On primary plastic polymers there is ever-increasing support for adherence to the UNEA mandate of covering the full life cycle of plastics in the treaty, with emphasis on sustainable production and consumption. The proposal introduced by Rwanda and Peru, to cap production and set 40% reduction targets on virgin production by 2040, received support from several delegations. Scientists, businesses, civil society and a broad set up governments shared insights on how reduction measures remain to be the single biggest lever to reduce plastic pollution.

Unilever has revised its goal to halve virgin plastic consumption by 2025, shifting the target to one-third by 2026. This is feared to result in a further 100,000 tons of fresh plastic being produced every year and has sparked backlash – yet others have defended the move as a realistic decision.

Steven Koonin, le physicien théoricien américain et ancien directeur du Center for Urban Science and Progress de l'Université de New York, avait déjà informé les lecteurs de PAN que, selon le GIEC, les conséquences économiques d’un réchauffement climatique de quelques degrés n’étaient que marginales. Il profite de ce qu’il appelle une « gaffe » de l’administration Biden pour montrer que même cette dernière affirme cela à son insu. Ceux qui veulent changer de modèle de société sous prétexte que l’économie de marché est la cause du changement climatique doivent trouver une autre raison d’imposer leur idéologie.

Brand names can be used to hold plastic companies accountable for their items found polluting the environment: [...] 50% of items were unbranded, calling for mandated producer reporting. The top five brands globally were The Coca-Cola Company (11%), PepsiCo (5%), Nestlé (3%), Danone (3%), and Altria (2%), accounting for 24% of the total branded count, and 56 companies accounted for more than 50%. There was a clear and strong log-log linear relationship production (%) = pollution (%) between companies’ annual production of plastic and their branded plastic pollution, with food and beverage companies being disproportionately large polluters.

Ninety-nine percent of plastics are derived from fossil fuels, and the fossil fuel industry continues to clutch plastics and petrochemicals as a lifeline. The 37% increase in lobbyists from INC-3 shows that the footprint of industry lobbyists is progressively increasing as calls for the treaty to address plastic production grow both inside and outside the negotiations.

Grâce à la technologie Drive Pilot, Mercedes est donc devenue le premier constructeur au monde à mettre en vente une voiture véritablement autonome sur le marché américain.

A group of Danish and American social scientists announced that with artificial intelligence and a huge data set, they were able to predict the likelihood of a person’s death within the next four years with startling accuracy. “Using Sequences of Life-Events to Predict Human Lives,” published in Nature Computational Science in December, was like a Christmas gift from Blumhouse. The internet exploded with reports of a super-creepy AI “doom calculator.” Overnight, the paper became the most famous Danish rumination on mortality since “To be or not to be.”

The gigantic and costly industry Silicon Valley is building around generative AI is still struggling to explain the technology's utility. Why it matters: AI chatbots and image generators are making headlines and fortunes, but a year and a half into their revolution, it remains tough to say exactly why we should all start using them.

Comme vous le savez, les platistes, ceux qui pensent que la Terre est plate, sont de plus en plus nombreux. Ces dernières années, ce mouvement a pris de l'ampleur. Certainement dû aux nombreux articles qui commentent leurs nombreuses théories, selon laquelle notre planète ne serait pas une sphère mais un disque... Le site IFLScience s'est penché sur les preuves que présentent ces personnes qui remettent en cause la science.

De TSMC à Samsung en passant par Intel ou GlobalFoundries, tous les grands fabricants de semi-conducteurs ont besoin des appareils ASML grands comme un bus. Sans cela, impossible pour eux de graver les processeurs imaginés par Nvidia, Qualcomm, Apple ou d'autres et vendus comme des petits pains pour les smartphones les plus puissants tout comme les serveurs informatiques des intelligences artificielles.

“I think a lot of investors who don't have the operational background are really genuinely trying to be helpful, but they're kind of going through a checklist of the things they should be worried about. They don't necessarily have that really clear instinct that comes from a place of experience around: ‘What is the thing right now that existentially matters to this company, and this is where I should intervene to help the founder?’ There are lots of things that you shouldn't be meddling in.”

Le principe est très simple et offre une expérience complète de gamification pour tous les collaborateurs. Montez sur le tapis de course, saisissez votre email et appuyez sur “Lancer la course”. Vous serez ainsi mis au défi de courir 300 mètres à la vitesse que vous désirez et recevrez, en fin de course, votre précieux café.

For older chip manufacturing, which can use deep ultraviolet (DUV) lithography systems, ASML competes with Nikon and Canon. But for advanced extreme ultraviolet (EUV), there is no peer competitor. ASML is believed to have accounted for 91 percent of all lithography sales in 2020, with its machines snapped up by desperate chipmaking companies amid a global semiconductor crunch.

Light generation in EUV lithography is an incredibly complex process. A generator ejects 25-micrometer tin droplets at a speed of 70 meters per second inside a vacuum vessel. Trumpf manufactures a very powerful industrial CO2 laser for the system, which is fired at these tin droplets. Each individual droplet must be hit twice. The first hit occurs with a low intensity laser pulse that flattens the tin droplet, similar to the shape of a pancake. The second hit with a stronger laser pulse vaporizes the droplet and generates EUV light. A vacuum is required in the EUV machine because extreme ultra violet light is absorbed by all materials. For this reason, mirrors are used instead of lenses, as mirrors can reflect and transmit the light. This is the only way to direct the light through the machine and onto the wafer, as lenses would simply absorb it.

Si des études ont déjà souligné l'influence de l'épigénétique dans le développement de tumeurs, c'est la première fois qu'il est démontré que les mutations de l’ADN - qui s'accumulent au niveau du génome - ne sont pas indispensables à l'apparition des cancers. En d'autres termes, cette découverte montre que des processus pas forcément génétiques sont entièrement capables de provoquer l'apparition et le développement de tumeur, ouvrant ainsi la voie à de nouvelles pistes thérapeutiques.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned from 2023, it’s that digital technologies are changing our lives more rapidly than ever. Based on the first events and announcements, we can already tell that 2024 promises many exciting opportunities in digital innovation and transformation. From AI, custom platforms and clean tech, to AR and data-driven insights, take a look at the 5 trends that we think are worth your attention this year!

Proposer un papier remettant en cause le modèle dominant, c’est un peu comme essayer de vendre Noël à une dinde. D’où le blocage : sans papier, les tenants de modèles alternatifs ne peuvent avoir ni budget ni carrière, et doivent soit se soumettre, soit se démettre. C’est ainsi qu’un modèle mental dominant erroné peut persister.

Although these studies did not demonstrate a causal link between the presence of MNPs and disease, they underscore the need to accelerate research on this topic. Among the most pressing questions are the amounts of MNPs that are absorbed through ingestion, inhalation or skin exposure, the amounts of MNPs that accumulate in different tissues over the lifetime of a person, and how the different characteristics of MNPs — including their chemical composition, size and shape — affect those tissues. Mechanistic studies are also needed to probe how MNPs might lead to damage, including systemic effects mediated by the immune system or the microbiome, or direct cytotoxic effects. There is also a need for study of how exposure to MNPs and its consequent effects on health may be influenced by environmental, social and economic factors.

Saveggy has received €1.76 million in investments from Unconventional Ventures, LRF Ventures, Almi Invest GreenTech, and industry angels for its edible, plant-based coating – a solution hoped to extend the shelf life of fruits and vegetables.

Il faut se pincer pour le croire. Dans son dernier rapport, France Stratégie écrit: « La neutralité climatique est atteignable. C’est une grande transformation, d’ampleur comparable aux révolutions industrielles du passé. Elle sera pilotée d’abord par les politiques publiques et non par les innovations technologiques et les marchés. » Si personne ne conteste l’importance des politiques publiques dans des transformations de grande ampleur, on croyait passé le temps où on pouvait énoncer comme une évidence que tout devait venir de celles-ci. On avait tort. Derrière ce simple message se cachent plusieurs croyances considérées comme des évidences, ce qui est le propre des modèles mentaux dans lesquels on s’enferme.