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Category: energy – Page 165

Living electrodes with bacteria and organic electronics

Researchers at the Laboratory of Organic Electronics, Linköping University, have together with colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, developed a method that increases the signal strength from microbial electrochemical cells by up to twenty times. The secret is a film with an embedded bacterium: Shewanella oneidensis.

Adding to electrochemical systems is often an environmentally sensitive means to convert chemical energy to electricity. Applications include water purification, bioelectronics, biosensors, and for the harvesting and storage of energy in fuel cells. One problem that miniaturisation of the processes has encountered is that a high requires large electrodes and a large volume of liquid.

Researchers at Linköping University, together with colleagues at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, California, USA, have now developed a method in which they embed the electroactive Shewanella oneidensis into PEDOT: PSS, an electrically conducting polymer, on a substrate of carbon felt.

Chinese Scientists Discover How To Create Oxygen, Water And Fuel On The Moon

In the not too distant future, trips to the мoon will Ƅe мanned and of long duration. In order for astronauts to surʋiʋe there for the duration of their мission, they мust first find a way to create oxygen, water, and fuel with the resources that exist there, since transport froм Earth is coмpletely unfeasiƄle.

Now, a teaм of Chinese astronoмers froм Nanjing Uniʋersity has just discoʋered how to achieʋe this and thus facilitate huмan exploration to create a perмanent Ƅase.

Mind-Bending Animation Shows How The Universe Would Look if We Could See Gamma Rays

Most of the light streaming through the Universe is invisible to human eyes. Beyond the mid-range wavelengths we can see, there’s a whole cosmos shining in high-and low-energy radiation.

But we humans are clever little animals and have managed to build instruments that can see the light we cannot. One of these is NASA’s Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope, an observatory hanging out in low-Earth orbit, monitoring the sky for gamma rays, the highest-energy light in the Universe.

Fermi constantly surveils the entire sky, observing gamma-ray sources and how they change over time, providing astronomers with a map of the various producers of gamma radiation that we can detect. This data is compiled into a catalog that scientists can use to probe the production of gamma radiation.

Study provides the first precise insight into important remodeling processes in adipose tissue

Fat molecules serve as energy storage for fat cells. They consist of three fatty acids attached to a backbone of glycerol. They are therefore also called triglycerides. It has long been suspected that molecules do not remain unchanged during their storage period. Instead, they are regularly broken down and reassembled—a process called “triglyceride cycling.”

But is this assumption even true, and if so: What would that be good for? “Until now, there has been no real answer to these questions,” explains Prof. Dr. Christoph Thiele of the LIMES Institute at the University of Bonn. “It’s true that there has been indirect evidence of this permanent reconstruction for the past 50 years. However, direct evidence of this has so far been lacking.”

The problem: To prove that are broken down, and fatty acids modified and reincorporated into new molecules, one would need to track their transformation as they travel through the body. Yet there are thousands of different forms of triglycerides in each cell. Keeping track of individual fatty acids is therefore extremely difficult.

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