This Week I Learned: Tanks, Recycling, Memory
First, I need to share with you one of the more fun and amazing things I’ve learned in a long time. Followed up by a bit of bright news that’s probably needed at this moment. We’ll then finish with one more piece of positive news that I found while going down the eSports rabbit hole.
She Bought a Tank During WWII
This story begins on a sad note by first recognizing that Mariya Oktyabrskaya lost her husband during WWII. He, a Soviet Union (Russia) soldier, was killed in action by the German Army. Mariya’s response? To sell all her belongings, including her house, and purchase a tank.
She wrote to Stalin asking to enlist and join with her tank named, “Fighting Girlfriend.” He agreed. With her new tank, Mariya drove to the front lines to fight Nazi’s and had a few notable battles in which she exited the tank to fix it before returning inside to continue fighting.
New Enzyme Eats Plastic Waste Really Fast
One of the most common plastics used in things like drink bottles, clothing, and carpet, takes hundreds of years to fully break down. All the while emitting harmful toxins into the environment. But, scientists have since combined two separate enzymes to create a “super enzyme cocktail” that speeds up the process.
At a non-scientific level, this can be explained as...
There was a known enzyme that previously sped up the breaking down of plastics by 20%. Scientists have combined that with another material so together they can break down common plastics six times faster. By breaking down these plastics, they return the materials to their original building blocks and can thus be re-used in the future.
Video Games and Memory
Even though video games are entering the big stage through the growth of eSports I know a lot of us still look at them as a waste of time. We may say it’s good to relax and they can be helpful in doing so. But I’m guessing most of us then quickly throw in that you shouldn’t play them too much.
Well, hopefully you didn’t (or don’t) completely keep your kids from playing video games. We now know that adults who played video games as kids perform far better at memory tasks than those who did not.
