A New Compound Has Been Identified in Tap Water

On Saturday, November 23, during the last-minute negotiations, developing nations staged a walkout to protest the lack of willingness to help them with a problem they did not create.

The question of whether countries would recommit to transition away from fossil fuels, which was the main outcome of last year’s conference, was not explicitly stated this year. Instead, the conference simply referred to what was said last year in Dubai. One expert, Romain Ioulalaen of the advocacy group Oil Change International, told the Guardian that from day one it was clear Saudi Arabia and other fossil fuel producing nations were doing everything they could to weaken that commitment.

There was an agreement by the parties about carbon markets to allow them to trade carbon credits based upon an array of sources like tree-planting, renewable energy projects, and forest protection, but technical aspects will have to be negotiated.

Neither the U.S., nor China, the two largest polluters, played key roles at COP29. The impending presidency of Donald Trump tempered the participation of Biden administration officials. President Biden said in a statement that the deal was a significant step to achieving our climate goals.

However, a representative of India’s delegation, Chandni Raina, expressed disappointment saying the outcome was nothing more than an optical illusion that would not address the enormity of the challenge they all face. The African Group of Negotiators said the final pledge was “too little, too late.”

Many water providers have been using chloramines to replace chlorine, which back in the 1970s, was shown to react with naturally occurring compounds and create toxic byproducts. Studies showed that people who drink chlorinated water over long periods of time had an elevated risk for bladder and colon cancer, as well as miscarriages. Chloramine was substituted for chlorine because it’s more stable and tended to last longer, but chloramine also created byproducts, most of which were identified and deemed safe—except one that has eluded scientific definition for 40 years and was simply known as "unidentified product."

Now, researchers at the University of Arkansas and ETH Zurich have unmasked the compound, which they are calling chloronitramide anion. About one-third of the U.S. population and millions of others globally drink water treated with chloramines. While chloronitramide anion’s risk to human health is not known, the team says its prevalence and similarity to other toxic compounds is concerning and warrants further study.

For anyone concerned about their tap water, the study’s authors suggested during a press conference to use BRITA filters until the toxicity of the compound is assessed.

The study was published in the journal Science.

The floaters rise and fall with the waves and drive pistons that compress fluid into an accumulator. That fluid is then released and turns a motor, which spins a generator that produces electricity. According to the company, the Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory estimates that wave energy could generate enough electricity to power 130 million homes.

Meanwhile, another wave energy project in Oregon is taking shape offshore and could go online in the next few weeks. It’s expected to power tens of thousands of homes. The test site, led by Oregon State University, has four cables running 12 miles to shore that will bring electricity to the local grid. However, as ABC News reports, they still don’t know how the energy at this project will be harnessed, whether by buoys or other devices that resemble snakes that are moved by waves.

Unlike generators at dams, waves don’t go in a continuous straight line, so scientists will attempt to figure out the best way to capture the up-and-down and in-and-out movement of the ocean. They will also assess how they weather rough conditions and will measure the environmental impacts.

Because the wave projects cannot be seen from shore, they may be more popular than offshore wind. The Washington Post reports that the local fishing and crabbing community has been supportive of the wave project, although some areas will be off limits to it.

In an interview with The European, a business publication in London, Professor Tim Coulson—who is one of the world’s leading biologists previously at Imperial College London and Cambridge University in case you doubt his credentials to predict our fate—said cephalopods possess the intelligence, adaptability, and resourcefulness that would be needed to form a civilization in the event human self-annihilation.

Discussing his new book, The Universal History of Us, which traces evolution since the Big Bang, he says extinction is the fate of all species, including humans, and it made him wonder what might fill the void after our departure.

One might have presumed primates would rule—à la Planet of the Apes—but Coulson argues that most of our related hominids also depend on our current environment and would perish along with us. Octopuses, he says, with their decentralized nervous system and remarkable problem-solving skills could be well suited to dominate in Earth 2.0.

Whatever creature succeeds us, they would need to be dexterous, and octopuses have demonstrated they can handle tools with their thumb-like tentacles. They know how to open jars and were discovered to have unlatched doors to escape from tanks at research centers.

Their dexterity was most recently showcased in the new Netflix series “Our Oceans,” where an octopus was captured firing stones at predatory fish from its siphon like a skilled sharpshooter.

Our octopus friends might not yet be able to write books or do neurosurgery, but perhaps it’s only a matter of time.