Okay, let's do it. Oh, it's me. It's me. Hold on. Okay.
I've been to you many times. Are we feeling good? Are we feeling bad?
Are we feeling uncertain between good and bad feelings or feeling like science?
I think we're feeling good. Let's feel good.
Let's feel good. Okay, let's see what we got. Let's do this one.
It's a true feel good story for the ages. And the article is from the get out of here.
I can't read it. The Wall Street Journal and it's titled,
Some researchers are looking for Bigfoot. Just don't tell anybody.
I Chris Mayhur. It's a little bit old, but I feel like it's timeless, this sort of thing.
Well, that now makes me sad that they haven't found Bigfoot.
Hold on. Hold on.
I have to pull out. It's behind the paywall. Sorry, guys.
Oh, no. It's bad news. It's quickly becoming bad news.
That's way too much bad news for a good news story.
I should have checked into that before I fucking read it.
Okay, let's see. Let's go with this one.
It has nothing to do with Bigfoot, unfortunately, but let's just go with this one.
It's still in the good news column. And this one is from more recent.
It's more recent being July 6, 2023.
And this is from is.org. It's in physics, I assume.
At FIZZ. And it's titled,
Chemists develop sustainable method to remove forever chemicals from water.
Boy, is that ever a good news story.
That is good news.
So, poor floral alcohol substances for PFOS are highly versatile chemicals.
The fluorine containing organic molecules, this is already too many words I can't pronounce,
are the reason why raindrops simply slide off outdoor jackets.
They are used in the grease-proof coating of paper food packaging
and are key ingredients in fire extinguisher foams and blah, blah, blah.
You guys have seen the law of this.
Yeah, blah, blah, blah. They're used everywhere.
And that's why it's a problem because they are so inert
and there are no natural pathways, which they can be broken down.
They're pretty much everywhere in our environment and they're very bad for us.
They've now been detected all over the planet in water, soil and air, in plants, animals and in us.
Just how much of a health risk these chemicals pose is still not clear, but we know it's bad for us.
They may impair reproductive health and what's clear is these synthetic compounds do not belong
in the natural environment and certainly not in living organisms.
So PFOS remediation is both complex and challenging
and the processes used can themselves have a detrimental impact on the environment and the climate.
Oh, good.
Yeah.
Good news.
This is turning into bad news. I hope it gets better.
Before they can be removed, the PFOS have to be detected.
Detection has not made any easier by the fact that only small quantities of PFOS are required for a large effect.
Conventionally, PFOS have been removed from water by filtration using special membranes
or lower cost activated carbon absorbance.
However, recovering the PFOS from these filter systems so that they can be permanently destroyed
either requires the use of harsh chemical conditions or incineration.
At least that has been the case up until now.
A team of researchers led by Marcus Gally, professor of polymer chemistry at Sarland University,
Professor Xiaosu from the University of Illinois, Urbana, Champaign
and their doctoral students Frank Hartman and Paola Baldegas
have developed a new electrochemical method that can remove the PFOS chemicals from water
and then efficiently release them again for destruction.
I'm really glad it said destruction and not back into the environment.
The whorehouse.
The new PFOS remediation platform allows these fluorinated contaminants to be collected, identified and then destroyed
without needing to incinerate the filter.
The research is published in the journal ACS Applied Materials and Interfaces.
In the method developed by the research team, the central role is played by metal containing polymers known as metallocenes.
Metalocenes first came on the scene in 1951 with the discovery of the iron containing molecule ferrocene.
Since then, many other metallocenes have been reported.
Frank, Marcus and their international team have found that electrodes functionalized with ferrocene
or even more efficiently with, oh god damn it, cobaltocene synthesized by Frank
are able to remove even minute quantities of PFOS molecules from water.
Let's see if there's anything else we want to cover.
Essentially, they're saying we found a means by which PFOS can be efficiently removed from water and then released again,
effectively regenerating the electrode for further use.
Unlike the activated carbon filter, which I have to destroy once it's become saturated with PFOS molecules,
I can switch the metal seams a thousand times should I want to,
summarizing the significance of his research work.
So that's overall good news.
Yeah, I worry it's kind of like when you hear those good news research studies on cancer.
This drug completely eliminates cancer.
And then just like you never hear about it again.
Yeah, that's true.
I'm worried it's just in its infancy and it's theoretical at this point.
No, that's completely true.
But it does sound like it's a little bit further along.
And it's not like you have to study it on like mice beforehand and then transfer it and see if it's good in humans because it's just water.
True, I feel like it could immediately, yeah, and the PFOS are there anyway.
So what's the harm in like, you know, trying to take them out, you're not going to make them worse.
I feel like maybe I shouldn't say that because you might be able to make them work.
I feel like in listening to the news, I hear it being talked about more and more.
So that might be a good thing.
But yeah, it shows people are listening to Journey to the Fringe.
Further news ideas.
But like you say, like people are talking about cancer and cancer research.
So that, yeah. And yes, I should also say just with that being said about the cancer thing, cancer research and treatments are always getting better.
It's just the headlines are a little not out there, but overinflated, I guess.
How far the treatments would go in their research.
That's all I meant by that. Yeah.
I'm just curious what this treatment will introduce to the environment now that we cannot deal with.
Yeah. And that's leaving it off with the bad news, I guess.
Yeah, you always got to balance it.
Okay, that's it. Unless we have anything else to add.
No, I think that's it. I hope this holds you all over for those 48 hours.
I'm not sure why we decide 48 hours is the amount of time that you need to pull over to Friday, but it is. It just is.
We crunched the numbers. It was the perfect amount of time.
And let's not talk about those other five days in between.
But that's neither here nor there.
You guys wait your 48 hours. You have been satiated. We will see you Friday.