When the United Arab Emirates launched the Arab world’s first-ever mission to Mars in the summer of 2020, its desire was that its Hope probe would help provide scientists with a better understanding of the Red Planet’s weather systems. And it’s now done exactly that. According to The National, the probe recently spent two weeks tracking a massive dust storm across the surface of Mars.

Hope began following the weather event on December 29th. The probe entered the orbit of Mars equipped with a high-resolution camera and an infrared spectrometer. It used those tools to track the geographic distribution of dust, water vapor and carbon dioxide ice clouds displaced by the raging storm. Its orbital position allowed Hope to observe any variance in those elements in timescales measured in minutes and days, a feat previous missions to Mars didn’t have the ability to do. 

What it saw was how quickly a storm can spread across the red planet. In the span of a single week, the storm it was tracking grew to stretch across more than 1,550 miles of Martian surface. In the process, it completely obscured geographic landmarks like the Hellas impact crater and sent dust haze as far as 2,485 miles away from the origin point of the storm. In addition to providing a play-by-play of a Martian storm, scientists hope the data Hope collected will allow them to gain a better understanding of how those storms can help water escape the planet's atmosphere.

Swaddled in wet wipes, ensconced in congealed cooking grease and able to transform into pipe-blocking masses so hard as to require excavation equipment to dislodge, fatbergs are truly the bean-and-cheese burritos of the sewage world. They can cause havoc on a town’s bowels, achieving lengths that outspan bridges and accumulating masses that dwarf double-deckers. Fatbergs are a modern problem that have civil engineers increasingly turning to tech in order to keep their cities’ subterranean bits clear of greasy obstructions.

Fatbergs — a portmanteau of fat and iceberg — are a relatively recent but fast-growing problem in the world’s sewers. They form when FOG (fats, oil, grease) poured down drains comes in contact with calcium, phosphorus and sodium to create a hard, soap-like material. This calcium soap then accumulates on non degradable flushed items like wet wipes, sanitary pads, condoms, dental floss, clumps of hair, chunks of food waste, and diapers as they travel through a municipal waste disposal system. Though their components may start off soft and pliable (albeit damp) once ‘bergified, they harden into a mass tougher than concrete, requiring sanitation workers to employ high-pressure water jets, shovels and pickaxes in order to break it up.

“These huge, solid masses can block the sewers, causing sewage to back up through drains, plugholes and toilets,” Anna Boyles, operations manager at Thames Water, told RICS in October. “It can take our teams days, sometimes weeks, to remove them.”

They can also offgas toxic compounds such as hydrogen sulfide. Forensic analyses of dislodged fatbergs have also revealed concentrations of all sorts of chemicals including bodybuilding supplements and the metabolites of illicit drugs — not to mention myriad bacterial species. Not only do these deposits constitute a direct health hazard to the workers tasked with demolishing them, fatbergs can cause pipe blockages and force wastewater to overflow aboveground where the contagion can spread.

A blockage in Maryland in 2018 caused more than a million gallons of wastewater to spill into local waterways (it cost $60,000 to clear the 20-foot obstruction) while a similar backup in Michigan flooded the University of Michigan with 300,000 gallons of the stuff.

These cholesterol-like deposits can reach monumental proportions if left unchecked. Thames Water, which manages sewers in both London and the Thames Valley, told the BBC last February that it spent £18m a year clearing 75,000 blockages from its systems. One of the largest bergs to date was pulled from beneath Birchall Street in Liverpool, UK in 2019. It measured 820 feet in length, weighed 440 tons and required more than four months to clear. The month before, a 200-foot long fatberg was discovered under Sidmouth, a popular coastal tourist location in Devon, UK.

“It is the largest discovered in our service history and it will take our sewer team around eight weeks to dissect this monster in exceptionally challenging work conditions,” South West Water director of Wastewater, Andrew Roantree, told The Guardian in 2019. “Thankfully it has been identified in good time with no risk to bathing waters.”

“If you keep just one new year’s resolution this year,” he added, “let it be to not pour fats, oil or grease down the drain, or flush wet-wipes down the loo. Put your pipes on a diet and don’t feed the fatberg.”

These obstructions are just as problematic on this side of the pond. In 2018, officials in Charleston, South Carolina pulled a 2,000 pound, 12-foot by 3-foot berg from the city’s sewers. The same year, officials in Macomb County, Michigan removed a 100-foot fatberg from one of its 11-foot diameter Lakeshore Interceptor pipes at a cost of $100,000.

"To put it simply, this fatberg is gross. It provides an opportunity, however, to talk with people about the importance of restricting what goes down our sewers. This restriction was caused by people and restaurants pouring grease and similar materials down their drains. We want to change that behavior," Public Works Commissioner Candice S. Miller said at the time.

However, the problem is apparently not universal. “The city of Atlanta does not have ‘fatbergs’ within our sewer system,” a spokesperson from Atlanta’s Department of Water Management told Engadget via email. “Fatbergs are common in other countries.” Any blockages that are encountered within the city’s sewers are disposed of using, “high pressure water and/or rodding equipment.”

This rodding equipment, commonly known as hydrojets, are high-powered versions of the pressure washers used to clean siding and walkways. They’re capable of producing pressures in excess of 4000 ppi and spray omnidirectionally so that they’ll blast detritus from the entire interior surface of a pipe as they’re fed forward. That fecally-caked slurry is then sucked out of the main using a truck-mounted vacuum system and stored in an onboard tank for later disposal – as you can see in the 2010 video from the City of Carlsbad, California below. It’s the same basic idea as the trucks that service Port-A-Potties but, again, a more robust version.

A major contributor to the fatberg problem are wet wipes which were first invented in Manhattan in 1957 by Arthur Julius. He went on to found the Nice-Pak company and, by 1963, had partnered with KFC to offer his company’s pre-moistened Wet-Nap towelettes as an after-meal hand sanitizer to the fried chicken chain’s greasy-fingered customers. In subsequent decades Nice-Pak expanded its offerings to include products such as baby wipes and EPA-rated hand and surface disinfectants. As of 2020, the global market for wet wipes runs an estimated $24 billion annually, according to a recent report from Grandview Research.

“Wet wipes may be convenient, but flushing them is a major cause of sewage blockages. On top of this they contain plastic and can find their way into our seas where they pose a threat to wildlife,” Friends of the Earth spokesperson Julian Kirby explained to The Evening Standard in 2019. “Wet wipe manufacturers should be required to make their products plastic-free and clearly label them as ‘do not flush’.”

While the Museum of London has seen fit to preserve part of the famed Whitechapel fatberg for posterity, most municipalities want them gone, flushed and forgotten, but the fatbergs have to be found first. Typically, that involves visually inspecting the sewer mains either by sending down crews or remotely operated cameras like the modular Rovver X from Envirosight or the IRIS Portable Mainline Crawler from Insight Vision. Alternately, the SL-RAT (Sewer Line Rapid Assessment Tool) from Infosense Inc, relies on sonar technology to check sewer lines for obstructions.

Relying on sound waves offers a number of advantages over conventional visual systems. The SL-RAT is set up at through the access points at either end of a length of sewer main.The transmitting unit blasts a series of tones through the pipe where the receiving unit measures the tonal differences between the two sets to determine the extent of any potential blockage. Since utilities don’t have to physically send people or drones into the pipes when using the SL-RAT, crews can inspect more of the sewer network in less time.

The city of Irvins, Utah, for example, used to expend 6,000 gallons of water daily to flush the entirety of its 50-mile wastewater system, done in order to dislodge blockages occurring in only about 5 percent of the network.

“Just to prevent one blockage, we were cleaning the whole system,” Ivins Public Works director Chuck Gillette told St George News in October. “You’re cleaning every pipe.”

With the city’s implementation of the SL-RAT system in 2020, city crews could more precisely locate clogs to dislodge. A process that used to take weeks and 1,100 labor hours is now done in a few days and 320 labor hours. “It’s less [noise] than the sound of a cleaning truck,” Gillette continued, “and there is zero water usage.”

While municipal authorities beg people to help prevent fatbergs from forming in the first place by following the 3Ps — as in, the only things that should go in the loo, are pee, paper and poo — a team of Canadian researchers are looking at converting the ‘bergs into biofuels once they’ve been harvested from sanitation pipes.

“This method would help to recover and reuse waste cooking oil as a source of energy,” University of British Columbia researcher Asha Srinivasan told Smithsonian Magazine in 2018. The UBC team’s method involves first heating a fatberg chunk to between 90 and 110 degrees Celsius to loosen everything up, then adding hydrogen peroxide to break down organic components and free trapped fatty acids, then breaking those acids down into methane using anaerobic bacteria. This is similar in methodology, albeit on a much smaller scale, as to how some wastewater treatment facilities produce natural gas from methane captured during the cleaning process.

After a week of negotiations in Nairobi, the United Nations has agreed to start working on a first-ever global plastic pollution treaty, Reuters reports. It's not projected to be completed until 2024, but according to the UN it could end up being as important as the 2015 Paris Climate Agreement, the most significant global effort to curb climate change yet. In 2019, the organization found that humanity is damaging nature at an "unprecedented" rate, with plastic pollution growing by more than ten times since 1980. Heck, we've even found microplastics in the Arctic, one of the most remote areas on Earth.

The real question, of course, is how UN members plan to address the scourge of plastics. As the New York Times reports, the agreement would involve coming up with legally binding measures to clean up plastic waste. But crucially, it would also involve limiting plastic production, a move that's certain to face industry pushback.  

As you'd expect, different countries also have different priorities. While major plastic producers like the US and Japan objected to language in the agreement, developing nations stressed the need for more involvement. In particular, the agreement highlighted the importance of waste pickers, who work long hours sorting trash, all the while breathing in toxic fumes.  

Many of Amazon's attempts at fighting climate change have revolved around policy promises and investments, but now it's focusing more on the goods it sells. The company has launched an Aware product line devoted to eco-friendly items like bedding, clothing, home essentials and skincare. In every case, they're made with "bio-based ingredients," recycled materials and other more sustainable elements.

All Aware products have received at least some form of independent environmental certification. Skincare products are certified as free of "chemicals of concern," for instance. Bed and bath products, meanwhile, are verified as made in "socially responsible working conditions" on top of their reduced ecological footprint.

Amazon has long been accused of contributing to waste through its dominance of online shopping. In 2018, it accounted for 5 billion out of 165 billion packages shipped in the US — that's a lot of cardboard, foam and other packing materials. The company has taken steps to minimize its impact, such as insisting on efficient packaging and developing reusable boxes you can turn into cat condos, but many of its own-brand products haven't been designed with the environment as a top priority.

Green products like the Aware range might be necessary, though. Amazon has made much ado about its Climate Pledge target of achieving net-zero carbon emissions by 2040. While the company can reduce the impact of its facilities, packaging and transportation, it might have a harder time reaching that goal if its catalog doesn't make a similar pro-climate shift.

Tesla Superchargers close to the Ukraine border will offer free electric vehicle charging to support those leaving the country following Russia's invasion. Owners of Tesla and non-Tesla EVs will be able to use stations at Trzebownisko, Poland; Košice, Slovakia; and Miskolc and Debrecen (both Hungary) at no cost for a limited time. It's unclear whether Tesla plans to expand the program to other Supercharger sites.

"We hope that this helps give you the peace of mind to get to a safe location," Tesla wrote in an email to local owners, according to Elektrek. It's said to be the first time Tesla has offered free charging to owners of third-party EVs.

Tesla doesn't currently operate in Ukraine, though some people there are said to have imported its EVs and the company wants to open Supercharger sites in the country (it's not clear how the conflict may have impacted those plans). The company has offered free charging during other times of crisis, including when hurricanes struck the US.

It's not just passenger cars and big rigs receiving the EV treatment — the vehicles in the middle are getting some TLC, too. Lightning eMotors is doubling its production capacity just weeks after partnering with GM to electrify medium-duty vehicles like delivery trucks, school buses and shuttles. The company's Colorado factory will make up to 1,500 fleet-worthy EVs per year by the end of 2022, with plans to produce 20,000 per year by 2025. Those figures might not sound like much, but Lightning is targeting a relatively niche audience.

The recent team-up will see Lightning "upfit" GM's medium-duty platform with electrified versions. While GM will provide the chassis, Lightning will produce the end product destined for commercial use. Lightning is GM's first specialty vehicle maker to offer full EVs in this category.

The combined efforts might not be as exciting as from-scratch electric cars headed to your driveway. Even so, it represents an important part of a broader effort to reduce transportation emissions. The Environmental Protection Agency notes that 29 percent of US greenhouse gas emissions come from transportation, and more than half of those emissions originate from road-going vehicles that include medium-duty machines. The more companies like GM and Lightning can electrify fleets, the closer they can get to eliminating transportation emissions as a factor in climate change.

The US Environmental Protection Agency has reached a settlement with Tesla after the agency found that the automaker violated the Clean Air Act at its factory in Fremont, California. In particular, the EPA determined that Tesla violated the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Surface Coating of Automobiles and Light-Duty Trucks from October 2016 to September 2019.

Tesla, the EPA said, failed to develop and implement a work practice plan to minimize air pollutants emissions from the storage and mixing of materials used in vehicle coating. It also failed to correctly perform the monthly calculations needed to prove that its coating operations complied with the federal standards for hazardous air pollutants. Finally, Tesla apparently failed to keep required records of the calculations for its air pollutants emissions rate. "People living in communities that are near sources of hazardous air pollutants may face significant risks to their health and environment," the agency wrote in its announcement. 

According to CNBC, the paint shop at Tesla's factory in Fremont suffered several fires within that period. The news organizations talked to employees back in 2018 who claimed that the company pushed to hit production goals at the expense of fire and environmental considerations. (If you'll recall, Tesla was struggling to hit Model 3 production goals at the time.) Those employees claimed that months before a fire in April that year, the shop's sprinkler heads were clogged and were coated with at least an inch of thick paint. Exhaust systems that were supposed to carry clean air in and out of the building were allegedly coated with thick paint, as well. 

"Today's enforcement action against Tesla reflects EPA's continued commitment to ensure compliance with federal clean air laws," EPA Pacific Southwest Regional Administrator Martha Guzman said in a statement. Tesla will only have to $275,000 to settle its violations, however, which is a drop in the ocean for a company that reported a $5.5 billion in net income last year.

While we humans can't agree where we stand on tracking devices, one group of birds assertively came out against the technology. In The Conversation, Dominique Potvin, an Animal Ecology professor at the University of the Sunshine Coast in Australia, said he and his team recently witnessed a mischief of magpies display a rare cooperative “rescue” behavior when they attempted to track the birds.

As part of their study, Potvin’s team developed a seemingly ingenious way of collecting data on a group of five magpies. They developed a lightweight but tough harness the birds could wear like backpacks and carry a small tracker with them as they went about their daily lives. They also created a feeding station that would wirelessly charge and download data from the trackers. It even had a magnet for freeing the birds of the harness. “We were excited by the design, as it opened up many possibilities for efficiency and enabled a lot of data to be collected,” Potvin said.

Unfortunately, the study fell apart in mere days. Within 10 minutes of Potvin’s team fitting the final tracker, they saw a female magpie use her bill to remove a harness off of one of the younger birds. Hours later, most of the other test subjects had been freed of their trackers too. By day three, even the most dominant male in the group had allowed one of his flock to assist him.

“We don’t know if it was the same individual helping each other or if they shared duties, but we had never read about any other bird cooperating in this way to remove tracking devices,” Potvin said. “The birds needed to problem solve, possibly testing at pulling and snipping at different sections of the harness with their bill. They also needed to willingly help other individuals, and accept help.”

According to Potvin, the only other example they could find of that kind of behavior among birds involved Seychelles warblers who helped their flockmates escape from sticky Pisonia seed clusters. Visit The Conversation to read the full story.

Following months of reports, Google has confirmed its battery-equipped Nest Doorbell and Cam devices won't charge when they're subjected to extreme cold weather. "At temperatures below freezing, the lithium-ion battery in your Google Nest camera or doorbell won't be able to charge," the company said in a recently published support document spotted by 9to5Google.

According to Google, the battery versions of the Nest Doorbell and Cam can operate at temperatures as low as minus four degrees Fahrenheit (minus 20 degrees Celsius), provided their batteries have power left. That said, those cells won't charge at temperatures below the freezing mark. What's more, Google warns they may drain faster than usual in cold weather, with battery life potentially halved when the devices are near their operating limit.

The company recommends you bring your Nest Doorbell or Cam indoors in those situations. The warmer the battery gets, the faster it will charge, according to Google. You can look to the Home app to know if you should take your devices inside. The software will display a notification that says "Charging paused" or "Charging slowly," with a lengthy estimated charging time, when cold weather is negatively affecting them.

One other thing to note is that freezing temperatures may impact your Nest devices even if they're wired to your home's electrical system. That's because the Nest Doorbell still draws on its battery for power even when it has an electrical connection. At temperatures below the 32 degrees Farhenheit mark, the trickle charge coming from the wire won't help the battery. And once it dies, you'll need to bring the device inside to charge it once again. By contrast, the Nest Cam can operate with an empty battery as long as it's wired to your home, but should you lose power and the battery is dead, it won't work anymore until you charge it again. In short, if you're cold, there's a good chance your Nest device is too. Bring it inside for a break from the desolate winter. 

An off-road racing series that uses hydrogen cars is expected to debut in 2024. Extreme H will be a companion championship to Extreme E, an off-road motorsport with electric vehicles that held its first race last year. The two series will hold races in the same locations on the same days using the same format. According to Alejandro Agag, who also founded Formula E, organizers are looking at two options for hydrogen integration: combined racing or full transition.

Development on the Extreme H car is underway and there are plans to have a prototype ready by early 2023. The vehicle will have the same powertrain and chassis that's used in Extreme E. The main difference is that the central power source will be a hydrogen fuel cell instead of a battery.

Extreme H organizers say that the fuel cells will be powered by green hydrogen, which combines water and solar energy. Extreme E uses the same process to power EV batteries, while the paddock runs on a combination of batteries and green hydrogen.