The News Not Noise Letter: News That Doesn't Suck
You’ll never guess what this artwork is made from. Plus: a new species of cat on an idyllic French island, and some astronomical (and astrological) excitement.
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Before we get to your regularly scheduled News That Doesn’t Suck, we want to acknowledge the big news of the week: the Fed raised the interest rates by 0.25%. If you want to understand why they upped the rates and what that means, check out Monday’s newsletter here.
Here’s some news that doesn’t suck:
Art from Lego? Renowned visual artist Ai Weiwei has an astounding new work made from Legos—650,000 Lego bricks in 22 colors, to be specific. The work spans 15 meters and is on display at the Design Museum in London. Titled Water Lilies #1, Ai’s latest work is based on impressionist painter Claude Monet’s famous Water Lilies series. In his first design-focused series, “Making Sense,” the Design Museum says Ai “explores the tension between past and present, hand and machine, precious and worthless, construction and destruction.” “Making Sense,” including Water Lilies #1, will be on display at the Design Museum from April 7 - July 30.
Planetary Alignment: On Monday, March 27, five planets will be visible in the night sky: Mercury, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, and Uranus. Here’s a detailed guide for any curious stargazers who want to catch each planet—most will be visible to the naked eye, but binoculars will help you get a closer look. And in less scientific (but perhaps more fun) “news”, we live on Instagram so we see a lot of astrology, and apparently Pluto is passing through Aquarius for the first time since the US Constitution was written and the French Revolution occurred. Supposedly this means it’s a time for shifts in power dynamics, accountability, and people rising up to have a voice. (I know! I just included astrology in a newsletter! It’s Friday and it’s whimsical so, go with it :)
Revitalizing Electric Car Batteries: Electric cars are the future—the EU is trying to ensure that, at least. But there’s a challenge. After 10-20 years, electric vehicle (EV) batteries become too weak to power a car. One UK city knows that doesn’t mean EV battery life cycles have to end there. The City of Nottingham has teamed up with the company Connected Energy, which converts old EV batteries into high-efficiency energy storage systems, to help green up its energy grid. Here’s how it works: a two-way electric car charger system (which contains a huge bundle of old EV batteries) is connected to a set of solar panels and soaks up energy daily. Some of that energy powers Nottingham’s municipal vehicles and some local facilities, and the rest is stored in the repurposed EV batteries. At the end of the day, whatever residual energy remains in the batteries (plus whatever was unused by the municipal vehicles that day) is piped into the local electric grid during evening hours of peak demand, reducing the strain on the system and the demand on CO2-generating power plants. And wait, there’s more. The two-way charging system uses cheaper electricity in low-demand hours of the early morning to recharge Nottingham’s municipal vehicle fleet. The cycle begins all over again at dawn. This system is helping Nottingham to reduce its carbon footprint and to reduce electronic waste. It’s an innovative new twist on that classic British thrift.
Cat-Fox: Ever heard of the Corsican Cat-Fox? If you aren’t a resident of the French island of Corsica, the answer is probably no. Scientists have identified that this elusive feline is a unique endangered species. The Corsican cat-fox is much longer than domestic cats with a foxlike tail with a black tip and rings. It also has thick, silky fur that deters insects and pests. Wildlife rangers are optimistic that official species recognition will aid in conservation efforts and help protect the critters from human activity and from their natural predator, the golden eagle.
Life From Space: Scientists have found evidence that life (or at least its building blocks) might be extraterrestrial in origin. Astrochemists have found uracil, one of the key components of RNA and one of the earliest building blocks of life, in dust from an asteroid called Ryugu. They also found traces of Vitamin B3, which is essential for metabolism, as well as “a selection of amino acids, amines and carboxylic acids.” These two finds came in tightly sealed capsules extracted by a Japanese spacecraft, leaving no possibility of Earth contamination prior to analysis. This lends credence to a theory called pseudo-panspermia, which posits that life’s ingredients came to Earth through meteor strikes and asteroid collisions when the planet was still very young. Does this mean we’ve identified alien life on earth… and it’s us?
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