There’s an interesting article over at ZenHabits about how to find your life purpose. It focuses on the idea of people falling into the trap of being self-centered, focused on a personal bubble representing the small world around you. The article talks about breaking free of that and helping others as a way to gain motivation and learn your purpose. I’m not sure if it’ll work…but I’ll give it a try. 🙂
Using hemp to make supercapcitors
Scientists have managed to take the inner bark from hemp plants, more of a waste product when hemp is used for clothing or building materials, and processed it into a material that is similar to graphene and can be made into a supercapacitor with similar performance – yet at a fraction of the cost. Pretty cool application for an impressive plant. Alta Supercaps is looking into small scale production. Read more at the BBC.
BPA-Free Plastic May Be Just as Bad
Just a reminder that BPA-free plastic may be just as bad for you! It’s not that companies are purposefully misleading consumers, but rather a case of using a new, untested additive to replace BPA, but an additive with similar function. The replacement, BPS, is showing up in urine samples in 81% of Americans. Read more at Scientific American, also this post from earlier this year.
Farmers succeed in developing herbicide-resistant SuperWeeds
Thanks to glyphosate-resistant genetically modified seeds from Monsanto, farmers in the US have been able to vastly increase their use of glyphosate (the main ingredient in the weed-killer RoundUp), and hasten the evolution of common weeds into new, herbicide-resistant superweeds. These SuperWeeds are out of control in areas of the midwest and Kansas. Well done, farmers!
This is exactly the sort of outcome logic would predict, so let’s hope they intended to do that and aren’t instead just focused on their short-term profits. Umm, yeah. I think the only surprise would be that the weeds adapted so quickly…I’m sure Monsanto was hoping for a few more decades of profits to be had from that RoundUp/Seed combination!
Read more here: Farmers Fight Explosion of “Superweeds” – Scientific American.
Ice cream sandwiches don’t melt?
Gross TheDenverChannel.com reports on a discovery a local mom stumbled upon. Walmart-brand ice cream sandwiches don’t melt, or rather, they look pretty much solid even after being left out overnight. I bet you can guess why! Yep, it’s not what most people think of as ice cream. To reduce cost, they’ve substituted cord syrup, guar gum, and cellulose gum for the milk-based products we’d normally expect. Yuck.
Read more here: Why don’t ice cream sandwiches melt anymore? – 7NEWS Denver TheDenverChannel.com.