There’s been a scarcity of interesting science news this month though there is one announcement that is pretty big news. Also, a couple of bits about technological applications. I ordinarily don’t like to cover these but there’s little else to talk about.

• The big news is a couple of new papers that links black holes with dark energy. They claim that old black holes seem to be growing far faster than the models predict and propose that black holes contain a well of vacuum energy. They further argue that the amount of energy stored in black holes in this way matches the amount of dark energy that has long been posited to explain the accelerating expansion of the universe but has never been observed. Needless to say that this would be a major discovery if proven correct but at this point should be treated as a speculative idea rather than anything substantial.
• Next, a couple of articles on technology. The first one talks about toroidal propellers. They’re so strangely shaped compared to the usual ones that we see on common objects like fans that you really need to look at a picture of one to understand how different these are. The original motivation for developing these was to reduce noise for aerial vehicles such as drones and these are indeed quieter. But when they researched if there would be a thrust-efficiency penalty they discovered that they are actually more efficient and are structurally stronger too. The downside is that these shapes are much more complex and so cost more to manufacture. But the gains are so significant that I imagine they will be the new standard soon especially since it applies underwater too and in military applications. I like this discovery particularly because people have been searching for more efficient propellers for a very long time and it’s kind of insane that there is still low-hanging fruit to be taken advantage of in this way.
• Then there’s this highly speculative proposal for the USA to harness the Yellowstone Supervolcano to generate electricity. The technology, which involves drawing out the heat of the volcano to drive turbines, seems conventional but the scale of the effort is breathtaking and being able to do it safely is a big question. The authors point out that energy produced would be green by definition and it would even relieve some of the pressure of the volcano, forestalling the long-predicted and disastrous eruption. This will never actually be attempted of course. when even much better understood applications like nuclear power plants face so much opposition and are so difficult to fund. But I like the science-fiction aspect of such grand yet sadly impossible proposals.
• Finally this feels like something that shouldn’t need to be said given the preponderance of evidence already available but some people just won’t give up. A large, randomized, placebo-controlled trial has just found that use of the drug ivermectin did not improve outcomes for patients with COVID-19. This trial and its conclusions should be the final nail in the coffin that the drug holds any effectiveness for this purpose but of course, given how people are, it won’t put this particular conspiracy theory to rest.