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In a Bose-Einstein condensate, the bosons within a material have such low energy that they all occupy the same state, acting as a single particle. This allows quantum properties to be seen on a macroscopic scale. A Bose-Einstein condensate was created in a lab for the first time in 1995, at a temperature of a mere 170 nanokelvin.Now, let’s look at what happens in a typical leaf during photosynthesis.Plants need three basic ingredients to make their own food — carbon dioxide, water, and light. A pigment called chlorophyll absorbs energy from light at red and blue wavelengths. It reflects light...

The process of turning water, carbon dioxide, and sunlight into oxygen and energy helps plants to grow naturally – and it's a process that scientists are looking to harness and adapt in order to produce food, fuel, and more besides. In a new study, scientists outline an experimental artificial photosynthesis technique, which deploys a two-step electrocatalytic process to turn carbon dioxide, water, and electricity generated by solar panels into acetate (the main component of vinegar). This acetate can then be harnessed by plants in order to grow. In fact, the system that the researchers have designed here is intended not...

Plants are growing in complete darkness in an acetate medium that replaces biological photosynthesis. Photosynthesis has evolved in plants for millions of years to turn water, carbon dioxide, and the energy from sunlight into plant biomass and the foods we eat. This process, however, is very inefficient, with only about 1% of the energy found in sunlight ending up in the plant. Scientists at UC Riverside and the University of Delaware have found a way to bypass the need for biological photosynthesis altogether and create food independent of sunlight by using artificial photosynthesis. The research, published in Nature Food,...

By Dr. Tim Ball and Tom HarrisPresident Donald Trump announced the U.S. withdrawal from the Paris Agreement on climate change because it is a bad deal for America. He could have made the decision simply because the science is false, but most of the public have been brainwashed into believing it is correct and wouldn’t understand the reason. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and indeed the leaders of many western democracies, though thankfully not the U.S., support the Agreement and are completely unaware of the gross deficiencies in the science. If they did, they wouldn’t be forcing a carbon dioxide (CO2) tax, on...

Scientists have reached a “milestone” in a technique of semi-artificial photosynthesis that could eventually create an “unlimited source of renewable energy,” according to a new study. Artificial photosynthesis has been around for decades, but scientists haven’t been able to develop it on a scale large enough to support an industrial level, or that could operate without the use of expensive or polluting devices. Semi-artificial photosynthesis, a relatively new field of study, aims to address those concerns by combining manmade technologies with biological processes in order to mimic nature’s method of splitting water into oxygen and hydrogen. In the latest study,...

Scientists announced they are on the cusp of perfecting technology that would pull CO2 from the air and convert it into a fuel source. The tool could help humans reverse some of the effects of global warming and perhaps give our planet a second chance. In a study published Thursday in Joule, scientists at the Canadian company Carbon Engineering explained their CO2 extraction plans. The machine works by sucking air into cooling towers, the. Once inside the towers, the CO2 comes into contact with a liquid that captures the gas. Once captured, the CO2 would then be used as the...

Cambridge, Mass. – July 26, 2011 – Joule Unlimited Technologies today announced the issuance of its first two U.S. patents covering its fundamental method for producing ethanol at volumes and efficiencies far surpassing biomass-dependent processes. The patents relate to methods for increasing the ethanol production capability of a photosynthetic microorganism. Unlike competing technologies that utilize microorganisms to produce ethanol by fermenting sugars from cellulose or other biomass materials, Joule's platform microorganism is engineered to produce and secrete ethanol in a continuous process, converting more than 90% of the CO2 it consumes directly to end product, with no reliance on biomass...

Dr. Patrick Moore sent me this last week, and after reading it, I agree with him in his initial note to me that This is probably the most important paper I will ever write. Moore looks at the historical record of CO2 in our atmosphere and concludes that we came dangerously close to losing plant life on Earth about 18,000 years ago, when CO2 levels approached 150 ppm, below which plant life can’t sustain photosynthesis. He notes: A 140 million year decline in CO2 to levels that came close to threatening the survival of life on Earth can hardly be...

UCLA geochemists have found evidence that life likely existed on Earth at least 4.1 billion years ago -- 300 million years earlier than previous research suggested. The discovery indicates that life may have begun shortly after the planet formed 4.54 billion years ago. The graphite is older than the zircon containing it, the researchers said. They know the zircon is 4.1 billion years old, based on its ratio of uranium to lead; they don't know how much older the graphite is.The carbon contained in the zircon has a characteristic signature -- a specific ratio of carbon-12 to carbon-13 -- that...

That glass of water in your hand is dinosaur pee, apparently. Not like it's unfiltered, but a science YouTube video posted this week raises the interesting tidbit that, since dinosaurs were around for 186 million years and water molecules are everlasting, it's a foregone conclusion that every drop of water on the planet passed through the prehistoric species once upon a time. "While most of the water molecules in your 8 ounce glass have never been drunk by another human, almost every single molecule has been drunk by a dinosaur," the video by CuriousMinds says. "So drink up and enjoy...

With projections of 9.5 billion people by 2050, humankind faces the challenge of feeding modern diets to additional mouths while using the same amounts of water, fertilizer and arable land as today. Cornell researchers have taken a leap toward meeting those needs by discovering a gene that could lead to new varieties of staple crops with 50 percent higher yields. The gene, called Scarecrow, is the first discovered to control a special leaf structure, known as Kranz anatomy, which leads to more efficient photosynthesis. Plants photosynthesize using one of two methods: C3, a less efficient, ancient method found in most...

Future prospects for clean, green, renewable energy may hinge upon our ability to mimic and improve upon photosynthesis -- the process by which green plants, algae and some bacteria convert solar energy into electrochemical energy. An artificial version of photosynthesis, for example, could use sunlight to produce liquid fuels from nothing more than carbon dioxide and water. First, however, scientists need a better understanding of how a large complex of proteins, called photosystem II, is able to split water molecules into oxygen, electrons and hydrogen ions (protons). A new road to reaching this understanding has now been opened by an...

At a meeting of the American Chemical Society in Anaheim, California, MIT Professor Dr. Daniel Nocera announced that a research team had achieved a long -sought-after for goal of artificially copying photosynthesis, the process by which plants turn sunlight into energy, to create electricity easily and cheaply.

WHILE physicists struggle to get quantum computers to function at cryogenic temperatures, other researchers are saying that humble algae and bacteria may have been performing quantum calculations at life-friendly temperatures for billions of years. The evidence comes from a study of how energy travels across the light-harvesting molecules involved in photosynthesis. The work has culminated this week in the extraordinary announcement that these molecules in a marine alga may exploit quantum processes at room temperature to transfer energy without loss. Physicists had previously ruled out quantum processes, arguing that they could not persist for long enough at such temperatures to...

Enlarge ImageThe good girth. Researchers measure the continuing growth--and carbon storage--of rainforest trees. Credit: Simon Lewis Some good news for those worried about climate change: The trees in African rainforests are gobbling up ever more carbon dioxide and thereby mitigating the buildup of the greenhouse gas in Earth's atmosphere. The finding underscores the importance of protecting the rainforests, say the authors. Trees take in CO2 as they grow, and when they die, their decay releases it back into the air. In theory, these fluxes are balanced in a mature forest, so the trees are neither a net sink--as the...

In reality, evolution has done nothing to help real science, and has actually hindered it in many ways...

A modern society such as that in the United States requires personal transportation — cargo trucks, planes, and cars — to make a market economy work. Any serious effort to move our country to mass transportation, such as trains and buses, for everyone and everything all the time — or even most of the time — would destroy not only our economy, but the American way of life. To provide our personal transportation for the foreseeable future, the United States needs oil or an oil substitute.Electric vehicles, the proposed solution by many for America’s transportation problems, have serious drawbacks generally...

Following is a summary published on-line in CO2 Science website, refuting the exaggerated threat of global warming against the ocean's coral reefs. Supposedly, rising CO2 levels in the atmosphere will cause the CO2 to dissolve in the water, lowering the pH (causing it to turn from basic towards an acidic solution), thus dissolving/harming/killing/bleaching/destroying (depending on who is speaking) the wrold's coral reefs. ----------------- Marine Photosynthesis and Oceanic pH Volume 10, Number 34: 22 August 2007 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Based on four theoretical constructs - a geochemical model, an ocean general-circulation model, an IPCC CO2 emissions scenario for the 21st century, and a...

A merica’s gluttonous demand for energy shows no signs of abating anytime soon. We burn through 20 million barrels of oil per day and are projected to use 28.3 million barrels per day by 2025. In order to meet that demand, Department of Energy analysts estimate that we’ll need to double the amount of oil we import. And that is just the appetizer. Spencer Abraham, who served as Secretary of Energy during President George W. Bush’s first term, has blithely predicted that America’s growing electric power needs can be met only if we build between 1,300 and 1,900 new power...

A group of microbiologist describe a new species of green-sulfur bacteria, that grow by photosynthesis at depths of 2500 meters. Since no sunlight penetrates to that depth, they show that these organisms use faint light emitted from deep sea hydrothermal vents. This light is similar to that produced when an electric burner heats up and glows red. The bacteria also thrive in low oxygen environments.