Produced

The water recovered from hydrocarbon reservoirs contains critical minerals that are key to many technical and industrial operations. Credit: Texas A&M EngineeringIn an ironic twist, a treasure trove of critical minerals is dumped out with water considered too polluted and expensive to clean.Texas A&M University researcher Dr. Hamidreza Samouei is investigating the components of produced water and says this waste byproduct of oil and gas operations contains nearly every element in the periodic table, including…

Fortnite's JokeNite is bringing comedians together for players to vote and watch on an exclusive island. JokeNite--a new comedy show within the game--is produced by Trevor Noah. Noah has written, hosted, and produced more than 1,000 episodes of The Daily Show among different comedy standup specials for more than a decade.At the start of the show, the audience will vote on who among four comedians they want to see, but if nobody votes, there will be a Mega-Medley that will show a small portion of each…

The U.S.-based nonprofit linked some of the world’s largest car manufacturers to aluminum allegedly produced with forced labor by Uyghurs and other ethnic minorities in China’s western Xinjiang region and other parts of the country.China is accused of running labor transfer programs in which Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities are forced to toil in factories as part of a longstanding campaign of assimilation and mass detention.A United Nations report in 2022 found China may have committed crimes against humanity in…

Credit: Sveta K from Pexels Since the creation of the National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) in 1968, the U.S. government has paid over $51 billion to cover flood losses. Almost half of these payouts went to just 25 counties, among the fastest-growing counties by population. A new paper published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and…

The Tesla logo can be seen on a smartphone against a red background.Photo: Daniel Reinhardt/picture alliance (Getty Images)Tesla, unsurprisingly, reinvented how we all perceive car keys. With the option of using a credit-card-like “key” to access and drive your Model 3, most owners employ Phone As Key technology to effectively eliminate the function of a traditional key. When you walk up to your car with your phone in your pocket, the car unlocks. To drive, press the brake and shift into drive and you’re on your way. The…

A super PAC with ties to OpenAI CEO Sam Altman is lavishing money on some embarrassingly bad ads supporting President Joe Biden’s longshot challenger, Rep. Dean Phillips (D-Minn.). According to disclosures, We Deserve Better, launched last year, has spent $665,000 so far boosting Phillips, including $154,000 on TV ads.  Phillips, a late entry into the presidential race, is pouring his energy into New Hampshire, operating on the theory that a triumph in the first-in-the nation primary, where Biden will not appear…

Microbes living in our guts ooze a substance that could help protect us against excessive weight gain, according to observations in mice.The bacteria-derived compound may explain why early exposure to antibiotics can play a role in childhood obesity, a condition which is rising globally.Vanderbilt University biochemist Catherine Shelton and colleagues discovered this by giving young mice a high or low fat diet, with or without exposure to antibiotics. Mice only given penicillin antibiotics did not gain weight, but those…

Credit: Ethan D. Kyzivat When it comes to greenhouse gases, methane is one the biggest contributors. Not only is it massively abundant—it's about 25 times more potent than carbon dioxide at trapping heat in the atmosphere. That makes tracking methane emissions critically important, and nowhere more so than in the Arctic, which is now the fastest…

In its goal to diversify the supply chain, a new report says Apple plans to produce 25% of iPhones in India in the next two to three years, making the country manufacture more than 50 million iPhones annually.That said, China would still remain the largest iPhone producer as Apple relies on the existing supply chain to develop and manufacture new technologies for its latest iPhone models.According to The Wall Street Journal, this increase in production will be possible thanks to Foxconn constructing a new plant…

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain MIT geologists have found that a clay mineral on the seafloor, called smectite, has a surprisingly powerful ability to sequester carbon over millions of years. Under a microscope, a single grain of the clay resembles the folds of an accordion. These folds are known to be effective traps for organic…