Your international money transfers might not be as discreet as you think. Senator Ron Wyden and The Wall Street Journal have learned that US law enforcement can access details of money transfers without a warrant through an obscure surveillance program the Arizona attorney general’s office created in 2014. A database stored at a nonprofit, the Transaction Record Analysis Center (TRAC), provides full names and amounts for larger transfers (above $500) sent between the US, Mexico and 22 other regions through services like Western Union, MoneyGram and Viamericas. The program covers data for numerous Caribbean and Latin American countries in addition to Canada, China, France, Malaysia, Spain, Thailand, Ukraine and the US Virgin Islands. Some domestic transfers also enter the data set.
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The concern, of course, is that officials can obtain sensitive transaction details without court oversight or customers’ knowledge. An unscrupulous officer could secretly track large transfers. Wyden adds that the people in the database are more likely to be immigrants, minorities and low-income residents who don’t have bank accounts and already have fewer privacy protectoins. The American Civil Liberties Union also asserts that the subpoenas used to obtain this data violate federal law. Arizona issued at least 140 of these subpoenas between 2014 and 2021.
[…]In a study published Monday in the journal Biosensor and Bioelectronics, a group of researchers from Tel Aviv University (via Neuroscience News) said they recently created a robot that can identify a handful of smells with 10,000 times more sensitivity than some specialized electronics. They describe their robot as a bio-hybrid platform (read: cyborg). It features a set of antennae taken from a desert locust that is connected to an electronic system that measures the amount of electrical signal produced by the antennae when they detect a smell. They paired the robot with an algorithm that learned to characterize the smells by their signal output. In this way, the team created a system that could reliably differentiate between eight “pure” odors, including geranium, lemon and marzipan, and two mixtures of different smells. The scientists say their robot could one day be used to detect drugs and explosives.
A YouTube video from Tel Aviv University claims the robot is a “scientific first,” but last June researchers from Michigan State University published research detailing a system that used surgically-altered locusts to detect cancer cells. Back in 2016, scientists also tried turning locusts into bomb-sniffing cyborgs. What can I say, after millennia of causing crop failures, the pests could finally be useful for something.
[…]The research team working with Airbus at the University of Surrey’s Advanced Technology Institute claims its nano-coating, referred to as a Multifunctional Nanobarrier Structure (MFNS), can be applied to the surfaces of equipment, including antennas, and it has been shown to be able to reduce the operating temperature of such surfaces from 120°C to 60°C (248°F to 140°F).
In its study published online, the team explains that thermal control is essential for most spaceborne equipment as heating from sunlight can cause large temperature differences across satellites that would result in mechanical stresses and possible misalignment of scientific instruments such as optical components. Paradoxically, space systems also require heat pipes to ensure minimal heating so that payloads can withstand the coldest space conditions.
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The solution the team developed is a multilayer protection nanobarrier, which it says is comprised of a buffer layer made of poly(p-xylylene) and a diamond-like carbon superlattice layer that gives it a mechanically and environmentally ultra-stable platform.
The MFNS is deposited onto surfaces using a custom plasma-enhanced chemical vapor deposition (PECVD) system, which operates at room temperature and so can be applied to heat-sensitive substrates.
The combined layer is a dielectric and therefore electromagnetically transparent across a wide range of radio frequencies, the study states, allowing it to be used to coat antenna structures without adding “significant interference” to the signal.
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According to the team, the MFNS can be modulated to provide adjustable solar absorptivity in the ultraviolet to visible part of the spectrum, while at the same time exhibiting high and stable infrared emissivity. This is achieved by controlling the optical gap of individual layers.
This extends to self-reconfiguration in orbit, if the report can be believed, by means of balancing the UV and atomic oxygen (AO) exposure of the MFNS coating. AO is created from molecular oxygen in the upper atmosphere by UV radiation, forming AO radicals commonly found in low Earth orbit, the research adds.
As to the harvesting of heat energy, this can be achieved through the creation of highly absorbing structures with a photothermal conversion efficiency as high as 96.66 percent, according to the team. This is aided by the deposition of a nitrogen-doped DLC superlattice layer in the coating which gives rise to enhanced optical absorption across a wide spectral range.
These enhanced properties, along with advanced manufacturing methods, demonstrate that the MFNS can be a candidate for many thermal applications such as photodetectors, emitters, smart radiators, and energy harvesting used in satellite systems and beyond, the study states.
Chemical flame retardants can make us safer by preventing or slowing fires, but they’re linked to a range of unsettling health effects. To get around that concern, researchers with the U.S. Department of Agriculture have bred a new population of cotton that can self-extinguish after encountering a flame.
The team of scientists from the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service, led by Gregory N. Thyssen, bred 10 strains of cotton using alleles from 10 different parent cultivars. After creating fabrics with each of these strains, the researchers put them through burn tests and found that four of them were able to completely self-extinguish. Their work is published today in PLOS One.
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These flame retardant cultivars could be a game-changer in the textile industry. Currently, efforts to make fabric flame retardant include applying chemicals that reduce a material’s ability to ignite; flame retardant chemicals have been added to many fabrics since at least the 1970s. While some have been pulled from the market, these chemicals don’t break down easily, and they can bioaccumulate in humans and animals, potentially leading to endocrine disruption, reproductive toxicity, and cancer. These new strains of cotton could be used to manufacture fabrics and products that have flame retardancy naturally baked in.
The forest carbon offsets approved by the world’s leading provider and used by Disney, Shell, Gucci and other big corporations are largely worthless and could make global heating worse, according to a new investigation.
The research into Verra, the world’s leading carbon standard for the rapidly growing $2bn (£1.6bn) voluntary offsets market, has found that, based on analysis of a significant percentage of the projects, more than 90% of their rainforest offset credits – among the most commonly used by companies – are likely to be “phantom credits” and do not represent genuine carbon reductions.
The analysis raises questions over the credits bought by a number of internationally renowned companies – some of them have labelled their products “carbon neutral”, or have told their consumers they can fly, buy new clothes or eat certain foods without making the climate crisis worse.
But doubts have been raised repeatedly over whether they are really effective.
The nine-month investigation has been undertaken by the Guardian, the German weekly Die Zeit and SourceMaterial, a non-profit investigative journalism organisation. It is based on new analysis of scientific studies of Verra’s rainforest schemes.
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Verra argues that the conclusions reached by the studies are incorrect, and questions their methodology. And they point out that their work since 2009 has allowed billions of dollars to be channelled to the vital work of preserving forests.
The investigation found that:
Only a handful of Verra’s rainforest projects showed evidence of deforestation reductions, according to two studies, with further analysis indicating that 94% of the credits had no benefit to the climate.
The threat to forests had been overstated by about 400% on average for Verra projects, according to analysis of a 2022 University of Cambridge study.
Gucci, Salesforce, BHP, Shell, easyJet, Leon and the band Pearl Jam were among dozens of companies and organisations that have bought rainforest offsets approved by Verra for environmental claims.
Human rights issues are a serious concern in at least one of the offsetting projects. The Guardian visited a flagship project in Peru, and was shown videos that residents said showed their homes being cut down with chainsaws and ropes by park guards and police. They spoke of forced evictions and tensions with park authorities.
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Two different groups of scientists – one internationally based, the other from Cambridge in the UK – looked at a total of about two-thirds of 87 Verra-approved active projects. A number were left out by the researchers when they felt there was not enough information available to fairly assess them.
The two studies from the international group of researchers found just eight out of 29 Verra-approved projects where further analysis was possible showed evidence of meaningful deforestation reductions.
The journalists were able to do further analysis on those projects, comparing the estimates made by the offsetting projects with the results obtained by the scientists. The analysis indicated about 94% of the credits the projects produced should not have been approved.
Credits from 21 projects had no climate benefit, seven had between 98% and 52% fewer than claimed using Verra’s system, and one had 80% more impact, the investigation found.
Separately, the study by the University of Cambridge team of 40 Verra projects found that while a number had stopped some deforestation, the areas were extremely small. Just four projects were responsible for three-quarters of the total forest that was protected.
The journalists again analysed these results more closely and found that, in 32 projects where it was possible to compare Verra’s claims with the study finding, baseline scenarios of forest loss appeared to be overstated by about 400%. Three projects in Madagascar have achieved excellent results and have a significant impact on the figures. If those projects are not included, the average inflation is about 950%.
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Barbara Haya, the director of the Berkeley Carbon Trading Project, has been researching carbon credits for 20 years, hoping to find a way to make the system function. She said: “The implications of this analysis are huge. Companies are using credits to make claims of reducing emissions when most of these credits don’t represent emissions reductions at all.
“Rainforest protection credits are the most common type on the market at the moment. And it’s exploding, so these findings really matter. But these problems are not just limited to this credit type. These problems exist with nearly every kind of credit.
“One strategy to improve the market is to show what the problems are and really force the registries to tighten up their rules so that the market could be trusted. But I’m starting to give up on that. I started studying carbon offsets 20 years ago studying problems with protocols and programs. Here I am, 20 years later having the same conversation. We need an alternative process. The offset market is broken.”
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency has moved into the next phase of its Control of Revolutionary Aircraft with Novel Effectors program, or CRANE. The project is centered on an experimental uncrewed aircraft, which Aurora Flight Sciences is developing, that does not have traditional moving surfaces to control the aircraft in flight.
Aurora Flight Sciences’ CRANE design, which does not yet have an official X-plane designation or nickname, instead uses an active flow control (AFC) system to maneuver the aircraft using bursts of highly pressurized air. This technology could eventually find its way onto other military and civilian designs. It could have particularly significant implications when applied to future stealth aircraft.
A subscale wind tunnel model of Aurora Flight Sciences’ CRANE X-plane design. Aurora Flight Sciences
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) issued a press release regarding the last developments in the CRANE program yesterday. Aurora Flight Sciences, a subsidiary of Boeing, announced it had received a Phase 2 contract to continue work on this project back on December 12, 2022.
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The design that Aurora ultimately settled on was more along the lines of a conventional plane. However, it has a so-called Co-Planar Joined Wing (CJW) planform consisting of two sets of wings attached to a single center fuselage that merge together at the tips, along with a twin vertical tail arrangement. As currently designed, the drone will use “banks” of nozzles installed at various points on the wings to maneuver in the air.
A wind tunnel model of one of Aurora Flight Sciences’ initial CRANE concepts with a joined wing. Aurora Flight Sciences
A wind tunnel model showing a more recent evolution of Aurora Flight Sciences’ CRANE X-plane design. Aurora Flight Sciences
The aircraft’s main engine arrangement is not entirely clear. An chin air intake under the forward fuselage together with a single exhaust nozzle at the rear seen in official concept art and on wind tunnel models would seem to point to a plan to power the aircraft with a single jet engine.
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Interestingly, Aurora’s design “is configured to be a modular testbed featuring replaceable outboard wings and swappable AFC effectors. The modular design allows for testing of not only Aurora’s AFC effectors but also AFC effectors of various other designs,” a company press release issued in December 2022 said. “By expanding testing capabilities beyond Aurora-designed components, the program further advances its goal to provide the confidence needed for future aircraft requirements, both military and commercial, to include AFC-enabled capabilities.”
Aurora has already done significant wind tunnel testing of subscale models with representative AFC components as part of CRANE’s Phase 1. The company, along with Lockheed Martin, was chosen to proceed to that phase of the program in 2021.
“Using a 25% scale model, Aurora conducted tests over four weeks at a wind tunnel facility in San Diego, California. In addition to 11 movable conventional control surfaces, the model featured 14 AFC banks with eight fully independent controllable AFC air supply channels,” according to a press release the company put out in May 2022.
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Getting rid of traditional control surfaces inherently allows for a design to be more aerodynamic, and therefore fly in a more efficient manner, especially at higher altitudes. An aircraft with an AFC system doesn’t need the various actuators and other components to move things like ailerons and rudders, offering new ways to reduce weight and bulk.
A DARPA briefing slide showing how the designs of traditional control surfaces, at their core, have remained largely unchanged after more than a century of other aviation technology developments. DARPA
A lighter and more streamlined aircraft design using an AFC system might be capable of greater maneuverability. This could be particularly true for uncrewed types that also do not have to worry about the physical limitations of a pilot.
The elimination of so many moving parts also means fewer things that can break, improving safety and reliability. This would do away with various maintenance and logistics requirements, too. It might make a military design more resilient to battle damage and easier to fix, as well.
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The CRANE program and Aurora Flight Sciences’ design is of course not the first time AFC technology has been experimented with. U.K.-headquartered BAE Systems, which was another one of the participants in CRANE’s Phase 0, has been very publicly experimenting with various AFC concepts since at least 2010. The most recent of these developments was an AFC-equipped design called MAGMA. Described by BAE as a “large model,” this aircraft actually flew and you can read more about it here.
“Over the past several decades, the active flow control community has made significant advancements that enable the integration of active flow control technologies into advanced aircraft,” Richard Wlezein, the CRANE Program Manager at DARPA, said in a statement included in today’s press release. “We are confident about completing the design and flight test of a demonstration aircraft with AFC as the primary design consideration.”
