Brazilian teen Lucas Tadao makes eco trays from cassava peels to fight

As global concern mounts over plastic pollution and the environmental damage caused by non-biodegradable materials, innovative solutions are emerging from unexpected quarters. In Brazil, 14-year-old student Lucas Tadao Sugahara Wernick is drawing national attention with his development of a biodegradable alternative to conventional Styrofoam food trays, using agricultural waste sourced from the country’s own backyard. The project, developed as a school science initiative in Curitiba, the capital of Paraná state, seeks to address the environmental impact of single-use plastics by using cassava peels and araucaria tree residues that would otherwise be discarded.

Lucas began exploring sustainable packaging materials after confronting the grim reality that Styrofoam, widely used for packaging fruits, vegetables, and meats, can persist in the environment for centuries. According to project documentation, Styrofoam can take up to 700 years to decompose, contributing significantly to long-term plastic pollution. Seeking environmentally responsible alternatives, Lucas turned to cassava peels, a by-product of Brazil’s well-established food industry, and to araucaria tree residues, which naturally fall from Paraná pine trees and are typically treated as waste.

The trays are produced by combining dried, ground cassava peels and processed araucaria residues with water and cassava starch. After cleaning and grinding the raw materials into fine particles, the mixture is heated and pressed into molds before undergoing a drying process. The use of cassava starch, a natural binding agent derived from the abundant local crop, eliminates the need for petroleum-based plastics or synthetic additives. The resulting trays are intended to replace traditional Styrofoam containers for packaging fresh produce.

Experimental results suggest the biodegradable trays offer a dramatic improvement in environmental performance compared to Styrofoam. Lucas reported that under suitable conditions, the trays decompose in roughly 30 days - a stark contrast to the centuries-long persistence of conventional alternatives. To confirm the packaging’s real-world viability, the project included tests for compression strength, pressure resistance, torsion, water absorption, and biodegradability. The trays demonstrated sufficient mechanical strength for use in food packaging while successfully breaking down in moist soil.

Cassava peels are a particularly promising resource for such innovations, given that Brazil is one of the world’s largest producers of cassava. The peels contain valuable natural starch that can serve as an adhesive, supporting the formation of lightweight composites when combined with fibrous tree residues. This approach reduces reliance on new raw materials, aligning with the principles of a circular economy by giving new life to materials that would otherwise be wasted.

Lucas’s invention has brought recognition at Brazilian science fairs, including the PUCPR Science Fair, and has been published in the proceedings of a scientific initiation symposium. The success of the project underlines the broader potential of agricultural waste as a raw material for biodegradable packaging, a solution that is gaining prominence as countries worldwide seek to curb their reliance on petroleum-based plastics. While additional development is needed to enable large-scale manufacturing and deployment, the project demonstrates how grassroots innovation, using local resources and waste streams, could play a key role in reducing plastic pollution and shaping a more sustainable future.

Costa Rica’s Wild Capuchin Monkeys Are Using AI Touchscreens

CaupchinAI is a good use case for a form of artificial intelligence. 

Researchers put touch screens in the forests in Costa Rica to try and test the intelligence of the capuchin monkeys. The screen activates one a monkey comes near it and gives a task; if the monkey completes it they get a treat. 

And the results were interesting in that monkeys did interact and get rewards. And there’s some evidence that they learned from the interaction too.  

https://ticotimes.net/2026/08/14/costa-rica-capuchin-monkeys-ai-touchscreen-study

Gladys West, GPS pioneer and mathematician, dies at 95 : NPR

Earlier this year, Dr West passed away at the age of 95. Her mathematics in calculating the surface of the earth, led to the development of GPS. 

There’s a short history of her life in the attached NPR story, but I just started reading her memoir. It’s fascinating stuff. She grew up in the Jim Crow South, but managed to be very successful and her legacy lives on. 

https://www.npr.org/2026/01/23/nx-s1-5685027/gladys-west-gps-mathematician

Is it just me…

Two stories caught my attention this week related to Disney. And they made me scratch my head…

The first was about the sale of the lakers. Bob Iger as the CEO of Disney threaded a bit of a needle in protecting “his” company from the orange menace. Iger was no fan of the convicted felon, and is reportedly a democrat who sometimes used to express some views that ran that direction. But he decided he wanted to buy the basketball team, and partnered with Jared Kushners brother to buy them. 

I would argue that the Kushner family, long connected to the convicted felon, are about as close as you can get to him. It’s just so weird and reminds us that people - especially the wealthy elite - are only in it for themselves and are willing to put anything aside to get what they want. 

The second story was about Pat Mcaffee, the personality at espn who often espouses a point of view that supports the maga movement, yet claims he doesn’t want to get political with his show. (And for the record, several others who espoused the opposing view were actually fired from espn for doing essentially the same thing). 

He became the highest paid personality recently, and espn laid off a large number of people (who kept it about the sports and could be considered actual journalists), presumably to lean into Pats POV for ratings. 

And what does Pat do next? He has the convicted felon on his show, and then appears with him at something called “the patriot games” (which were laughably stupid, as you might guess). 

Thus throwing out a sense of “not being political” … how silly this all became. 

Photos: Total solar eclipse 2026 | CNN

Yesterday, there was a full solar eclipse, visible from Northern Europe, and up into Iceland. 

I know some people who saw it and their comment was: Beautiful. 

https://www.cnn.com/2026/08/12/science/gallery/photos-total-solar-eclipse

In 1961 President Kennedy picked Ed Dwight to become America's first Black astronaut candidate, but NASA never selected him, so he spent decades sculpting bronze instead — and finally flew to space at 90

I’ve mentioned Ed Dwight in previous newsletters, but it’s worth revisiting.  Dwight nearly was the first black man in space - if he had been selected among the first group of astronauts in the 1960s.

But sadly, while Kennedy had wanted Dwight to be part of the story, when Kennedy was assassinated in 1963, that dream died along with him, and Dwight was excluded. And it would be another two decades before a black man would go into space.

https://spacedaily.com/m-in-1961-president-kennedy-picked-ed-dwight-to-become-americas-first-black-astronaut-candidate-but-nasa-never-selected-him-so-he-spent-decades-sculpting-bronze-instead-and-finally-flew-to/

Wealth inequity

Wealth is so out of control these days.  The uber wealthy have grown to a point where they have become oligarchs (actual definition: An oligarch is an extremely rich and powerful person who uses extreme wealth and business ties to control or influence government and society. The word comes from ancient Greek terms meaning "to rule by the few")

Back in 1990, there were just 66 people in the US who had a billion dollars or more.  And the top 1% of the population controlled a little under $5 trillion in total.

Today, there are about 3,400 people with a billion or more (that's more than a 50 fold increase, and the curve is something like exponential growth).  And the amount of wealth controlled by the top 1% is around $56 trillion (an 11 fold increase!).

But the number of people in the top 1% only increased by about 20% (1.08 million people > 1.33 million people).  Essentially meaning the group at the very top accumulated most of the wealth.

And the crazy part is that this increase is almost exclusively  "new money," accumulated in an environment where de-regulation is key.  Tax rules are favorable, companies can do what they want, and the people that run companies are profiting off the backs of their under-appreciated employees.

It's crazy, and can lead to nowhere good in the long run.  We can and should be taxing them more.  I have no issues with someone accumulating wealth, but at what point is it "too much" or excessive?  Seems to me that there should be a threshold (IMHO $50 million is more than enough for anyone and is generational in nature), and in excess of that, you have to contribute to society in some way - through taxation or by having to move it into a charitable endeavor.

On that note, I recently re-watched the re-imagined adaptation of Sherlock Holmes called "Elementary" which came out about 15 years ago.  Holmes is still British, but he's solving crimes in New York with the help of Watson, played by Lucy Liu.  It is entertaining, but takes a few modern-day liberties.  

One of those liberties is to have storylines around Holmes' father, Morland.  He comes from old money, and has a lot of power in the world to do as he pleases.  At some point in the story arc, new money comes into the picture and starts aggressively moving into Morland's domain.  He can stave it off at first, and then must start calling on other old money players to band together.  Only, he gets betrayed as a group of them, who sell out to these new players - and they set him up to be killed off.

What we're seeing play out around us is that storyline to a point.  The new money players are edging out the old money - and it becomes a matter of them adapting, or they fall behind.  Life is imitating art to a degree.

If you know, you know.

Giant U.S. company cancels major employment perk for new staff - TheStreet

This is an interesting turn of events. While we may simply sluff it off as corporate greed and kind of what we expect today, there’s a little more to this. 

Many of the large companies have events, retreats, and otherwise use Disney World as a kind of a fun perk for employees. 

Taking these perks away and “cost cutting” has a bottom line impact to Disney. 

While Disney doesn’t provide exact figures, it’s estimated that there are around 1,000 corporate events held each year.  And that’s not even considering events with under 250 people. They book rooms, using meeting space, dine, take advantage of the amenities, and often will rent a park for a signature event one evening. 

That’s a lot of potential lost revenue. 

https://www.thestreet.com/employment/pwc-cancels-employment-perk-internship-disney-world

Most people can hold their breath underwater for a minute or two, but a people called the Bajau can spend up to five hours a day underwater, diving to depths that would unnerve a scuba diver — and scientists have traced the ability to a change written into their very DNA

If you don’t believe in any kind of human evolution, I present to you this story about bajau people who have adapted because they live near the sea, and spend a lot of time under the water … their bodies can maintain their oxygen supply for much longer than most humans, go deeper than you and I, and they have a unique ability to recover quickly once they return to the surface; they can dive again almost immediately. 

https://spacedaily.com/d-most-people-can-hold-their-breath-underwater-for-a-minute-or-two-but-a-people-called-the-bajau-can-spend-up-to-five-hours-a-day-underwater-diving-to-depths-that-would-unnerve-a-scuba-diver/

When a child mixes white school glue with liquid starch, the long polyvinyl acetate chains in the glue tangle around borate ions from the starch and form a stretchy net — the same cross-linking chemistry that makes slime peel off a table in one rubbery sheet instead of a sticky smear. - The Artful Age

I can remember the teachers in my kids’ preschool making slime! From a mixture of cornstarch and school glue. It’s safe, non toxic, and fun to play with. 

I made it at home to play with too. 

Well it turns out that there’s an interesting thing that happens in chemistry that makes this a kind of a unique substance - that has other uses. 

You can read the details of how it works here:

https://theartfulage.com/ap-when-a-child-mixes-white-school-glue-with-liquid-starch-the-long-polyvinyl-acetate-chains-in-the-glue-tangle-around-borate-ions-from-the-starch-and-form-a-stretchy-net-the-same-cross-linking-chemis/

Alzheimer's patient in Broward sees brain plaques cleared after year and a half of treatment - CBS Miami

Here’s a breakthrough in Alzheimer’s research. Scientists have known that the plaque buildup is the main factor in the onset of Alzheimer’s. There are various things one can do to try and protect against the plaque buildup and the clearing of it. 

But now Eli Lilly has a drug they are testing.  It’s an anti-amyloid medication and in early trials it is clearing the plaque efficiently. 

More needs to be done, but it has some promise as a treatment.  And probably will lead to other things as well. 

https://www.cbsnews.com/miami/news/pompano-beach-alzheimers-patient-treatment-cleared-plaques/

3D-printed porous ceramic cubes cool rooms by 12.6°F with no electricity or refrigerants

Essentially, researchers used the concept of a clay pot that is soaked in water and expanded on it. 

The science is that said clay pot will use evaporative cooling to reduce the ambient temperature. And there’s a fun little science experiment wherein you can take a bottle of soda and cover it with a wet clay pot to cool the drink over a short amount of time. 

The group looked at shapes that can more evenly disperse the evaporative effect and can make those shapes using a 3D print. 

Now there’s a use case I can rally behind. 

https://interestingengineering.com/innovation/3d-printed-ceramic-cooling-cubes

Four astronauts, 3 spacecraft, 2 weeks in orbit: Artemis III will be NASA's most complicated mission ever | Space

I have to say that this particular plan seems complicated, perhaps overly so. 

The plan is to launch the Artemis astronauts aboard the Orion spacecraft, and then have it synch up with both of the proposed lunar landers (one from SpaceX, the other from blue origin) to test up how all this will work out.

It’s a reasonable test, but it just feels like a lot to try and coordinate. 

We’ll see how this works out. 

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/artemis/four-astronauts-3-spacecraft-2-weeks-in-orbit-artemis-iii-will-be-nasas-most-complicated-mission-ever

Finland's Sand Battery Cuts Emissions 70% Without a Single Rare Earth | OilPrice.com

Another really clever advancement in energy storage. Finland has developed a battery that uses sand - but does NOT use any sort of rare earth metals. Which is good news for the environment.  

And, there’s another benefit! Emissions are cut as the battery is used. And it appears to be fairly efficient. 

https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Finlands-Sand-Battery-Cuts-Emissions-70-Without-a-Single-Rare-Earth.html

Good synopsis on LinkedIn

The Job You Applied For Never Existed?

William Rochelle

Customer & Operations Executive | Customer Experience, Contact Centers & Trust and Safety | Scales Teams, Fixes Broken Processes, Drives Retention & Builds Growth That Holds | Published Author

July 27, 2026

What If the Job You Applied For Never Existed?

How long have you been searching for a job on LinkedIn?

Three months. Six months. A year.

How many resumes have you rewritten? How many cover letters have you tailored to a specific company? How many times have you clicked Easy Apply, watched the applicant count climb past 200, and waited for a reply that never came?

Now sit with a harder question.

What if there was never a job?

That question sits at the center of a real investigation. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has opened an inquiry into LinkedIn over allegations that the company advertised and profited from fake or misleading listings, the kind people now call ghost jobs, while selling Premium subscriptions to people who believed they were paying for a better shot at real work.

His office issued a Civil Investigative Demand. It wants LinkedIn's documents, internal communications, marketing, and verification practices. For context, LinkedIn reported roughly $17.8 billion in revenue last fiscal year. Independent studies cited by the state estimate that ghost jobs make up 20 to 33 percent of online listings. By the state's account, LinkedIn does not independently verify the hiring status of most postings on its platform.

A ghost job can be a role that was already filled. A role placed on hold. A role with no approved budget. A role posted with no real intention to hire anyone.

The listing looks real. The company looks real. The requirements look real. The silence that follows feels real too.

Here is who pays for that silence.

People who are out of work. People who are scared. People trying to keep the lights on, the mortgage current, and the kids fed. People over 50 who spent 25 years building a career on relationships and handshakes, and who now log in every morning to a feed that promises opportunity and hands them a scoreboard instead.

Many of them pay close to $40 a month for Premium because they believe it puts them in front of the right people. A better seat. An inside track. The investigation asks a blunt question about that seat. Were people paying to chase jobs that were never there?

LinkedIn is only the newest name in a longer story.

Look at Workday.

Derek Mobley applied to more than 100 jobs at companies that run Workday's screening tools. He was rejected every single time. One of those rejections hit his inbox at 1:30 AM on a weekend, sent by a system, for a job he had applied to days earlier. He sued. He is a Black man over 40 who also lives with anxiety and depression, and he argued that Workday's AI screened people like him out before a human ever looked at the file.

In May 2025, a federal judge certified his case as a nationwide collective action under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act. Then came the number that should stop everyone cold. In its own court filing, Workday disclosed that its system rejected roughly 1.1 billion applications during the period in question. Not 1.1 million. Billion. Workday's software reaches more than 65 percent of the Fortune 500.

The machine does not forget either. Modern hiring systems score you before a person ever sees you, and you never see the score. Recruiters log in to find everyone already sorted into tiers, top of the pile down to the bottom, and on high volume roles they often read only the top. The rest are never opened. Your application was scanned by software, ranked low, and buried. Your record then sits in the database long after the door closed, because retention rules keep it there.

Then there is Stanford.

Researchers at Stanford, Chapman, and Northeastern ran the largest independent study of AI hiring tools done to date. They examined more than 4 million applications from 3 million people across 156 large employers, all screened by the same vendor. They found that 26 percent of Black applicants and about 15 percent of Asian applicants had applied to jobs where the AI produced outcomes that meet the federal government's own definition of discrimination. Had the tool recommended Black and Asian candidates at the same rate as white candidates, 40,000 more applications would have advanced.

The shape of that finding matters most. When a single vendor screens for hundreds of companies, a rejection stops being one company saying no. It becomes the same algorithm saying no everywhere at once. Rejected by one, rejected by all. The bias then hides in plain sight, because it vanishes the moment you look at the totals instead of the individual roles.

Put the three together and a pattern steps forward.

LinkedIn is under investigation over whether people paid to chase jobs that may not have been real. Workday is defending a case built on its own admission that it rejected more than a billion applications by machine. Stanford has the evidence on how that machinery carries bias at scale. Different companies. Same layer. The layer that now sits between a human being and a paycheck.

There are two sides here, and both deserve to be stated plainly.

LinkedIn says its policies require job postings to be authentic and connected to real hiring. It points to verification tools, employer activity signals, and rules against misleading listings. Its position, in plain terms, is that it provides the tools and the disclosures and never promised anyone a reply or a hire. A verified company does not mean every role is funded. An "actively reviewing" tag shows recent activity, not a guarantee that anyone gets hired. This is an open investigation. LinkedIn has every right to answer it, and no final determination has been made.

Workday, for its part, has argued that it is not the employer and does not make the hiring decision. A court will test that argument.

Hold all of that. It is fair.

Now hold this next to it.

For years, we told people the problem was them. Fix the resume. Add the keywords. Network harder. Smile more. Stay positive. Their families asked why it was taking so long. The government counted them as a statistic. Friends wondered, quietly, what they were doing wrong. The whole time, a scoring system they could not see was ranking them, hiding them, keeping their record, and passing them over at a speed and scale no human hiring manager could match.

Think about what that does to a person. Especially someone over 50 who did everything the old rules taught them, who paid the monthly fee to stay in the room, and who is now told by software, without a word, that they do not make the cut. That is not a bruised ego. That is months of savings, sleep, and self-respect spent on a process that may have been closed before the first click.

This is bigger than one lawsuit against Workday. It is bigger than one study out of Stanford. It is bigger than one investigation into LinkedIn.

The people filling out these applications are not the ones who failed.

It's not the applicant.

It's the process.

#LinkedIn #GhostJobs #JobSearch #HiringTransparency #LinkedInPremium #AIHiring #Workday #HiringBias #AgeDiscrimination #ApplicantTrackingSystems #ConsumerProtection #FutureOfWork

Original article: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/job-you-applied-never-existed-william-rochelle-any1e

A Danish drone boat sitting at anchor in the Baltic filmed a 330-foot Russian corvette running past at 650 feet with its transponder off, tagged the crew and the helicopter on the pad, and got the quadcopter wrong

Such a strange occurrence. And it should serve to remind us that even though we have this technology, things can and do happen as we watch. 

So take what the media tells you about conflicts around the world with a heaping of salt. It is entirely possible that the story is wrong. 

 

https://www.autonocion.com/us/danish-drone-boat-baltic-russian-corvette/

Preach!

Reusable magnetic invention removes microplastics plus some PFAS from water

A team in Australia has come up with a washing machine sized device that uses magnets to remove microplastics from water, and they appear to have a way to dispose of the plastics  

https://phys.org/news/2026-07-reusable-magnetic-microplastics-pfas.html

Brightline Rail Service

If you aren't aware, the state of Florida has a passenger train service that runs between South Florida and Orlando called Brightline.  This is the only privately run passenger service in the nation (or at least that's what I've heard).  

The issue at hand is that they are claiming that they are losing money .... and may declare bankruptcy. 

But I wanted to dig into that a little.  Let's start with a short (and pretty superficial) history lesson.  The company running the service is a direct descendant of Henry Flagler's Railroad (if you don't recall that story, he was a tycoon that was attempting to remake Florida to his liking in the early 20th century, and secured land to build a railroad to allow for the export of goods that he could profit from, and bring wealthy tourists into the state for holidays, as well).  

At some point, that rail service became Florida East Coast railway. It only provided for the movement of goods (but not passengers) in and out of Florida, and primarily went from Jacksonville to Miami. 

The company has had various ownership, and has had investors.  They've also setup various subsidiaries, one of which is the Florida East Coast Industries, which they tell you is not part of the bigger FEC. Whatever that means.

At some point during the Obama administration, there was a move to provide federal funds for passenger rail service around the country.  There was a consortium that applied for money to run a train service between Miami and Orlando, with a desire to expand that later to more of the state.  The administration approved it, but the state said "no thanks" because of politics.  

The FECI stepped forward and said they would privately fund it.  Their stated goal was to be able to make the trip in under 3 hours (it takes 4 by car), and be competitive with airline pricing.  Business people could benefit.  It would run between the airports, so you have to park somewhere, take the train, and then somehow get from the airport to your destination (rental car, uber, maybe bus?) so your all-in price is higher - but it would be if you flew, also.

The thing is that the FEC already owns the right of way and the tracks.  So, in principle this would be a lower-cost option.  They essentially piggy-backed off of the original plan, and started building.  They used their own money, and built a passenger service that just ran in the South Florida corridor.  That, in turn, raised more capital.  

I should note that at one point, Brightline had a partnership with Richard Branson's "Virgin" name, which provided some capital.  But that relationship went south, and ended in lawsuits.

And, oh, by the way, there was already a passenger service in the same corridor that was funded by the counties, with some money from the state. So in a way, this new service made no sense.  But it did run on different tracks, which the company controlled! 

Now, here's where the bankruptcy aspect comes in.  And mind you, this is mostly my speculation. 

One problem is that they changed ownership and took private equity money, which always looks for a return on their investment.  

And so now, it appears that they want some government subsidies.  By claiming they're losing money, it sets up this weird showdown.  They've already laid tracks and have the trains.  And they have ridership... the threat is that it would be a shame if they ceased operation wouldn't it?  

Assuming this is true, welcome to the 21st century version of capitalism.  Which is right on brand for what Flagler was doing.