Apollo News Snippets – May 2023

Yeehaw! It’s time for this month’s round up of the best darn technology developments around! Read on to learn about how food waste could become bioplastics, how bacteria can be used to create sustainable cement, and new superconducting materials!
This new catalyst cleans herbicides from water while producing hydrogen gas.
Viable superconducting material discovered in Rochester lab.
These bacteria can create cement sustainably.
Super-heated crab shells become part of rechargeable battery.
New carbon wire will allow for flexible sensors.
Smaller semiconductor chips could revolutionize electronics.
New technology to seal old, leaky oil and gas wells.
Stacked 2D material could improve batteries.
New possible metal frameworks for capturing greenhouse gases.
New enzyme could improve capture of carbon dioxide.
From food waste to bioplastics.

The NOAA extreme weather map for Feb 2023 shows below average sea ice extents in both the Arctic and Antarctic Seas. The Arctic ice extents was the 6th smallest on record, and the Antarctic Sea ice extent ranked second smallest on record. Cyclone Freddy set a record for the highest accumulated cyclone energy for any tropical storm on record. (Credit: NOAA’s State of the Climate Reports)

The March 2023 Climate Report has been released, and, as you can probably guess, it was warmer than previous years. The March 2023 average global surface temperature was the 2nd highest on record since 1850. Interestingly, although the global temperature was above average, Iceland recorded it’s coldest March since 1979, and the contiguous U.S. also had a cooler-than-average month. Europe, Asia, Spain, Africa, and Oceania all experienced temperatures that ranked in the top 17 for the month of March.

Did you know that May 25th is National Wine Day? So in honor, our Google search of the month was “Wine and GIS”. We found this article by Shuangyu Xu and Carla Barbeiri, titled Characterizing Themed Touring Routes: A Geospatial and Tourism evaluation of Wine Trails. The article was published in Tourism Planning and Development Vo. 13, no. 2, 2016. It discusses how wine trails can be examined according to their geospatial and tourism characteristics to enhance marketing and managerial efficacy. A wine trail is a route selected for tourists that takes them deep into wine-growing regions, offering tourists a chance to get to know local wine producers, vineyards, and wines, as well as the local cuisine and cultural heritage. Wine trails are particularly popular in Europe but are also becoming more prevalent in the United States. This study examined 9 wine trails in the Piedmont Triad of North Carolina, aiming to identify and quantify both geospatial and tourism-related attributes of wine trails and then characterize wine tourism routes based on these attributes. The study used GIS to evaluate the spatial patterns, connectivity, and accessibility of wine trails that make them more appealing to tourists.