Uncategorized
- Tech
Protein Power: Solar cell produces electricity from spinach and bacterial proteins
Researchers have fabricated a solar cell that uses photosynthetic proteins to convert light into electricity.
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When cyanobacteria and plants transfer electrons photosynthetically, light is absorbed not by their photosynthetic proteins but by chlorophylls. Some of these proteins indeed participate in electron flow, but they are not plant photoreceptors. How then, do they “retain their function” and “absorb photons” in the fabricated solar cell described? Cleon RossVictor, Idaho The materials that […]
- Astronomy
Young World: NASA telescope reveals clues to newborn planet
Astronomers have found signs of what may be the youngest planet known, plus the first signs ever of organic compounds in a region of dust that could evolve into a planet-forming region.
- Humans
Letters from the June 5, 2004, issue of Science News
Blackened reputation Again, humans are implicated in the promotion and distribution of our own misery (“Medieval cure-all may actually have spread disease,” SN: 4/3/04, p. 222: Medieval cure-all may actually have spread disease). However, if bitumen was wrongly credited with darkening the skin of mummified remains, what caused it? Robert FizekNewton, Mass. The coating on […]
- Astronomy
Huge solar flares hit far-flung craft
Spacecraft throughout the solar system have detected material spewed into space by a group of huge solar flares late last year.
- Humans
Simple water filter can nail arsenic
Field tests suggest that people who live in areas with arsenic-tainted aquifers may be able to purify their drinking water by passing it through a low-tech, low-cost filter that includes a bed of iron nails.
- Earth
Killer weather on Mount Everest
An analysis of weather patterns around Mount Everest in May 1996, when eight climbers died, suggests that a sudden drop in barometric pressure may have played a significant role in the deaths.
- Health & Medicine
Breast milk may lower cholesterol
Feeding a newborn baby breast milk instead of formula during the first month of life improves the child's cholesterol readings later on.
- Astronomy
Oddball asteroid
Astronomers have discovered an asteroid that takes only 6 months to go around the sun.
- Materials Science
Nice Threads
Once researchers figure out how to spin strong fibers out of carbon nanotubes, real-world applications such as long-distance power-transmission cables, lightweight aircraft materials, and electronic textiles become feasible.
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Since the hypoxia described in this article isn’t caused directly by the fertilizer, but by the subsequent algae blooms, then perhaps an effective solution is to combat the algae. It might even be profitable to harvest the algae. If the fishing industry is capable of depleting the seas of species that we want there, then […]
- Earth
Dead Waters
Coastal dead zones—underwater regions where oxygen concentrations are too low for fish to survive—are mushrooming globally, threatening to transform entire ecosystems.
