2021-01-23NewScientist

23 January 2021 | New Scientist | 21

Space

Environment Renewables

Seagrass like a litter

picker in the ocean

The seagrass Posidonia

oceanica traps pieces of

marine plastic and removes

them from the water. When

the seagrass sheds its

leaves they form ball-like

tangles that hold up to 613

plastic items per kilogram

of leaves. These balls wash

up on the shore (Scientific

Reports, doi.org/fqs9).

Rainforests may

start releasing CO₂

A model suggests rising

temperatures could cause

land-based ecosystems,

including rainforests, to

become net emitters of

carbon within 30 years.

That is because plants

photosynthesise less well

in warmer conditions,

limiting their potential to

act as carbon sinks (Science

Advances, doi.org/fqqx).

Warmer batteries

for electric cars

Electric cars use expensive

lithium batteries containing

nickel and cobalt – but

cheaper lithium iron

phosphate (LFP) batteries

might be a better option.

Tests show LFP batteries

operating at 60°C can

charge in just 10 minutes,

making them a practical

option for cars (Nature

Energy, DOI: 10.1038/

s41560-020-00757-7).

Quasar sheds light

on early black holes

ASTRONOMERS have discovered

the most distant quasar seen. At

about 13 billion light years away

from Earth, it is showing us how

the first supermassive black holes

affected their galaxies.

Quasars are very bright objects

at the centres of some galaxies

that consist of a supermassive

black hole surrounded by a disc of

hot plasma. The newly identified

quasar, called J0313-1806, was

spotted using several powerful

POLYESTER fibres make up nearly

three-quarters of microplastic

pollution in the Arctic and probably

come from textile manufacturing

and household laundry.

We already knew microplastics

were present in the Arctic, but new

research shines a light on the source

of these tiny fragments. Peter Ross

at the University of British Columbia

in Canada and his team examined

seawater samples from 71 spots

across the Arctic taken from 3 to

8 metres below the surface.

Microplastics are pieces of plastic

that are less than 5 millimetres

in size. They were present in all

samples except one, with a count

of approximately 40 microplastic

particles per cubic metre of

seawater on average. Synthetic

fibres made up 92 per cent of the

microplastic pollution in these

samples, and 73 per cent of this

was polyester.

“There is strong suspicion that

laundry, clothing and textiles

are playing a significant role in

contaminating the world’s oceans

with microfibres,” says Ross.

The researchers found that

there are more microplastics in

the eastern Arctic waters fed by the

Atlantic than in those of the western

Arctic (Nature Communications,

doi.org/fqss). Karina Shah

observatories. Feige Wang at the

University of Arizona presented

this work at a virtual meeting of

the American Astronomical

Society on 12 January.

J0313-1806 is 20 million light

years further away than the

previous record holder and its

supermassive black hole is twice

as massive: it is about 1.6 billion

times as massive as the sun. “The

existence of such a massive black

hole... only 600 million years after

the big bang really puts pressure

on our understanding of the

formation of supermassive

black holes,” said Wang.

Spice boosts solar

panel performance

THE substance that gives chilli

peppers their kick can make

solar cells more efficient.

Ultra-thin solar cells made with

lead-based materials can absorb

light more efficiently than silicon-

based solar cells, but they often

can’t convert it into electricity

as efficiently because they lose

some of it to heat. It turns out

the solution is to add a bit of heat.

Qinye Bao at East China Normal

University in Shanghai and his

colleagues added capsaicin to

these ultra-thin perovskite solar

cells during manufacturing. Bao

and his team suspected capsaicin

might have an energy-boosting

effect because it can free up

electrons to carry charge.

They tested the capsaicin-

treated material by exposing it to

artificial light to simulate sunlight,

measuring the electrical current

running through them.

Capsaicin made the solar cells

more efficient, yielding a power

conversion of incoming light

of 21.88 per cent, versus 19.1 per

cent without it. Further analysis

revealed addition of capsaicin did

indeed lead to a greater number of

free electrons available to conduct

current at the solar cells’ surface.

This reduced energy loss via heat

(Joule, doi.org/ghs387). KS

The team calculated that, in

order for the black hole to grow so

large, it couldn’t have formed from

a collapsed star like smaller black

holes. Instead, it must have started

out with a “seed” black hole more

than 10,000 times as massive as

the sun, which could have formed

as a huge amount of gas collapsed

under its own gravity.

The quasar is also blasting out

superheated gas that is moving

at one-fifth of the speed of light.

This quasar wind may eventually

slow down star formation in its

host galaxy, as stars need that

gas to form. Leah Crane

Plastic particles from clothes

polluting almost all Arctic seas

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Really brief

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