Vertical Farming Explained, with Dickson Despommier Link Vertical Farming Will Help Us Meet the Challenges of Tomorrow Global population will grow from around 6 billion people today to 8.3 billion in 2030, according to the United Nations. That’s a lot of mouths to feed. And for those who enjoy milk, cheeses, and generally eating animals, that’s a lot of livestock to feed as well. We currently require land the size of South America to grow our food. South America. How will we have enough land to feed a growing population and meet the challenges of tomorrow? One solution may be vertical farming. Ecologist Dickson Despommier, the Professor of Public Health in Environmental Health Sciences at Columbia University, is a leading expert on vertical farming. Plants or animal life are grown in skyscrapers. Glasshouse technology—using both sunlight and artificial light—help bring farming to densely populated urban areas. As 50 percent of people live in cities, according to World Health Organization estimates, it’s the farming of the future which is already catching on around the world. “There’s a vertical farm in Singapore. It’s a brand new building, It looks like a greenhouse from the outside, but it’s four stories tall,” says Despommier. “It uses soil based potted plants on a series of conveyor belts which migrates the plants by gravity – some kind of a grandfather clock like apparatus which actually moves this conveyor belt of plants near the windows maybe once or twice an hour so that every plant gets the same amount of sunlight during the day.” The movement of vertical farming is bringing together people around the world. A project in Sweden called Plantagon, which combines innovations in clean-tech with urban farming, is being developed with the help of the Onondaga Indians of northern New York. Meeting the challenges of the future—new energy sources, reversing environmental degradation, feeding a growing population—can be found in the new technologies being developed for urban farming, as Plantagon illustrates. For more on vertical farming and the latest innovations in development, watch a clip from Big Think’s interview with Despommier: Source
DNA-Based Research May Have Unveiled Long-Sought Diabetes Treatment By Susan Young Rojahn on May 23, 2014 After decades of searching, researchers may have finally identified a chemical compound that could be used to study and treat diabetes. Researchers have long known that the body carries an enzyme that breaks down insulin inside cells and helps regulate the body’s response to sugars—a process that goes awry in type 2 diabetes. Genetic studies have shown that people with type 2 diabetes are more likely to have mutations in the gene that encodes a protein called insulin-degrading enzyme, or IDE. But exactly which processes the enzyme controls is not yet clear. David Liu and his team at Harvard have identified a chemical compound that can inhibit IDE, and they have shown that the compound increases the amount of insulin in the bloodstreams of both normal mice and ones made obese by an unhealthy diet. Liu and his team developed the new compound using a novel method called DNA-templated synthesis. This involves linking thousands of different chemical structures to thousands of unique DNA strands, and then taking advantage of the interactions between two strands of DNA to bring the chemical building blocks together to create new ones. Patients with type 2 diabetes either have an insufficient amount of insulin in their blood or do not properly respond to the hormone in order to move the body’s main energy source—glucose—into cells. Researchers have speculated for decades that a drug that could inhibit IDE might help some type 2 diabetes patients. Small-molecule drugs, which make up the majority of medicines, are compounds far smaller than less common biological medicines like antibodies. They are developed using libraries of thousands or millions of known chemical substances. Each compound is screened to see if it has a desired effect on a biological target, such as an enzyme or other protein known to be involved in a disease. Pharmaceutical companies may use robotics to test many chemical reactions in parallel. DNA-templated synthesis allows researchers without a lot of expensive equipment to more quickly evaluate all the potential small molecule interactions that could occur from a library of building blocks. “A single student with only minimal equipment and infrastructure can evaluate millions of potential small molecule-protein interactions in one to two weeks,” says Liu. Furthermore, DNA-templated synthesis can produce structures that are often not found in chemical libraries used by many pharmaceutical companies, which may be why the Harvard team was able to identify an IDE-controlling drug when so many had failed in the past. The newly identified IDE inhibitor could be the starting point for developing a powerful new drug for type 2 diabetes. Another compound was previously known to inhibit IDE, but it had unwanted side effects, and it survived for only a few minutes in the body. The new inhibitor lasts for hours, says Liu. Source
Tree Bark May Hold Key To New Melanoma Treatment An antimicrobial substance in pine tree bark may have a use for treating skin cancer. Originally published: Jun 2 2014 - 1:15pm By: Cynthia McKelvey, Contributor (Inside Science) -- Melanoma is an especially aggressive and deadly form of skin cancer that can be difficult to treat. Recently, researchers discovered a compound within pine tree bark that might be able to combat the disease. Skin cancer is caused in part by exposure to ultraviolet light from the sun and indoor ultraviolet lights found in devices like tanning beds. There are three different types of skin cancer: basal cell, squamous cell and melanoma, which is the deadliest of the three. Of the 13,000 deaths caused by all forms of skin cancer in the United States each year, 9,700 of them are due to melanoma. Skin cancer cells, like all cancer cells, are essentially super-charged cells. Mutations in their DNA allow the cells to replicate faster and turn off their natural self-destruct mechanism that keeps healthy cells in check. Since cancer cells multiply so quickly, they also need more resources than other cells. “If you think of a really ramped-up racecar, that’s essentially the cancer cell, and then you’re thinking of a Volkswagen, that’s a normal cell,” said Gavin Robertson, the co-author of the study and professor of pharmacology at Pennsylvania State University in University Park. Cholesterol is important to cell function, and in melanoma and other cancers, the pathways used to transport the cholesterol are so “ramped up” that the cells are essentially addicted to cholesterol, according to Robertson. Melanoma treatments target specific molecular pathways that tumor cells use to transport cholesterol, but often the cell finds ways around the roadblock. The study, published in Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, tested a compound known as leelamine in cultured melanoma cells. Leelamine — which seems to act as an antimicrobial agent in pine trees — is unique because it is able to block three pathways of cholesterol transport. The researchers tested it along with several other compounds from a chemical library. “This could be the first of a novel class of compounds,” Robertson said. “There isn’t a drug out there in the cancer arena that does this type of thing.” But before it can be used on the market, it has to go through the usual long slog of clinical testing. One potential issue is that the drug could be a little too good at blocking cholesterol transport, and become toxic to healthy cells. “What’s clear is that this drug is toxic to cells – most cells signal through these pathways,” said Ryan Sullivan, an oncologist at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston. But Sullivan was still interested in the compound. “If they can somehow make this more tumor-specific, then I think they’ve got something,” he said. One way to make sure the drug only affects the tumor cell would be to use a tumor-specific transporter such as a nanoparticle or a nanotube. A nanoparticle or nanotube could be loaded with the drug as well as a “homing” protein to find the tumor cell and deliver the drug directly to the cell. But both leelamine and nanoparticles are a long way from being approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration. One of the hurdles in getting drugs off the ground isn’t just making sure they’re safe and effective, but also getting pharmaceutical companies interested in developing the drug. Clinical trials are very costly and are usually beyond the means of university-based research labs, so drugs need the financial resources of a drug company to get off the ground. Melanovus Oncology, a drug-development company, will continue to test leelamine as a potential drug for melanoma. Robertson is the chief scientific officer of the company. But he said it will be another three to five years before the drug can be safely tested in human patients. The best defense against melanoma, however, is prevention. Though light-skinned people are more at risk for developing all forms of skin cancer, anyone can develop it. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention stresses the importance of wearing sunscreen and protective clothing when going outside, regardless of whether or not you burn easily. The CDC also recommends avoiding unnecessary exposure to ultraviolet light and monitoring for new, changing, or unusual skin moles. Cynthia McKelvey is a science writer based in Santa Cruz, California. She tweets @NotesofRanvier Source
Study: Vast Ocean of Water is Trapped Inside Crystal "Sponges" in Mantle Trapped crystalline water is believed to be enough to fill the Earth's oceans 1 to 3 times over A freakish find -- a mineralogical surprised tucked inside a dirty, seemingly worthless gemstone -- has shown highly compelling evidence that the Earth's water may have sprung not from space, but from a mantle. Now mankind is finding out how little it knew about the Earth's innards, as it slowly discovers that sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction. I. The Core and Geodes The 2003 disaster bomb The Core depicted a group of intrepid scientists who used a high tech drilling rig that vaguely resembled a Japanese bullet train. The scientists dug through the Earth's mantle to drop atomic bombs in an attempt to restart the Earth's core, which had been stopped by U.S. weapons experiments. One of the most often snickered about parts of the movie by scientists is the infamous "geode" scene, which shows the drilling rig get stuck inside a pocket of empty space -- a geode made of amethyst, a kind of purple quartz. As Movie Mistakes summarizes:The geodes occurring in the mantle during the film are impossible in two ways. Firstly, there are no gaps at those depths. The pressure is approximately 3.5 million times surface pressure, and it is not feasible that such structures could form, let alone be maintained. Secondly, the crystals inside the geodes are described as amethysts. Amethysts are a purple variety of quartz, and as any undergrad geology student could tell you, there is no quartz in the mantle, it simply is not stable at such high temperatures. The Core's infamous "geodes" scene [Image Source: Paramount Pictures] While the possibility of finding quartz crystals, particularly hollow ones, in the core is still an outlandish thought, researchers over the last decade have discovered an almost equally unlikely find which likely abounds in the mantle -- water. II. Trailblazers Slowly Unraveled Mystery of Incredible Pressurized Crystal Now a pair of papers has offered new insight, taking that a novel hypothesis much closer to being proven scientific fact. The first paper was published in March, and detailed how a mantle-derived sample the material that houses the water in the mantle was found on the Earth's surface for the first time. The work of an international team of geology, gemology, geophysics, and geochemistry experts Professor Graham Pearson, Canada Excellence Research Chair in Arctic Resources at the University of Alberta, the study found trapped in side a brown 3 millimeter diamond worth around $20 USD, a piece of a mineral called "Ringwoodite". This special crystal inside the diamond is a high-pressure polymorph of olivine, which has been theorized to be abundant in the crust, but trapped in a belt of the mantle known as the "transition mantle". A Ringwoodite sample [Image Source: Wikimedia Commons] Ringwoodite is made by mixture of Silicon, oxygen, iron, and magnesium, the crystal's formula is (Mg, Fe)2SiO4 and it has a spinel structure. The crystal is named in honor of Australian scientist Ted Ringwood, who formulated much of the key components of mankind's modern understanding of the Earth's mantle (although Ringwood himself did not predict Ringwoodite). To date the only known samples of ringwoodite had been made in the lab or found in meteorites. The first samples were harvested in 1969 from meteors that showered down on Tenham Station in Australia. A paper was published in the prestigious peer-reviewed journal Nature, giving the world its first glimpse at this unusual blue crystal with the world. The discovered crystal was highly unstable, but geologists quickly identified it as olivine crystal and discovered it was stabilized by radically high pressures. They speculated it might be stable at pressures similar to the 410-660 kilometer (255-410 mile) deep region of the mantle -- 18 to 23 GigaPascals. That hypothesis was later confirmed by lab-made samples. In 1996, using an exotic high pressure construct UMN Professor David C. Rubie discovered something extraordinary -- in hot, super-pressurized conditions, Ringwoodite stored up to 2.6 percent of its weight in ionized water (hydroxide). At the time Professor Rubie's peers were already speculating that a sea of olivine lay in the transition mantle, with much of its crystallized as Ringwoodite. Could those deposits hold secrets oceans within the mantle? A 2003 paper further expanded upon this work, suggesting that so-called "hydrous olivine" may be the Earth's biggest reservoir of water, containing the equivalent of one to three times the Earth's entire oceans, trapped in a crystalline phase inside the mantle. III. The First Mantle-Derived Ringwoodite Sample Has Lots of Water in It All that was left to observe was to find actual water inside a Ringwoodite sample from the mantle itself. The new study published in March did exactly that, on a fluke. The researchers were buying cheap, unattractive diamonds, examining them for another mineral, when they found an incredible find in one of the tiny, rough stones -- tiny entrapped Ringwoodite crystals. Professor Graham Pearson [Image Source: Richard Siemens] The find is incredibly rare because typically diamonds don't form in the "domain" of Ringwoodite. Olivine (and Ringwoodite) was predicted to be found in the transition zone lies between the upper and lower mantles. The upper mantle is relatively slow moving layer of molten rock. It consists of an estimated 75 percent dunite rock, which in turn is typically around 75 percent olivine. By contrast, diamonds typically form in the upper mantle. A diamond that forms on the edge of the transition zone, as deep as 300 km or more may be relatively worthless to gemologists but is incredibly rare from a research perspective. The diamond was harvest in 2008 from the kimberlite gravel-filled river in the Juina area of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Kimberlite is among the deepest derived of volcanic rocks. [Image Source: U of Alberta] The tiny piece of Ringwoodite was painstakingly extracted at the University of Alberta -- a university known for having the world's largest diamond research group. After the extraction came the critical test -- did it have water? Analyzing the extracted crystal with high precision infrared spectroscopes and X-ray imagers, the researchers not only found water, but an abundance of it -- roughly 1.5 percent of the crystal's weight was water, indicating roughly it to be loaded to about 60 percent of its theoretical capacity. Professor Pearson remarked on the find:This sample really provides extremely strong confirmation that there are local wet spots deep in the Earth in this area. That particular zone in the Earth, the transition zone, might have as much water as all the world’s oceans put together.[The stone was] so small, this inclusion, it’s extremely difficult to find, never mind work on, so it was a bit of a piece of luck, this discovery, as are many scientific discoveries. One of the reasons the Earth is such a dynamic planet is because of the presence of some water in its interior. Water changes everything about the way a planet works. The diamond sample that contained Ringwoodite [Image Source: U of Alberta] His study on the work was published in perhaps science's most prestigious peer-reviewed journal, Nature. A pair of co-authors from Ghent University in the Netherlands --Professor Laszlo Vincze and Professor Bart Vekemans -- received senior author credits on the study. IV. Wet Mantle Drives Unique Mantle Seismic Activity The second paper, just proposed, is perhaps equally important. It has proposed a model for how the transition zone of the mantle works, in a sense. Researchers at the University of New Mexico (UNM), Northwestern University (NWU), University of Southern California (USC), the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the University of Wyoming (UW) compared data harvested from seismic P-to-S conversions recorded by a dense seismic array in North America called USArray. U.S. Arrray in the Alaskan tundra [Image Source: USGS] USArray has migrated around the country, collecting high-accuracy seismic readings. It currently resides in Alaska. The observed data was compared to the output from numeric models and high-pressure laboratory experiments on olivine. A diagram of a U.S. Array seismography station [Image Source: USGS] The study's findings indicate that the mantle's transition zone undergoes an exotic rheological process called "dehydration melting", where currents of hydrous ringwoodite transform into perovskite and the trapped water is expelled back into the transition zone, forming more high-pressure Ringwoodite. Water is a key part of this process. Researchers at the University of New Mexico (UNM), Northwestern University (NWU), University of Southern California (USC), the Carnegie Institution of Washington, and the University of Wyoming (UW) were responsible for this new model, which is the only known model able to explain newly observed effects spotted in the latest round of high-accuracy seismology data. V. Strange Earth Professor Steve Jacobsen, a study coauthor from Northwestern University comments:Geological processes on the Earth's surface, such as earthquakes or erupting volcanoes, are an expression of what is going on inside the Earth, out of our sight. I think we are finally seeing evidence for a whole-Earth water cycle, which may help explain the vast amount of liquid water on the surface of our habitable planet. Scientists have been looking for this missing deep water for decades. Ringwoodite here is key. Its crystal-like structure makes it act like a sponge and draw in hydrogen and trap water. The study also suggests that if the mounting evidence is accurate, it would indicate a vast amount of water in the mantle, offering intriguing proof that the Earth's abundant supply of water came primarily not from collisions with asteroids and meteorites in Earth's early days, but from inside the cooling molten shell that was created as solar debris gravitationally collapsed into planets. The mantle may be the source of most of the Earth's surface water. [Image Source: Deposit Photos] A paper has been published in science's other most prestigious peer-reviewed journal -- Science. The study's firth author is UNM geophysics Professor Brandon Schmandt, while UW geology Professor Ken Dueker is its senior author. More work still needs to be done. New drilling techniques could one day offer mankind's firstdirect observations of the mantle, allowing direct tests of the composition of the upper mantle -- and perhaps eventually the transition mantle and the faster, flowing lower mantle. What's next -- a material that gets stronger the more pressure it's exposed to? Who knows, but one thing is for sure. Science is often as strange and unbelievable as the best and worst works of fiction. Sources: Nature [journal paper], Science [journal paper], University of Alberta [press release],The Guardian SOURCE
Changes in Earth’s Landscape Are Mathematically Ordered, Not Random: Stanford Study Tools used could also shine light on geometry of human circulatory system Channels formed in the Earth by flowing water conform to a mathematical order, a pattern, discerned recently for the first time by Stanford University researchers. The underlying landscape was also shown to fit mathematical patterns. This finding could challenge 50 years of research on landscape evolution, according to a July 11 Stanford news release. Scientists previously assumed a mathematically random formation of channels, but Dr. Eitan Shelef and Associate Professor George Hilley at Stanford used new mathematical tools to compare the natural networks with networks randomly generated by a computer. A simple metric clearly distinguishes between the two. The analysis of branch networks could be extended to the human circulatory system, channels on Mars, the leaves of plants, and more. It will help geologists decipher what processes shaped the world, or worlds, we see today. The study was published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in May. Mathematics in Nature Scientists have seen Fibonacci numbers woven through the tapestry of the natural world. In the Fibonacci sequence, each number is the sum of the two numbers that precede it. It starts, 0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, and goes on infinitely. The golden ratio is the ratio between subsequent numbers in this sequence (5:8 or 8:13, for example). This ratio and these numbers have been detected in many patterns in nature, from snail shells to DNA molecules to the proportions of a human face. SOURCE
New ‘impossible’ space engine breaks the laws of physics The EmDrive apparently breaks the laws of physics (Picture: Satellite Propulsion Research Ltd) NASA has given the green light to further tests of a new type of ‘impossible’ engine that provides thrust without propellant – an apparent violation of the laws of physics. In a paper, the space agency confirmed that the Cannae Drive had produced small amounts of thrust from the engine despite using zero propellant, a discovery that seems to violate the conservation of momentum, which states every action must have an equal and opposite reaction. The discovery – though sparking immediate scepticism – could revolutionise space travel by removing the need for millions of dollars-worth of fuel which must be carefully controlled and fired in short bursts. Space shuttles must carefully manipulate their fuel throughout a flight – which a Cannae Drive-powered rocket wouldn’t have to do (Picture: Dalriada50) If a large-scale drive works in the same way as the test system, it means we could reach in Mars in weeks rather than the projected nine months. The drive works by using the properties of radiation pressure, where an electromagnetic wave carries a small amount of momentum which, when it hits a reflector, can translate into thrust. The Cannae Drive uses the same technology as another fuel-less thruster, the EmDrive, invented by British Scientist Roger Shawyer and tested by Chinese engineers. The Cannae Drive is named for the Battle of Cannae, where the Carthaginian general Hannibal defeated a much larger Roman army – not for Star Trek’s Scotty. SOURCE Forbes Article
Quantum mechanics lets you image an object with photons that never hit it That is, as long as they're entangled with photons that do reach the object. by John Timmer Constructive and destructive interference make this cat out of photons that never actually went through a cat-shaped transparency. Gabriela Barreto Lemos One item on the long list of strange facts about quantum mechanics is that the mere possibility of something happening is often just as good as it actually happening. For example, the fact that a photon could potentially travel down a given path can be enough to create an interference pattern that requires the photon to take that path. Something similar is true regarding a phenomenon called quantum interference. A team of researchers from the University of Vienna has now taken advantage of this idea to create a bizarre imaging technique where the photons that actually strike the object being imaged are discarded. The image itself is then built other with photons that were entangled with the discarded ones. Interference is the ability of two waves, such as photons, to interact either additively or destructively. In the quantum world, whether or not interference occurs depends on the ability to distinguish the two things that are interfering. If they are distinguishable, interference cannot occur. But you don't have to actually distinguish between them in order to block interference. As the authors of the new paper write, "The mere possibility of obtaining information that could distinguish between overlapping states inhibits quantum interference." The device the team set up would create a pair of entangled photons and send one to the target to be imaged. That target was the equivalent of a cardboard cutout; made of silicon, it had an area that was transparent to photons of the wavelength used in the experiment. Naturally, the researchers set up the transparent area so it was shaped like a cat. If the photon struck the non-transparent area, it was absorbed. If it passed through the transparent area, however, it went on to interfere with one of a second pair of photons. So the question of whether interference occurs or not tells us about the shape of the transparent areas. You could potentially detect this interference using the photons that went through the transparent image. But the authors discarded these photons and instead created an image using the remaining, entangled photons, which were influenced by the presence or absence of interference. To ensure this was the case, the authors set the experiment up so that the photons that went through the transparency had a wavelength that the detector was incapable of detecting—and then imaged the object using the wavelength of the entangled photons. Their concluding sentence is a bit of an homage to Watson and Crick, discoverers of the structure of DNA, who made a not-very-subtle hint that they recognized many of the implications of their work. Using similar phrasing to the biologists, the authors note, "It has not escaped our attention that, on the other hand, by knowing the object, one could obtain information about the quantum state without detecting it." That's probably a bigger deal than it might sound like. Directly measuring a quantum state tends to destroy it; in this case, the authors could potentially gain some information about the state while leaving the photons available for use. Nature, 2014. DOI: 10.1038/nature13586 (About DOIs). SOURCE
Activating single gene could extend human lifespan by 30% - scientists In an experiment on fruit flies, UCLA biologists activated just one gene, AMPK, which extended their lifespan by nearly a third, by helping them to get rid of “cellular garbage” causing old age diseases such as Parkinson’s. Humans have the same gene... more
Oh, Christ... "We, Amuuuricans, can't be bothered with hard work, we're way to spoilt for the complex stuff, so we will have our quick fix! We have a fix for everything! QUICK! Because we're masters of the Universe! Masters of life and death!!! " FFS!!! Ommmmmmm.....
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-29168675 A robot unveiled today at the British Science Festival will be loading dishwashers next year, its developers claim. "Boris" is one of the first robots in the world capable of intelligently manipulating unfamiliar objects with a humanlike grasp. It was developed by scientists at the University of Birmingham. The team also work with "Bob", an autonomous robot who recently completed work experience at security firm G4S. "This is Boris' first public outing," announced Professor Jeremy Wyatt of the School of Computer Science. The robot took five years to develop at a cost of £350,000. Boris "sees" objects with depth sensors on its face and wrists. In 10 seconds it calculates up to a thousand possible ways to grasp a novel object with its five robotic fingers and plans a path of arm movements to reach its target, avoiding obstructions. "It's not been programmed to pick it up - it's been programmed to learn how to pick it up," explained Professor Wyatt. Research engineer Maxine Adjigble helped build the robot. "He sees something, he has been trained to grasp an object in a particular way, and he says - okay this surface looks similar to what I know, so I can go for this grasp," he explained. Me is shakin' in me boots, me gonna lose da job...
“Hello, Computer” & Cheap, Scratch-Resistant Displays “Hello, Computer” – Intel’s New Mobile Chips Are Always Listening A new line of mobile chips unveiled by Intel today makes it possible to wake up a laptop or tablet simply by saying “Hello, computer.” Once it has been awoken, the computer can operate as a voice-controlled virtual assistant. You might call out “Hello, computer, what is the weather forecast today?” while getting out of bed... more Cheap, Scratch-Resistant Displays Glass touch-screen displays are easily cracked and scratched, making them a weak point in today’s ubiquitous mobile devices. Sapphire—second only to diamond in hardness—could make such damage a thing of the past. Sapphire is already used on a few luxury smartphones and for small parts of recent iPhones, including the cover of the camera lens and thumbprint reader on the iPhone 5S. And some models of Apple’s newly announced watch include a sapphire face. In a sign of the material’s growing importance, Apple recently invested $700 million in a sapphire processing factory in Arizona... more
http://nr.news-republic.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=3&articleid=30177732&m=d [h=1]Breathing Underwater is Now Possible with the Oxygen Absorbing Material[/h] Breathing underwater one of the IMPOSSIBLE things for a human being .But scientists say that they have created a substance that will help in making this impossible thing to be possible. The scientists from the University of Southern Denmark have created which can absorb oxygen in high concentrations. They claim that a bucketful of this substance can absorb a roomful of oxygen. The absorbed oxygen can also be released in a controlled manner when it is needed, the scientists say.This could replace the bulky scuba tanks that divers use for underwater swimming. The major component of this new material is element cobalt, which is bound in a specially designed organic molecule. Based on various parameters like available oxygen content, ambient temperature,barometric pressure the absorption of oxygen by this new material may take anything from seconds to days. Professor Christine McKenzie from the University of Southern Denmark says ” The material is both a sensor and a container for oxygen, we can use it to bind, store , and transport oxygen-like a solid artificial hemoglobin” The professor also added that by varying the constituents of this new material the rates of release and binding can also varied. This means it could be used to regulate oxyhen supply in fuel cells or create devices like masks that provide pure oxygen without any need of equipment. Professor explains that divers can substitute the tanks for these materials as these can filter and concentrate oxygen from surrounding air or water . Few grains is what divers have to carry for their requirements. There has been no word of possible commercial production or public availability of the material yet.
Not weird at all - but simply honest. Going against Monsanto and co. Ahem... Take a look at Linus Pauling's "How to live longer and feel better" and get the basics for this... We changed the way we consume food drastically but the body hasn't changed. So, we produce food in a "modern" manufacturing manner but what does it actually do to the (essential bits of) food and then, in turn, what does that do to our bodies? Micro nutrients (vitamins, minerals...) are quite easily destroyed (at least some of them) by storing and cooking the food that we eat, a long time after it was taken from the field/tree, slaughtered etc. Hence... Moreover, we are one of the very few mammals on Earth who can't produce our own vitamin C! The change in food production and the way we consume food is of essential importance here! Now, that is the basis of our immune system, protein production, absorption of iron etc. etc. etc. It has 'millions' of functions in our body... Anyway, read Pauling and weep... And then - take action!
Hehe, yeah, internet is full of quacks... But Humanity has only one "quack" with 2 Nobel prizes... All to their own...