[NEWS] Five science links: desalination brine, Venezuela glacier, Venus, red dwarf plants, AT2018cow

[rfmcdonald]

• Wired asks what is to be done with the toxic brine produced by desalination plants.


• This article from The Atlantic tells the story of the last glacier in Venezuela, disappearing as the climate warns and as the county falls apart.


• Universe Today notes the discovery of a mysterious streak in the upper atmosphere of Venus.


• A new study via Universe Today suggests potentially Earth-like exoplanets orbiting red dwarf stars might not receive enough high-energy photons to support plant life.


• Universe Today suggests that the mysterious AT2018cow event saw the formation of either a black hole or a neutron star.

Comments

[armiphlage]

Rather than desalinate water, we could recycle waste water. Toronto's sewage outflow is cleaner than the water we suck in from the lake (except when storms cause the Beaches combined sewers to overflow). Walvis Bay in Namibia has been reusing its own waste water since the 1980s, and several Australian cities are beginning to do so too. And treated waste water has a lower dissolved solids content than seawater, making reverse osmosis cheaper.