Gizmorama - January 11, 2016

Good Morning,

Get this...researchers have apparently trained a non-photosynthetic bacterium to perform photosynthesis. Are you kidding me? I can't even get my husband to turn the light off when he leaves a room.

Learn about this and more interesting stories from the scientific community in today's issue.

Until Next Time,
Erin

P.S. Did you miss an issue? You can read every issue from the Gophercentral library of newsletters on our exhaustive archives page. Thousands of issues, all of your favorite publications in chronological order. You can read AND comment. Just click GopherArchives

***
*-- New research suggests sun's magnetic field may soon change --*
WASHINGTON - As stars age, their rotations slow. By modeling this process, researchers have been able to accurately estimate the age of stars. The dating strategy is called gyrochronology.

New research suggests gyrochronology models require recalibration, as the spin rates of aging stars don't slow as much as previously thought.

Stars expel mass in the form of stellar wind. This wind reacts with the star's surrounding magnetic field, acting as a breaking system on the star's rotational spin. But scientists at the Carnegie Institution for Science say older stars don't slow down quite as much as they thought. Researchers believe the change in deceleration is precipitated by a shift in the behavior of the star's aging magnetic field.

More than just requiring recalibration of models, the paper's results -- published this week in the journal Nature -- suggest Earth's sun may soon experience a change in its magnetic field.

Any shift would be gradual, but scientists are still trying to work out the timescale for a change in our sun's electromagnetic tendencies.

The necessary recalibrations aren't just important for our understanding of our own sun, but of stellar evolution more broadly.

"The ability to determine a star's age is important for improving our understanding of the life cycles of astronomical systems -- for cataloging how the star and the objects near it have changed through history and for predicting how they might change in the future," study author Jennifer van Saders, Carnegie astronomer, said in a press release. "Gyrochronology has the potential to be a very precise method for determining the ages of the average Sun-like star, provided we can get the calibrations correct."

"I think this is a very important result that will greatly improve our ability to understand the stellar aging process," added John Mulchaey, director of Carnegie Observatories.


*-- Researchers teach bacterium how to photosynthesize --*
BERKELEY, Calif. - For the first time, researchers have trained a non-photosynthetic bacterium to perform photosynthesis. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?

The bacterium is Moorella thermoacetica, and scientists have found a way to incorporate it into a hybrid artificial photosynthesis system capable of synthesizing valuable chemical products. Researchers gifted the bacterium light-harvesting powers by integrating cadmium sulfide nanoparticles.

"We've demonstrated the first self-photosensitization of a non-photosynthetic bacterium, M. thermoacetica, with cadmium sulfide nanoparticles to produce acetic acid from carbon dioxide at efficiencies and yield that are comparable to or may even exceed the capabilities of natural photosynthesis," lead researcher Peidong Yang, a chemist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, said in a press release.

Cadmium sulfide is an efficient semiconductor, making it an ideal harvester of light. By coupling it with the bioreplication abilities of M. thermoacetica, researchers created an efficient hybridized chemical production system.

Chemical products like acetic acid are currently harvested from petroleum, mostly for use in fuels and plastics. But researchers have been looking for new, more sustainable ways to harvest similar chemical products.

Artificial photosynthetic technologies -- like the latest system, detailed in the journal Science -- offer a promising way forward.

"Our hybrid system combines the best of both worlds: the light-harvesting capabilities of semiconductors with the catalytic power of biology," Yang explained. "In this study, we've demonstrated not only that biomaterials can be of sufficient quality to carry out useful photochemistry, but that in some ways they may be even more advantageous in biological applications."

***
Missed an Issue? Visit the Gizmorama Archives