The challenges were created by NASA's Tournament Lab in collaboration with crowdsourcing platform HeroX.

The first challenge, Waste to Base Materials Challenge: Sustainable Reprocessing in Space, is seeking solutions to the problems caused by waste generated in space. Long spaceflights such as those to Mars, which for a round trip would take at least 12 to 18 months, would generate a lot of waste. Each submission for the challenge will be evaluated based on how it handles four categories: trash, fecal waste, foam packaging material, and carbon dioxide processing.

"This is exactly what our crowd is poised to do: solve intractable problems with an eye for efficiency and sustainability. I am eager to see the submissions," said HeroX President & CEO Kal K. Sahota.

A new review on the technology was published in the journal Science and Technology of Advanced Materials.

Scientists in Taiwan reviewed the latest advances in small dressings that generate electricity, and can accelerate wound healing and tissue regeneration. In the mid-to-late 20th century, scientists found that stimulating tissue with an electric field could improve wound healing. Current research is focused on developing small patches that can achieve this without external electric equipment.

Candidate materials for these technologies are piezoelectric materials, which generate electric currents when exposed to mechanical stress. These include natural materials such as quartz, silk, wood, bone, hair, and rubber. Synthetic materials such as quartz analogs, ceramics, and polymers are also piezoelectric.

A review of the current situation was published in an article in the journal Nature Climate Change by researchers from Concordia University.

The article synthesizes findings from 1,682 articles distilled from over 50,000 scientific documents on adaptations made by humans and society to respond to climate change. It shows that humans are implementing strategies to combat climate change; however, there is insufficient data to ascertain whether any responses reduce the overall climate change risks. So far, no significant transformative change has arisen.

Some of the reviewed articles suggested a link between adaptation and mitigation, but the limited data doesn't show a direct influence on adverse outcomes such as extreme weather events resulting from the risk mitigation strategies currently in place. Lack of transformative adaptations such as moving communities out of high-risk areas or radically changing agricultural practices was a cause of concern for the researchers, who noted only relatively small steps being taken so far.

A new study published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology discusses the updated planetary boundaries framework.

In 2009, nine planetary boundaries were identified by researchers, which describe the relatively stable state of Earth since the dawn of civilization approximately 10,000 years ago. Some of the boundaries have yet to be quantified, but in 2015 scientists concluded that at least four of the boundaries have been breached. The boundary for novel entities is now being breached with significantly increased chemical and plastic production.

"There has been a 50-fold increase in the production of chemicals since 1950. This is projected to triple again by 2050. The pace that societies are producing and releasing new chemicals and other novel entities into the environment is not consistent with staying within a safe operating space for humanity," says co-author Patricia Villarubia-Gomez from the Stockholm Resilience Centre, Stockholm University.

ExxonMobil made its pledge on Tuesday, January 18th, 2022.

The pledge covers what is known as "Scope 1" and "Scope 2" emissions, referring to the carbon emissions from ExxonMobil's operations and emissions associated with heating and cooling used at its facilities. "Scope 3" emissions are not covered by the pledge, which refers to those from the products sold, including gasoline purchased by consumers.

ExxonMobil has also announced other projects that will see more funding put into lower-emissions technologies, such as carbon capture and storage projects. "Detailed roadmaps" will be released by the end of 2022, addressing ninety percent of operations-related greenhouse gas emissions, with the remaining ten percent in 2023.

A cryptocurrency scam is entwining a famous Hollywood star, and professional athlete as both have been accused of pumping up a coin and dumping it.

According to a new court filing with the California federal court, Kim Kardashian, Floyd Mayweather Jr, and former NBA player Paul Pierce are being accused of playing a role in the sharp rise and fall of the cryptocurrency called EthereumMax. The lawsuit has claimed that the aforementioned individuals artificially inflated the price of the cryptocurrency that was then purchased by investors. The lawsuit also claims that investors were encouraged to purchase the asset with false information.

Kim Kardashian posted about EthereumMax in June 2021, saying to her 250 million Instagram followers, "Are you guys into crypto?? This is not financial advice but sharing what my friends just told me about the Ethereum Max token! A few minutes ago, Ethereum Max burned 400 trillion tokens-literally 50% of their admin wallet, giving back to the entire E-Max community."

Mastercard has announced a new partnership with cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase for its upcoming NFT marketplace.

The new partnership with Mastercard is aimed at providing users with a way to make purchases on the NFT marketplace without having to purchase Ethereum or other cryptocurrencies. Mastercard's executive vice president of digital assets, Raj Dhamodharan, said that NFTs will be looked at as "digital goods," and this partnership will allow users to purchase NFTs with a credit card.

Dhamodharan explains that the process of purchasing an NFT with cryptocurrency is fairly simple for someone who is already involved in the space (trading, flipping, etc) but for the majority of people, the process is very new and not simple. Dhamodharan says that the process of purchasing an NFT "should be much easier", and "That will ensure NFTs can be for everyone [...] Getting more people involved safely and securely is perhaps the best way to help the NFT market thrive."

A recent volcanic eruption 40 miles off the coast of Tonga has rocked the nation, as a tsunami has destroyed countless homes, and ash blanketed the main island.

An underwater volcano erupted 40 miles north of the capital of Tonga, spawning a 49-foot tsunami that has almost wiped out all the homes on two islands. Tonga has experienced communication issues since the eruption as an undersea cable was severed. The Tongan government gave its first update on Saturday and announced its second today, describing the event as an "unprecedented disaster" and confirming the deaths of three people.

The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai undersea volcano erupted with an ash cloud that reached the stratosphere (50 miles), covering the 170 islands where around 100,000 people live. The physical damage from the tsunami has caused major damage across most islands, and the volcanic ash is blanketing regions, contaminating drinking water.

NASA has taken to its blog to reveal its plans for removing the unwanted martian pebbles located in a Mars rovers bit carousel (the place where samples are stored).

Jennifer Trosper, the Project Manager at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has taken to the NASA Science Mars website to outline the agency's plan for removing the debris. Lopez writes that the team has performed a diligent analysis of the carousel and the ground located directly beneath Perseverance, and has sent commands to the rover on January 12 that instruct Perseverance to point the Tube 261 at the floor and release its contents.

Additionally, Lopez writes that the team has also sent up instructions that will command Perseverance to perform two rotation tests of the bit carousel, both the smaller and the larger test will commence over the weekend. The team has instructed the rover to take under-chassis images and expect that the data from the tests and the images will arrive on Earth by January 18.

In September 2021, El Salvador announced that Bitcoin (BTC) and the US dollar were now recognized as legal tender throughout the nation, marking the very first county to accept BTC as a legal currency.

Since the adoption of Bitcoin, El Salvador has been purchasing large swaths of Bitcoin and making announcements of its purchases. A goal of adopting Bitcoin was to offer digital banking to millions of individuals in El Salvador that are unbanked or don't currently hold a bank account. El Salvador's government partnered with digital identity provider Netki to create the BTC wallet Chivo that has now onboarded more than 4 million new users, according to a recent announcement.

As an incentive for people to start using Bitcoin as a currency, the government rolled out a $30 airdrop in BTC to anyone using the Chivo wallet. The announcement claims that the rollout of the new BTC wallet has onboarded 70% of the previously unbanked population throughout El Salvador, and now BTC is being used regularly to pay for meals at restaurants, shopping, and retail stores. If you are interested in reading more about this story, check out this link here.