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Category: climatology – Page 186

Biologist discusses a synthetic metabolic pathway that fixes carbon dioxide and synthetic biology

A synthetic metabolic pathway developed by Tobias Erb and his colleagues at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg converts CO2 from the atmosphere into organic matter more efficiently than plants are able to through photosynthesis. We asked the researcher what significance this process could have for climate protection, discussed the hurdles the research team had to overcome to achieve their goal, and looked at the new perspectives that synthetic biology opens up.

Does the synthetic metabolic pathway that fixes CO2 now represent an effective means of curbing climate change?

Firstly, we are aiming to understand the fundamental biological and chemical principles of how CO2 in gaseous form can be converted into organic molecules. Our primary motivation is not stopping . We are seeking to develop atmospheric CO2 as a source of carbon for the future using biological methods. Producing a CO2-neutral process or even one that removes CO2 from the atmosphere and has a positive impact on the climate would be a fantastic secondary effect.

A synthetic biological metabolic pathway fixes CO2 more efficiently than plants

In future, greenhouse gas carbon dioxide could be removed from the atmosphere by deploying a new biological method. A team headed by Tobias Erb, Leader of a Research Group at the Max Planck Institute for Terrestrial Microbiology in Marburg, has developed a synthetic but completely biological metabolic pathway based on the model of photosynthesis that fixes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere 20% more efficiently that plants can photosynthetically. The researchers initially planned the new system, which they presented in the magazine Science this week, on the drawing board and then turned it into reality in the laboratory.

Climate change is one of the most pressing challenges of our time. The concentration of (CO2) in the atmosphere owing to human activities has continually risen since the start of the Industrial Revolution. All scientific evidence indicates that this increase is exacerbating the greenhouse effect and changing the climate. The consequences are already clearly evident. To overcome the environmental as well as the social challenge of climate change, “we must find new ways of sustainably removing excessive CO2 from the atmosphere and turning it into something useful,” underlined Erb, who leads a Junior Research Group at the Max Planck Institute in Marburg.

Theoretically, the problem could be tackled through greater productivity in agriculture and forestry. This is because plants fix carbon dioxide from the atmosphere through photosynthesis. They produce sugar for food from the CO2 via a gradual process known as the Calvin cycle. Each individual biochemical step towards producing the sugar is initiated or accelerated by its own enzyme. The various biocatalysts are precisely aligned with one another to ensure they can work together. However, there is a problem. The CO2-fixing enzyme in the Calvin cycle in plants, which is known by experts as RuBisCo, is relatively slow. It also frequently makes mistakes. RuBisCo captures an oxygen molecule instead of CO2 in one in five reactions.

Unless It Changes, Capitalism Will Starve Humanity By 2050

The wealth gap worries Forbes, not your usual wide-eyed socialist.

How do we expect to feed that many people while we exhaust the resources that remain?

Human activities are behind the extinction crisis. Commercial agriculture, timber extraction, and infrastructure development are causing habitat loss and our reliance on fossil fuels is a major contributor to climate change.

Public corporations are responding to consumer demand and pressure from Wall Street. Professors Christopher Wright and Daniel Nyberg published Climate Change, Capitalism and Corporations last fall, arguing that businesses are locked in a cycle of exploiting the world’s resources in ever more creative ways.

World facing biggest mass extinction since dinosaurs — with two thirds of animals wiped out in 50 years

Not all things future are for the best😑.

The world is facing the biggest extinction since the dinosaurs, with seven in 10 mammals, birds, fish, amphibians and reptiles wiped out in just 50 years, a new report warns.

The latest Living Planet report by the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) estimates that by 2020 populations of vertebrates will have fallen by 67 per cent since 1970.

Extinction rates are now running at 100 times their natural level because of deforestation, hunting, pollution, overfishing and climate change.

“Earth has shifted”-Inuit elders issue warning to NASA and the world

The elders declare that the sun rises at a different position now, not where it used to previously. They also have longer daylight to hunt now, the sun is much higher than earlier, and it gets warmer much quickly.

Global Climate Change: The Earth Has Shifted, Say Inuit Elders. A new warning has come to NASA from the Inuits. They are warning that the change in climate is not due to global warming but rather, because of the Earth shifting a bit.

The Inuits are local people that live in the Arctic regions of Canada, the United States and Greenland. They are excellent weather forecasters and so were their ancestors. Presently they are warning NASA that the cause of change in weather, earthquakes etc, are not due to global warming as the world thinks. They also report that.

They state that the earth has shifted or “wobbled”. “Their sky has changed!”

For first time, individual atoms seen keeping away from each other or bunching up as pairs

Scientists have identified a new method in understanding superconductors, and what one should do to make higher-temperature superconductors even at room temperature. This is certainly a huge deal as we continue to look at ways to build QC machines and devices. Something that my friends at Google should be interested in.

“Learning from this model, we can understand what’s really going on in these superconductors, and what one should do to make higher-temperature superconductors, approaching hopefully room temperature,” says Martin Zwierlein, professor of physics and principal investigator in MIT’s Research Laboratory of Electronics. Credit: Illustration: Christine Daniloff/MIT

If you bottle up a gas and try to image its atoms using today’s most powerful microscopes, you will see little more than a shadowy blur. Atoms zip around at lightning speeds and are difficult to pin down at ambient temperatures.

If, however, these atoms are plunged to ultracold temperatures, they slow to a crawl, and scientists can start to study how they can form exotic states of matter, such as superfluids, superconductors, and quantum magnets.

A $40 dongle lets you use wired headphones and charge your iPhone 7

After Apple got rid of the headphone jack on its new iPhones yesterday you were probably thinking: How am I supposed to charge my phone and use wired headphones? Fear not dear reader, accessory maker Belkin has a solution. With its $40 Lightning Audio + Charge RockStar adapter (actual product name), the company provides a way for you to replenish that iPhone 7 or 7 Plus battery while still keeping the music going.

What’s more, Belkin’s new dongle supports 48 kHz 24-bit audio output and if you’re still planning to use 3.5mm headphones, it works with the Lightning adapter that comes with the new iPhones. Remote control and voice cues from Apple’s headphones are also still in play. If you need to pick one up so that you can listen while you recharge, you’ll be able to do so October 10th. Now when you head out of the house you’ll need to remember this dongle, the adapter, your headphones and a charging cable. Or you could just go with one of many wireless options if you desire less clutter.

Engineers give new meaning to the phrase ‘cool clothes’

Cannot wait for this material so that I can finally enjoy my run in the park near my US home in August.

WASHINGTON — Engineers have created clothing for a warming world — a fabric that allows your body heat to escape far better than other materials do.

It hasn’t been worn or tested by humans, so outside experts caution this is far from a sure thing, but a team at Stanford University engineered a fabric using nano technology that not only allows moisture to leave the body better, but helps infrared radiation escape better. As a result, they say in Thursday’s journal Science, the body should feel around 4.8 degrees (2.7 degrees Celsius) cooler than cotton and 3.8 degrees (2.1 degrees Celsius) chillier than commercially available synthetics.

This is designed for a warmer world — not just because climate change is making temperatures hotter, but because it takes a lot of energy to heat and cool people’s offices and homes, said study lead author Yi Cui, a professor of materials and engineering.

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