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Issue no. 42, 2010 Published: Dec 24, 2010
New solar fuel machine mimics plant life
Genetic weapon developed against honeybee-killer
First measurement of Earth's inner magnetism made
Africa poised for solar lighting boom
Electric fish could be model for underwater robots
Banknotes go electric to outwit counterfeiters

New solar fuel machine mimics plant life
A solar device has been unveiled which mimics plant life, turning the Sun's energy into fuel. The machine uses the Sun's rays and a metal oxide called ceria to break down CO2 or water into fuels which can be stored and transported. The prototype, which was devised by US and Swiss researchers, uses a quartz window and cavity to concentrate sunlight into a cylinder lined with ceria. Ceria has a natural propensity to exhale oxygen as it heats up and inhale it as it cools down. If CO2 and/or water are pumped into the vessel, the ceria will rapidly strip the oxygen from them as it cools, creating hydrogen and/or carbon monoxide. Hydrogen produced could be used to fuel hydrogen fuel cells in cars, for example, while a combination of hydrogen and carbon monoxide can be used to create 'syngas' for fuel. It is this harnessing of ceria's properties in the solar reactor which represents the major breakthrough, say the inventors. They also say the metal is readily available, being the most abundant of the 'rare-earth' metals. The prototype is grossly inefficient, the fuel created harnessing only between 0.7% and 0.8% of the solar energy taken into the vessel. Most of the energy is lost through heat loss through the reactor's wall or through the re-radiation of sunlight back through the device's aperture. But the researchers are confident that efficiency rates of up to 19% can be achieved through better insulation and smaller apertures. Such efficiency rates, they say, could make for a viable commercial device.
BBC News / Science Dec 23, 2010	back to top

Genetic weapon developed against honeybee-killer
Researchers have developed a genetic technique which could revitalise the fight against the honeybee's worst enemy - the Varroa mite. The method enables researchers to 'switch off' genes in the Varroa mite, a parasite that targets the honeybee. The scientists say this could eventually be used to force the mites to 'self-destruct'. To tackle this particularly nasty pest, bee researchers and parasite specialists came together to harness a method called RNA interference (RNAi). This involves putting a tiny chunk of genetic code into an organism. This code cancels out a specific gene, essentially switching it off. The researchers added this piece of genetic material to a solution that they soaked the Varroa mites in. Via this soaking their experimental treatment found its way into the mites and switched off the gene they were targeting. In the coming years, the researchers hope to develop this into a medicine, which could be added to the bees' food in order to protect them against Varroa. The Varroa mite is believed to be the biggest global killer of honeybees. The mite injects viruses, suppresses the bees' immune system and feeds on blood. Over the past decade, the mite has developed some resistance to chemical controls that beekeepers use. If untreated, it can take just 1,000 mites to kill a colony of 50,000 bees.
BBC News / Parasites and Vectors Dec 22, 2010	back to top

First measurement of Earth's inner magnetism made
For the first time ever, a scientist has measured the strength of the magnetic field inside Earth's core, some 2,900 kilometres underground. It turns out the magnetic field in Earth's core is about 50 times stronger than on the planet's surface, and the new number may help scientists narrow down the possible heat sources that fuel the mysterious processes of the planet's interior. 'A measurement of the magnetic field tells us what the energy requirements are and what the sources of heat are,' says Bruce A. Buffett, a professor of Earth and planetary science at the University of California, Berkeley, who made the measurement. Buffet pulled off the geophysics milestone by harnessing the aid of the moon and quasars — extremely bright and distant active galaxies. Quasars hurl from their luminous hearts a steady stream of radio waves that provide a consistent backdrop against which Earth's most minute wigglings are noticeable, and measurements of these radio waves from ground-based and satellite telescopes allow for very precise data on changes in Earth's rotation axis. By looking at these changes, and how they are affected by the moon's gravitational tug on the Earth, Buffet was able to make his calculations.
Space.com Dec 17, 2010	back to top

Africa poised for solar lighting boom
As many as 120 million households in Africa will be living off-grid by 2015, creating one of the world's largest markets for portable solar lighting in the next five years, according to a report. 'Solar Lighting for the Base of the Pyramid — Overview of an Emerging Market' was published by Lighting Africa, a joint International Finance Corporation (IFC) and the World Bank initiative that is developing continent-wide programmes for solar lighting. The report projects an up to 65% growth rate in sales of portable solar lights, comparable to the recent explosion in mobile phone sales on the continent. Currently, only 0.5% of some 140 million African people living without regular or reliable access to electricity have such lights. The growth will be fuelled by entrepreneurs using the latest technologies and designing products to suit consumers' tastes. But the market could grow even faster if distribution and financing were scaled up, the report says. It also found that an average African household could spend USD 225 less a year on kerosene by using solar lighting. Lighting Africa is helping to build the market for off-grid lighting across Sub-Saharan Africa by investing in consumer education, improving access to financing and looking at new ways to distribute the lighting.
SciDev Dec 22, 2010	back to top

Electric fish could be model for underwater robots
Research into how an electric fish squirts jets of water from its body could lead to exceptionally agile underwater robots, scientists at Northwestern University, USA, say. The black ghost knifefish hunts and navigates in complete darkness at night in the Amazon River by detecting any distortions in the weak electrical field it generates. Many fish swim by wagging their tails back and forth. But the black ghost knifefish keeps its body rigid while swimming and only undulates a long fin that runs nearly the entire length of its belly. By creating waves with the fin that travel from its head to its tail, the fish can move forward, and it can swim backward by creating waves that go the opposite direction. The researchers discovered that knifefish could also send two waves colliding into one another at the middle of the fin. Computer simulations of the fish suggested these crashing undulations would spit out jets of water that could push the fish vertically. To test their model, the scientists built a small robot that mimicked the knifefish, with 32 electric motors crammed in a corkscrew pattern inside to drive its rubbery fin. They filled the water tank they put the robot in with beads and lit them up with a laser, enabling them to see if colliding waves in the fin did indeed squirt out water. To move laterally, the knifefish pivots the pectoral fins on either side of its body that channel how water flows over it to roll the fish around.
MSNBC / TechNewsDaily Dec 22, 2010	back to top

Banknotes go electric to outwit counterfeiters
Good old-fashioned cash is to go down the electronic route, now that it is possible to stamp simple electronic circuits directly onto banknotes. Modern banknotes contain up to 50 anti-counterfeiting features, but adding electronic circuits programmed to confirm the note's authenticity is perhaps the ultimate deterrent, and would also help to simplify banknote tracking. Silicon-based electronic circuits are clearly too thick to be incorporated into thin and fragile banknotes, but semiconducting organic molecules might be a viable alternative. A team of German and Japanese researchers created arrays of thin-film transistors (TFTs) by carefully depositing gold, aluminium oxide and organic molecules directly onto the notes through a patterned mask, building up the TFTs layer by layer. All this is done without aggressive chemicals or high temperatures, both of which might have damaged the surface of the banknotes, according to the researchers. The result is a banknote containing around 100 organic TFTs, each of which is less than 250nm thick and can be operated with voltages of just 3V. Such small voltages could be transmitted wirelessly by an external reader, such as the kind that communicates with the RFID tags found on many products. Although the researchers have yet to work out how the organic electronics could be harnessed as an anti-counterfeit measure, the circuits are able to perform simple computing operations.
New Scientist Dec 21, 2010	back to top