Science!!!

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Located in Costa Mesa, California, Newlight Technologies is forming plastic out of thin air. Literally.

"We would be breathing this right now," said Mark Herrema, Newlight’s CEO.

Herrema sees both sides of the climate change debate.

"You’ve got people on one side who say, if we enact carbon legislation it’s going to cost the economy, and they’re not wrong," Herrema said. "On the other side, we have people who say this is a huge problem and we need to do something about it, and they’re not wrong, either. The problem is they haven’t been able to find something that works for both sides."

The 32-year-old may have found that “something.” He’s figured out how to make plastic out of destructive carbon emissions that would otherwise heat the atmosphere, rather than with fossil fuels such as oil. Most importantly, he figured out a way to do it cheaper. It’s something he has been working on for 11 years since he started the company with his friend Kenton Kimmel in his parents’ garage.

"We’re not the first people to have the idea of turning greenhouse gas into plastic," Herrera said. "The thing that was missing was that no one had figured out how to do it cost-effectively."

Here’s how it works: Carbon emissions are captured from farms, landfills, and energy facilities and are fed into a 50-foot-tall reactor at Newlight’s plant. A bundle of enzymes strips out the carbon and oxygen and rearranges them into a substance they call air carbon.

The product is then melted down and cooled inside tubes and sliced into little plastic pellets that can be molded into anything.

Herrema calls it “a disruptive technology that’s gonna change the world.”

Company unlocks secret to making plastic out of air - CBS News
 
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The U.K. is set to allow self-driving cars to use public roads as of January 2015. Currently they are allowed on private roads only.

The Department for Transport had previously claimed that driverless cars would be trialled on public roads by the end of 2013, while the country’s Treasury announced a plan to create a ?10 million ($16.9m) prize to fund a city to test autonomous vehicles.

Friggin' Doo A! • Self-driving cars will be on U.K. roads by January
 
6/12, but guessed wrong every time. I run bad on 50/50 flips.
College chemistry was a looong time ago.

That plastics from thin air guy should get together with the self driving cars guys and solve all our environmental problems.
 
[video]http://msnvideo.msn.com/?channelindex=4&from=en-us_msnhp#/video/d3d80b63-9312-4563-9114-3fdaafd2a065[/video]

Meteor shower in Brazil.
 
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