“…The researchers compared Phaeodactylum with the diatom Thalassiosira pseudonana, previously sequenced…revealing a wealth of information about diatom biology, particularly the rapid diversification among the hundreds of thousands of diatom species that exist today.

The researchers found that the genetic structures of the two diatoms were dramatically different: 40% of their genes were not shared. Interestingly, the researchers found that hundreds of genes from bacteria were present in the genomes of both diatom species….” Full Slice

I`m speaking about our mental models of how things function.

“…Already, the research has shown that the initial stages of heart development do not happen as scientists thought.” Full Slice

“Researchers…have developed a solid carbon-based catalyst for the hydrolysis of cellulose into glucose, with performance comparable to that of sulfuric acid, but with lower environmental and financial costs…The researchers developed a catalyst consisting of amorphous carbon bearing SO3H, OH, and COOH groups. Although the carbon material has a small surface area, and the acid density is only 1/10th that of sulfuric acid, they found that the catalyst was as effective as sulfuric acid in hydrolyzing cellulose…use of the new catalyst could lower the cost of producing cellulosic ethanol by more than 30%.” Full Slice

“…a team…has studied lake mud, which contains microbial communities even more complex than those in seawater, and homed in on bacteria that perform the ecological task of eating methane. The study…shows a way to sequence unidentified life.

“This work demonstrates that we can get a complete genome for a totally unknown organism,”…” Full Slice

“A research team…has developed a new superlattice material that improves ionic conductivity near room temperature by a factor of almost 100 million…The new material, represents “a colossal increase in ionic conduction properties,”…The material could lead to more efficient and lower temperature solid oxide fuel cells (SOFCs), among other applications….” Full Slice

“Researchers…have developed a new water-splitting catalyst that is easily prepared from earth-abundant materials (cobalt and phosphorous) and operates in benign conditions: pH neutral water at room temperature and 1 atm pressure…Although the new catalyst requires further work, it opens a very promising pathway for the development of systems that use artificial photosynthesis to store solar energy on a large scale in the form of O2 and H2 for subsequent use in a fuel cell….” Full Slice

“A team of researchers…has developed a vanadium boride (VB2)/air cell—a new renewable electrochemical energy system which stores more energy than gasoline and has an order of magnitude higher capacity than lithium-ion batteries…The energy capacity gap between gasoline and electrochemical storage systems has been a fundamental barrier to more widespread use of electric drive vehicles….” Full Slice

“…As explained on our about page, an overall goal of EveryBlock is to point you to news near your block. We’ve been working hard to do a good job of this so far by accumulating public records, cataloging newspaper stories and pulling together various other geographic information from the Web. However, over the past few months as we’ve been building the site, we’ve come across a number of types of information that don’t exactly fit the EveryBlock mold….” Full Slice

“…In the same vein as the 1960s classic movie, Fantastic Voyage, where a crew of scientists are miniaturized and injected into the bloodstream, Sylvain Martel, director of the NanoRobotics Laboratory at École Polytechnique de Montréal, has successfully made travel through a living animal’s bloodstream possible. “This is really what we are doing, except that we don’t send tiny humans of course,” he says with a laugh…. Full Slice

I’m not a big believer that we can consume our way to a better environment. By that I mean buying a brand new Prius hybrid car to “save energy and be green” is worse for the environment than buying a 3 year old Hummer; however, here is an interesting idea to retrofit existing buildings with something that could generate significant amounts of electricity. Suspicious of adding something new in order to conserve, I’m not sure there is any net energy gain when including the energy required to create Nano Vent Skin:

“Everybody is green or trying to be nowadays. Because it’s trendy, because it’s real, because there’s no other way.

It seems that in order to be greener you have to build the most pharaonic building with the biggest wind turbine on top (Maglev wind turbine, Lighthouse, Bahrain world trade center, etc.); the biggest solar power plant (Mojave desert, Solana Arizona, etc) or build a new city (Rak Gateway, Masdar carbon neutral city, etc.) because the ones we already live in are not green enough.

Why don’t we start thinking on a smaller scale and apply it to existing buildings, houses and structures (tunnels, road barriers, etc) to generate energy.” Full Slice

Scientists working at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., have concocted an innovative recipe for giant telescope mirrors on the Moon. To make a mirror that dwarfs anything on Earth, just take a little bit of carbon, throw in some epoxy, and add lots of lunar dust.

“A report…provides an overview of the current state of several battery chemistries—including NiMH and Li-ion—and their abilities to meet the goals and subsequent requirements for plug-in hybrid electric vehicles (PHEVs).

The authors do not intend for the report to be a definitive analysis of the technologies, but a primer for battery non-experts, and as a way to inform electric-drive interest groups, “including researchers, policymakers, companies, advocates and critics” about fundamental battery issues “to facilitate more grounded debates about the present and future of electric-drive vehicles, including plug-in hybrid vehicles.”

The report highlights four main conclusions….” Full Slice

Fungal Breakdown:

The bane of military quartermasters may soon be a boon to biofuels producers. The genome analysis of a champion biomass-degrading fungus has revealed a surprisingly minimal repertoire of genes that it employs to break down plant cell walls, highlighting opportunities for further improvements in enzymes customized for biofuels production.

…a team led by Laurent Koechlin of the Observatoire Midi Pyrénées in Toulouse, France, says a powerful “Fresnel imager” could be made by launching a piece of metal foil, cut with the Fresnel pattern and attached to a solid frame, into space. A spacecraft equipped with a camera and other scientific instruments would sit at the focal point some distance away and record the observations…

…A 30-metre Fresnel imager would be powerful enough to see Earth-sized planets within 30 light years of Earth, and measure the planets’ light spectrum to look for signs of life, such as atmospheric oxygen.

“a new temperature-sensitive varnish that can be applied to road surfaces to visually warn drivers about dangerous conditions.

the varnish is made of a polymer containing a thermochromic pigment. the same type of coating is already used to make bath thermometers & frozen food packaging that responds to temperature change….” Full Slice