0.4% of travel accounts for 55% of carbon emissions? | Expo Daily

0.4% of travel accounts for 55% of carbon emissions?

The transportation industry is a major source of global carbon emissions, but it has been difficult to make breakthroughs in reducing carbon emissions. Recently, a study published in Nature Energy showed that although people take relatively few long-distance trips, the carbon emissions they generate are abnormally high!

By analyzing relevant survey data from the UK, researchers found that on average only 2.7% of each UK resident’s trips were counted as long-distance trips (i.e. trips of more than 50 miles one way), yet carbon emissions from these trips accounted for about 70% of total carbon emissions from residents’ travel.

What is even more shocking is that international travel only accounts for 0.4% of the total number of trips taken by residents, but it contributes 55% of the total carbon emissions from travel. As the number of long-distance trips per capita continues to increase, carbon emissions reduction in transportation will face tremendous pressure.

To this end, the researchers proposed a new assessment method - "emission reduction sensitivity" to evaluate the emission reduction potential of transportation.

The results of the study show that replacing air travel with a distance of less than 1,000 miles with rail travel can reduce industry carbon emissions by 5.6%, while only affecting 0.17% of journeys; limiting the number of international flights residents take each year can also effectively reduce carbon emissions without affecting most trips.

Mushrooms grow on apples . What kind of mushrooms are they ? How do they grow? Are they delicious?

Recently, the plum rains have just ended and the hot weather continues. A little girl in Zhejiang was surprised to find that a big mushroom had grown from an apple she forgot to eat at home!

What kind of mushroom is on the apple? From the picture, it should be Schizophyllum, also known as white ginseng fungus. It is a globally distributed basidiomycete, generally a saprophytic fungus (likes to grow on rotten wood), and some studies have shown that it can infect plants, humans or animals.

So why does it grow on apples? It could be that the apples have wounds while growing, and the spores of the fungus land on the apples and begin to grow. Another possibility is that the fungus first infects the apple tree and then spreads to the apple fruit.

Is this mushroom delicious? Yes! White ginseng mushroom is soft and tender, delicious, and has a special aroma. It has high nutritional value and is rich in amino acids and trace elements necessary for the human body.

The content comes from a media interview with Dr. Xu Rongju from the Biodiversity Laboratory of the Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences.

Why do human organs age?

If the genome is compared to a book, the first and last few pages of the book are blank, called "telomeres". Telomeres are like a counter. After cells divide many times, the blank pages of telomeres are torn off. When cells no longer have the ability to divide and regenerate, our organs will gradually age.

If I post like this , Chan Giegie won't be cyberbullied, right?

Recently, when I was riding my bike under the trees, I always felt water dripping on my body. But when I looked up at the scorching sun, I couldn't help but fall into deep thought, who is causing this?

Since it wasn't water dripping from the air conditioner, nor was it a bird flying overhead, there was only one possible truth - cicada urine! The good news is that this juice is non-toxic and generally does not cause allergies. The bad news...

Cicadas drink 300 times their body weight in xylem sap every day. Xylem sap is very nutrient-poor, 95% water, which means that cicadas must process a large amount of sap to extract enough energy and nutrients.

After the sap enters the cicada's body, it will absorb the sugar and amino acids in it, and the remaining liquid will be excreted from the body. The "urine" sprayed from the tree is, to be precise, the sap that the cicada inhales into its body.

It stands to reason that some lighter and smaller animals (such as many insects and small mammals) do not spray urine, their urine is drop by drop. However, cicadas are an exception! Relying on a special muscle, they can spray liquid waste out of the excretion hole at a speed of up to 3 meters per second!

Image credit: Jelbuilder

Sodium-ion battery breakthrough : Precursor cross-linking improves sodium storage capacity

Sodium-ion batteries are considered to be a key technology to support large-scale energy storage and ensure energy security due to their abundant resources and low cost. In the development of high-performance sodium-ion batteries, amorphous carbon materials as negative electrode materials have attracted much attention due to their wide sources, adjustable structures, and excellent comprehensive sodium storage performance.

The research team of the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences has made important progress in the field of sodium-ion batteries. Through the precursor cross-linking regulation technology, the sodium storage capacity of carbon negative electrode materials has been significantly improved. Sodium-ion batteries are regarded as the key direction of future energy storage technology due to their low cost and abundant resources.

The research team found that by pre-oxidizing and pre-treating asphalt with phosphoric acid, a large number of microporous structures can be generated inside the asphalt-derived carbon, forming abundant closed nanopores, which provide active sites for sodium ion storage. This method enables the optimized asphalt-based carbon material to exhibit a reversible specific capacity of 416 mAh/g for sodium storage, far exceeding the lithium storage capacity of graphite, and reaching the highest level of asphalt-based hard carbon sodium storage capacity reported in the literature.

In addition, the study broadened the definition of "closed pores", distinguished between fully closed pores and semi-closed pores, and found that the joint closed pores that cannot be penetrated by the electrolyte are the main sodium ion storage locations for improving the platform capacity. This discovery provides new ideas for the design of high-performance hard carbon negative electrode materials for sodium ion batteries.

The content is compiled from China Science Popularization Expo Weibo, Biodiversity Laboratory of Kunming Institute of Botany, Chinese Academy of Sciences, CCTV Records, Global Science, Bring Science Home, Shanghai Yangpu, Institute of Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences

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