Scientific discoveries are being made
every day that are changing the world we live in. This list contains some crazy
scientific innovations—and they’ve all been made in June 2013. From physics to
medicine to biology, the following stories are sure to blow your mind.
Technological and medical advancements that most people believed would never
happen in their lifetime, let alone at this very moment, are real and
continuing to develop. These discoveries bring with them a myriad of new
technology and techniques that will only grow and improve with time to make the
world a better place to live in.
1. Immunity To Cancer
The University of Rochester published a
study on June 19th, suggesting the mechanism that allows naked mole rats to be
immune to cancer. These creepy subterranean rodents may get a lot of heat for
their looks, but they seem to be having the last laugh when it comes to their
immunity to cancer.
A gooey sugar known as Hyaluronan
(HA) has been found in the spaces between naked mole rats’ cells, which seem to
stop them from growing close together and forming tumours. The substance, acting like a parent chaperone at a
high school dance, causes early contact inhibition, which is a process that
stops cells from multiplying once they reach a certain density. A double
mutation in the two enzymes that promote HA’s growth and reduce its breakdown
is thought to be the reason for the elevated amount of the substance.
Scientists tested the theory by infecting skin cells containing both high and
low amounts of HA with cancer.
It was found that in the cell with low
levels of HA, the cancer multiplied rapidly, but in cells with high HA, tumours
failed to form. Scientists are hoping to modify laboratory rats to produce high
amounts of HA in an attempt to make mice immune to cancer.
2. Sight for the
Blind
The first bionic eye prototype was
introduced by a team of Australian designers in early June. The bionic eye
works by having a chip implanted into the user’s skull and
then connected to a digital camera in the glasses. While the glasses currently
only allow the user to see outlines, the prototype has a lot of promise to be
improved upon in the future. Once the camera captures an image, the signal is
changed and sent wirelessly to the microchip. From there, the signal activates
spots on the microchip implanted into the visual cortex of the brain. The team
of researchers is hoping to further the capabilities of the glasses while
keeping them lightweight, adjustable, and comfortable for the wearer. It should
be usable by 85% of people who are legally blind.
3. Medical Benefits of Silver
A study was published on June 19th by a team of researchers at Boston
University regarding the benefits of using silver in antibiotics. While it has
long been known that silver contains strong antimicrobial properties,
scientists have only recently discovered that it’s able to turn normal
antibiotics into antibiotics on steroids.
It is now known that silver uses many chemical processes to stop bacteria from forming bonds,
slow their metabolic rates, and disrupt homeostasis. These processes cause the
bacteria to become weak and more susceptible to the power of antibiotics.
Through multiple studies, the mixture of silver and antibiotics has been up to
1,000 times more effective in killing bacteria than antibiotics alone. Some critics
warn that using silver may have potentially toxic side effects on its users,
but scientists disagree, saying small non-toxic amounts increase the
effectiveness of the antibiotic. This is a very exciting discovery for the
medical world, with the possible uses and applications for this precious metal
continuing to grow.
4. Alternative Fuel Microbes
Imagine a world where high-efficiency,
low-cost alternative fuels were as easy to obtain as the oxygen in the air
around us. Well, thanks to the collaboration of the US Department of Energy and
a team of researchers at Duke University, we might have a microorganism that
can make this dream a reality. Recent years have seen great strides in the area
of alternative fuels (like ethanol from corn and sugar cane). Unfortunately,
these methods have proven inefficient and given rise to a lot of criticism like
cutting into the food and land supply. Recently, scientists have been able to
come up with electro-fuels that are designed to harness solar energy without
cutting into the food, water, or land supplies as most of the existing
alternative fuels do.
In addition to its low energy need, tiny
microbes can efficiently and effectively synthesize these electro-fuels in a
lab. These electro-fuel microbes have been isolated and found living in
non-photosynthetic bacteria. Using the electrons in the soil as food, the
microbes eat up the energy to
produce Butanol when exposed to electricity and carbon dioxide. Using this
knowledge, scientists extract the genes to complete this photosynthesis
substitute and inject them into lab-grown bacteria allowing them to produce
Butanol in large amounts. Butanol is now being seen as the better alternative
to both ethanol and gasoline for a variety of reasons. As a much larger
molecule, Butanol has a larger energy-carrying capacity than ethanol and
doesn’t absorb water, so it can be placed directly in the gas tanks of any car
and transported through the existing gasoline pipelines. These Butanol microbes
are very promising for the future of alternative fuels.
5. Efficient
Electrolysis (Saltwater Splitting)
In the race to find efficient and
plentiful alternative fuels, researchers have always hit a roadblock when
trying to come up with an efficient method of splitting seawater to produce
hydrogen fuel. On June 10th, a team at the Australian Research Council Centre
of Excellence for Electro-materials Science unveiled a catalyst that is able to
split ocean water with very little energy needed.
The catalyst has been fashioned into a flexible
plastic film that soaks up and uses the energy obtained from light to oxidize
the seawater. Unlike current methods that require a large amount of energy to
oxidize the water, this method would produce enough energy to power the average
home and car for a full day using only 5 litres (1.3 gal) of seawater. The film
contains synthetic chlorophyll molecules to harness the energy of the sun in
the same way the leaves of many plants do. Nor are there any chemical downfalls
to using this method, unlike the current water-splitting method that emits
clouds of poisonous chlorine gas.
This efficient and effective method
could greatly reduce the
cost of hydrogen fuel, allowing it to be a
competitive alternative fuel to gasoline in the future.
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