Just trying to come up with a catchy title for a quick list of developments in color application technology, but also biomimicry, wearables, and radioactive fungi. We're finishing off with some recent bits in the endless stream of synthetic biology advancements that will eventually define the 21st century.
Images courtesy of Nikon's Small World Challenge, best microscopy photos you can get!
The first one is a snail tongue by Dr. Igor Siwanowicz, and has nothing to do with the articles below.
Blue dye from red beets - Chemists devise a new pigment option
Apr 2020, phys.org
Non-toxic and Blue dye do not belong in the same sentence, historically. But now, a new class of dyes called pseudo-natural dyes use the same molecules that come from bright red beets (betalains), and they change the carbon-nitrogen chemical bond to a carbon-carbon bond. These new molecules are called quasibetalains, and they're blue.
On a sidenote, I do not recognize the opening statement in the above link, which says that blue is the most liked color the world over. In my art room, in the box of color pencils, and in the box of markers, both followed the same pattern every year for every class: the red pencils are the first to go, followed by blue; it gets fuzzy after that, but they all end up with nothing but brown, orange and yellow, and in that order. After all, brown is the entropic heat death of the rainbow, kind of an anti-color.
B. C. Freitas-Dörr et al. A metal-free blue chromophore derived from plant pigments, Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aaz0421
http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.aaz0421
Red light for stress - A color-changing organic crystal
May 2020, phys.org
Here we've got some organic crystals that change color based on pressure, but that can also return to their original shape. And that's called superelastochromism.
The idea here is to use them as sensors to show you where a building is getting out of whack. But there's a whole lot more you can imagine doing with these.
via the University of Tokyo: Toshiki Mutai et al, A superelastochromic crystal, Nature Communications (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-15663-5
Liquid crystals create easy-to-read, color-changing sensors
Jul 2020, phys.org
Similar thing here; they're pushing and pulling liquid crystals to manipulate their color. The thing is, these don't just change color based on pressure, but even temperature. The walls in your room could change if the temperature shifts too quickly, for example.
Then again, if you're wearing this, it could show you inflammation in your body.
via the University of Chicago: "Prolate and oblate chiral liquid crystal spheroids". Juan de Pablo et al. Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.aba6728
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| Mohamed Ghassen Nouira makes purple dye. |
Passion for purple revives ancient dye in Tunisia
Aug 2020, phys.org
Emperors hate him. This guy figures out how to take special snails and make purple dye out of them, just like how they used to do. Imperial clothiers and dye-makers knew how to do this centuries ago, and the art was lost to the time in between us and them.
And that wasn't a mistake. The process of making Tyrian Purple was a secret, kind of like how we try to keep people from making believable hundred dollar bills.
Think about it, if you, a Carthaginian hustlepimp, could make your own purple robe and deceive the court into thinking you were royalty, kind of like an ancient Borat, you could cause a ruckus. And we can't have a ruckus in the upper reaches of the royal elites.
More importantly, empires made their fortunes selling this dye to other empires. Can't have some guy in his garage creeping into your marketshare.
100,000 grams (100kg) of shelled murex yields 1 gram of Tyrian Purple, and goes for $2,400 - $4,000 per gram, and takes about a week's worth of work.
Sidenote, if you search the words "royal elite" it reeks of fake shit and dupery, which I think is funny because it's a redundant term that would only be used by people who don't really know what either word means.
Testing Chernobyl fungi as a radiation shield for astronauts
Aug 2020, phys.org
Bioshell.
They want to coat spaceships in a shell of superfungus to protect from radiation. They didn't create these fungi by engineering them in a lab; they found them.
And where are on earth are you going to find an organism that metabolizes radioactive isotopes? Yes, thank you Chernobyl.
Graham K. Shunk et al. A Self-Replicating Radiation-Shield for Human Deep-Space Exploration: Radiotrophic Fungi can Attenuate Ionizing Radiation aboard the International Space Station, bioRxiv (2020). DOI: 10.1101/2020.07.16.205534. http://dx.doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.16.205534
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| Beetle leg - Aigars Jukna |
Low-cost, fly footpad-like adhesive structure capable of repeated attachment/detachment
Aug 2020, phys.org
The design is based on fly feet, fine, that's pretty standard biomimicry. But the way they learned how to manufacutre the thing is by looking at how the fly itself makes flies, in the pupa. That's next level biomimicry. And it allows you to repeatedly stick and unstick without losing any of its stickiness.
Ken-ichi Kimura et al, Framework with cytoskeletal actin filaments forming insect footpad hairs inspires biomimetic adhesive device design, Communications Biology (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s42003-020-0995-0
Florida mosquitoes - 750 million genetically modified insects to be released
Aug 2020, BBC News
I'm not sure where this belongs on this list, but modified mosquitoes were approved by federal regulators, fuck yeah.
Development of photovoltaics that can be applied like paint for real-life application
Sep 2020, phys.org
It's a solar cell solution that can coat surfaces. Eventually it will coat your body, so that you can live forever.
So Hyun Park et al, Developement of highly efficient large area organic photovoltaic module: Effects of nonfullerene acceptor, Nano Energy (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.nanoen.2020.105147
Evergreen needles act as air quality monitors
Sep 2020, phys.org
Biosensors that measure the magnetism of the particulate matter that accumulates on the needles. Pretty smart.
Grant Rea‐Downing et al, Evergreen needle magnetization as a proxy for particulate matter pollution in urban environments, GeoHealth (2020). DOI: 10.1029/2020GH000286
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Bindweed Epidermis - Michael Gibson |
Electronic skin promises cheap and recyclable alternative to wearable devices
Nov 2020, phys.org
Man.
"Stretchy and fully-recyclable circuit board that's inspired by, and sticks onto, human skin."
via University of Colorado Boulder: "Heterogeneous integration of rigid, soft, and liquid materials for self-healable, recyclable, and reconfigurable wearable electronics" Science Advances (2020). DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd0202
Engineers print wearable sensors directly on skin without heat
Oct 2020, phys.org
Direct printing for on-body sensors, usually hindered by the bonding process on skin. You can't sinter skin. So they add an "aid layer", basically a protective insulator for the skin that bonds at room temperature. And room temperature.
Artificial skin heals wounds and makes robots sweat
Jun 2020, phys.org
It's about time these robots take over. This is a skin (or "smart coating" when we're trying not to make it sound like the robots will become human and take over) that control fluid flow across its membrane via radio, or UV. And it's made of liquid-crystal molecules, like LCD.
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| Nylon Stockings - Alexander Klepnev |
Thanks to flexoskeletons, these insect-inspired robots are faster and cheaper to make
Apr 2020, phys.org
Just flexoskeletons.
Machine learning takes on synthetic biology - algorithms can bioengineer cells for you
Sep 2020, phys.org
This one is about creating virtual laboratories that produce probable outcomes. They used to say, if you can't build it, you can't know it. But now, we just let the computer figure it out.
Anyway, they specifically say engineering microbiomes. That's a bit new, because although engineering cells has now penetrated the consumer market (fake meat), engineering the entire ecosystem is a new frontier.
Nature Communications. A machine learning Automated Recommendation Tool for synthetic biology. Tijana Radivojević. (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-020-18008-4
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| Unopened Flower Bud - Charles B. Krebs |
Chemists expand genetic code of E. coli to produce 21st amino acid, giving it new abilities
Aug 2020, phys.org
Bodymods and beyond.
They've created a new amino acid, a "noncanonical amino acid" which kind of means not a real amino acid. It's called 5-hydroxyl-tryptophan (5HTP), and it's now the 21st amino acid. Kind of like how the ampersand was the
27th letter in the alphabet for a while.
They put the code for this protein into a "blank" space of the E. coli's genetic code. This means that the bacteria is now a factory that we designed to produce a molecule. It's a living factory. We're all living factories, bioreactors. But we don't make anything we want with our bodies. In this case, we've reverse-engineered the "making" process itself. The is called biohacking.
Yuda Chen et al, Creation of Bacterial Cells with 5-Hydroxytryptophan as a 21st Amino Acid Building Block, Chem (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.chempr.2020.07.013
Researchers develop a yeast-based platform to boost production of rare natural molecules
Aug 2020, phys.org
Again, biofarms of the future.
Engineers reprogram yeast cells to become microscopic drug factories
Sep 2020, phys.org
"Metabolic engineering" is another term for this. They're reprogramming yeast cells at the genetic level to convert sugars and amino acids into drugs. (And someting about the name has me thinking these are hallucinogenic drugs?)
Biosynthesis of medicinal tropane alkaloids in yeast, Nature (2020). DOI: 10.1038/s41586-020-2650-9
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| Duckweed Root Decay - Dr. Robert Markus |
Soil-powered fuel cell promises cheap, sustainable water purification
Oct 2020, phys.org
Soil microbial fuel cells (SMFCs)
Lowering atmospheric CO2 in large-scale renewable energy electrochemical process
Jun 2020, phys.org
This plus synthetic biology aka the biological revolution, or the 5th(?) industrial revolution, and I say that in 100 years, we'll be taking more CO2 out of the air than what we put in.
Researchers at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) have been focusing on improving electrochemical routes to convert CO2, which would otherwise be released into the atmosphere, into a range of value-added products.
the research team created a high rate of formate production and product selectivity, the latter of which is critical to reduce the need for further costly separations processes downstream. The formate could then be fed to biological organisms or coupled with enzymes, resulting in robust interactions between the formate and enzymes that yield high-density chemicals or fuels, such as ethylene or ethanol, respectively.
The program's larger goal is to use highly efficient electrons at industry scale to convert a waste compound such as CO2 into a multitude of more useful industry-relevant, energy-dense fuels or chemicals, such as polyethylene, which has a large global market.
Google conducts largest chemical simulation on a quantum computer to date
Aug 2020, phys.org
Stuff like this scares the shit out of me, although it's hard to articulate why. Probably because quantum chemical simulator is another word for reality generator, and I just don't think we're ready to activate the mass transference device yet.
Hartree-Fock on a superconducting qubit quantum computer, Science 28 Aug 2020: Vol. 369, Issue 6507, pp. 1084-1089, DOI: 10.1126/science.abb9811
IBM announces AI based chemistry lab - RoboRXN
Sep 2020, phys.org
Same as above.
Automating chemical synthesis with RoboRXN. https://www.ibm.com/blogs/research/2020/08/roborxn-automating-chemical-synthesis/
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| More Snail Tongue - Dr. Igor Siwanowicz |
Remote control of blood sugar - Electromagnetic fields treat diabetes in animal models
Oct 2020, phys.org
And lastly; completely fucking bonkers.
Exposing diabetic mice to a combination of static electric and magnetic fields for a few hours per day normalizes two major hallmarks of type 2 diabetes. And it works by remote control, and it can be applied in your sleep to normalize your blood sugar for the rest of the day.
EMF therapy. Sounds like absolute and total bullshit. Remote control blood sugar.
And this makes it even better; "The initial finding was pure serendipity." One scientist borrowed another scientist's mice; he was working on EMF exposure, and she was working on bloodsugar. Using his mice in her experiment, she found something strange going on. Now we think the EMFs prolong activation of superoxide molecules in the liver, rebalancing the body's response to insulin.
Later, they even treated human liver cells with EMFs, for six hours, and found that the surrogate marker for insulin sensitivity improved.
Calvin S. Carter et al, Exposure to Static Magnetic and Electric Fields Treats Type 2 Diabetes, Cell Metabolism (2020). DOI: 10.1016/j.cmet.2020.09.012
