#27. 🦠Dormant microbes switch on | 🛫Airbus' hydrogen tanks | 🚖Baidu's huge driverless ride area

🌡 CLIMATE CHANGE

Chasing future biotech solutions to climate change risks delaying action in the present. It may even make things worse (long read)

The pursuit of technological solutions to fight particular symptoms of climate change can be a fun and profitable distraction from specifically targeting the root causes. For example, technological solutions that enable crops to flourish in hotter, drier climates, doesn’t address the vastly bigger problem of food waste, a primary producer of greenhouse gases.

Dormant microbes can “switch on” to cope with climate change (quick read)

Bacterial communities’ composition can change based on the local environment in a process called “species sorting.” This can cause formerly dormant bacteria to reactivate if to the benefit the local bacterial community.

An ecological rule breaker shows the effects of climate change on body size (long read)

Bergmann’s rule states that members of a warm-blooded species in colder climates (so typically higher latitudes) have larger bodies than their warmer climate cousins. This latter point leads to the island rule that says small island-bound mammals evolve larger bodies than those on the mainland; large mammals on islands evolve smaller body sizes. A new study shows that these rules have both been reversed in the last 150 years or so, with the reversal accelerating in correlation to increasing global temperatures.

🔋 CLEAN ENERGY

Everything you need to know about hydrogen in the clean energy transition (long read)

This article provides an informative overview of the various types of hydrogen with respect to their production processes, their use cases, and potential hydrogen-powered energy capacities for the different flavors of hydrogen.

Airbus designed a cold heart for its new zero-emission plane in record time (long read)

Airbus and its partners Ariane Group and Airbus Defence and Space have created a new type of storage tank optimized for the exceedingly low tolerances required for hydrogen storage on an aircraft.

Big Tech’s growing clean energy thirst shaping power grid policy (long read)

As tech companies fully shift to clean energy sources, energy lobbyists works to further fast track power grid policies to migrate to fully renewable sources. This article provides an overview of the various methods, organizations, companies, and people involved with this push.

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🚗 AUTONOMOUS & ELECTRIC VEHICLES

Baidu announces plan to build the world’s largest fully driverless ride-hailing service area in 2023 (long read)

This is a press release by Baidu outlining the planned expansion of their driverless taxi service, currently covering more than 10 cities in China where it has already provided nearly half a million rides.

Guident is making autonomous vehicles safer, with a human touch (quick read)

Guident (Crunchbase) provides remote human-perated====

May Mobility selects autonomous driving expert as COO (quick read)

The autonomous vehicle startup has appointed Kathy Winter as its COO who formerly served as Intel’s VP and GM of Autonomous Transportation & Infrastructure Division.

🎉 THAT’S ALL FOR TODAY!

Thank you so much for reading, see you tomorrow!-Marc