James' World 2

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Inside every rechargeable battery—in electric cars and phones and robot vacuums—lurks a cosmic mystery. The lithium that we use to power much of our lives these days is so common as to seem almost prosaic. But this element turns out to be a wild card, a rebel that’s been challenging our most basic understanding of the formation of the universe itself. 

Beyond the lithium ion-powered batteries, beyond the glass and ceramic manufacture, optical systems, air purification, fireworks and rocket propellants, nuclear weapons, and mood stabilizing pills, lithium is cast about the cosmos. But there is not nearly as much of it out there as there should be. And we don’t know why. 

This wily little element has defied explanation for generations, refusing to obey the rest of our cosmological orthodoxy. The robust Big Bang theory, among other accomplishments, allows us to precisely predict the abundances of all of the light elements across the universe.

Except lithium.

Which means there might be something wrong with our understanding of the Big Bang. There might be something wrong with our measurements. There might be something wrong with both. Or this might be a signal that there are new, as-yet undiscovered forces that were at work in the early universe. Whatever the solution is, this rebel and its so-called “cosmological lithium problem” are here to teach us a radical new fact about the universe.

We just have to figure it out.

Here on Earth, lithium had laid underfoot since the planet’s formation, with nobody suspecting that the element even existed. Taken from the Greek word for “rock,” on Earth, lithium is usually only found in trace amounts in larger mineral conglomerations. In 1800, the Brazilian chemist José Bonifácio de Andrada e Silva discovered it as a new ore on the island of Uto, Sweden. Seventeen years later, the chemist Jöns Jakob Berzelius isolated the new element within the ore. Since then, the silvery-white metal has found itself making possible so many of our contemporary luxuries.

But most of the universe’s lithium is bound up inside of stars.

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What a missing element can teach us about the universe.

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Click the link below for the article:

https://nautil.us

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This is tricky, click each title 1 through 5 for the long read desired, and close the new tab when you’re finished, then choose the next title. Enjoy!

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A glimpse into this week’s list:

• Forcibly displacing the Maasai tribe in the name of “conservation.”
• The death of an Alabama pastor—and the grief of the community he left behind.
• Studying Alaska’s little brown bats.
• A dispatch from a conference on artificial intelligence.
• Remembering Shaun of the Dead, 20 years later.

1. The Great Serengeti Land Grab

Stephanie McCrummen | The Atlantic | April 8, 2024 | 8,385 words

The pastoral, semi-nomadic Maasai have lived on their land in northern Tanzania since the 17th century. But under the guise of conservation and modernization, the Tanzanian government is resettling the tribe, destroying their compounds and seizing their cattle—in other words, erasing their traditional way of life.

etc, etc, etc,. —CLR

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Myotis lucifugus (little brown bat). Image by Joe McDonald/Getty Images.

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Click the link below for the five articles:

https://longreads.co

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Sorry, gross…

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Mucus is not widely considered a topic for polite conversation. It’s something to be discreetly blown into a tissue, folded up, and thrown away.

But the simple truth is that without mucus, you wouldn’t be alive.

“Mucus is essential for the protection of your body,” says Jeffrey Spiegel, an ear, nose, and throat surgeon at Boston University. “It’s a protective barrier, and it allows you to breathe comfortably. If you had no mucus, you’d be quite sorry you didn’t.”

Given how important mucus is — and how often colds and allergies cause mucus-related symptoms — it’s worth learning a bit more about it.

1) You produce about 1.5 quarts of mucus a day — and swallow the vast majority

Most of us think of mucus as something that leaks from our nose, but the truth is that it also gets secreted in your trachea and other tubes that carry air through your lungs, where it’s technically called phlegm. Wherever it’s produced, mucus is a mix of water and proteins, and most of it gets pushed to the back of your throat by microscopic hairs called cilia.

Whether you’re aware of it or not, you’re constantly swallowing all this mucus, and it harmlessly ends up in your stomach. “You’re swallowing, on average, twice a minute — even when you’re sleeping at night,” says Michael Ellis, an ear, nose, and throat doctor at Tulane University.

Ellis says that, on average, a person produces about 1.5 quarts of mucus per day, and contrary to what you might think, it doesn’t vary by all that much. But that mucus gets diluted by a separate, watery secretion (called serous fluid), which can vary widely based on your health.

2) Mucus is basically the body’s flypaper

Mucus has two main functions: it keeps the nasal cavity and the other airways inside your body moist, preventing them from drying out due to all the air that flows over them. (Relatedly, the serous fluid that mucus is mixed with also moistens the air itself before it enters the lungs.)

Mucus’ other function, though, might surprise you. “Mucus is kind of like flypaper,” Ellis says. “Debris that comes into the nose or throat sticks to it, and then you swallow it, so it doesn’t get into your lungs.”

Mucus, in other words, is nature’s filter for your delicate lungs. The bacteria, dust, and other tiny particles that you breathe in get stuck in mucus and pulled down into your stomach, where they’re destroyed by enzymes.

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(Shutterstock.com)

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Click the link below for the article:

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