Two-thirds of the world’s population is experiencing water shortages (1). The water in the form of vapor and droplets in the atmosphere, estimated to be about 13 thousand trillion liters (2), is a natural resource that could address the global water problem. Although there has been interest in dewing (3–6) from moist air and fog capture (7–9), these processes require either the frequent presence of 100% relative humidity (RH) or a large amount of energy and thus are not viable solutions for the capture of water from air. Ideally, a water-harvesting system should operate with a material that can take up and release water with minimum energy requirements and that is powered by low-grade energy sources, such as sunlight, in order to potentially allow its deployment in households, especially those located in sunny regions. Here, we demonstrate water harvesting by vapor adsorption using a porous metal-organic framework {microcrystalline powder form of MOF-801, [Zr6O4(OH)4(fumarate)6]} (10) in ambient air with low RH typical of the levels found in most dry regions of the world (down to a RH of 20%). We also report a device based on this MOF that can harvest and deliver water (2.8 liters of water per kilogram of MOF per day at 20% RH) under a nonconcentrated solar flux less than 1 sun (1 kW m–2), requiring no additional power input for producing water at ambient temperature outdoors.
Porous materials, such as zeolites, silica gels, and MOFs, can harvest water from air by adsorption over a wide range of humidity values (11–13). However, conventional adsorbents (e.g., zeolites and silica gels) suffer from either low uptake of water or requiring high energy consumption to release water. Although MOFs have already been considered in numerous applications—including gas storage, separation, and catalysis (14–16); heat pumps (17, 18); and dehumidification (19)—the use of MOFs for water harvesting has only recently been proposed (10). The flexibility (20–22) with which MOFs can be made and modified at the molecular level, coupled with their ultrahigh porosity, makes them ideally suited for overcoming the challenges mentioned above.
This is a bit more serious than the old, frequently-debunked "dehumidifier in the desert" stuff, because it doesn't depend on cooling the air to get the water out, but using a molecular sponge. If you pump enough air over that, you'll eventually fill it up, and you can drive the water out by heating it up.
The guy behind this is a serious organic chemist, and his Nobel prize was actually for pioneering and developing these molecules, so it's not a case of "Nobel prize winner does daft stuff about a subject he's not an expert in", either.
I'm still reserving judgement on whether this will be economically sensible, but I'm not dismissing it immediately, either.
The most common pushback on the car wash test: "Humans would fail this too."
Fair point. We didn't have data either way. So we partnered with Rapidata to find out. They ran the exact same question with the same forced choice between "drive" and "walk," no additional context, past 10,000 real people through their human feedback platform.
71.5% said drive.
So people do better than most AI models. Yay. But seriously, almost 3 in 10 people get this wrong‽‽
I must have been living under a rock, because I didn't even know that codeberg existed. I've just created an account there, added my ssh key, and successfully pushed a project there. Will be migrating as much as possible (focusing on code that might actually be interesting to others) over the weekend. Thanks!
On Tinder, I met my GF from 2017 to 2022. We had a lot in common, had some really great times, but the long-distance thing in the end was too much, so when she suggested opening up the relationship, I went back on the apps, and after an open relationship phase, we decided to shift from a romantic relationship to friendship. We're still good friends, though - I saw her last Thursday when she was in my city.
During our open phase, I met some lovely people (two on Bumble, one on tinder) who for one reason or another weren't open to a committed relationship, but there was no harm done - we spent good time together and drifted naturally apart once I started a relationship that turned monogamous. No hard feelings on either side.
On Tinder I also met my current (forever) partner. Amazing, low-conflict relationship. We live together and I've kind of stepped into the dad role for her son. We met in December 2021, chatted for three months and then started seeing each other, and soon became exclusive. I get along brilliantly with her parents, as does she with mine. We're absolutely sure that we're together for life.
I never felt that the apps were leading me into cheap, disposable relationships. I never had issues of "What if the next perfect person is just one swipe away?"
Of course! As soon as this kind of thing comes to light, the pitchforks come out. The checkusers have some advanced tools to find linked bad-actor accounts, for example.
Wikipedia is only a good source on non controversial topics
There's research showing that controversial topics ultimately get better Wikipedia articles, because they get more attention, and because editors more strongly feel the need to get good quality sources.
Or how bad something is. "I don't need a scientific study to tell me that looking at my phone before bed will make me sleep badly", but the studies actually show that the effect is statistically robust but small.
In the same way, studies like this can make the distinction between different levels of advice and warning.
I joined a month ago, and I like Lemmy much much more than Reddit. The federation makes it visible that you're part of a large community, there's no advertising, and I find the discussion to be of a generally higher quality. I also like that one can see upvotes and downvotes. Not sure whether it needs to be fuzzified or embargoed to fight abuse in future, but either way, it's nice.
I'm absolutely sold on Lemmy vs Reddit. I dumped Twitter when Musk took over, and by then I was already on Mastodon, but I don't actually use it much. Didn't use Twitter much either. Any comments on Mastodon vs Bluesky?
Following publication, Miller has been in touch to tell us that he has no plans to abandon sudo, or even hand it off, but he suspects change is still on the horizon for the essential tool.
"While I don't expect to maintain sudo for an additional 30 years, I also don't currently have someone to pass the torch to," Miller told us. He noted that the xz utils backdoor has made him hesitant to hand it off to someone he doesn't know, and that he "feels responsible for sudo" after having spent so long as its lead dev and maintainer.
Unfortunately, a lack of financial backing means sudo work has ground to a glacial pace.
"Since I have limited time I've mostly been focused on fixing bugs and cleaning up the code base rather than adding new features," Miller said. "As a result the amount of time I spend is heavily influenced by the bug reports I receive."
Funding or not, Miller expects sudo-rs to become the next generation of the tool in coming years.
"Ubuntu is already shipping sudo-rs as the default sudo command in their latest versions," Miller told us. "I've been in contact with the people working on sudo-rs since the project started and I trust them to do right by the sudo user base."
Regardless of what happens, Miller agrees the sudo situation he's in is yet another example of how open-source maintainers is putting the entire computing community in a bind.
"Without some form of assistance it is untenable," Miller said. "Maintainer burn-out is real."
Bungalow, pyjamas, jungle, loot, shampoo