Revolutionary Antibiotics that Will Save the World?

An international team of including the Lomonosov Moscow State University researchers discovered which enzyme enables Escherichia coli bacterium (E. coli) to breathe. The study is published in the Scientific Reports.

Scientists discovered how the E. coli bacterium can survive in the human gut - earlier the question how they breathe was a mystery to experts. Vitaliy Borisov, Senior Researcher, Doctor of Biological Sciences, Professor of the Russian Academy of Sciences, A.N. Belozersky Research Institute physical and chemical biology employee, the Lomonosov Moscow State University and one of the authors, explains that breathing E. coli uses special enzymes, which are absent in the human body. This means that the discovery of the scientists can contribute to the creation of new drugs, which will be detrimental to the bacteria without harming a human.

The energy for the vital activity of any organism comes from food, and is generated by the means of redox processes in the body. The food is converted into energy not directly but through intermediaries. First, the complex molecules are decomposed into simpler: proteins are decomposed into amino acids, fats - to fatty acids, carbohydrates - to monosaccharides. Oxidation of simpler molecules releases energy, which all is contained in the electrons.

Electrons always find a (quantum) way

Scientists from the Univ. of Basel in Switzerland have demonstrated for the first time how electrons are transported from a superconductor through a quantum dot into a metal with normal conductivity. This transport process through a quantum dot had already been calculated theoretically in the nineties, but scientists at the Univ. of Basel have now succeeded in proving the theory with measurements. They report on their findings in the scientific journal Physical Review Letters.

Transport properties such as electrical conductivity play an important role in technical applications of new materials and electronic components. Completely new phenomena occur, for example, when you combine a superconductor and nanometer-sized structures, known as quantum dots, in a component.

Researchers at the Univ. of Basel working under Professor Christian Schönenberger have now constructed such a quantum dot between a superconductor and a metal with normal conductivity to study electron transport between the two components.

It should in fact be impossible to transport electrons from the superconductor through a quantum dot at low energies. Firstly, electrons never occur on an individual basis in a superconductor but rather always in two's or in so-called Cooper pairs, which can only be separated by relatively large amounts of energy. Secondly, the quantum dot is so small that only one particle is transported at a time due to the repulsive force between electrons.

In the past, however, scientists have repeatedly observed that a current nonetheless runs between the superconductor and the metal - in other words, electron transport does occur through the quantum dot.

First evidence of the transport mechanism through a quantum dot

On the basis of quantum mechanics, theories were developed in the nineties which indicated that the transport of Cooper pairs through a quantum dot is entirely possible under certain conditions. The prerequisite is that the second electron follows the first very quickly, namely within the time roughly stipulated by Heisenberg's uncertainty principle.

The scientists at the Univ. of Basel have now been able to accurately measure this phenomenon. In their experiments the scientists found the exact same discrete resonances that had been calculated theoretically. In addition, the team including doctoral student Jörg Gramich and his supervisor Dr. Andreas Baumgartner was able to provide evidence that the process also works when energy is emitted into the environment or absorbed from it.

"Our results contribute to a better understanding of the transport properties of superconducting electronic nanostructures, which are of great interest for quantum technology applications", says Dr. Andreas Baumgartner.

Airbus Displays Counter-UAV System at CES 2016

In light of the proliferation of drones, companies are devoting resources to technologies capable of countering unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs).  Boeing’s introduced lasers capable of setting fires to drones, and a consortium of British technology companies have designed systems that detect, track, and disrupt drone flight via radio frequency inhibition. 

Now, Airbus Defense & Space, Inc. has entered the playing field. The company is displaying their Counter-UAV System through Jan. 9 at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

“All over the world, incidents with universally available small drones have revealed a security gap with regards to critical installations such as factories, airports, or nuclear plants,” said Thomas Müller, who is the head of Airbus Defense & Space’s Electronics and Border Security. “As a specialist in defense electronics, we have all the technologies in our portfolio and the integration knowledge which are needed to set up a quick-response protection system with extremely low false alarm rates.”

Human-machine superintelligence can solve the world's most dire problems

The combination of human and computer intelligence might be just what we need to solve the "wicked" problems of the world, such as climate change and geopolitical conflict, say researchers from the Human Computation Institute (HCI) and Cornell University.

In an article published in the journal Science, the authors present a new vision of human computation (the science of crowd-powered systems), which pushes beyond traditional limits, and takes on hard problems that until recently have remained out of reach.

Humans surpass machines at many things, ranging from simple pattern recognition to creative abstraction. With the help of computers, these cognitive abilities can be effectively combined into multidimensional collaborative networks that achieve what traditional problem-solving cannot.

Most of today's human computation systems rely on sending bite-sized 'micro-tasks' to many individuals and then stitching together the results. For example, 165,000 volunteers in EyeWire have analyzed thousands of images online to help build the world's most complete map of human retinal neurons.

Virtual Reality May Help Curb Isolation in Deep Space Travel

Located 817 km from the geographic North Pole, theCanadian Forces Station Alert (CFS Alert) can claim the title as the most northerly, permanently inhabited location in the world. The barren landscape is considered a desert, with average precipitation less than that of the Sahara Desert. And from Oct. 10 to March 1, the 55 full-time military, civilian, and contracted personnel at the station never see sunlight.

“It’s an isolated and confined environment with an unvarying landscape,” says Dartmouth College physician and former astronaut Jay Buckey in an interview with R&D Magazine.

And that’s the precise reason Buckey and colleagues are using the station as an analogue for space. Their mission: to test how virtual reality technology may help relieve any detrimental psychological effects stirred up by deep space travel.    

Team finds black hole affecting galactic climate

A team of researchers led by Eric Schlegel, Vaughn Family Endowed Professor in Physics at The University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA), has discovered a powerful galactic blast produced by a giant black hole about 26 million light years from Earth. The black hole is the nearest supermassive black hole to Earth that is currently undergoing such violent outbursts.

Schlegel's team used NASA's Earth-orbiting Chandra X-ray Observatory to find the black hole blast in the famous Messier 51 system of galaxies. The system contains a large spiral galaxy, NGC 5194, colliding with a smaller companion galaxy, NGC 5195.

"Just as powerful storms here on Earth impact their environments, so too do the ones we see out in space," Schlegel said. "This black hole is blasting hot gas and particles into its surroundings that must play an important role in the evolution of the galaxy."

Schlegel and his colleagues detected two X-ray emission arcs close to the center of NGC 5195, where the supermassive black hole is located.

Could Solar Energy Be Generated with Balloons?

Over the years, solar energy has made great strides. In the U.S., utility-scale solar project developers have negotiated sales agreements to utilities at prices averaging 5 cents/kWh, the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory reported in September. And installed project costs have dropped more than 50% since 2009.

But for all the technological advances made, there’s one thing that can’t be controlled by man: the whims of the weather.

Jean-François Guillemoles, the director of the French National Center for Scientific Research and the French director for NextPV, wants to change that. Not the weather, but how we collect solar energy. The answer: balloons.  

“What if, instead of waiting for sunlight to reach solar panels on the ground, balloons were used to capture solar energy up in the air, where space is not restricted, where yields would be multiplied and clouds would never interrupt production?” he muses in a post.