massive split in the red planet's crust.

[00:01:38] Previsionally named Noctis volcano, pending an official title, the structure has centered

[00:01:43] some 7 degrees 35 minutes south, 93 degrees 55 minutes west.

[00:01:48] It reaches over 9,022 meters, that's 29,600 feet in height and spans some 450 kilometers

[00:01:57] or 280 miles across.

[00:01:59] Volcanoes' gigantic size and its complex modification history indicate that it must have been

[00:02:05] active for a very long time.

[00:02:07] And its southeast and part lies a thin recent volcanic deposit beneath which glacial ice

[00:02:13] appears to be still present.

[00:02:16] This combined giant volcano on possible glacier discovery is significant as it points to an

[00:02:21] existing new location to study Mars' geologic evolution through time, to search for possible

[00:02:26] signs of Martian life if it ever existed on the red planet and to explore with both robots

[00:02:32] and ultimately humans in the future.

[00:02:34] The studies lead author Pascal Lee from the SETI Institute and NASA's Ames Research Center

[00:02:39] says he needs to be examining the geology of the area where they just found the remains

[00:02:44] of a glacier when they suddenly realized they were actually inside a huge and deeply

[00:02:49] eroded volcano.

[00:02:51] Now there were several clues which went finally put together gave away the volcanic nature

[00:02:56] of the jumble of layered maces and canyons in the eastern part of Noctis Labyrinthus.

[00:03:02] Now firstly there was the central summit area which was marked by several elevated maces

[00:03:07] forming a sort of arc reaching a regional high and then sloping downwards away from the

[00:03:12] summit area.

[00:03:13] Then there were the more general outer slopes, they were extending out some 225 kilometers

[00:03:18] away from the central summit in all directions.

[00:03:21] There was also a caldera remnant, the remains of a collapsed volcanic crater once host to

[00:03:26] a lava lake that was right near the center of the structure.

[00:03:30] Finally there were lava flows, pyroclastic deposits made from volcanic particulate materials

[00:03:36] such as ash, cinders, pymus and tepra and hydrated mineral deposits were detected at several

[00:03:41] locations within the structures perimeter.

[00:03:44] In fact this whole area of Mars is already known to have a wide variety of hydrated minerals

[00:03:49] spanning a long stretch of Martian history and a volcanic setting for these minerals had

[00:03:55] long been suspected.

[00:03:57] So it may not have been too surprising for scientists to finally find the so-called

[00:04:01] Smirking Gun volcano there.

[00:04:04] In addition to the volcano, the scientist also discovered a large 5,000 square kilometer

[00:04:10] area of volcanic deposits within the volcanic perimeter which feature a large number of rounded

[00:04:15] elongated blister like mounds.

[00:04:18] This so-called blister terrain is being interpreted as a field of ruthless cones, mounds produced

[00:04:24] by explosive steam venting or steam swelling when a thin blanket of hot volcanic minerals

[00:04:30] comes to rest on top of a water ice-rich surface.

[00:04:34] The find follows the earlier discovery of the spectacular remnant of a glacier, or relic

[00:04:39] glacier through a sizable erosional opening in the same volcanic blanket in the form of

[00:04:44] a light turned deposit of sulfate salts with a morphologic traits of a glacier.

[00:04:49] The sulfate deposits are made mainly of jarricide, that's a hydra sulfate and they've been

[00:04:53] interpreted to have formed when the blanket of volcanic pyroplastic materials came to

[00:04:58] rest on the glacier and then reacted chemically with the ice.

[00:05:02] The breached ruthless cones identified in this study show similar properties to polyhydrated

[00:05:07] sulfates, further suggesting that the blistered volcanic blanket may be hiding a vast sheet

[00:05:13] of glacial ice beneath it.

[00:05:15] The not-disvolcano presents a long and complex history of modification possibly from a combination

[00:05:21] of fracturing, thermal erosion and glacial erosion.

[00:05:25] The studies authors are interpreting this volcano to be a vast shield made of layered

[00:05:29] accumulations of pyroplastic materials, livers and ices, the latter resulting from repeated

[00:05:34] build-ups of snow and glaciers on its flanks throughout time.

[00:05:39] As fractures and faults eventually developed in particular in connection with the uplift

[00:05:43] of the broader fastest region where the volcano sits, livers began to rise through different

[00:05:48] parts of the volcano, leading to thermal erosion and the removal of vast amounts of buried

[00:05:53] ice as well as the catastrophic collapse of entire sections of the volcano.

[00:05:58] Subsequent glaciers continued their erosion giving many canyons within the structure

[00:06:02] of their current distinctive shapes.

[00:06:06] But much about this newly discovered giant volcano still remains a mystery.

[00:06:11] Although it's clear that it would have been active for a long period of time and probably

[00:06:15] began it's build-up early in Martian history, it's unknown exactly how early that was.

[00:06:20] Similarly, although it shows clear evidence of having also experienced eruptions even

[00:06:25] in modern Martian times, it's unknown if it's still volcanically active and might erupt

[00:06:29] again.

[00:06:31] And if it has been active for a long period of time, there's a tantalizing question.

[00:06:36] Could the combination of sustained warmth and water from ice have allowed the site to

[00:06:40] become habitable?

[00:06:42] Could life have formed there?

[00:06:45] This is space time.

[00:06:47] Still to come and you radar mission for Europe and a busy time with lots of comings and

[00:06:52] goings aboard the International Space Station.

[00:06:55] All that and more still to come on space time.

[00:07:13] The European Space Agency are planning a new Earth observation mission to monitor how

[00:07:18] the planet is changing due to global warming.

[00:07:21] The Copernicus Radar Observation System for Europe in Elband or Rosil spacecraft will

[00:07:27] provide continuous day and night all weather monitoring of the Earth's oceans, land and ice

[00:07:32] together with other frequent observations of the planet's surface at high spatial resolution.

[00:07:38] Built by Thalousolenea Space, Rosil is one of six Copernicus Sentinel expansion missions

[00:07:44] that is developing on behalf of the European Union.

[00:07:48] These missions are designed to expand the current capabilities of the Copernicus Space

[00:07:52] Component which is already the world's largest supplier of Earth observation data.

[00:07:57] The 2016 kilogram Rosil spacecraft will carry an active phase-derase synthetic aperture

[00:08:03] radar.

[00:08:04] The radar antenna will be the largest deployable plane-arantiner ever built measuring an impressive

[00:08:10] 40 square meters in size.

[00:08:12] Rosil will deliver many benefits, including essential information on forests and land cover

[00:08:17] and that will lead to improved monitoring of terrestrial carbon cycles and carbon accounting.

[00:08:23] Now since the longer Elband signal being projected by Rosil will be able to penetrate through

[00:08:27] many natural materials such as vegetation, dry snow and ice, the mission will provide additional

[00:08:33] information that simply can't be gathered by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 C-band radar mission.

[00:08:39] It will be used to support forest management to monitor some sidelines and soil moisture

[00:08:43] and to pick out different crop types for precision farming and food security.

[00:08:48] In addition, the mission will contribute to the monitoring of polar ice sheets and ice caps,

[00:08:53] sea ice extent in the polar regions and seasonal snow.

[00:08:57] The mission will also greatly extend science's ability to monitor minute surface displacements

[00:09:03] thereby helping to at least detect geohazards.

[00:09:06] It will map surface soil moisture conditions over land, helping improve hydrology and weather

[00:09:11] forecasts and support the operational monitoring of sea and land ice across the Arctic.

[00:09:17] This report from ACTI-V

[00:09:19] Rosil is the largest plenary-san antenna ever built with an area of 40 square meters.

[00:09:24] It's the first time we use a longer wavelength and because of this longer wavelength

[00:09:29] we collect new information from space that is not yet accessible or that is not yet collected by other satellites.

[00:09:36] The first European mission to fly a software-defined radar.

[00:09:39] Not many people know that 15 countries are involved in the building of Rosil,

[00:09:43] this is truly a European project.

[00:09:45] We have X-band missions, we have C-band missions like Sentinel-1 and now we have L-band missions.

[00:09:53] Rosil, as the name implies, stands for radar-observing system for Europe at L-band.

[00:10:02] The term L-band here refers to the wavelength that is being used.

[00:10:07] L-band is a longer wavelength much longer than Sentinel-1.

[00:10:10] Both of them provide a different information that can be combined and gives you a better view

[00:10:17] of the Earth together.

[00:10:18] They also complement each other by flying in the same orbit

[00:10:22] and collecting information at regular intervals over the same area.

[00:10:26] So it can be used as a single system just like we use our eyes,

[00:10:30] also as a single system as a single way of looking at the world around us.

[00:10:35] My name is Malcolm Davidson and I work as a Rosil mission scientist in ISA.

[00:10:41] What kind of information does Rosil provide?

[00:10:43] Well, it provides information on the C-Ice, the different C-Ice types that are there.

[00:10:48] It tells us whether ships can navigate safely and being able to detect these ships

[00:10:54] even when there are clouds or there is darkness or indeed some storms.

[00:10:59] This information about ships is useful for security applications.

[00:11:03] It's also useful for safety applications and for ecosystem applications.

[00:11:09] One of the important ecosystem applications is, for instance, oil spills

[00:11:13] where monitoring the oil spill, the extent of the oil spill

[00:11:18] and the severity of the oil spill is extremely important.

[00:11:22] Rosil also has a very good role to play in climate change

[00:11:27] or the monitoring the effects of climate change.

[00:11:29] The fact that the ice sheets are melting, how quickly they are melting,

[00:11:33] how much water is being released as they melt

[00:11:36] are some of the questions that Rosil helps answer.

[00:11:40] Another important area that Rosil supports is agriculture

[00:11:44] and agriculture is linked to food security.

[00:11:47] By providing high-resolution soil moisture information,

[00:11:51] Rosil contributes to better crop management practices.

[00:11:55] Another important role that Rosil plays is in terms of forest carbon stocks.

[00:12:00] When I say forest carbon stocks, I'm talking about monitoring the forests

[00:12:04] across our globe and making an inventory

[00:12:08] of how much carbon lies within these forests.

[00:12:12] Rosil contributes to the safety of European citizens

[00:12:17] by monitoring geohazards.

[00:12:19] Geohazards are typically what we think of when we think of disasters, natural disasters,

[00:12:25] such as landslides, such as subsidence when the buildings and other structures

[00:12:32] are sinking into the ground and earthquakes and volcanoes, of course, are well known.

[00:12:37] Rosil is able to penetrate through the vegetation with its long wavelength

[00:12:41] and sense the movements as they take place

[00:12:45] and even a little before they take place.

[00:12:47] And this type of information is inaccessible

[00:12:50] to the current generation of Copernicus satellites

[00:12:53] and is a unique characteristic of Rosil.

[00:13:00] In order to meet the challenge in quality requirements,

[00:13:03] state-of-the-art technology is required all across the instrument.

[00:13:06] My name is Nico. I'm Nico Gibbert and my job is the Rosil payload manager.

[00:13:11] The mission objectives of Rosil require to image a large area.

[00:13:15] We call it a swath with fine level of detail, so a high resolution.

[00:13:20] More specifically, the satellite can image a script on ground of 260 km with

[00:13:25] and one will be able to distinguish structures down to a size of 5 to 10 meters.

[00:13:30] So Rosil is the first radar mission in Europe

[00:13:32] which will provide so much information.

[00:13:35] In addition, we need to transmit a lot of power

[00:13:37] to see also weak, so small targets on the ground.

[00:13:40] It's a bit like using a strong torch

[00:13:43] to be able to see also in the darkest corners.

[00:13:46] Rosil provides ground-breaking high resolution information

[00:13:49] on ice condition in the Arctic

[00:13:51] even in condition of complete winter darkness supporting syvenavigation.

[00:13:55] Rosil's pierces the darkness with the help of its own illumination.

[00:14:00] It illuminates the surface below

[00:14:03] and collects information in the Arctic even in the height of winter.

[00:14:08] It is a combination of different techniques.

[00:14:10] For example, when receiving the echo from the ground

[00:14:13] the antenna dynamically sweeps the beam across the ground

[00:14:16] to follow the position of the echo.

[00:14:17] At the same time, five different data streams transfer to ground.

[00:14:22] This is what we call digital beam forming.

[00:14:24] We have split the large antenna into many small antennas

[00:14:27] which we can then individually control

[00:14:29] both when transmitting and as well when receiving the echo.

[00:14:36] It's a bit like a car which at the same time should be small,

[00:14:40] provide a lot of space and go fast by the little fuel consumption.

[00:14:44] This means we need it to design an instrument which is quite special.

[00:14:47] We are developing power modules of unprecedented peak power in Europe.

[00:14:51] Such peak power requires a sophisticated design

[00:14:54] which comes with a lot of challenges.

[00:14:56] Overall, we radiate 9 kilowatts of power

[00:14:59] which is actually enough to hit my complete house in the winter.

[00:15:02] My name is Gianruigi Cosimo.

[00:15:03] I am the Rosel Project Manager.

[00:15:05] If I have to make a sample of a key technology

[00:15:09] which has been specifically developed for Rosel

[00:15:11] I should mention the transmittal receiver modules

[00:15:14] which are the heart of the antenna front and the electronics.

[00:15:18] For those elements we had to run some pre-development activities

[00:15:24] testing that the technology was mature enough to be embarked on the Rosel missions.

[00:15:29] We needed to move away from classic design of radar instruments

[00:15:33] which consists of one large antenna.

[00:15:34] In simple words we are having 60 small antennas

[00:15:37] which you can flexible reconfigure by changing the software.

[00:15:41] In addition, we are transferring several data streams to the ground

[00:15:44] which gives a lot of flexibility to process the data in many different ways.

[00:15:48] In this respect Rosel is truly a software-defined radar

[00:15:51] so it was tested over the large range of temperature variation

[00:15:55] that we see in orbit to check how much it deforms.

[00:15:58] And although the dimensions are huge

[00:15:59] it's 2.2 meters by 30 centimeters

[00:16:03] this sample is quite light

[00:16:04] and it doesn't weigh more than a couple of kilograms.

[00:16:07] Well, it has to be light

[00:16:08] because if the antenna gets too heavy

[00:16:10] then the launcher could not carry it up to the orbit

[00:16:13] so actually it's a feature of our instrument

[00:16:16] to keep the antenna very lightweight

[00:16:18] so it's really a novel technology.

[00:16:22] Imaging such a wide area of 260 kilometers

[00:16:26] with a fine level of detail comes with a massive amount of data.

[00:16:30] On average Rosel will produce 6.5 terabyte of information

[00:16:34] every 100 minutes.

[00:16:36] This means almost 100 terabyte of data every day.

[00:16:39] For comparison, this would correspond to almost 4,000 hours

[00:16:43] of Netflix videos in high definition every day.

[00:16:46] Each Rosel spacecraft is designed to remain operational 7.5 years.

[00:16:50] One important characteristic of Rosel

[00:16:52] is that it is an operational mission.

[00:16:55] Operational in the sense that it acquires data all the time.

[00:16:59] It makes the data available quickly

[00:17:01] so that it can be used for the different applications

[00:17:05] and thirdly, it follows an open data policy

[00:17:08] which supports many different new applications

[00:17:12] and enables scientists to investigate

[00:17:15] how best to use the data in new types of applications

[00:17:19] that don't yet exist but will exist in the future.

[00:17:22] According to the current planning,

[00:17:23] Rosel will be ready for launch in 2028.

[00:17:26] And it is based on the most powerful radar electronics ever

[00:17:29] reconfigurable from ground.

[00:17:31] This space time still to come

[00:17:34] busy times about the international space station

[00:17:36] with lots of coming and going

[00:17:38] and could a robot chemist create oxygen

[00:17:41] from resources already available on Mars

[00:17:44] or that and more still to come on space time.

[00:17:49] What's been a busy time aboard the International Space Station

[00:17:56] with several crews arriving and departing over the past few weeks?

[00:18:00] Last month, space excellence to dragging capsule bound

[00:18:03] for the International Space Station

[00:18:05] carrying a four person team from Axiom Space.

[00:18:08] This was Axiom's third private space station

[00:18:11] which was the first time that the crew was in the space station

[00:18:15] from Axiom Space.

[00:18:17] This was Axiom's third private space mission

[00:18:20] to the orbiting outpost and was designed

[00:18:22] to undertake a series of experimental projects

[00:18:24] for the company.

[00:18:26] Axiom is planning to undertake a fourth mission

[00:18:28] to the ISS later this year, possibly in October.

[00:18:31] The company's also developing its own modules

[00:18:33] for the International Space Station.

[00:18:35] They'll be built over the next few years

[00:18:37] with the first expected to be launched and docked

[00:18:40] to the ISS in 2026.

[00:18:43] Automally, when the International Space Station is finally

[00:18:46] de-orbited, Axiom plans to use their modules

[00:18:48] as the basis for their own future orbiting space station.

[00:18:52] The Axiom crew remained on station for almost three weeks

[00:18:55] before returning to Earth and splashing down

[00:18:58] in the North Atlantic Ocean off the coast of Florida.

[00:19:01] As soon as they got on,

[00:19:03] when another four person crew flew up to the orbiting outpost,

[00:19:06] also aboard a dragon capsule launched on a Falcon 9 rocket

[00:19:09] from the Kennedy Space Center.

[00:19:11] Their dragon endeavor capsule docked

[00:19:13] with the space station's Harmony Module Space Facing Port.

[00:19:17] It was a case of second time lucky for this mission,

[00:19:20] the first attempt a few days earlier

[00:19:21] had to be scrubbed jitter high winds.

[00:19:24] The launch also marked the fifth flight

[00:19:26] for the same endeavor capsule.

[00:19:28] The NASA SpaceX crew weight as they're called

[00:19:31] will spend the next six months on station

[00:19:33] undertaking experiments on STEM cells to create organoids.

[00:19:36] These are artificially grown masses

[00:19:38] of cells resembling organs,

[00:19:40] which will be used to study degenerative diseases.

[00:19:43] They'll be taking advantage of the microgravity

[00:19:45] environment of space to enable three dimensional cell growth

[00:19:48] in these organoids, which is not always possible on Earth.

[00:19:51] Then you crew are replacing NASA SpaceX crew 17.

[00:19:55] You'll left a few days later

[00:19:56] aboard their own dragon spacecraft

[00:19:58] signaling the end of Expedition 69 and 70.

[00:20:02] Their six month tour aboard the ISS

[00:20:04] involved taking part in more than 250 experiments

[00:20:07] and space walks, including research into microgravity's impact

[00:20:10] on immune cells and liver regeneration,

[00:20:13] which could potentially often

[00:20:14] you insights into aging and disease.

[00:20:16] Other experiments included protein crystal growth

[00:20:19] in microgravity studies into artificial

[00:20:22] retina manufacturing and space projects

[00:20:24] to reduce the material mass being transported into space,

[00:20:28] research into adding microbial coatings

[00:20:30] for use in space travel that have built

[00:20:32] on a better therapeutics for use in drugs,

[00:20:35] optical fiber production in microgravity

[00:20:37] and a study of heart muscle cell development in space.

[00:20:41] The NASA Dragon crew seven capsule

[00:20:43] spushed down safely in the Gulf of Mexico

[00:20:46] just near the far at a panhandle.

[00:20:48] Meanwhile yet another leak,

[00:20:50] it's either the sixth or seventh I lose count

[00:20:52] has developed aboard the Russian portion of the space station.

[00:20:56] NASA says it's keeping a close sound

[00:20:58] the slightest leak with hatches being kept closed

[00:21:00] to isolate the leak from the rest of the space station

[00:21:03] while the Russians try to find out exactly where it is.

[00:21:07] This is space time.

[00:21:09] Still to come, could a robotic chemist create oxygen

[00:21:12] out of the resources already available on Mars

[00:21:16] and later in the science report

[00:21:17] and you study warns that high temperatures

[00:21:20] above 33 degrees and immediately increase your risk

[00:21:23] of having an ischemic stroke.

[00:21:25] All that and more still to come on space time.

[00:21:29] Music

[00:21:44] Scientists have developed an AI robot chemist

[00:21:47] that can make oxygen from machine meteorites.

[00:21:50] The research reported in the journal Nature

[00:21:52] claimed similar technology could one day

[00:21:54] make human missions to Mars easier and more cost-effective.

[00:21:59] The robot was given five categories of meteorites

[00:22:01] known to exist on Mars in order to analyze them.

[00:22:04] And it was able to identify chemicals

[00:22:06] in the meteorites that could react together

[00:22:08] to produce oxygen.

[00:22:10] It achieved this by painstakingly testing

[00:22:13] the performance of different strategies of oxygen production

[00:22:16] until it found the best one.

[00:22:18] Now that same process would have taken humans

[00:22:21] more than 2,000 years.

[00:22:23] The researchers say technology like this

[00:22:25] could one day allow future Mars missions

[00:22:27] to produce oxygen for rockets

[00:22:29] and life support systems using materials

[00:22:31] already available on the red planet.

[00:22:34] This is space time.

[00:22:37] Music

[00:22:47] And time that to take another brief look

[00:22:50] at some of the other stories making using science this week

[00:22:53] with the Science Report.

[00:22:55] A new study has shown that high temperatures

[00:22:57] over 33 degrees Celsius can immediately increase

[00:23:00] your risk of having an ischemic stroke.

[00:23:03] The findings reported in the Journal

[00:23:05] of the American Medical Association

[00:23:07] show that compared to temperatures of around 12 degrees

[00:23:10] at 33 degrees there was an increased risk of stroke

[00:23:13] in the first hour and the increase lasted for 10 hours

[00:23:16] after exposure to that heat.

[00:23:18] The authors say the new findings

[00:23:20] may help medical practitioners

[00:23:22] devised new public health strategies

[00:23:24] to reduce the risk associated with high ambient temperatures

[00:23:27] under the current effects of global warming.

[00:23:31] Scientists have found increasing evidence

[00:23:33] that wells they get stuck in discarded fishing gear

[00:23:36] wind up having serious lifelong injuries

[00:23:39] that's assuming they survive in the first place.

[00:23:42] The findings reported in the Journal

[00:23:44] of the Presidium's The Raw Society B biological sciences

[00:23:47] are based on studies of North Atlantic right wells.

[00:23:51] The authors found that even if the mammals

[00:23:53] survive the encounter they wind up

[00:23:55] with all kinds of medical issues.

[00:23:57] The researchers used information

[00:23:59] from 199 female wells cited between 1977 and 2018

[00:24:04] combined with known information about entanglements

[00:24:07] clusters minor, moderate or severe.

[00:24:10] They found that as you'd expect,

[00:24:12] severe entanglements had the biggest impact on survival.

[00:24:15] However, even wells who experienced only minor entanglements

[00:24:18] still showed issues, such as these wells

[00:24:20] having the lowest probability of becoming breeders.

[00:24:23] Scientists found that almost all females,

[00:24:25] some 89% have experienced at least one entanglement event

[00:24:29] during their lifetimes and some two-thirds

[00:24:32] have experienced two or more events.

[00:24:34] The authors say that as one of the most endangered

[00:24:37] great wells, management actions are needed

[00:24:39] to address all kinds of entanglements in fishing gear

[00:24:42] even minor ones.

[00:24:44] If the North Atlantic right well population

[00:24:47] is meant to recover.

[00:24:49] A new study shows that spent brewers used,

[00:24:53] that's the basis of Australia's much-loved

[00:24:55] breakfast spread vegomite can also be used

[00:24:57] multiple times to pull metals out of water.

[00:25:00] A report in the journal Frontiers of Bioengineering

[00:25:03] and biotechnology claims this extract was able

[00:25:06] to pull metals such as aluminum, zinc and copper

[00:25:09] out of a solution.

[00:25:11] And when tested on the metal-loaded waste stream,

[00:25:13] they found it was able to pull 50% of copper

[00:25:16] and 90% of zinc that was present in the water.

[00:25:20] And the authors say the yeast can be reused

[00:25:22] and recycled multiple times,

[00:25:24] making the process even more eco-friendly.

[00:25:28] Well it seems both TikTok and Meta

[00:25:30] in the spotlight this week for all the wrong reasons.

[00:25:33] Meta, the parent company of Facebook and Instagram

[00:25:36] are trying to back out of paying for news content

[00:25:38] on their platforms.

[00:25:40] Meanwhile, technology editor Alex Harrow-Royot

[00:25:42] from TechAdvice.life says

[00:25:44] American politicians want to force Chinese owned

[00:25:47] by-dance to divest itself of TikTok.

[00:25:50] It's because of the influence the social media platform has,

[00:25:53] it's used to spy on its users and the propaganda it pushes as news.

[00:25:58] The US wants by-dance the company that owns TikTok

[00:26:02] to de-rest it and sell it to a non-Chinese-based interest

[00:26:06] because that they're saying it's a tool used

[00:26:08] by the Chinese government to spy on people

[00:26:10] to collect all this information on all these different users

[00:26:12] and also to manipulate them with really quite in-ane content.

[00:26:16] People doing crazy challenges or doing silly dance moves

[00:26:19] whereas the version of TikTok that is allowed in China,

[00:26:22] which is owned by the same company,

[00:26:24] but it has a very different mindset in that.

[00:26:27] It's more educational there, isn't it?

[00:26:29] It's much more educational.

[00:26:31] It's about a time you can be on it, if you're a kid.

[00:26:33] Whereas the version we see in the West,

[00:26:35] which the United States gets and us here too, I guess,

[00:26:38] is one which is pushing very strong political viewpoints

[00:26:41] these are two people who firstly are usually young

[00:26:44] and consequently are easily influenced anyway.

[00:26:47] And secondly, it's often the only news source they have.

[00:26:50] Well that is one of the concerns.

[00:26:52] People are going towards social media as their news source

[00:26:56] and just because the mainstream media says something on the news

[00:26:59] doesn't necessarily mean that it's true,

[00:27:01] but definitely your social media platforms,

[00:27:04] which it's right there in your face when you are very intimate with your phone.

[00:27:07] People tend to take that a lot more seriously

[00:27:09] and they tend to take what an influencer says.

[00:27:12] TikTok has been extremely successful in being very addictive

[00:27:16] and the concern about its algorithm pushing various viewpoints

[00:27:20] is real.

[00:27:21] Now, in the States, the House has voted to ban TikTok

[00:27:24] but it still needs approval by the Senate.

[00:27:26] And then of course the President himself could also veto that.

[00:27:29] And this is a sort of way.

[00:27:30] Well, it's not going away.

[00:27:31] It's a Disney so we don't know what's going to happen there.

[00:27:33] Well, we don't yet.

[00:27:34] Now on a related topic,

[00:27:35] a matter of decided they're going to not pay for news content

[00:27:38] on their Australian platform.

[00:27:39] Well, this is something that Facebook has announced.

[00:27:41] Well, meta has announced that it's doing not just in Australia

[00:27:44] but in the US and a number of other countries

[00:27:46] because Facebook was paying out

[00:27:48] tens of millions of dollars to various news organizations around the world,

[00:27:52] in Australia and around the world.

[00:27:53] And a number of those organizations actually use that money

[00:27:56] to employ local reporters in country areas for example.

[00:28:00] And those publications said,

[00:28:01] well, if we're not getting the money from Facebook,

[00:28:03] we're going to have to scale back.

[00:28:05] The problem with Facebook has always been one of trust.

[00:28:08] Mark Zuckerberg has been on a 20 year apology tour

[00:28:11] for this using the data of its users.

[00:28:14] Mark was in Congress only earlier this year

[00:28:18] being forced to apologize to parents

[00:28:20] who's children were on Instagram and who are sexually groomed

[00:28:23] and then fact Ted Cruz, the US senator,

[00:28:25] was questioning Mark Zuckerberg saying

[00:28:27] you know when people were searching for a pedophile cell material,

[00:28:30] instead of outright locking people from that,

[00:28:33] it issued a warning and then one of the buttons said

[00:28:36] worse than the effect of,

[00:28:37] have a look at it anyway.

[00:28:38] And Ted Cruz was completely flabbergasted

[00:28:40] that how this could be the case when any other sort of social media engine

[00:28:44] or search engine would out by blocked from viewing that content.

[00:28:47] So there's a question of trust with Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook.

[00:28:51] And just before we go,

[00:28:52] Microsoft are about to make some big announcements with new releases.

[00:28:55] Yeah, Mark 21 in the US, March 22 in Australia.

[00:28:58] We'll see the surface protein which is their cross between a tablet

[00:29:01] and iPads, the other device and the laptop.

[00:29:03] And also the surface laptop six which is a laptop.

[00:29:06] And there's meant to be OLED screens with HDR capabilities.

[00:29:10] There's meant to be the Intel core ultra processor

[00:29:13] with the built-in NPU neural processing engine or unit for AI stuff

[00:29:18] and also the Snapdragon X Elite,

[00:29:20] which also has a built-in AI component.

[00:29:22] And there's meant to be a new thing called AI Explorer

[00:29:25] where it will look at everything on your computer

[00:29:27] and you can say, hey, show me that thing with dinosaurs

[00:29:29] and it will look up the last time you mentioned dinosaurs

[00:29:31] of search for it, brought up images about it.

[00:29:33] There are concerns that that is going to eliminate your privacy

[00:29:36] but it certainly would help allow you to sort of search through

[00:29:39] your life with ease and with AI's helping doing that.

[00:29:42] There'd be an AI key, there'd be faster ports and sleeker designs.

[00:29:45] So we'll get all the details in about a week's time.

[00:29:47] After it's all launched pretty soon,

[00:29:49] every PC will be an AI PC that can do various AI tasks

[00:29:52] right on the device itself

[00:29:54] and not have to send all that information

[00:29:56] and requests to the cloud.

[00:29:58] That's Alex Harrow Roy from TechAdvice Start Life.

[00:30:01] Music

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