As fast fashion explodes in popularity, the fashion industry remains one of the most prominent industries responsible for pollution. This pollution includes a lack of treatment for textile dyes that remain toxic or carcinogenic as they persist in wastewater. To resolve this, the authors of this study set out to determine the efficacy of using edible white rot fungi for cell-based biodegradation of textile dyes into harmless chemicals. This method takes advantage of fungi found in excess from the fungi industry, decreasing food waste while addressing textile waste in tandem.
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Role of Environmental Conditions on Drying of Paint
Reducing paint drying time is an important step in improving production efficiency and reducing costs. The authors hypothesized that decreased humidity would lead to faster drying, ultraviolet (UV) light exposure would not affect the paint colors differently, white light exposure would allow for longer wavelength colors to dry at a faster rate than shorter wavelength colors, and substrates with higher roughness would dry slower. Experiments showed that trials under high humidity dried slightly faster than trials under low humidity, contrary to the hypothesis. Overall, the paint drying process is very much dependent on its surrounding environment, and optimizing the drying process requires a thorough understanding of the environmental factors and their interactive effects with the paint constituents.
Read More...Unveiling bias in ChatGPT-3.5: Analyzing constitutional AI principles for politically biased responses
Various methods exist to mitigate bias in AI models, including "Constitutional AI," a technique which guides the AI to behave according to a list of rules and principles. Lo, Poosarla, Singhal, Li, Fu, and Mui investigate whether constitutional AI can reduce bias in AI outputs on political topics.
Read More...Constructing an equally weighted stock portfolio based on systematic risk (beta)
In this article, the authors investigate whether stock selection across various sectors is efficient enough to outperform an overall market. Stocks from 2006 to 2020 were selected across sectors to calculate beta values using the Capital Asset Pricing Model.
Read More...Long-run effects of minimum wage on labor market dynamics
The authors looked at potential downstream effects of raising the minimum wage. Specifically they focused on taxable wages, employment, and firm counts.
Read More...Environmental, social, and governance ratings and firm performance: Evidence from the Chinese stock market
Large corporations often are known for their financial power, but what social and environmental power and conscious do they have? The more responsible corporations are in relation to environmental, social, and governance criteria the better they do fiscally.
Read More...Testing Various Synthetic and Natural Fiber Materials for Soundproofing
Noise pollution negatively impacts the health and behavioral routines of humans and other animals, but the production of synthetic sound-absorbing materials contributes to harmful gas emissions into the atmosphere. The authors of this paper investigated the effectiveness of environmentally-friendly, cheap natural-fiber materials, such as jute, as replacements for synthetic materials, such as gypsum and foam, in soundproofing.
Read More...The effect of common food preservatives on the heart rate of Daphnia magna
The authors test the effects of common food industry preservatives on the heart rate of the freshwater crustacean Daphnia magna.
Read More...Copper nanoparticle synthesis using Picea glauca ‘Conica’
The authors propose a method to recycle Christmas tree needles into a non-toxic reducing agent for synthesizing copper nanoparticles.
Read More...The Effects of L-glutamate, L-glutamine, and L-aspartic Acid on the Amylase Production of E. coli Transformed With pAmylase
Human amylase is important to digestion and has broad applications for therapeutic use in patients with pancreatic insufficiency. The authors present a method to increase amylase production in E. coli by adding the amino acids L-glutamate and L-glutamine.
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