By Valerie Lapointe, Medill Reports, video by Chencheng Zhao
Global warming sounds too cozy, says Seth B. Darling, a scientist at Argonne National Laboratory and a fellow at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Molecular Engineering. He prefers the term “climate disruption” for the kinds of threats to coastlines, weather, food and water that the world faces. His recent talk, sponsored by the Chicago Council on Science and Technology, tackled looked at “Climate Disruption: What We Can Do Now.”
Darling and most other scientists link the cause of climate change to burning fossil fuels such as gasoline. They emit carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas linked to heating up the Earth’s atmosphere. Carbon dioxide levels have increased 40 percent in the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution.
Continue reading “Climate Disruption: What Do We Do Now?”
By Jeff McMahon, Opinion, Forbes
Only next-generation solar technology can offset humanity’s use of fossil fuels, meet our energy needs, and do so with the urgency dictated by climate change, an Argonne National Laboratory scientist said in Chicago last night.
Argonne materials scientist Seth Darling told about 50 people that next generation technologies—like organic solar modules and perovskite solar voltaics—just need more research and development.
Continue reading “Argonne Scientist Urges Next Generation Solar: ‘We Have No Choice,’”
By Bill Burton, UIC News
Theoretical physicist Dirk Morr ponders unusual condensed matter materials which scientists hope will one day yield a high-temperature superconductor that could be used in an “energy superhighway” to transfer energy in the form of electricity over great distances without any losses.
“Power must be generated near where it’s used,” says Morr, professor of physics. But renewable sources are often remote. Wind power, for example, would be much more feasible if the electricity generated on huge “farms” could be transferred to cities without loss of energy. Unfortunately, the highest-temperature superconductor yet known works only below a chilly minus-160 degrees Fahrenheit.
Continue reading “Searching for energy superhighway superconductor”
By Paul Caine Producer, WTTW’s Chicago Tonight
With President Jimmy Carter’s seemingly miraculous recovery from a metastatic melanoma that had spread to his brain after treatment with a newly approved drug, it’s tempting to hope that medical science is finally winning the battle against this so-called “emperor of all maladies.”
So what is the state of current medical research and treatment for the many varieties of cancer that plague us?
Continue reading “Cancer Experts Talk Transformation in Treatment and Care”
By Kurt Brown, IIT Tech News
The Chicago Council on Science and Technology (C2ST) hosts a variety of events in the city to enhance the public perception of science and technology. On the evening of Wednesday, October 21, C2ST hosted a lecture by Stuart Firestein entitled “Failure: Why Science is So Successful.” The lecture took place in the gymnasium of Chicago Tech Academy High School on the Near West Side of the city.
Continue reading “Stuart Firestein presents C2ST Lecture on failure in science”
