Thomas Munyon – Lifeboat News: The Blog

Engineered viruses provide quantum-based enhancement of energy transport

Thomas Munyon — Wed, 21 Oct 2015 04:47:11 +0000

How cool is this!

Rendering of a virus used in the MIT experiments. The light-collecting centers, called chromophores, are in red, and chromophores that just absorbed a photon of light are glowing white. After the virus is modified to adjust the spacing between the chromophores, energy can jump from one set of chromophores to the next faster and more efficiently. (credit: the researchers and Lauren Alexa Kaye)

MIT engineers have achieved a significant efficiency boost in a light-harvesting system, using genetically engineered viruses to achieve higher efficiency in transporting energy from receptors to reaction centers where it can be harnessed, making use of the exotic effects of quantum mechanics. Emulating photosynthesis in nature, it could lead to inexpensive and efficient solar cells or light-driven catalysis,

This achievement in coupling quantum research and genetic manipulation, described this week in the journal Nature Materials, was the work of MIT professors Angela Belcher, an expert on engineering viruses to carry out energy-related tasks, and Seth Lloyd, an expert on quantum theory and its potential applications, and 15 collaborators at MIT and in Italy.

Space race heating up as Boeing partners with NASA

Thomas Munyon — Mon, 07 Sep 2015 14:33:20 +0000

Boeing Space Taxis in a couple of years.

This past Friday, Boeing unveiled its most recent assembly plant in Florida, only the new facility won’t be building commercial jets or fighter aircraft. Instead, it will be building spaceships, yes actual spaceships.

Boeing is aiming to have its soon-to-be-flown spaceships in the air and space by 2017. Dubbed the CST-100 Starliner, the spaceships could potentially be the first commercial spacecrafts on the market, though Boeing is in a tight race with SpaceX.

NASA is forking over a huge sum of money for the partnership with Boeing, paying an estimated $4.2 billion dollars to see the development of the spacecraft through the test phase and first six flights. During these flights Boeing will be expected to deliver astronauts to the International Space Station.

LHC spots a consistent oddity in decays with leptons

Thomas Munyon — Sun, 06 Sep 2015 22:46:58 +0000

A glitch. Or maybe a need to revise the Standard Model and add some new particles!

Not statistically robust, but present in three different experiments.

A Surprise Source of Life’s Code

Thomas Munyon — Tue, 01 Sep 2015 01:46:48 +0000

Junk DNA can occasionally spit out useful genes. Randomly?

Emerging data suggests the seemingly impossible — that mysterious new genes arise from “junk” DNA.

Graphene Just The Tip Of The 2D Materials Iceberg For Clean Technology

Thomas Munyon — Tue, 18 Aug 2015 16:50:14 +0000

Graphene is not the only game in town.

Two new developments show that the race is on to replace silicon as the go-to semiconductor of choice with other 2D materials if not graphene.