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Living Bioelectronic Sensors Send a Jolt of Electricity When Triggered

Lead Image: Pucklike bioelectronics designed at Rice University contain programmable bacteria and are attached to an electrode that delivers a signal when they detect a target contaminant, enabling real-time sensing. Credit: Brandon Martin/Rice University New bacterial sensors detect the presence of a variety of contaminants in water. When you hit your finger with a hammer, you feel the pain immediately. And you react immediately. But what if the pain didn’t come until 20 minutes after the hit? By then, the injury might be harder to heal. “I think it’s the most complex protein pathway for real-time signaling that has been…

Potentially Hazardous “Planet Killer” Asteroid Discovered Lurking in the Inner Solar System

Twilight observations with the US Department of Energy-fabricated Dark Energy Camera at NOIRLab’s Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile have enabled astronomers to spot three near-Earth asteroids (NEAs) hiding in the glare of the Sun. These NEAs are part of an elusive population that lurks inside the orbits of Earth and Venus. One of the asteroids is the largest object that is potentially hazardous to Earth to be discovered in the last eight years. Credit: DOE/FNAL/DECam/CTIO/NOIRLab/NSF/AURA/J. da Silva/Spaceengine Twilight observations spot three large near-Earth objects lurking in the inner Solar System. Astronomers have spotted three near-Earth asteroids (NEA) hiding in…

The Green Revolution – Were We Lied To?

Lead Image: The collection of research and technology transfer programs known as the “Green Revolution,” sometimes known as the “Third Agricultural Revolution,” took place between 1950 and the late 1960s and significantly enhanced agricultural productivity in many regions of the globe. A founding narrative of the Green Revolution was discovered to be false. In a recent analysis, a researcher at the Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT revealed that one of the founding narratives of the Green Revolution, a movement to modernize agriculture through technology that began more than 50 years ago, was untrue. The Green Revolution is frequently credited…

Beaming Clean Energy From Space – Caltech’s “Extraordinary and Unprecedented Project”

Collecting solar power in space and transmitting the energy wirelessly to Earth through microwaves enables terrestrial power availability unaffected by weather or time of day. Solar power could be continuously available anywhere on Earth. Credit: Caltech Technology capable of collecting solar power in space and beaming it to Earth to provide a global supply of clean and affordable energy was once considered science fiction. Now it is moving closer to reality. Through the Space-based Solar Power Project (SSPP), a team of California Institute of Technology (Caltech) researchers is working to deploy a constellation of modular spacecraft that collect sunlight, transform…

Are Newton’s Laws of Gravity Wrong: Observation Puzzles Researchers

Lead Image: Astrophysicists have made a puzzling discovery while analyzing certain star clusters. The finding challenges Newton’s laws of gravity. Instead, the observations are consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity. (Artistic concept of strange gravity.) Finding cannot be explained by classical assumptions. An international team of astrophysicists has made a puzzling discovery while analyzing certain star clusters. The finding challenges Newton’s laws of gravity, the researchers write in their publication. Instead, the observations are consistent with the predictions of an alternative theory of gravity. However, this is controversial among experts. The results have now been published…