Beware Of Artificial Intelligence: Can These AI Models Replace Humans?
Less than two decades ago, the most advanced and modern version of artificial intelligence was a pager. Max it would do was help send short alerts to people connected to the system. Today we have advanced artificial intelligence systems for literally everything. A question troubling you? Google. Alexa. A song stuck in your head? Shazam. Want some food delivered? We have literal robots delivering food on their own. Smart AI surrounds us to perform the most basic to the most complex tasks for us. Now, this is no Sci-Fi movie. No, robots will not take over the world and make us robotized. (Or are they?) But is it a threat to us humans in other ways? The way modern machinery replaced laborers and other workers in mills and factories, can this AI software replace us in offices? What is artificial intelligence at the end? What is an AI model? A computer system that has limited knowledge and does what it is coded as. Right? No. The recent AI software development is both fascinating and terrifying. Fascinating that humans have progressed this far to make life-like non-living things that work for us. Terrifying that humans have gone so far, so what’s next? What will the AI world witness next? 1. AI-Generated Art/Image Multiple AI tools that work with images popped up recently. These AI image generators produce complex images with a mere click of a button, Work that a graphic designer or a painter will take hours to make. AI art generators became a popular trend where users would spend a few dollars and generate art in a state of shock. Stable Diffusion AI is a text-to-image model. This shocking marvel of artificial intelligence can generate an image of whatever you type in it. You can type “a purple girl holding a lightsaber in the middle of a book cupboard” and this Ai will have this image in front of you. Another one of these AI image generators is Lensa. This AI makes a user upload their selfies and charges a few dollars and delivers that selfie in various styles, eras, and modes. People on social media platforms like TikTok were sharing their faces as a Greek god, a Renaissance-era painting, or even someone from the future. After these AI art generators became popular, many artists and people pointed out that these bots and AI were stealing from artists. While those AI make beautiful images and versions, they also steal from artists. While casually hiding their signatures and other identification marks as pointed out by this user. 2. AI-Generated Songwriting And Music Some musicians use data to train machine learning models depending on their desired sound. Others input their musical preferences based on bands or digital sounds into a neural network. An algorithm system modeled after the neurological function of the human brain, which subsequently composes melodies and rhythm patterns. The way musicians employ AI-based music production will probably continue to change as it grows more sophisticated and pervasive. Who can predict the unexpected rhythms and sounds that will emerge? Independent artists can quickly produce royalty-free music using apps like Mubert, Ecrett Music, and Songen. These services make use of AI-assisted engines to generate song ideas that users can then edit and complete. Additionally, they assist in preventing the unauthorized use of copyrighted works, which AI has proven to be quite helpful in identifying. 3. AI-Generated Voices This AI is on the same lines as text-to-speech but with a twist. Microsoft’s VALL-E. There are many AI similar to VALL-E that use something called a “neural codec language model.” It listens to a person’s voice, breaks it down into discrete parts (referred to as “tokens”) using EnCodec, and then compares those tokens to training data to determine how that voice would sound if it said additional sentences than the three-second sample. Using this, you can make this AI mimic the sounds of anyone from celebrities to normal people. Great for pranks, but also can be a huge welcome sign for scammers and hackers. Robots and artificial intelligence (AI) will displace some human occupations, but they will also generate new ones. Since 2000, 1.7 million manufacturing jobs have been gradually eliminated thanks to robots and automation systems. On the other hand, it is anticipated that by 2025, AI will generate 97 million new jobs. Some jobs will continue to be replaced by AI. Workers should anticipate hiring disruptions as a result of AI in a variety of areas. Including healthcare, agriculture, and industrial sectors. But it is anticipated that AI will increase the need for professionals, particularly in the fields of robotics and software engineering.
The “Sinking” Himalayan Village In India: What is Happening?
Joshimath, an Indian Himalayan town that has been gradually sinking into the ground, has had hundreds of residents evacuated. The BBC’s Vineet Khare spoke to specialists to determine whether the village might be spared as people waited in limbo. Joshimath is located in the state of Uttarakhand, and its chief minister, Pushkar Singh Dhami, stated that the subsidence has affected almost 25% of the town’s territory. Over 2.5 square kilometers, Joshimath, which has a 25,000 population, contains over 4,500 buildings (0.96 sq miles). Authorities have been tearing down the unsafe structures out of more than 800 buildings that have developed cracks. Joshimath, which is situated in an area subject to earthquakes, was built on the remnants of a landslide brought on by an earthquake. Landslides are a frequent occurrence, weakening the soil. Geoscientist and adjunct professor at the National Institute of Advanced Studies, CP Rajendran, cautions that the subsidence won’t stop until a new lower level is reached. Why is The Village “Sinking”? According to experts, several things, including years of uncontrolled construction, hydropower projects, and the absence of an adequate drainage system, is to blame for the current situation. Heavy development in Joshimath was subject to restrictions even in 1976, according to a government report, which recommended that it only be permitted after testing the “load-bearing capacity of the land.” Additionally, the research recommended establishing suitable sewage and drainage systems as well as concrete cement blocks to prevent erosion.“The company is responsible for the damage to the historic, cultural town of Joshimath, and it should compensate residents,” says Atul Sati, the convenor of a group that has been holding protests to save the town.
The Dark Side of Open Ai’s ChatGPT, A Threats Against Intelligence
Technology- a boon or a curse? There have been countless debates on this topic. Although the greatest of minds don’t seem to have landed on a definite conclusion. New technological developments keep on coming to support or question the argument. On the wide display of technological marvels, we have a new entry – OpenAi’s ChatGPT. What is ChatGPT? Based on GPT-3.5, OpenAI created the large language model chatbot called ChatGPT. It is capable of engaging in regular conversations and responding in a way that occasionally seems surprisingly human. The artificial intelligence system was launched on November 30, 2022, as a prototype. Large language models carry out the task of predicting the following word in a string of words is carried out by large language models. How To Use ChatGPT? You can access ChatGPT through a web page, so there’s no need to download an app to keep utilizing the service. Users can log in ChatGPT and start their journey. The apps with similar names are bogus because OpenAI hasn’t yet released an official app. As a result, for the time being, one should hold off on installing any apps that contain the same. Users can ask questions or provide instructions on the interface, which resembles a conversation thread, and the AI chatbot will respond. Artificial intelligence in ChatGPT allows users to ask questions- scientific, political, academic, or completely random. While the Ai uses its impressive database to give calculated and factual answers, users might just use it to pass their time and cure boredom. Asking ridiculous to silly questions the way Siri or Amazon have reported. The bot will apply its artificial intelligence will answer the user with some amount of wit on top. The way there are two sides to each coin, ChatGPT while being a potentially useful bot for trivia questions and fact checks. Or might even just be a place for joking. However, the bot can also be used for plagiarism. Once users have completed their log in ChatGPT they are free to ask everything they can think of. This is resulting in students cheating from ChatGPT. Students Cheating ChatGPT A college professor in South Carolina is raising concerns after discovering a student writing an essay for his philosophy class using ChatGPT. The professor had given a 500-word essay to his students. While going through the submissions, one particular submission felt off to him. He described the language and style of writing of the bot as being “recognizable” and “writes like a very smart 12th-grader.” “There’s particular odd wording used that was not wrong, just peculiar … if you were teaching somebody how to write an essay, this is how you tell them to write it before they figure out their style.” ChatGPT Creating Malwares A technical article claims that ChatGPT may easily produce malware. With relatively little work or cost from the adversary, the malware may “easily evade security technologies and make mitigation difficult.” “By utilizing ChatGPT’s ability to generate various persistence techniques, Anti-VM modules and other malicious payloads, the possibilities of malware development are vast,” said the researchers. Stealing From Content Writers There have been countless reports of users asking the chatbot to write *insert question* and the bot readily writes an entire script/write-up. This is threatening to those who wish to make a career in the writing industry. The way modern machinery took away jobs from mill workers and other labor, bots like these can take away jobs from writers. Here are a few examples- This user asked the bot to write them a product description for an Etsy product. The bot gave quite impressive description with just one click. Another user asked this bot to write an entire James Bond film with 3 acts. And yes. You guessed it right! ChatGPT gave a separate three-act script outline. Like garlic bread and cheese dip or Batman and Robin, ethical concerns with artificial intelligence go hand in hand. It is up to the users- what they make of this impressive and helpful invention. ChatGPT’s potential could be completely wasted and misused by some. While it has a bright future ahead as an aid for many. It can help as a doubt solver, tutor, or anything that can soothe the risen curiosity in someone. But if users want to use it in a way even the bot’s creators wouldn’t have imagined, then who is to blame?
International Day of Education: 8 Historical Education Moments
Education shapes life. Education can make or break futures. We have heard countless quotes about the importance of education along the way. Education gives people a chance to not just form but preach their opinions. In a world like ours, everyone needs to have a valid opinion base. And education provides that to people by educating them about all sides so they to make the right decision. Everyone deserves education. And yet some parts around the world, unfortunately, don’t have access to it. For awareness about such areas and means to reach them, UNESCO has proclaimed 24th January as the International Day of Education. Countries will not succeed in achieving gender equality and ending the cycle of poverty that is leaving millions of children, youth, and adults behind without inclusive and equitable quality education and lifelong opportunities for everyone. 771 million individuals worldwide are illiterate, while 244 million children and teenagers are not in school. It is unacceptable that their right to an education is being infringed upon. The moment has come to reform schooling. International Day of Education 2023 The theme for the fifth International Day of Education, which will be observed on January 24, 2023, is “to invest in people, emphasize education.” “Education must be prioritized to accelerate progress towards all the Sustainable Development Goals against the backdrop of a global recession, growing inequalities, and the climate crisis.” –UNESCO on International Day of Education Throughout history, ever since the formation of modern civilizations, education has been a vital part of it. Education history has milestones of its own. Education has always shaped individuals and movements. It made people look at existing surroundings and events from a different point of view and pushed solutions- new and better. Looking back at history, if it wasn’t for some special moments on the education history timeline, the world won’t be the way we see it today. In the 19th century, a Common school was a public school in the United States. Common schools were established in New England as community-funded educational resources for all local youngsters. A strong supporter of the common school and public education, Horace Mann (1796–1859) started a rebirth of the common school system whose ramifications were felt throughout America in the 19th century. Takshashila, also known as Taxila, was a renowned center of learning that taught Buddhism and was also a place of worship in the past. It was renowned for its higher education, which included instruction in 18 silpas, law, medicine, sociology, astronomy, and ancient scriptures. Despite their long and grueling travel, students from Kashi, Kosala, and Magadha, as well as other nations, came to the university. UNESCO designated Takshashila, an ancient Indian city presently located in northwest Pakistan, as a world heritage site and archeological site in 1980. Takshashila was a well-known center of learning. The four guiding concepts of Tagore’s educational philosophy are naturalism, humanism, internationalism, and idealism. These very same ideas are the foundation of both Visva Bharathi and Shantiniketan. He also said that an educational institution should not be “a dead cage in which living minds are fed with food that’s artificially prepared. Handwork and arts are the spontaneous overflow of our deeper nature and spiritual significance”. Alfred Binet and Theodore Simon served as the impetus for the Measurement Movement. This movement entails calculating each person’s brain’s level of intellect. The measurement movement developed what is now known as the IQ test. A student’s IQ can help decide whether they are ahead of their age group or whether they need to be enrolled in a unique program for extra assistance. This word was coined in 1912, when Charles McCarthy, a major champion of extension education, wrote a book entitled precisely “The Wisconsin Idea.” The “Wisconsin Idea” is more concrete than just an idea. It is a method, a philosophy in action, a guiding vision, a break with the past’s epistemology, and an attitude of unity all at once. By the end of World War II, the country had come to appreciate the value and significance of a solid education. The goal of education at the primary and secondary levels at the period was to prepare pupils for life after high school by offering a curriculum that was centered on the development of “life skills.” The goal was to create people who “thought, communicated effectively, and were adept at making intelligent decisions and differentiating among values.” Everett Lindquist originally made the ACT (American College Testing) available in 1959. In addition to an optional writing portion, the ACT had four primary sections with multiple-choice questions to assess English, arithmetic, reading, and science. Children with disabilities are entitled to a free, suitable public education under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act. The kids in the program are given particular services and teaching thanks to this law. Thinking “what can I do as a mere citizen” is not the mindset to have. As educated and independent citizens, we have that power in our hands to impact lives. If at least one life gets access to education, we are successful as fellow humans.
Columbian Researchers Find New Bacterial Therapy To Approach Lung Cancer
The most lethal cancer in both the United States and the rest of the globe is lung cancer. Patients have few options because many of the currently available medicines are useless. Bacterial therapy has been a promising new approach to treating cancer, however even though this treatment method has swiftly advanced from laboratory studies to clinical trials in the last five years, the most efficient treatment for some types of malignancies may be in combination with other medications. The What Columbia Engineering researchers have created a preclinical evaluation pipeline to characterize bacterial therapeutics in lung cancer models. Their most recent research, Scientific Reports released on December 13, 2022, mixes bacterial therapeutics with other therapy modalities to increase treatment efficacy while minimizing side effects. “We envision a fast and selective expansion of our pipeline to improve treatment efficacy and safety for solid tumors,” said first author Dhruba Deb, an associate research scientist who studies the effect of bacterial toxins on lung cancer in Professor Tal Danino’s lab in Biomedical Engineering, “As someone who has lost loved ones to cancer, I would like to see this strategy move from the bench to bedside in the future.” The How The scientists employed RNA sequencing to identify the cellular and molecular mechanisms by which cancer cells reacted to bacteria. They developed a theory regarding the cancer cells’ molecular pathways contributing to their resistance to bacterium therapy. The researchers used current cancer treatments to inhibit these pathways to verify their theory, and they then demonstrated that adding bacterial toxins to the medications increased their ability to kill lung cancer cells. In animal models of lung cancer, they verified the efficacy of combining bacteria therapy with an AKT inhibitor as an example. “This new study describes an exciting drug development pipeline that has been previously unexplored in lung cancer — the use of toxins derived from bacteria,” said Upal Basu Roy, executive director of research, LUNGevity Foundation, USA. “The preclinical data presented in the manuscript provides a strong rationale for continued research in this area, thereby opening up the possibility of new treatment options for patients diagnosed with this lethal disease.” Deb plans to expand his strategy to more extensive studies in preclinical models of difficult-to-treat lung cancers and collaborate with clinicians to make a push for clinical translation.
Quantum Computing And Supercomputers Will Revolutionize Technology
We live in the age of technology, yet there is still a lot more to come. In recent years, huge corporations have taken minor but significant advances ahead in quantum computing, which looks ready to revolutionize the world as we know it. The potential uses listed below will have an impact on everything from mobility to healthcare. Quantum computers would be like the Albert Einstein of computing in a binary world of ones and zeros, with exceptional electronic minds capable of finishing tasks that would be very difficult for conventional computers to do. With the Q System One, a 3×3-meter glass cube with 20 qubits unveiled in 2019, the multinational corporation IBM will be the first to commercialize this wonderful technology and make it accessible to enterprises. andresearchers What Exactly Is Quantum Computing? Computer science’s application of quantum theory is known as quantum computing. The behavior of energy and matter at the atomic and subatomic scales is explained by quantum theory. Subatomic particles, such electrons or photons, are used in quantum computing. These particles can exist simultaneously in two states (i.e., 1 and 0) thanks to quantum bits, or qubits. To get around the constraints of traditional computing, this new generation of supercomputers makes use of knowledge of quantum mechanics, the branch of physics that analyzes atomic and subatomic particles. The tunnel effect, which now restricts programming at the nanometric scale, is eliminated by quantum computing, which also makes it feasible to do numerous simultaneous operations. However, in practice, quantum computing clearly confronts challenges with scalability and incoherence. What Exactly is a Qubit? The qubit, as opposed to the traditional bit, serves as the fundamental unit of information in quantum computing. This alternative system’s key feature is that it allows for the coherent superposition of ones and zeros, the binary digits upon which all computing is based. In contrast, bits can only have one value at a time, which is either one or zero. This feature of quantum technology allows a qubit to simultaneously have varied ratios of the states zero and one. A quantum computer with just 30 qubits, for instance, could perform 10 billion floating-point operations per second—or around 5.8 billion more than the most potent PlayStation gaming console now available—thanks to the multitude of states. Operating Conditions of a Quantum Computer Due to their great sensitivity, these computers require very certain insulation, pressure, and temperature settings in order to function properly. Because measurement mistakes and state overlaps are created when these devices contact outside particles, they must be kept sealed and controlled by conventional computers. To keep the atoms from moving, crashing into one another, or interacting with the environment, quantum computers require shielding from the earth’s magnetic field, nearly no atmospheric pressure, and temperatures close to absolute zero (-273°C). Additionally, because these devices are only operational for extremely brief periods of time, the data is corrupted and cannot be saved, making data recovery more challenging.
FDA Approves Alzheimer’s Drug Lecanemab Amid Safety Concerns
Food and Drug Administration on Friday approved a treatment for Alzheimer’s that has been shown in clinical trials to decrease cognitive loss in patients with the disease’s early stages. Even though there have been reports of adverse effects with the new medicine, doctors say the approval offers patients renewed hope following repeated failures to develop successful treatments. What is Lecanemab? Lecanemab, a monoclonal antibody infusion that will be marketed under the name Leqembi, is a medication that is administered every two weeks. FDA-approved Leqembi for treatment in patients with early Alzheimer’s disease or moderate cognitive impairment. The drug was authorized through an expedited process, which enables early authorization for novel drugs that “meet an unmet medical need.” Companies must simultaneously carry out additional clinical studies to verify the advantages of their products or risk having them pulled off the market. The organization claimed that the basis for its decision was a mid-stage experiment including 856 Alzheimer’s patients. The working of Leqembi antibody Leqembi decreased cognitive deterioration in those who took it by 27% after 18 months, according to a phase 2 clinical trial involving 1,795 patients, which was published in late September by the drug’s developers Eisai and Biogen. On Friday, the FDA stated that it would analyze the 2 phase results “soon.” The FDA did not consult its advisory group, as it had before it controversially approved Aduhelm, a different Biogen Alzheimer’s medicine, in 2021. Leqembi is not a treatment for AD; instead, it slows the disease’s course by eliminating beta-amyloid clumps from the brain, which are long known to be one of the disease’s primary causes. According to specialists, the advantage is minimal, but anything that would allow patients to spend more time with their families and other loved ones is valuable. Ivan Cheung, Eisai’s U.S. chairman and CEO told NBC News that the bimonthly medication is anticipated to cost about $25,000 per patient annually. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services already have coverage restrictions on medications that target amyloid in the brain. Therefore Cheung predicted that the new drug’s initial acceptance could be constrained. The medication has been the subject of safety concerns. After the patients had brain swelling or brain hemorrhage, at least three fatalities may have been related to the medicine. The medicine caused brain swelling in roughly 12.6% of patients, as opposed to just 1.7% of patients who took a placebo, according to the company’s phase 2 trial results. Approximately 17% of patients taking the medication developed brain hemorrhage, compared to 9% of patients taking a placebo. Cheung stated that the business is still “confident” that the drug’s advantages outweigh its drawbacks. He claimed that the illness was catastrophic and caused significant emotional distress in all affected families. Claim of Centres for Disease Control and Prevention According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Alzheimer’s disease is the sixth most common cause of mortality in the United States. The majority of Alzheimer’s medications that the FDA has approved are more focused on treating symptoms than really decreasing the disease’s progression. The announcement on Friday follows a damning congressional report last week that exposed the approval of another Alzheimer’s medication called Aduhelm. Despite the FDA advisory committee’s conclusion that the medicine created by Biogen was unlikely to work, it was authorized in 2021. In their report from last week, investigators concluded that the agency violated its own policies and that its approval of Aduhelm was “rife with anomalies.” In reaction to the news, the advocacy group Public Citizen wrote to the FDA on Wednesday pleading for them to delay making their judgment on whether or not to approve Leqembi until the businesses have completed the extra clinical trials required for final approval. There are supporters of the medicine. Leqembi should be allowed, according to Donna Wilcock, assistant dean of biomedicine at the University of Kentucky. She said that the trial’s findings were the finest she had “seen for an Alzheimer’s medicine in my 25 years” and that the data supporting Leqembi’s application was “solid.” According to the Alzheimer’s Association, the FDA should approve Leqembi for early-stage Alzheimer’s based on the findings of the Eisai and Biogen phase 2 clinical trial. The group requests that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services rethink its choice of novel Alzheimer’s medicines. The CMS said last year that it would not cover Alzheimer’s medications that target amyloid unless patients are enrolled in a clinical trial due to the weak data used to support the approval of Aduhelm. More patients could benefit from having “many months more of recognizing their spouse, children and grandchildren,” according to Maria Carrillo, the Alzheimer’s Association’s chief science officer. Following the FDA’s clearance on Friday, the CMS said it might change its mind about covering some Alzheimer’s medicines. According to the agency, “CMS is reviewing the facts available and may reassess its present coverage.”
Long Haul Covid: What is Brain Fog And Are You Going Through It?
Once you stain one of your favorite outfits, no matter how many wipes or effort, a small patch will always stay. Like residuals and remains of a colony. A similar situation can be seen with COVID. Several survivors claim to be going through related or new symptoms once they recover. Brain Fog is one of them. It is like once COVID made a place, there’s no way you can get it completely out of your system. People have reported feeling slower in their mental processes. Their thinking capacity is seemingly less sharp and quick. Memory is weak and they tend to be forgetful about the most recent things. One of the most frequent issues that patients of all ages bring up to me these days is this “brain fog.” One of the numerous potential causes is a post-COVID-19 syndrome, often known as “Long Haul COVID.” What is Brain Fog? Brain-Fog isn’t exactly a clinical term. But it is something many people experience- related or unrelated to COVID. It slows down a bit when your brain goes through pressure, stress, or any related and tiring phase. After flu, jetlag, or overexertion your mind can slip into this state where it is a bit foggy and slow. All you can do is wait for your brain to get back to its normal state. The only hiccup when it comes to Brain fog that is accompanied by COVID is people claiming their brains never got back to their normal state. COVID-Induced Brain Fog To generate neurologic symptoms, COVID-19 either worsens already present symptoms or results in the emergence of brand-new symptoms. A case of COVID-19 may exacerbate any existing nerve pain brought on by neuropathy (a broad term for nerve malfunction) or a spine injury. Similarly, a person who has modest memory loss due to aging will probably see a considerable drop in cognitive skills for several months after getting over the initial sickness. According to the researchers’ study, which was published on Wednesday in the Lancet Psychiatry, the risk of acquiring diseases including psychosis, dementia, “brain fog,” and seizures is still higher up to two years after contracting Covid-19 infection than it is after other respiratory illnesses. However, while mental disorders like anxiety and sadness are more prevalent right away after receiving a Covid-19 diagnosis, they are only temporary, becoming no more likely to occur after two months than after a similar infection like the flu. According to recent scientific research, two to three months after infection, 20 to 30 percent of persons have cognitive fog. Up to 80% of individuals with extended Covid also have mental fog. It has been hypothesized from recent studies that Covid may generate substantial and chronic inflammation in the brain that dysregulates brain cells and would be predicted to contribute to cognitive impairment, even though the specific etiology is not yet fully understood. Manage Your Symptoms The first and most crucial step is to visit your doctor and discuss all of your persisting symptoms with them. The list should also include issues like shortness of breath, palpitations, and unusual urine or stools, as well as your brain fog and other neurologic symptoms (such as weakness, numbness, tingling, and loss of smell or taste).
Human Hair Mats That Soak Up Oil-Spills: A Solution To Keep Waterways Free from Pollution
An average human being sheds around 50 to 100 strands of hair. Human hair has some fascinating qualities and powers. Not as fascinating as Rapunzel, but quite special. Naturally, hair and fur readily absorb oil; in fact, hair may absorb three to nine times its weight in oil. Lisa Gautier, who runs a non-profit organization in San Francisco named Matter of Trust turns donated hair into mats. Not only is this a great way to reuse hair that can lead to choking hazards for animals and even humans, but she also uses these mats to soak up oil spills. The Discovery Phil McCroy, a hairstylist, was watching the 1989 Exxon oil spill in Alaska on television when he noticed that otters were covered in oil. Around the otters, McCroy noticed that the water seemed cleaner. Combining the two, he understood that the otters’ fur was absorbing the oil. The concept of using client hair that has been cut at salons to wipe up spills intrigued him. Phil and Lisa Gautier collaborated to enhance the idea ten years later. The Hair We Share The San Francisco warehouse of Matter of Trust receives daily deliveries of hair trimmings from salons, pet groomers, and private customers. The packages are examined for contaminants like debris, dirt, or lice to produce the mats. Then, the hair is separated, spread out across a frame, and put through a specially designed felting machine. “We have what we call the hair force, people mail it (hair) in every day”. Gautier went on to say that some people might find using human hair gross or weird, however, she doesn’t. A two-foot square, a one-inch thick mat made from 500 grams of hair can hold up to 1.5 gallons (5.6 liters) of oil. A Solution? Oil Spills, shockingly, are more common and frequent than we realize. Marine life is affected quite harshly when gallons and gallons of oil are spilled into water bodies causing mass deaths of sea creatures. Companies and organizations that handle oil spills can approach this catastrophe with the aid of these Human Hair Mats. It’s possible to make these hair mats into substantial mats that can be pulled by boats across the water! The mats wouldn’t float as a result, making retrieval simple. Most big oil spills are cleaned using chemicals or mats made with petroleum. The solution we currently use is not just temporary but also very harmful when it comes to the sea life we are dealing with. These companies could use these innovative mats to help soak up oil spills instead of spending time, money, and energy in making mats and other solutions that potentially cause more harm to the sea than to help it get better and cleaner. However, when we talk about marine oil spills, during one of the most significant oil spills of the time, Hair Mats from Matter of Trust were put to test after receiving a wave of hair donations and support. The hair mats get heavier after soaking the oil and causing them to sink. A New Approach After this discovery, Matter of Trust decided to take their focus to a different picture but with the same goal. Our water bodies are also affected by motor oil spills that later make their way through the drain to the ocean. There are many ways oil gets spilled, and the non-profit now focuses on oil that drips through cars and then through rainwater or drains later contaminating the ocean. These drips add up to over 180 million gallons of oil spilled for a year. Hair mats from Matter of Trust are used to soak up these drips which helps the oceans and marine life sail peacefully. Matter of Trust, according to Gautier, has produced over 300,000 booms and over 40,000 hair mats for significant cleanups, including the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and many more for non-emergency spills, including everything from decontaminating storm, drains to soaking up oil from leaking vehicles and machinery.
Fleather: Wasted Flowers Upcycled Into Vegan Leather
Flowers have multiple uses, from welcoming someone home to celebrations big or small to commemorating, remembering, or honoring someone through garlands, individual petals, or an accessory. What comes with this, is a huge waste of flowers once or even before they’re wilted. These flowers are dumped down the bin with no thought whatsoever. Saving them for composting is one thing, but there are only so many people who work towards building their compost and using it as well. The Solution An Indian firm called Phool creates leather products that are suitable for vegans by using floral waste. Although there are vegan leather substitutes on the market, they may only sometimes be environmentally beneficial if they are made of plastic or synthetic materials. The company’s ethical solution, which is made from plant-based waste material, supports sustainability and circularity. The biomaterial startup’s “Fleather” substitute to further has the same robust properties as its animal counterpart because it contains chitin, a polymer made from discarded temple blooms. This not only means recycling plant material that would otherwise be thrown away, but it also results in a product that uses far less carbon than actual leather and is entirely biodegradable. “Leather contains collagen which provides it strength and durability, whereas fleather has chitin, a kind of protein, that gives it the same properties. Collagen and chitin are natural analogs, making fleather a perfect substitute for leather,” explains co-founder Ankit Agarwal, in an interview with Hindustan Times. The Experiments With ‘Flowers When the team of scientists at Phool started researching more with piles and piles of flowers just lying around their lab, on one random day, they noticed a sort of white lining along the flowers. Nachiket Kuntla and his team noticed a thin fibrous network as they focused closer. According to Kuntla, it appeared like some sort of fungal bacterium was attempting to grow on the blooms by obtaining nutrients from the cellulose. Researchers from Phool got curious and started testing. They obtained microorganisms from the nearby jungle and fed the excrement from flowers to several microbial strains, adjusting the temperature and humidity to see how they would develop in a lab setting. According to Kuntla, they kept trying and co-cultured a few other species. The researchers started feeding the microbes in liquid form by boiling the flower petals in water to separate the cellulose and lignin from them and adding some more carbohydrates. This helped the microbes pull nutrients more effectively and develop better. The final process of making “Fleather” is quite similar to making curd. Those strands they found resembled the texture of leather in appearance, elasticity, and tensile strength. And that’s how these genius minds turned wilting and wasting flowers into useful and “flower cycled” vegan leather. It is also a particularly pertinent answer for assisting India’s textile sector in making the shift to more environmentally friendly and compassionate substitutes. Currently, the nation produces more than 3 billion square feet of hide annually, accounting for close to 13% of global production. Particularly, vegan leathers are in style right now. Infinitum Global researchers recently published a report predicting that by 2025, the market for vegan leather will grow at a staggering rate of 49.9% annually, reaching a staggering US$89.6 billion.