Wild boar in southeastern Germany have long contained high levels of radioactive substances, which has been attributed to the 1986 Chernobyl nuclear disaster. But as radioactivity levels have fallen in other animals, they have stayed much the same among boar. Now, scientists have worked out the secret behind the so-called “wild boar paradox”. Research shows there is another culprit for the high levels of radioactivity: nuclear weapons tests from the mid-20th century. And both the weapons and the nuclear reactor meltdown continue contaminating the boar because of their diet. While the muscular boar seem healthy, the dangerous levels of radioactive caesium, the main contaminator, have prompted people to stop hunting them. In turn, there is now an overpopulation issue. “Our work reveals deeper insights into the notorious radio-cesium contamination in Bavarian wild boars beyond the total radionuclide quantification only,” radioecologist Felix Stäger from Leibniz University Hannover wrote in a paper. After a nuclear incident, radioactive materials can pose a significant threat to ecosystems. This happened after the Chernobyl meltdown in 1986, where there was an increase in radioactive caesium contamination. The main component of this, caesium-137, has a half-life of about 30 years, meaning it loses its radioactivity fairly quickly. However, caesium-135, which is created via nuclear fission, is far more stable. It has a half-life of more than 2m years. The ratio of cesium-135 compared to cesium-137 can help us work out where the cesium came from. A high ratio indicates nuclear weapon explosions, while a low ratio points to nuclear reactors like Chernobyl. So the researchers analysed caesium levels from 48 wild boar meat samples from 11 regions of Bavaria. It turns out that nuclear weapons testing was responsible for between 12 per cent and 68 per cent of the unsafe contamination in the samples. “All samples exhibit signatures of mixing,” wrote the researchers. “Nuclear weapons fallout and [Chernobyl] have mixed in the Bavarian soil, the release maxima of which were about 20−30 years apart.” So while Chernobyl remains the main source of caesium in wild boar, about a quarter of the samples showed enough contributions from weapons fallout to exceed safety limits even before the reactor meltdown comes into account. And because wild boar eat so many truffles, it has been exacerbated. The fungus absorbs high levels of contamination from both sources. Wild boars' diets, which include underground truffles, have absorbed varying levels of contamination from both sources, which has contributed to the animals' persistent radioactivity. “This study illustrates that strategic decisions to conduct atmospheric nuclear tests 60−80 years ago still impact remote natural environments, wildlife, and a human food source today,” the authors concluded. The study was published in Environmental Science & Technology. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

It seems that Twitter is already walking back some of the unpopular decisions it made

A woman has sparked a debate across social media after finding an abandoned couch on the street and taking it back to her apartment. Creator Amanda Joy posted a TikTok of the ‘dream couch’ she had found on the street in New York showing the process of getting it into her apartment. Joy believed the couch to be the $8,000 ‘Bubble’ couch from French brand Roche Bobois. Posted on Saturday, the TikTok now has over 40 million views, and over 4 million likes. The rest of the TikTok showed Joy’s dad picking up the couch in his van and the process of cleaning the couch, before moving it into her apartment. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter However, the now viral TikTok has led to some saying the couch is a fake, and others being concerned about bed bugs. User @boymolish shared the TikTok to Twitter with the caption ‘WHY TF AM I NEVER THIS LUCKY’, and the Tweet had many saying that Joy had not cleaned it enough: Some argued that if you throw an 8k coach on the street there has to be an reason, implying that there was something wrong with it. But some disagreed, saying if you’re rich enough, it’s not a big deal to give away such expensive items for free. Others did some digging and argued that it wasn’t an authentic ‘Bubble’ couch, with one Twitter user comparing the material of the couch Joy now had in her apartment, to the one on the website. As a result of the growing debate around her TikTok, Joy posted an update video, specifically responding to a comment that said ‘it looks so good but I’m SO SCARED about it being BED BUG CENTRAL.’ Joy shared with users that the couch was outside on the street for less than 24 hours. She added that they let the couch sit in her dad’s workshop for over two weeks to ensure they couldn’t see any bed bugs. Joy also told viewers that the reason she thought it had been thrown out is because it has ‘a lot of rips,’ which she has covered with pillows, and ‘has some stains.’ At the end of the video, Joy also showed the tag, ‘for anyone who wants to tell me it’s fake.’ Some viewers were still convinced it wasn’t clean enough, suggesting she should get it professionally cleaned and reupholstered. Whilst others said as long as Joy was happy with it, they didn’t care. Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Five years ago, scientists managed to recreate what is known as superionic ice, in lab experiments for the first time. Superionic ice is believed to form within Uranus and Neptune as familiar materials are subjected to extreme pressures and heat, with iron atoms forming hot, black, heavy ice. But just last year researchers at several universities in the United States discovered a new phase of superionic ice. The discovery helps broaden our understanding of why Uranus and Neptune have off-kilter magnetic fields with multiple poles. Different to forms of water on Earth, the oxygen atoms in superionic ice are locked in a solid cubic lattice, while the ionised hydrogen atoms are loose, flowing through the lattice. This gives superionic ice conductive properties as well as raising its melting point, meaning the frozen water remains solid at temperatures up to 4704 Degree Celsius (8500 Fahrenheit). In this latest study, Stanford University's Arianna Gleason and colleagues blasted thin slivers of water, sandwiched between two diamond layers, with some extremely powerful lasers. "Recent discoveries of water-rich Neptune-like exoplanets require a more detailed understanding of the phase diagram of [water] at pressure–temperature conditions relevant to their planetary interiors," Gleason and colleagues explain in their paper, from January 2022 X-Ray diffraction revealed the hot, dense ice's crystal structure, and confirmed the ice crystals were in fact a new phase, distinct from the superionic ice that was observed in 2019. This newly discovered superionic ice, Ice XIX, has increased conductivity compared to its 2019 predecessor. The conductivity is important because it helps us understand why certain off-kilter magnetic fields are generated on planets such as Neptune and Uranus. You can read the paper, published in Scientific Reports here. Sign up to our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

The Finals is back for an Open Beta free for everyone, including console players who'd previously been excluded.

TL;DR: A three-year subscription to UltraVPN is on sale for £23.35 and includes a free

SAVE $44: The Apple Pencil (2nd generation) is on sale for $85 at Amazon as

LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 31, 2023--

Facebook parent company Meta Platforms has built an artificial intelligence system that rivals the likes of ChatGPT and Google’s Bard but it’s taking a different approach: releasing it for free

The post from the user of the X platform included a video of MrBeast celebrating surpassing one billion subscribers on YouTube

Engineers have invented a way to passively remove snow from solar panels to allow them to keep generating electricity during adverse weather conditions. A team from the University of Toledo in the United States developed a strip coating that causes accumulated snow to slide off solar panels without interfering with their efficiency. Solar panels can generate electricity on cloudy days, however snow cover can completely block their ability to harvest any of the Sun’s energy. This can result in up to 12 per cent loss of electricity generation per year in areas with heavy snowfall. The self-cleaning strips can also be applied to both new and existing solar installations relatively easily. “The strip coatings apply to the lower edge of the panel, resulting in passive snow removal without requiring any energy to operate,” said Hossein Sojoudi, an associate professor in the Department of Mechanical Industrial, and Manufacturing Engineering at the University of Toledo. “Our strip coating does not interfere with absorption of sunlight or panel efficiency at any time, does not cause any partial shading or hotspots on the panel, and does not invalidate module warranty and in fact improves the lifetime of the module.” Tests in the US and Japan found that solar panels fitted with the strip achieved more than 5 per cent improved power generation annually. Solar accounted for around 3.4 per cent of electricity generation in the US last year, according to figures from the Energy Information Administration, while more than half of new US electricity-generating capacity in 2023 is forecast to be from solar. Working with industry partners, Dr Sojoudi said he expects thousands of strip coatings to be installed across the US by the end of 2023. “We estimate to reach a production rate of 1 million strip coatings by the end of 2024,” he said. “Our solution is a game-changing technology that can lead to an additional $150 million in additional annual revenue, across states with heavy snowfall... Through the help of our strategic partners, we are delivering on the promise of solar energy all year long.” Read More Battery breakthroughs are about to trigger a transport revolution Hundreds of years after it was discovered, one material is about to change the world World’s first solar-powered hybrid truck tested on public roads Apple explains how the iPhone turned into a camera like none before it UK competition regulator proposes guiding principles to make AI market safe

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 7, 2023--