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European biodiesel is driving deforestation across Asia
Biodiesel – popularly used in vehicle fuel in the UK and across Europe as a low-CO2 alternative to fossil fuels – is driving deforestation and wild habitat loss across Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand (BBC News). A report by UK bioeconomy consultancy firm NNFCC shows that, as waste palm oil from cooking is being sold to Europe at a premium price to make biodiesel, it's no longer going to serve as animal feed locally, so farmers buy virgin palm oil instead.
This is driving up palm oil production, with 3 million hectares of forest destroyed to create plantations in Indonesia alone between 2010 and 2015. A key problem is that used cooking oil earns EU biofuel producers double carbon credits, as it's classified as a waste material.
US regulator fines Facebook $5 billion
The USA's Federal Trade Commission has handed Facebook a record-breaking $5 billion fine for violating its users' privacy by allowing Cambridge Analytica to scrape their data without permission (The Verge). However, $5 billion is a drop in the ocean of Facebook's vast profits – $15 billion last quarter – and it seems likely that Facebook will simply pay the fine, gloss over the other regulatory requirements of its deal with the FTC and continue business as usual. Facebook's share price went up 1.18 per cent in response to the fine.
Japan's trade war with South Korea trade is set to impact global chip supplies
Japan and South Korea last week failed to resolve a trade confluence that has seen Korean tech firms including Samsung and SK Hynix banned from buying critical Japanese-produced materials for production of memory chips and processors over dubious “national security” concerns (TechCrunch).
Japan levied trade sanctions and bans against Korean businesses in response to South Korean court rulings that Japanese companies such as Mitsubishi should pay reparations to the Koreans they used as slave labour during the second world war. The Nikkei reports that Samsung's development of its next-generation 7nm processors could be delayed as a result.
A high-tech butt plug is our best hope for understanding orgasms
Take it from sex researcher Nicole Prause: Cobbling together an orgasm detector that works for everyone isn't easy (WIRED). It has to go in the anus to detect the muscle contractions that all humans have in common, which provides a clear starting point: “We ordered like 20 of these butt plugs off Amazon, and it messed up my recommendation engine for all time,” Prause says. To the butt plugs, Prause added piezoelectric discs, which detect deformation.
Video: The Flyboard Air hoverboard got some militaristic gloss in France's Bastille Day celebrations
One of the few true hoverboards in development, Franky Zapata's Flyboard Air, has attracted the attention of France's military and appeared, piloted by its rifle-toting creator, in Sunday's Bastille Day parade in Paris (Gizmodo). Armed Forces Minister Florence Parly said in an interview with France Inter radio that the Flyboard could serve as a “flying logistical platform or, indeed, as an assault platform.”
The strange world of food portions
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This article was originally published by WIRED UK
