#Pumera

[wtf-scientific-papers]

It seems that whatever “crap” we put into graphene, electrocatalysis increases. One may exaggerate only a little by saying that if we spit on graphene it becomes a better electrocatalyst. Having 84 reasonably stable elements (apart from noble gases and carbon), one can produce 84 articles on monoelemental doping of graphene; with two dopants we have 3486 possible combinations, with three dopants we can publish 95,284 combinations, and with four elements there are close to 2×10^6 combinations. One may start wondering whether there is any reason to do so, whether all the efforts in graphene doping for electrochemistry are justified.

In summary, we demonstrated that bird dropping-treated graphenes indeed make graphene more electrocatalytic than nondoped graphene.

(Wang, Sofer, and Pumera 2020)

[unovadragoncongossip]

Video after break Ooc: this is a high stakes scene, it gets heavy after the break

<A video shows three people sitting under the newly budding shade of a tree in the mid afternoon sun. It’s a warm day for the time of year. They seem to be carrying some sort of takeout drinks. A Walking Wake, recognizable as Proteus, has settled down and is laying circled around all of them dozing happily. After a short moment the camera focuses on the faces of Professor Hemp, Professor Amaryllis and Piers who are chatting and enjoying themselves. However what they’re saying can’t be made out easily. Hemp reaches up and gently bushes some hair out of Bellamy’s face, before grasping his hand and gently kissing it. The man receiving these affections turns a brilliant red. Hemp throws back his head and a ringing laugh can be heard from across the park. It’s a laugh full of joy and life. He takes a deep breath and lands back, resting his head on pier’s lap before offering a hand to Amy to come lay down. He seems to be saying something as he gestures. Already Proteus is edging closer, pressing against all the humans. He puts an arm around Amy and looks up at Piers. Whatever they’re talking about still isn’t reaching the camera. Obby, an Obstagoon, wanders over from whatever he was eating (maybe trash?) and half lays down cuddled up between Piers and Proteus. Slinky, an Arbok, also out of his pokeball, Drapes himself over top of the large (and warm) Paradox Pokemon. 

Hemp leans backwards, his eyes half closed and puts his hands on the side of Piers’ face, pulling him down for a deep and loving kiss while his hand entwines with Pier’s hair and he murmurs something that can’t be made out at all, like everything else being said. Though his crystal clear laugh does once again ring out after he speaks. 

Amy idly checks his phone, scrolling. Then stops. Scrolls back up a little and can be seen to be staring. Suddenly they’re pushing themselves to their feet and talking animatedly at everyone, who seem to take heed and pull themselves up. Hemp is holding the egg case and quickly hands it off to Amy, since he’s still unsteady. 

As they prepare to leave ten people in rocket uniforms converge, pokeballs at the ready. A pair of Officers stand in the back, one with a cruel looking barbed whip and the other weidling a switchblade. The camera zooms in on the action, the person holding it shaking and breath heavy with what sounds like excitement. 

“Hand over the Egg and the Pokemon and nobody gets hurt.” the whip carrying officer says, his voice is clear and can be heard. 

Hemp stares him down. “You’re welcome to try, you fucking foul stench bastards.” He spits.  

The switchblade carrying officer stares at Amy and then shouts something that isn’t caught before charging forward.Hemp moves swiftly to pull Amy out of the way of the incoming switchblade however with his brace still out of commission he doesn’t move as he expects. The blade buries into his shoulder and crimson spills as the rocket officer grabs Hemp by the shoulder and drives the blade deep into his chest where it lodges seemingly in his heart. He stares for a moment at the officer then at his chest before crumpling to the ground, his bleeding shoulder wound the only sure sign that he wasn’t dead. His eyes barely open, he mouths something to Amy.  

Slinky moves around to guard Hemp while Amy is muttering something and pulls off his shirt, revealing a very scarred torso. However at this distance it is hard to pick up the details. Whatever it was, it had been near fatal. He presses it against the shoulder wound, head shaking back and forth while he continually mutters something. Brushing the hair out of Hemp’s slightly greying face.

There is an unholy shriek as Pottymouth, a Pumera, leaps out of her pokeball and lands on the officer who very quickly ceases moving as cacti-like spines cause crimson to cover the white uniform. She continued to trample the officer for a short time before turning towards the other rockets and flaring her flower-like wings, her spine-blade snake’s tail lashing back and forth. Her eyes, fixed on them and slowly the cactus-like feline advances growling low.

And the gathered rockets erupt into chaos. Piers is swinging what looks like a mace, Obby on his feet snarling and sending grunts flying. Pier’s is screaming in his native tongue, bearing down on the grunts. “chi bastardiaid! Ystyr geiriau: Fuck chi a marw fuck off. Mae hwn ar gyfer 

Cywarch. Arhoswch i lawr os ydych chi'n gwybod beth sy'n dda i chi! Obby! Sic em! Ewch am y gwddf!”

At this point the camera person breaks their nerve and bolts, the sound of something chasing after them is heard. Sirens are ringing in the distance>

[prof-hemp420]

<another picutre with the flower in full view> Genetic tests say it's an Arbok with some really interesting genetics, stuff pointing to domestication. If you notice she displays a higher level of neotany than... oh wait. <shares picture of a NORMAL catcuss with a yellow flower> Yeah, see how the features are less... uneven. Even for a barrel build she's... kind of symmetrical and just more babyish than normal. These creatures usually have yellow flowers, and nothing I nor Mystic know aside from her being a hybrid could produce a bloom like this.

Pottymouth skulks off on her own for fun from time to time.

Tell me about your, hm, partner pokemon?

I mean I don't consider any of my Pokémon to be my one and only partner, but I only have one of my old guard left. Pottymouth the Pumera. I've had Pottymouth since I was 7. I was... a different child and picked the sort of name a child would. It's stuck with her her whole life. <shows picture a pokemon that is a cactus-like feline with massive spiney wings. It stands on hooves and has a long serpentine tail covered in spines that have flattened and are blade-like. The eyes, instead of being cat-like are goatlike. She's about the size of an African lion.>

She's a Pumera, one of the lines that are the starters here on Terramara. Like any starter rated Pumera she's been bred to be extremley protective and bond closely to me. I mean gotta keep the kids safe when they start their challenge. Why not specially bred pokemon. Kids typically get their Pokémon a couple years before the start of their challenge to really get the bond cemented.

Recently I've had the great fortune to start forming a bond with this great lug. <shares picture of Proteus, covered in inkay>. He's what people are calling a Walking Wake. Bit of a mouthful to be honest.

Right now I'm more learning about him, he's going to be my big presentation at Dragon Con.

And well Piers just gave me an Inkay, Cheese'n'Toast. But he's a baby yet.

What about you? Really great of you to take in a trainer-orphaned pokemon like that.

[sesaya]

15 years old. Walang trabaho. Walang hanapbuhay. Walang pangarap at walang hinaharap.

Hindi ko ba alam kung ano'ng gagawin ko sa buhay ko, eto na yung point na pinag-iisipan ko na kung ganito nalang ba ako habangbuhay, hanggang pagtanda. Ganda sana eh no? Merong bahay na hindi nirerentahan, hindi lulong sa stress sa kaka-work sa opisina, hindi rin ako namomroblema sa pangkain pang araw-araw, hindi problemado sa pera kasi ma'y allowance. Perpekto na sana kung hindi lang sa nararamdamang pagkukulang sa loob.

Pakiramdam ko kailangan kong mag-explore, pumera nang malakas o ewan ko. Basta. Pakiramdam ko kailangan kong gumawa ng kahit ano, kasi nauubusan na ako ng oras. Free trial lang ang childhood, tutorial ang adolescence, hard mode ang adulthood.

Hayyyyyyyyyy......

[myfeeds]

BeerBots could speed up the brewing process

Science News from research organizations 1 2 Date: April 24, 2023 Source: American Chemical Society Summary: Craft brewers are continuously upping the ante and coming up with innovative ways to make or flavor their newest beers. Now, researchers are adding a new twist of their own, speeding up the brewing process with beer-making mini-robots or ‘BeerBots.’ The team shows that these self-propelled, magnetic packages of yeast can make the fermentation phase go faster and cut out the need to filter the beverage. Share: advertisement FULL STORY Craft brewers are continuously upping the ante and coming up with innovative ways to make or flavor their newest beers. Now, researchers are adding a new twist of their own, speeding up the brewing process with beer-making mini-robots or “BeerBots.” Reporting in ACS Nano, the team shows that these self-propelled, magnetic packages of yeast can make the fermentation phase go faster and cut out the need to filter the beverage. Beer, one of the world’s most-consumed drinks, can take a while to brew. In the first step, sugars are extracted from grains, such as malted barley, to create a watery solution called wort. Next, yeasts ferment those sugars, converting them into alcohol, carbon dioxide gas and new flavor compounds. This step can take as long as four weeks, and during that time, unwanted microorganisms can get in and spoil the final product with sour flavors. Previous researchers have suggested that encapsulating the yeast in polymer capsules could lessen the chance of spoilage by speeding up the process. So, Martin Pumera and colleagues wanted to develop a self-propelled bot to both make fermentation proceed more quickly and simplify the separation of yeast from the final beer. The researchers made 2-mm-wide BeerBot capsules by combining active yeast, magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles and sodium alginate from algae and dripping the mixture into a ferric chloride solution. Then they made one side of the spheres porous by exposing that half to an alkaline solution in an electrochemical cell. Initial experiments showed that the yeast-containing beads could ferment sugar and produce carbon dioxide bubbles that propelled them upward. When they got to the surface, they released carbon dioxide into the air, and then sank again, resulting in a bobbing motion. When used to ferment malted barley wort, the team found that the self-propelled BeerBots transformed sugars faster than free yeast cells. As the sugar was used up and fermentation ceased, the yeast-containing capsules sank to the bottom of the flask. This made it easy to separate the yeast from the final product with a magnet, rather than with a filtration step that’s currently required to remove free yeast cells. Additionally, the collected BeerBots were active for up to three more wort fermentation cycles. Based on these results, the researchers say that BeerBots could produce tasty brews faster. advertisement Story Source: Materials provided by American Chemical Society. Note: Content may be edited for style and length. Journal Reference: Roberto Maria-Hormigos, Carmen C. Mayorga-Martinez, Tomáš Kinčl, Martin Pumera. Nanostructured Hybrid BioBots for Beer Brewing. ACS Nano, 2023; 17 (8): 7595 DOI: 10.1021/acsnano.2c12677 Cite This Page: American Chemical Society. “‘BeerBots’ could speed up the brewing process.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 24 April 2023. . American Chemical Society. (2023, April 24). ‘BeerBots’ could speed up the brewing process. ScienceDaily. Retrieved April 25, 2023 from https://ift.tt/mQaqZOl American Chemical Society. “‘BeerBots’ could speed up the brewing process.” ScienceDaily. https://ift.tt/mQaqZOl (accessed April 25, 2023).

[retromissile]

Birthday gift for my wife. Can't draw enough Rahibe but this time she's with her pet/mount Pasha, looking for prey.

[wolvereaux]

Not sure if I’ve ever posted him here, but Tonka’s got a pet Pumera! Sometime after Sana and Ruvin took her in, they gave her a pumera cub as her own. Unable to come up with a suitable name for him, Tonka called him “Monster” as a placehold name. Eventually it stuck!

Right now he’s a lanky adolescent, but I drew him as an adult here ^_^

[thirenponds]

Sleeping critters of Nexus(1/?)

[jackalopeisaac]

Thunder Cats! Ho!

[focusonthegoodnews]

Tiny Robots Could Clean Up Microplastic Pollution

Tiny Robots Could Clean Up Microplastic Pollution

Good News Notes: “Microplastics—minuscule, hard-to-degrade fragments of clothing fibers, water bottles and other synthetic items—have made their way into air, water and soil around the world. Now new research published in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces shows a way to promote their deterioration, at least in water, with technology on an even smaller scale: microrobots. When added to water…

[eideard]

Will Any Crap We Put into Graphene Increase Its Electrocatalytic Effect?

Stop the Madness!

‘It seems that whatever “crap” we put into graphene, electrocatalysis increases.’ That’s according to Martin Pumera, University of Chemistry and Technology, Prague, Czech Republic, and colleagues, whose experiments prove their point.

Pumera’s team has added bird droppings to graphene electrodes, and in doing so improved the efficiency of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen…

[materialsscienceandengineering]

Bacteria-Sized Metallic Robots Take On Microplastics – And Win by Breaking Them Down

Small pieces of plastic are everywhere, stretching from urban environments to pristine wilderness. Left to their own devices, it can take hundreds of years for them to degrade completely. Catalysts activated by sunlight could speed up the process, but getting these compounds to interact with microplastics is difficult. In a proof-of-concept study, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces developed self-propelled microrobots that can swim, attach to plastics and break them down.

While plastic products are omnipresent indoors, plastic waste and broken bits now litter the outdoors, too. The smallest of these — microplastics less than 5 mm in size — are hard to pick up and remove. In addition, they can adsorb heavy metals and pollutants, potentially harming humans or animals if accidently consumed. So, previous researchers proposed a low-energy way to get rid of plastics in the environment by using catalysts that use sunlight to produce highly reactive compounds that break down these types of polymers. However, getting the catalysts and tiny plastic pieces in contact with each other is challenging and usually requires pretreatments or bulky mechanical stirrers, which aren’t easily scaled-up. Martin Pumera and colleagues wanted to create a sunlight-propelled catalyst that moves toward and latches onto microparticles and dismantles them.

Read more.

[nuadox]

Proof of concept: Bacteria-sized robots take on microplastics

- By American Chemical Society -

Small pieces of plastic are everywhere, stretching from urban environments to pristine wilderness. Left to their own devices, it can take hundreds of years for them to degrade completely. Catalysts activated by sunlight could speed up the process, but getting these compounds to interact with microplastics is difficult. 

In a proof-of-concept study, researchers reporting in ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces developed self-propelled microrobots that can swim, attach to plastics and break them down.

Image: Metallic microrobots (dark blue dots) colonize a jagged piece of microplastic under visible light, breaking down the plastic into smaller molecules. Credit: Adapted from ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces 2021, DOI: 10.1021/acsami.1c04559.

While plastic products are omnipresent indoors, plastic waste and broken bits now litter the outdoors, too. The smallest of these – microplastics less than 5 mm in size – are hard to pick up and remove. In addition, they can adsorb heavy metals and pollutants, potentially harming humans or animals if accidently consumed. So, previous researchers proposed a low-energy way to get rid of plastics in the environment by using catalysts that use sunlight to produce highly reactive compounds that break down these types of polymers. 

However, getting the catalysts and tiny plastic pieces in contact with each other is challenging and usually requires pretreatments or bulky mechanical stirrers, which aren’t easily scaled-up. Martin Pumera and colleagues wanted to create a sunlight-propelled catalyst that moves toward and latches onto microparticles and dismantles them.

To transform a catalytic material into light-driven microrobots, the researchers made star-shaped particles of bismuth vanadate and then evenly coated the 4-8 µm-wide structures with magnetic iron oxide. The microrobots could swim down a maze of channels and interact with microplastic pieces along their entire lengths. The researchers found that under visible light, microrobots strongly glommed on to four common types of plastics. The team then illuminated pieces of the four plastics covered with the microrobot catalyst for seven days in a dilute hydrogen peroxide solution. 

They observed that the plastic lost 3% of its weight and that the surface texture for all types changed from smooth to pitted, and small molecules and components of the plastics were found in the left-over solution. The researchers say the self-propelled microrobot catalysts pave the way toward systems that can capture and degrade microplastics in hard-to-reach-locations.

The authors acknowledge funding from the European Regional Development Fund.

--

Source: American Chemical Society

Full study: “A Maze in Plastic Wastes: Autonomous Motile Photocatalytic Microrobots against Microplastics”, ACS Applied Materials & Interfaces.

https://doi.org/10.1021/acsami.1c04559

Read Also

Proof of concept: Electrolytic treatment of wastewater degrading microplastics at the source

[chibicreates]

Today I decided to combine my two prompts of roll reversal and pets partially to replace the fact that today was supposed to be strain infection for wild tober and I just didn’t want to. So instead I turned Zad’s loyal pumera into an Aurin, and Zad has become his loyal dawnstrider. And let’s just say, I LOVE Aurin Bear XD

[prfoundlysuperengineer]

⅌ - Drop a pumera cub on my muses lap!

Seeing that the aurin had not moved from her spot, Jenny strolled over and, with care, plopped a fluffy, pumera cub into her lap. A bit disheveled from being snuggled, it’s fur was mostly gold and umber spotted, with grey-blue stripes creeping up from it’s belly and along the tips of it’s ears. Wide, amber eyes looked from the human to the aurin, then back and forth once more before a pink tongue flicked out from the cubs small maw to liiiick the aurin’s nose.

“Yer the aurin from the alley, righ’?” Jenny flashed a charming smile. “Don’ mean t’ bother ya much, but you were lookin’ real down, an’ though’ the li’le guy’d cheer ya up!”

[stormbringer]

a patient boi and his ear-eating pumera girlfriend

@crymwindbur