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A scanning electron micrographs of M. mycoides JCVI-syn1 courtesy of the J. Craig Venter Institute.

  
Issue no. 17, 2010
Published: May 21, 2010

Artificial life? Synthetic genes 'boot up' cell
Quantum teleportation achieved over 16 km
Japan's Venus probe lifts off
China scientists say cigarette butts protect steel
Solar cells sliced and diced
Manure could fuel data centres, HP scientists say
Artificial life? Synthetic genes 'boot up' cell
A team of scientists, led by genome pioneer Craig Venter, report the creation of an artificial genome which was used to bring a hollowed-out bacterium back to life. The researchers hope to use their stripped-down version of a bacterium to learn how to engineer custom-made microbes.

Reporting in the journal Science, Venter's team said it worked with a synthetic version of the DNA from a small bacterium called Mycoplasma mycoides transplanted into another germ called Mycoplasma capricolum, which had most of its insides removed. After many false starts, the new microbe came to life and began replicating in the lab dish.

Venter said he would like to try to make bacteria to produce fuel or to use in making better vaccines or to design algae that can vacuum up CO2 from the atmosphere.

Venter said the team consulted many experts in ethics before it started. They also briefed the White House because of the security implications - the technique might be used to synthesize biological weapons, for instance. President Obama asked the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues to look at the issue.
Reuters    May 20, 2010 back to top

Quantum teleportation achieved over 16 km
Scientists in China have succeeded in teleporting information between photons further than ever before. They transported quantum information over a free space distance of 16 km, much further than the few hundred metres previously achieved.

In quantum teleportation two photons or ions are entangled in such a way that when the quantum state of one is changed the state of the other also changes, as if the two were still connected. This enables quantum information to be teleported if one of the photons or ions is sent some distance away.

In previous experiments the photons were confined to fibre channels a few hundred metres long to ensure their state remained unchanged, but in the new experiments pairs of photons were entangled and then the higher-energy photon of the pair was sent through a free space channel 16 km long. The researchers, from the University of Science and Technology of China and Tsinghua University in Beijing, found that even at this distance the photon at the receiving end still responded to changes in state of the photon remaining behind. The average fidelity of the teleportation achieved was 89%.

The distance of 16 km is greater than the effective aerosphere thickness of 5-10 km, so the group's success could pave the way for experiments between a ground station and a satellite, or two ground stations with a satellite acting as a relay. This means quantum communication applications could be possible on a global scale in the near future.
PhysOrg.com / Nature Photonics    May 20, 2010 back to top

Japan's Venus probe lifts off
Japan has sent a sophisticated probe to Venus to study its atmosphere in unprecedented detail. The Akatsuki orbiter was put on a path to the inner-world by an H-IIA rocket launched from the Tanegashima spaceport in the south of the country.

Akatsuki will arrive at Venus in December. Key goals include finding definitive evidence for lightning and for active volcanoes. Once Akatsuki gets to Venus, it will not be alone. The probe will conduct joint observations with a European Space Agency craft - Venus Express - that arrived at the planet in 2006.

Venus is almost identical in size to our planet, and is thought to have a similar composition. But there the resemblance ends. A dense, largely CO2, atmosphere acts as a blanket, trapping incoming solar radiation to heat the planet's surface to an average temperature of 460C.

Surface pressure is about 90 times that on Earth. Several Soviet probes sent to Venus in the 1960s were crushed as they approached the surface. By studying this hostile world, scientists hope to understand better how a warming future on our own planet might evolve.
BBC News    May 20, 2010 back to top

China scientists say cigarette butts protect steel
Scientists at the at the Xi'an Jiaotong University in China say they have found a way for the countless cigarette butts that are tossed every day on streets, beaches and other public places to be reused - in protecting steel pipes from rusting.

The remnants of used cigarettes, among the world's most common form of trash, leak chemicals that have been shown to kill fish and damage the environment. The problem could be alleviated if new uses are found for the cigarette butts. The study is particularly relevant to China, where about 30% of the world's smokers live. The country is home to both the world's largest tobacco grower and cigarette producer.

The researchers discovered that cigarette butts soaked in water can help guard against corrosion in a type of steel commonly used in the oil industry. The finding was recently published in the American Chemical Society journal Industrial & Engineering Chemistry Research.

Researchers found that extracts of cigarette butt water could substantially protect N80 type steel from corroding when in hydrochloric acid at 90 degrees Celsius. That type of steel is often used to make drill rods, which costs oil producers millions of dollars annually when they corrode. A compound material produced from the burning of nicotine and tar is what protects against corrosion, the researchers say.
PhysOrg / AP    May 14, 2010 back to top

Solar cells sliced and diced
An alternative method of making light-sensitive semiconductors could lead to high-efficiency solar cells, better night-vision cameras and a host of other applications. A team at the University of Illinois has developed a potentially cost-effective technique to produce microchips made of gallium arsenide, which responds well to light.

Silicon is the workhorse of the modern semiconductor industry and is used in everything from solar cells to digital cameras. But when it comes to capturing light, there are better materials. Gallium arsenide is one of the most studied silicon alternatives. It can theoretically convert around 40% of incident solar radiation to electricity, making it twice as effective as silicon. But the price of gallium arsenide is high, partly because high-quality wafers of gallium arsenide must be grown in carefully controlled chambers. Once grown, the thick wafers are typically sliced up, but only their surfaces are used. Much of the costly material is essentially wasted.

Now the team has found another way. Rather than growing a single gallium arsenide layer, they grew a 'pancake' of alternating layers of gallium arsenide and aluminium arsenide. Then, using careful sequence of chemicals the team was able to loosen the individual gallium arsenide layers and peel them off with a silicon-based rubber stamp. They stamped the wafers onto another surface, such as glass or plastic, and then etched the thin slices into circuits using more established techniques.
Nature    May 19, 2010 back to top

Manure could fuel data centres, HP scientists say
Giving new meaning to the term 'server farm', a team of HP researchers has come up with a plan for combining cow chips and computer chips to build an environmentally friendly data centre - powered by manure.

The scientists propose using a 'biogas' recovery system that would convert livestock waste into methane, to be used as fuel to generate electricity for data centres. In turn, the system would use the heat produced by the banks of server computers - or server farms - to assist the process of converting the animal waste into fuel.

HP says it has no immediate plans to build a dung-powered data centre. But these days, energy efficiency is an industry Holy Grail. Modern data centres require vast amounts of electricity, causing high energy bills and a big carbon footprint, at a time when corporations face growing pressure to be green.

The average dairy cow produces 20 metric tons of manure per year, according to the researchers, who say they'd need 10,000 cows to power a 1-megawatt data centre, which they describe as a small to medium-sized facility. They propose converting the waste into methane gas through a biological process called anaerobic digestion, which is more efficient and less smelly than simply burning the manure. The methane would then be used as fuel in gas-fired generators to create power.
PhysOrg    May 19, 2010 back to top
 
         
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