How global crisis affects design

by REBECCA BELLAN — 28 days ago in DESIGN & DEV

At the turn of the 20th century, the modern bathroom began to develop alongside outbreaks of tuberculosis, cholera, and influenza, implementing standard features in order to promote health and hygiene in the home during widespread public health concerns. 

During and immediately after the Great Depression, the design of everything from vehicles to appliances became minimalist and industrial, tending towards the modern “streamlined” look, which was characterized by rounded edges and sleek shapes. For example, in 1934, industrial designer Raymond Loewy redesigned the Coldspot refrigerator, turning it into “a single smooth, gleaming unit of functional simplicity.”

Now the world has suffered another crisis, but to paraphrase former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill: never waste a good crisis. Indeed in times of political upheaval or widespread health issues, designers across industries have used these moments in time to pivot towards simplicity. When resources are scarce and when above all sustainability and efficiency are the most important design priorities, form tends to follow function.  

The coronavirus pandemic has given the entire world a chance to pause and rethink design in a way that addresses both the current crisis and the other large existential crisis of today, climate change. In maintaining the health of people and our planet, transparency and sustainability are driving forward innovative new designs, from public spaces to the automotive industry to office buildings. 

Let’s take a closer look at different industries to show the effect this pandemic has had.

Public spaces in a COVID-19 world

Architecture and indoor spaces have been largely implicated in the spread of coronavirus, so many urban planners are thinking about ways to best utilize outdoor spaces for the public in a way that promotes equality and health safety concerns. Cities around the world have built new bike lanes, widened sidewalks, and even closed down streets to cars in order to make room for socially distanced, alternate forms of transport. Street parking spots have been replaced by extended restaurants offering outdoor dining, thus diversifying the spaces for use by different groups. 

Increased sustainable and transparent design in vehicles

The pandemic has accelerated three major disruptions in the car industry: 1) Electrification, 2) Autonomous driving, and 3) Circularity, or an economic system that aims to eliminate waste and the continual use of resources. During his TNW2020 talk, Polestar design director Max Missoni posed the question: “How can design come up with a sustainable solution for a more sustainable future?”

It all comes back to the idea that form follows function. Polestar’s designers have embodied this concept by highlighting design aspects that would otherwise be hidden “under the hood.” For example, the designers of the Polestar Precept, an electric concept car by Polestar, incorporate the use of flax fiber into the car’s design. Flax fiber is a material often used for linens, but used in vehicle design, it has the mechanical properties of carbon fiber, it’s 50% lighter than conventional interior panels and it reduces plastic content in the car by 80%. Instead of hiding that material in the second layer, the designers decided to backlight the material to demonstrate both its beauty and imperfections.

“With Precept, we looked to take sustainability and turn it into an aesthetic, to not just hide sustainable materials behind the skin, but to celebrate them, to turn them into a design language,” said Missoni. 

When considering how to do just this with autonomous vehicles, Volvo auto designers are looking for ways to incorporate systems like radars, cameras, and laser scanners needed for autonomous driving into the design language. One example Missoni gave with the Volvo 360c, a fully autonomous, fully electric vehicle concept, was to place the laser scanner device on the roof, “celebrating it and treating it like a technological gem.” 

By capitalizing on the design freedom afforded by the absence of a steering wheel and combustion engine, designers of the 360c can reimagine the traditional placement of passengers in a vehicle, creating a design that follows the function of a sleeping environment, a mobile office, a living room, or an entertainment space.  

Polestar as a brand is dedicated to sustainability and transparency. It recently published its Life Cycle Assessment on the Polestar 2 in order to show carbon emissions of its vehicle throughout its life cycle so that it can improve at every step of the process. 

But the problem, as Missoni pointed out during the TNW2020 Conference, is that within the life cycle of any product, even electric vehicles, we’re still mostly taking resources, creating products, using them for a while, and disposing of them. The world grinding to a halt during the pandemic has highlighted the intense environmental concerns we face as a species, and so we know that industries, especially the car industry, need to move towards a circular economy.

“We have to make sure products have the right degree of maintenance, are designed to be reused, are designed to be refurbished so they can be refreshed and kept in the cycle longer, and ultimately are designed to be as recyclable as humanly possible. And this is a big challenge for all of us, not just the car industry,” said Missoni. “If we start with these ideas at the conception and incorporate these thoughts into the design process, we’re getting a huge step closer to the only true sustainable future, which is a circular one.” 

Workplaces modified for safety and technological productivity

If and when people start returning to workplaces, they won’t find the same spaces that they did before. Workplaces will have to be modified to account for health and safety concerns, as well as new technologies. Some offices are doing away with the “open office” plan and returning to the days of cubicles. Designers are working out ways to increase sunlight and fresh air flow into buildings, as well as offering up more sanitization stations for workers to wash their hands throughout the day. 

Another interesting development in workplace design will be retooling for more virtual collaboration. Now that we’ve had a taste of remote work, it’s unlikely that every worker will return to the office five days a week, especially ones who are immunocompromised. Therefore, designers will have to incorporate technology in such a way that remote workers aren’t relegated to a lesser status.

What will that look like? Will virtual and augmented reality become a common technology used in offices? Will groups gather virtually with avatars for conference meetings? One thing is certain: Workplaces will encompass a hybrid reality, one with integrated digital collaboration tools, next-level conference, sensors, and other smart technologies.  

If you want to hear more insights into how crisis affects design, you can watch Max Missoni ’s TNW2020 talk above this article.

WHAT IF HUMANITY IS A FLUKE

Earth has been habitable for billions of years — simulations show it was ‘just luck’

THE GOLDILOCKS PRINCIPLE

by THE CONVERSATION — 1 day ago in SYNDICATION


It took evolution 3 or 4 billion years to produce Homo sapiens. If the climate had completely failed just once in that time then evolution would have come to a crashing halt and we would not be here now. So to understand how we came to exist on planet Earth, we’ll need to know how Earth managed to stay fit for life for billions of years.

This is not a trivial problem. Current global warming shows us that the climate can change considerably over the course of even a few centuries. Over geological timescales, it is even easier to change climate. Calculations show that there is the potential for Earth’s climate to deteriorate to temperatures below freezing or above boiling in just a few million years.

We also know that the Sun has become 30% more luminous since life first evolved. In theory, this should have caused the oceans to boil away by now, given that they were not generally frozen on the early Earth – this is known as the “faint young Sun paradox”. Yet, somehow, this habitability puzzle was solved.

Scientists have come up with two main theories. The first is that the Earth could possess something like a thermostat – a feedback mechanism (or mechanisms) that prevents the climate from ever wandering to fatal temperatures.

[Read: How this company leveraged AI to become the Netflix of Finland]

The second is that, out of many planets, perhaps some just make it through by luck, and Earth is one of those. This second scenario is made more plausible by the discoveries in recent decades of many planets outside our solar system – so-called exoplanets. Astronomical observations of distant stars tell us that many have planets orbiting them and that some are of a size and density and orbital distance such that temperatures suitable for life are theoretically possible. It has been estimated that there are at least 2 billion such candidate planets in our galaxy alone.

There are many exoplanets…but how many have a stable climate? Jurik Peter / shutterstock

Scientists would love to travel to these exoplanets to investigate whether any of them have matched Earth’s billion years of climate stability. But even the nearest exoplanets, those orbiting the star Proxima Centauri, are more than four light-years away. Observational or experimental evidence is hard to come by.

Instead, I explored the same question through modeling. Using a computer program designed to simulate climate evolution on planets in general (not just Earth), I first generated 100,000 planets, each with a randomly different set of climate feedbacks. Climate feedbacks are processes that can amplify or diminish climate change – think for instance of sea-ice melting in the Arctic, which replaces sunlight-reflecting ice with the sunlight-absorbing open sea, which in turn causes more warming and more melting.

In order to investigate how likely each of these diverse planets was to stay habitable over enormous (geological) timescales, I simulated each 100 times. Each time the planet started from a different initial temperature and was exposed to a randomly different set of climate events. These events represent climate-altering factors such as super volcano eruptions (like Mount Pinatubo but much larger) and asteroid impacts (like the one that killed the dinosaurs). On each of the 100 runs, the planet’s temperature was tracked until it became too hot or too cold or else had survived for 3 billion years, at which point it was deemed to have been a possible crucible for intelligent life.

Climate-altering: the 1991 eruption of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines blasted so much ash into the atmosphere that global temperatures temporarily dropped by 0.6˚C. SRA Blaze Lipowski / picryl

The simulation results give a definite answer to this habitability problem, at least in terms of the importance of feedbacks and luck. It was very rare (in fact, just one time out of 100,000) for a planet to have such strong stabilizing feedbacks that it stayed habitable all 100 times, irrespective of the random climate events. In fact, most planets that stayed habitable at least once did so fewer than ten times out of 100. On nearly every occasion in the simulation when a planet remained habitable for 3 billion years, it was partly down to luck. At the same time, luck by itself was shown to be insufficient. Planets that were specially designed to have no feedbacks at all, never stayed habitable; random walks, buffeted around by climate events, never lasted the course.

Repeat runs in the simulation were not identical: 1,000 different planets were generated randomly and each run twice. (a) results on first run, (b) results on second run. Green circles show success (stayed habitable for 3 billion years) and black failure. Toby Tyrrell, Author provided


This overall result, that outcomes depend partly on feedbacks and partly on luck, is robust. All sorts of changes to the modeling did not affect it. By implication, Earth must therefore possess some climate-stabilizing feedbacks but at the same time good fortune must also have been involved in it staying habitable. If, for instance, an asteroid or solar flare had been slightly larger than it was, or had occurred at a slightly different (more critical) time, we would probably not be here on Earth today. It gives a different perspective on why we are able to look back on Earth’s remarkable, enormously extended, history of life evolving and diversifying and becoming ever more complex to the point that it gave rise to us.

In the following video, Professor Toby Tyrrell discusses his research.


This article by Toby Tyrrell, Professor of Earth System Science, University of Southampton is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Engineers have built machines to scrub CO2 from the air – and it could halt climate change

by THE CONVERSATION — 7 hours ago in SYNDICATION

Credit: Unsplash

On Wednesday this week, the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere was measured at 415 parts per million (ppm). The level is the highest in human history, and is growing each year.

Amid all the focus on emissions reduction, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) says it will not be enough to avoid dangerous levels of global warming. The world must actively remove historical CO₂ already in the atmosphere – a process often described as “negative emissions.”

CO₂ removal can be done in two ways. The first is by enhancing carbon storage in natural ecosystems, such as planting more forests or storing more carbon in soil. The second is by using direct air capture (DAC) technology that strips CO₂ from the ambient air, then either store it underground or turn it into products.

US research published last week suggested global warming could be slowed with an emergency deployment of a fleet of “CO₂ scrubbers” using DAC technology. However, a wartime level of funding from government and business would be needed. So is direct air capture worth the time and money?

Direct air capture of CO2 will be needed to address climate change. Shutterstock

What’s DAC all about?

Direct air capture refers to any mechanical system capturing CO₂ from the atmosphere. Plants operating today use a liquid solvent or solid sorbent to separate CO₂ from other gases.

Swiss company Climeworks operates 15 direct air capture machines across Europe, comprising the world’s first commercial DAC system. The operation is powered by renewable geothermal energy or energy produced by burning waste.

The machines use a fan to draw air into a “collector,” inside which a selective filter captures CO₂. Once the filter is full, the collector is closed and the CO₂ is sequestered underground.

Canadian company Carbon Engineering uses giant fans to pull air into a tower-like structure. The air passes over a potassium hydroxide solution which chemically binds to the CO₂ molecules, and removes them from the air. The CO₂ is then concentrated, purified, and compressed.

Captured CO₂ can be injected into the ground to extract oil, in some cases helping to counteract the emissions produced by burning the oil.

The proponents of the Climeworks and Carbon Engineering technology say their projects are set for large-scale investment and deployment in coming years. Globally, the potential market value of DAC technology could reach US$100bn by 2030, on some estimates.

Artist impression of a DAC facility to be built in the US state of Texas. If built, it would be the largest of its kind in the world. Carbon Engineering

Big challenges ahead

Direct air capture faces many hurdles and challenges before it can make a real dent in climate change.

DAC technology is currently expensive, relative to many alternative ways of capturing CO₂, but is expected to become cheaper as the technology scales up. The economic feasibility will be helped by the recent emergence of new carbon markets where negative emissions can be traded.

DAC machines process an enormous volume of air, and as such are very energy-intensive. In fact, research has suggested direct air capture machines could use a quarter of global energy in 2100. However new DAC methods being developed could cut the technology’s energy use.

[Read: How this company leveraged AI to become the Netflix of Finland]

While the challenges to direct air capture are great, the technology uses less land and water than other negative emissions technologies such as planting forests or storing CO₂ in soils or oceans.

DAC technology is also increasingly gaining the backing of big business. Microsoft, for example, last year included the technology in its carbon negative plan.

Direct air capture is touted as a way to offset emissions from industry and elsewhere. Shutterstock

Opportunities for Australia

Australia is uniquely positioned to be a world leader in direct air capture. It boasts large areas of land not suitable for growing crops. It has ample sunlight, meaning there is great potential to host DAC facilities powered by solar energy. Australia also has some of the world’s best sites in which to “sequester” or store carbon in underground reservoirs.

Direct air capture is a relatively new concept in Australia. Australian company Southern Green Gas, as well as the CSIRO, are developing solar-powered DAC technologies. The SGG project, with which I am involved, involves modular units potentially deployed in large numbers, including close to sites where captured CO₂ can be used in oil recovery or permanently stored.

If DAC technology can overcome its hurdles, the benefits will extend beyond tackling climate change. It would create a new manufacturing sector and potentially re-employ workers displaced by the decline of fossil fuels.

Australia has ample sunlight and plenty of non-arable land where DAC facilities could be built. Shutterstock

Looking ahead

The urgency of removing CO₂ from the atmosphere seems like an enormous challenge. But not acting will bring far greater challenges: more climate and weather extremes, irreversible damage to biodiversity and ecosystems, species extinction, and threats to health, food, water, and economic growth.

DAC technology undoubtedly faces stiff headwinds. But with the right policy incentives and market drivers, it may be one of a suite of measures that start reversing climate change.

This article is republished from The Conversation by Deanna D’Alessandro, Professor & ARC Future Fellow, University of Sydney under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

NASA delays Juno spacecraft’s retirement after detecting mysterious radio waves


by THE COSMIC COMPANION — 1 day ago in SYNDICATION

Credit: NASA / JPL

The Juno spacecraft, orbiting Jupiter since 2016, has a new lease on life, thanks to NASA. This robotic explorer is now due to continue its mission, at least until September 2025.

A mission extension recently granted by NASA extends the Juno program means the spacecraft will continue to gather science about the largest planet in our Solar System and its retinue of dozens of moons. Some of these moons are known to have water (particularly Europa), and they may be among the most-likely places in the Solar System where we might find primitive life.

“Since its first orbit in 2016, Juno has delivered one revelation after another about the inner workings of this massive gas giant. With the extended mission, we will answer fundamental questions that arose during Juno’s prime mission while reaching beyond the planet to explore Jupiter’s ring system and Galilean satellites,” Scott Bolton of the Southwest Research Institute, states.
Juno what?

A look at the instruments and capabilities of the Juno spacecraft.

 Image credit: NASA/JPL

The Juno spacecraft, first proposed in 2003, launched to Jupiter in 2011. Its primary mission, to explore how Jupiter formed and developed over time, was set to complete in July 2021.

This extended mission includes 42 additional orbits of Jupiter, including flybys of its moons Ganymede, Io, and Europa. Observations will also be taken of polar cyclones at the poles of Jupiter, and NASA will undertake the first-ever detailed study of the faint ring system encircling the planet.

Not only will these flybys provide amazing views and data concerning the moons of this mighty world, but these close encounters will also result in a shorter orbit, increasing the number of orbits Juno is able to complete.
A look at how flybys of moons of Jupiter will shorten the time it takes for the spacecraft to orbit, increasing the number of total orbits, meaning more science. Image credit: NASA/JPL

“The mission designers have done an amazing job crafting an extended mission that conserves the mission’s single most valuable onboard resource — fuel. Gravity assists from multiple satellite flybys steer our spacecraft through the Jovian system while providing a wealth of science opportunities,” Ed Hirst, Juno project manager at Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) states.

The satellite flybys begin June 7, 2021, when Juno will pass low over Ganymede, reducing the orbital period of the spacecraft from 53 to 43 days. This pass will also send Juno hurtling toward the water moon of Europa. Following its arrival there on September 29, 2022, the orbital period of Juno will fall to 38 days. Another pair of encounters — on December 30, 2023 and February 3, 2024 — will reduce the time it takes Juno to orbit Jupiter down to just 33 days — roughly 63 percent of its original period.

Of course, technical issues or an accident could always silence Juno before the planned mission expires. But, Juno is ready to explore this fascinating system for years to come.

Although, I would TOTALLY listen to that station…

Somewhere, there may be alien DJ’s. Just not here. Image credit: The Cosmic Companion / DJ Image by DJIrocksit / Alien head by Pixabay

“Billy is face to face with outer space… Messages from distant stars… The local police calling all cars, radio waves… Hear them radio waves, radio waves…” — Radio Waves, Roger Waters

Juno also recently detected FM radio waves coming from one of Jupiter’s largest moons, Ganymede. The waves were detected in magnetic lines connecting Ganymede to the polar regions of Jupiter.

However, this is not likely to be the result of an extraterrestrial Wolfman Jack broadcasting out the biggest hits of Jupiter.

“It’s not E.T. It’s more of a natural function,” NASA spokesperson Patrick Wiggens tells KTVX in Utah.
See what Juno would look like, rotating in space. (Video credit: The Cosmic Companion / Created in NASA’s Eyes Visualization software.)

Radio emissions around Jupiter, first detected in 1955, have been studied by researchers for decades.

The signal, seen for just five seconds as the spacecraft screamed past Ganymede at 180,000 KPH (nearly 112,000 MPH), was likely the result of electrons amplifying radio waves, in a process called cyclotron maser instability (CMI). This same effect, which likely resulted in the detection, can also generate ultraviolet auroras, also seen by Juno.

Over the coming years, Juno will provide ongoing data to researchers managing future missions to Jupiter, including NASA’s Europa Clipper and the JUpiter ICy moons Explorer (JUICE) mission from the European Space Agency.


This article was originally published on The Cosmic Companion by James Maynard, founder and publisher of The Cosmic Companion. He is a New England native turned desert rat in Tucson, where he lives with his lovely wife, Nicole, and Max the Cat. You can read this original piece here.

Astronomy News with The Cosmic Companion is also available as a weekly podcast, carried on all major podcast providers. Tune in every Tuesday for updates on the latest astronomy news, and interviews with astronomers and other researchers working to uncover the nature of the Universe.

ENGLISH TABLOID DISCOVERS ATHEISM

Life after death: Brian Cox says physics 'ruled out' the human soul at particle level

LIFE after death theories collapse under scientific scrutiny because the field of particle physics has "ruled out" the possibility of humans having a soul, renowned physicist Brian Cox has claimed.

By SEBASTIAN KETTLEY

PUBLISHED: Mon, Jan 25, 2021 

Questions about the afterlife remain unanswered with the jury still out on whether life after death is real. Many people claim to know what happens when we die, based on anecdotal evidence and stories from so-called near-death experiences or NDEs. People who have stood on the brink of death often recall visions of bright lights or memories of seeing their deceased loved ones.

NDEs are often reported by people who have gone into cardiac arrest or were briefly declared clinically dead while on the operating table.

In some instances, the visions and memories are very detailed, such as the man who claimed he met Satan in hell.

The medical sciences have tried to explain these phenomena through residual brain activity or chemical reactions triggered by intense trauma.

Particle physicist and TV presenter Brian Cox has, however, taken the discussion one step further and explained why there is no measurable evidence of humans having souls that could live on after death.

Life after death: Professor Brian Cox thinks physics rules out a human soul (Image: GETTY)

Life after death: The particle physicist appeared on the Joe Rogan Podcast 

(Image: JOE RGAN YOUTUBE)

The popstar-turned-scientist appeared on the Joe Rogan Podcast where he discussed the idea of humans having souls, among other topics.

In his estimate, there is no observable force - the soul - that interacts with the human body at the subatomic level.

If such a force existed within us, it would strongly react with the particles our bodies are made of.

Instead, physicists have so far only observed four fundamental forces governing this world - gravity, the weak and strong nuclear force, and electromagnetism.

None of these forces could explain the concept of a soul trapped inside the body.

Brian Cox says humans are ‘configurations of atoms’

I would say that it's ruled out

Brian Cox, University of Manchester

Professor Cox, who teaches at the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Manchester, said: "So, here is my arm. It is made of electrons and protons and neutrons.

"If I have a soul in there, something we don't understand but it's a different kind of energy or whatever it is we don't have in physics at the moment.

"It interacts with matter because I'm moving my hand around.

"So whatever it is, it is something that interacts very strongly with matter."

Professor Cox went on to say scientists have made ultra-high precision measurements looking for a fifth force of nature, but have not found one.

Consequently, the human soul can be ruled out on the most fundamental level imaginable.

The physicist added: "If you want to suggest there's something else that interacts with matter strongly, then I would say that it's ruled out.

"I would go as far as to say it is ruled out by experiments.

"Or at least it is extremely subtle and you would have to jump through a lot of hoops to come up with a theory of some stuff that we wouldn't have seen when we've observed how matter interacts."

According to one theory, NDEs are caused by residual brain activity even when the body is shutting down.

Some researchers have proposed the visions and memories are hallucinations caused by not enough oxygen flowing into the brain.

Similarly, some theories speculate NDEs are hallucinations caused by brain cell death.

A more out-there theory suggests the dying body synthesises the psychoactive chemical N,N-Dimethyltryptamine or DMT.

Manchester Metropolitan University (MMU) researchers Neil Dagnall and Ken Drinkwater said: "Currently, there is no definitive explanation for why near-death experiences happen.

"But ongoing research still strives to understand this enigmatic phenomenon."

Physicist Michio Kaku says digital life after death is 'within reach'