A consortium linked to the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) has built a plant at the Mannheim wastewater treatment plant that cleans generated biogas and uses the resulting CO2 to produce climate-neutral marine fuel using green hydrogen. The process could help decarbonise the shipping sector, which is currently responsible for around three percent of global greenhouse gas emissions.

The demonstration plant uses a patented process to convert biogas produced during wastewater treatment into climate-neutral methanol. The biogas is first purified and the separated CO₂ can then be used with renewably-produced hydrogen to make methanol – a raw material that can be used as marine fuel or in the chemical industry. Methanol does release the CO2 back into the atmosphere when burned. However, because the carbon comes from the treatment plant and not from additional fossil sources, it is considered climate neutral.

There are some 80,000 wastewater treatment plants in Europe that offer considerable potential for the new process, wrote KIT. "To achieve our climate protection goals, we must keep all technological options open," said Volker Wissing, federal minister for digital affairs and transport. “In addition to electrification and hydrogen-based propulsion, we need climate-friendly fuels, especially in maritime shipping." Stressing that the sector represented a future growth market, Wissing said Germany should play a pioneering role in research and development. "It's also about making our country independent of energy imports."

Vidal Vazquez, co-founder of climate tech start-up ICODOS, a spin-off from the KIT, added, "In Germany alone, wastewater treatment plants could produce several million tonnes of sustainable methanol annually." The project shows that "wastewater treatment plants can serve as the heart of sustainable fuel production – a potential that has so far remained untapped," Vazquez said. ICODOS is currently in discussions with other wastewater treatment plants to set up other production facilities.

Renewables-based synthetic fuels could be necessary to decarbonise certain sectors such as shipping, where alternatives are not available today, or extremely costly. However, producing the rare fuels is energy-intensive and expensive and they should only be used where the direct use of electricity is not an option.

25 Mar 2025

It's not just to have a "do over" that doesn't involve the original cast, it's to cut them out of the royalties. Literally the entire point is to make sure all the money made by Harry Potter goes to transphobes or people willing to work with transphobes.

If you watch it, you are supporting bigotry, hate, and oppression. That's just objective reality. All for a story that you probably have already seen in movie and book form.

#the last point is especially true since the old cast receives royalties for anything with their likeness on it#meaning the original trio still gets money for every mug with their 14 year old faces on it#if they stop making those and replace them with the new cast which they will the old cast gets cut off completely#which is again exactly what rowling wants because she cannot stand those 'ungrateful brats' as she would likely put it#and as she has last say in anything that gets made in harry potter paraphernalia this might also explain the decrease in faces on products

via @discipleofkleio

I hate Rowling so much.

There's people in the notes saying they're going to watch it anyway, and you know, I understand how you can start feeling so burned out and numb from the world that it may feel too hard to avoid things that will give you a little immediate relief in some way in order to avoid the long-term impact of funding these things.

But. If you can't bring yourself to avoid watching it, you better at least fucking pirate it.

FYI, Rowling posted this today. She is actively queerphobic, do not support this project in anyway.

I know that this was a foundational thing for so many people. I was one of them. Without Harry Potter, I probably wouldn't be the person I am today.

If you're thinking about watching this anyway because you feel all that nostalgia: It's time to grow up. It's time to move on.

Don't even hate watch it. Make it fail.

It is the easiest thing ever to simply not do anything.

A caveat to this study: the researchers were primarily looking at insect pollinator biodiversity. Planting a few native wildflowers in your garden will not suddenly cause unusual megafauna from the surrounding hinterlands to crowd onto your porch.

That being said, this study backs up Douglas Tallamy's optimistic vision of Homegrown National Park, which calls for people in communities of all sizes to dedicate some of their yard (or porch or balcony) to native plants. This creates a patchwork of microhabitats that can support more mobile insect life and other small beings, which is particularly crucial in areas where habitat fragmentation is severe. This patchwork can create migration corridors, at least for smaller, very mobile species, between larger areas of habitat that were previously cut off from each other.

It may not seem like much to have a few pots of native flowers on your tiny little balcony compared to someone who can rewild acres of land, but it makes more of a difference than you may realize. You may just be creating a place where a pollinating insect flying by can get some nectar, or lay her eggs. Moreover, by planting native species you're showing your neighbors these plants can be just as beautiful as non-native ornamentals, and they may follow suit.

In a time when habitat loss is the single biggest cause of species endangerment and extinction, every bit of native habitat restored makes a difference.

The world has a LOT of climates. Over eons, our native fauna has evolved alongside our native flora and lots of the fauna have become “specialists.” Things why monarch butterflies need milkweed—it’s the only thing the larvae can eat. Milkweed sap is very poisonous for most creatures, so they have evolved to tolerate the toxin because the plants are often free of predators.

However, the adult butterflies need more nectar than the milkweed can produce, and butterflies don’t usually make their chrysalises on the plant they eat. They lay eggs there, so the larvae can eat it, but if they make their chrysalises there, nothing can eat the leaf it hangs on, and the less leaves on the plant, the less cover there is from predators.

So monarchs need more than milkweed to survive.

A ton of our butterflies and moths are specialists… and the fauna native to your climate has adapted to need the flora native to your climate. This is why HGNP focuses on *native plants.*

Native plants and wildflowers are not the same thing! “Wildflowers” is a general term for flowers that are in the wild. Even “native wildflowers” are not the goal—if you can plant one oak tree, you’ll do more good than a hundred wildflowers. There are also a lot of native grasses that provide habitat. But they need to be native to your climate.

There are a lot of ways to look up what’s native to your area. Google “keystone” plants for your state. They are some of the most important to pollinators. Even a 1’x1’ square of a keystone plants in your yard or a 16” pot is enough to help.

But political boundaries don’t really give us what we need. Pollinators don’t see county or state boundaries. So the EPA has organized the US into areas called ecoregions, where the boundaries are drawn and areas are organized by the climate/topography. For example, the Ozark, Allegheny, and Oachita mountain ranges are all the same region, even though they’re not connected physically, because they have similar climates and topography.

The ultimate resource is www.bonap.net. It’s kinda complicated and it has a lot of functions, but once you learn the map color key, you have tens of thousands of species and millions of data points at your fingers. It’s organized down to county level, but if you want to get nerdy you can compare the maps to the ecoregions.

http://www.bonap.net

But if you want to get a LITTLE more specific and not super nerdy, there are other places to look.

Cooperative extensions are incredible programs with a WEALTH of information online. Look up your state; the cooperative extension will run out of a state land grant university (PA’s is PSU, NY is Cornell) and they have a master gardener program full of volunteers trained to educate and share quality, science-based information. They can help.

The USDA has a user-friendly database called PLANTS. (They get their data from BONAP.)

bplant.org is nice because it will show you plants based on ecoregion. It’s also pretty user friendly.

Native plants make a huge difference. They do. And you will see more bugs. I planted black eyed Susans and in a few years I started getting ladybugs. I bought a pot of garden phlox and saw hummingbird clearwing moths before I even planted it in the ground.

You can make a difference. You can.

Reblogging for this fabulous addition!

Its come to my attention that a lot of people do not know how to deal with a hot car in summer. A lot of people will get back to their car, after hours of it being parked in the full sun, and will open the door to be blasted in the face with furnace-level temperatures, and you'll just clamber in and shut the doors and leave the windows closed and you'll start driving that thing, and you'll wait for the air-conditioning to battle and overcome the heat.

Thats. Insane to me.

The inside of a car can get up to 40°C/104°F hotter than the outside temperature. Why would anyone get inside that????? It's gonna take your air-conditioning at least half an hour to combat that and bring the temperature down to something even remotely reasonable, and in the meantime you're sitting there risking heatstroke.

Now, I understand that it's currently winter in the northern hemisphere, which is where most of this site lives, but a) I'm in the southern hemisphere and today was Lots Of Degrees, and b) y'all should read this now and commit it to memory or queue it to reblog in summer or whatever, because it boggles my mind that some of you get into a car whose interior is literally oven-hot.

So!!!! Some tips!!!!!

If you do this, your car will be a hell of a lot more comfortable a hell of a lot sooner than it would be if you got into a 60°C/140°F cabin and just.... endured that, until your aircon could overcome it.

This post has been brought to you by an Australian who knows not one but TWO people who get into 60°C cars and wait 15 to 30 minutes for their car to drop back down to a temperature that's even REMOTELY tolerable.

Until like a month ago I lived in Phoenix, Arizona where it hit 99° before the end of March this year. Almost nobody cracked their windows. I've never understood why.

A major review of over 67,000 animal species has found that while the natural world continues to face a biodiversity crisis, targeted conservation efforts are helping bring many species back from the brink of extinction.

The study draws on data from the IUCN Red List, the world's largest database of species conservation status. The researchers say their results, reported in the journal PLOS Biology, highlight both the successes and the need for urgent action.

The world is facing a global biodiversity crisis, with 28% of more than 160,000 assessed species threatened with extinction, and an estimated one million species facing this fate due to human activities. However, conservation measures can be successful if there is concrete evidence about what works.

The researchers, led by the University of Cambridge with the IUCN, BirdLife International, and Oxford and Durham Universities, used Red List data to assess whether conservation measures had been put in place, and whether those actions had a positive impact on a given species' conservation status.

"We found that almost all the species that have moved from a more threatened category to a less threatened category have benefited from some sort of conservation measures," said lead author Ashley Simkins, a Ph.D. candidate in Cambridge's Department of Zoology. "It's a strong signal that conservation works."

While there is no 'one size fits all' solution, the researchers observed some connections between conservation success stories. Many of these species live in isolated areas, such as islands, where intensive conservation efforts—such as habitat protection, captive breeding and reintroductions—can be fully implemented.

"While biodiversity loss is a genuine crisis, it's vital that we celebrate the success stories wherever and whenever we can," said Simkins. "It's so hard for a species to improve its conservation status, but with the right effort, we can turn things around."

The Iberian lynx, once the world's most endangered cat, has rebounded from just a few hundred individuals to a few thousand. Likewise, the kākāpō, a flightless parrot from New Zealand, has benefited from dedicated recovery programs. And the European bison, which was hunted to extinction in the wild in the early 20th century, now roams parts of Eastern Europe thanks to sustained conservation efforts over decades.

Marine species have also seen dramatic recoveries. Humpback and blue whales, once driven to the brink of extinction by commercial whaling, have made a comeback after an international moratorium on whaling. However, despite these success stories, the study found that six times more species are declining than improving.

The researchers say that, like human health care, preventative measures in conservation are preferable and more cost-effective to emergency interventions.

"Humans have gotten pretty good at what could be considered 'A&E' conservation—focusing on species at very high risk of extinction," said Simkins. "What we're less good at is preventing species from becoming threatened in the first place. We need to move beyond treating the symptoms of biodiversity loss and start addressing the root causes."

The researchers also emphasize the need for collaborative, locally driven conservation. In Papua New Guinea, for example, conservationists worked with local communities to replace tree kangaroo hunting with sustainable forms of animal protein, including farming of chickens and fishing—an approach that benefitted both people and wildlife.

"It's vital that we as conservationists are working with stakeholders, rather than dictating to them, whether that's an Indigenous community in Papua New Guinea or a farmer in Somerset," said Simkins.

"Conservation doesn't have to be a zero-sum game—there are compromises that can benefit both the natural world and human society."

"In this climate of constant stories about wildlife declines and insufficient political action to protect nature, it's important to realize that there are also many success stories and that conservation efforts are making a real, demonstrable impact on the world," said co-senior author Dr. Silviu Petrovan, also from the Department of Zoology. "Conservation works if given the chance."

"This research sheds light on which actions to save species have been effective, and what interventions are needed," said co-author Dr. Stuart Butchart, Chief Scientist at BirdLife International. "Governments need to turn their words into actions, and rapidly scale up efforts to save species from extinction and help populations to recover. Safeguarding our natural heritage for future generations depends upon this."

"The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species informs and guides on-the-ground conservation decisions; actions which are further guided by the research presented in this publication," said co-author Craig Hilton-Taylor, Head of the IUCN Red List.

"Almost everyone will have their own favorite example of a conservation success story, whether it's the bald eagle in North America, or the red kite in the UK," said Simkins. We need joint action to ensure these positive stories aren't the exception—they're the norm."

It’s insane how many organs will just Make Rocks if left up to their own devices. Kidneys. Gall bladder. Pancreas. Tonsils, what’s that about???

this company is so frustratingly misleading. They did not bring back the direwolf (Aenocyon dirus). They modified a modern grey wolf (Canis lupus) into having some direwolf morphology. There has been no de-extinction. This is pure hype slop. As a friend said "these are dire wolves the same way La Croix is a fruit".

I still think this tech has the potential to be helpful in a conservation context.... but it says a A LOT that these "dire wolves" look far more like something you'd see in Game of Thrones than any of the most likely reconstructions proposed by scientists who've studied the fossil record.

These pups might get more robust as they age, but right now I'm not seeing anything to get excited about. I just can't help but suspect that this species was chosen specifically bc the public already has the idea of "dire wolf = gray wolf + big", and that this company is using relatively minor CRISPR editing to give the false impression that they're recreating anything that might have conceivably lived 10,000 years ago.

Again, I think this tech is interesting and merits further development (and if jurassic park is the only way they can do that, then, I guess that's what's happening), but it's still extremely misleading to parade these animals around like they've actually 100% cloned a dire wolf.

Holy shit.

The cause of SIDS has been discovered.

THE CAUSE OF SIDS HAS BEEN DISCOVERED!

The findings were explained in a study from The Children’s Hospital Westmead in Sydney. From the article…

This is amazing fucking news. The next step is obviously finding a way to screen for it, then a way treat it. But, for now, holy shit. Holy shit!

And for anyone who’s suffered the loss of a child to SIDS, the study’s lead researcher, Dr. Carmel Harrington, said, “These families can now live with the knowledge that this was not their fault.”

Between 11:15 am and 1:15 pm you say? Are you going to potentially deliver it to me in the past???

you didn’t know that the Lowe’s delivery people have the ability to time travel?

Lowes has a lot of cool things they never use. The wood cutting station, for one.

Lowes once texted me the delivery window, which was something like 9am-2pm at EIGHT AT FUCKING NIGHT over 7 hours after the item had been delivered

Roman descriptions of Celtic warriors are so horny it’s hilarious they’re like “They think they’re impressive, fighting naked where you can see every wound on their exquisite well-formed bodies, their pale slender necks encased in gold. They are so fierce in battle, these stupid superstitious barbarian fucks. They are a proud people, all tall and well built and, did I mention, fighting naked?” you want to fuck them so bad it makes you look stupid. The dick out battle method was definitely working.

#I LITERALLY just read tacitus germanicus this is NOT wrong - prev

I remember during puberty talk in 6th grade they handed out permission slips for parents to sign if they didn’t want their kids getting sex ed and like five students ended up having to wait in the library while the rest of us learned about puberty and health stuff.

Afterwards during lunch recess almost everyone in class spent our time telling those five kids what we learned and showing them our handouts.

Parents: No way am I letting my 11 year old learn how their body is gonna change in the next few years

All the other 11 year olds: Hey man heres a diagram of a uterus

I’m not a soup person but still this sounds delightful

Honestly not being a killjoy, but do we have photos on what the protests were like in Republican territory? That seems more significant than the numbers in liberal zones like DC/NYC/Boston/Portland/Philly/etc.