Space power: The dream of beaming solar energy from orbit

A company tested the feasibility of beaming energy from space by testing out a land based solution. 

They took their prototype system to a football field and beamed the energy across that expanse. 

You can't fault them for proving out their equipment without having to launch into space, for now. 

And now they're about ready to take it to that next step. And with the cost to launch being at a reasonable place, it's certainly feasible. 

https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20251029-the-beam-dream-should-we-build-solar-farms-in-space

Female-Led Arab Team Turn Coffee and Plastic Waste into Activated Carbon, Capturing CO2 in the Atmosphere

The outcome - using coffee and plastic to create a carbon capture device  to reduce CO2 - is pretty cool. 

But more than that this was brought about by a group of women who are Arabic. In some places, women are not allowed to work  as researchers, so it's good to see something positive like this. 

https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/female-led-arab-team-turn-coffee-and-plastic-waste-into-activated-carbon-capturing-co2-in-the-atmosphere/

Reversing peanut advice prevented tens of thousands of allergy cases, researchers say : NPR

This is a remarkable story. It's peculiar how peanut allergies spiked for around 20 years and became a thing so a researcher started studying what was going on. 

He got the peanut industry to fund the research and then studied children in Israel who had a lower incidence of peanut allergies against children from similar backgrounds who lived in the US. 

And what he found was that children in Israel were given a peanut snack fairly commonly from a very young age, where children in the states were not. 

And after studying further the conclusion was that avoiding peanuts in young children actually increased the likelihood of peanut allergies. 

The recommendation, then, was to introduce peanuts early, and the number of cases we y down. 

Science for the win. 

https://www.npr.org/2025/10/21/nx-s1-5580211/peanut-allergy-study

Scientists May Have Found a Simple Way to Reverse Aging Eyes

Well that's cool.

Working with lab animals, a group of researchers have determined that a lack of fatty acids reduces eyesight. And by reintroducing them, the aging of eyes can be reversed. 

I wonder if there's a course of action we can take as humans to help maintain healthy eyes. Time will tell…

https://scitechdaily.com/scientists-may-have-found-a-simple-way-to-reverse-aging-eyes/

Hidden pathogens uncovered in Napoleon’s doomed Russian invasion

As the article notes, Napoleons march to Moscow was one of the costliest war efforts, ever. 

The cold, the distance, and most notably disease wiped out his army. 

Now, we are learning through dna research that the biggest factor was disease.  And not just a single strain of typhoid, but rather a host of diseases that ravaged his army. 

I find it kind of fascinating to think about how perhaps things could have gone differently if we had antibiotics or vaccines. 

And it should serve as a reminder to us about what could (and perhaps will) happen to the US population if we don't immunize against diseases. 

The attached pictograph is one of the most famous depictions of the effort, it shows the size of his army as it left France, in brown and the returning army in black. It also has a  scale for time and relative temperature along the bottom. 

https://www.wesh.com/article/napoleon-1812-invasion-army-diseases-dna/69151987

Scientist develops game-changing new compound that solves major issue with plastics: 'People told me I was wasting my time'

Sometimes you just have to ignore the voices that tell you no, or that you are wasting your time. 

Enter a professor at Boise state who had never worked with polymers before, but who decided that plastic waste was a problem he could help with in some way. 

So over the course of several years, he self taught about polymers and their reactions. 

And he came up with an engineered form of a polymer that's stable under most conditions, but can be easily broken down into its base elements for re-use. 

Sure, it's nowhere close to be a commercial product, but it could (and probably will) be at some point. 

It's pretty cool what a little ingenuity and some commitment can do. 

https://www.thecooldown.com/green-tech/closed-loop-recycling-plastic-waste-sustainable/

Transparent solar windows hit Chinese homes — Energy everywhere you see

This is pretty cool. A thin, clear coating is placed on a window to collect solar radiation. This radiation is then transferred to photovoltaic cells on the edge of the window. 

And … voila. Energy is easily stored and can be used in the building that has the windows. 

https://www.ecoportal.net/en/transparent-solar-windows-chinese-homes/13594/