Today we invite our readers to look into the future. We will tell you about scientific experiments that may change our lives for the better in the coming decades. Very soon we will be able to enjoy the fruits of this scientific research.
The implantation of chips into the human body
This device was invented at the NASA Research Center in California. It is a carbon nanotube that can be implanted under the skin.
Imagine a "smart" microcapsule, sewn into the human body, which injects a medicine vital for an individual into the blood at the right time and in the right doses. Such an adaptation can save hundreds of thousands of sick people who need to constantly take medications. For example, if cells of the islets of Langerhans from the pancreas, which normally produce insulin, are placed in nanotubes, they can be used to treat diabetes.
One of the modifications of such a device is planned to be implanted into astronauts. The idea is that nanotubes contain biological material (living cells) that reacts, for example, to an increase in radiation from solar flares and releases a drug that protects the astronaut's body. The cells in the nanotubes can be genetically engineered to produce the required substances in response to environmental changes.
Protecting a person from radiation can, for example, the protein G-CSF - a substance that is already used in radiotherapy of cancer patients. Carbon nanotubes must have pores that allow cells to grow and divide, and drugs to be released into the host. The capsules are now being tested on animals. But in the near future, scientists will move on to experiments on volunteers.
Promotional video:
Machines that absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
The coming climate change on the planet has long been discussed at all levels of society. The main cause of global warming is carbon dioxide, which is produced in huge quantities by industrial plants and transportation systems around the world. Canadian firm Carbon Engineering hopes to make a difference by chemically extracting this gas from the atmosphere. The device, invented by the specialists of the company, can suck in air and pass it through a hydroxide solution. As a result of this, carbon dioxide turns into a solid carbon sediment - carbon dioxide. And it can already be used for industrial purposes or simply buried in the ground.
This machine was tested last year and ran for 500 hours, successfully extracting carbon dioxide from the air. The next experiment will last for several thousand hours. Engineers are interested in how the device will respond to different weather conditions.
The company hopes to develop a commercial pilot in 2013. Each of the modules of the device will resemble a giant cooling tower of a nuclear power plant and will be able to extract 1 million tons of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere per year. Our civilization produces annually 30 billion tons of this gas, that is, it will take 30 thousand modules to completely neutralize the influence of mankind on the planet's climate.
Solving the problem of superconductors
Superconductors are the future of transmission and storage of electricity. These materials have very low, almost zero resistance. They can be used to make cables and batteries for power systems. But the problem is that all currently known superconductors are such only at very low temperatures: less than - 163 ° C. Therefore, they must be cooled and well insulated, which in itself is very expensive. It is required to find materials that are superconductive at higher temperatures. And this is already within the competence of quantum physics and its complex laws concerning the behavior of subatomic particles. The solution to the problem is beyond the power of modern computers. But scientists at the US National Institute of Standards and Technology have developed a "quantum stimulator" - a computer system thatwhich will help researchers plan and stimulate interactions between quantum particles and simply read information about the results of these interactions. Thus, it will be possible to compare known superconductors with other materials and look for a suitable one among them.
Creation of a unified model of all laws and phenomena in physics
The Standard Model of Particle Physics is currently the best system for understanding the behavior of subatomic particles of matter. However, it cannot explain the phenomena of gravity and the expansion of the Universe, occurring at an increasing speed. The creation of a single model that will cover all known physical phenomena in nature will be a striking breakthrough in science, comparable to the development of quantum theory. On the basis of quantum theory, lasers, microelectronic devices, ultra-precise clocks are now working, unbreakable codes have been created, that is, many things that were not even thought about until the theory was formulated.
How can the reality around us deviate from the predictions of the standard model? The answer will appear after experiments carried out at the Large Hadron Collider - a giant particle accelerator. He works with great energies. there is a collision of particles - protons. The collision of electrons and positrons will be more promising, since in this experiment one can set and change the energy of each collision and study simpler final states. But these particles cannot be accelerated in a circle, since in this case they will give their energy in all directions. This phenomenon is known as synchrotron radiation. The solution lies on the surface: you need to accelerate them in a straight line using a linear accelerator. It is precisely such a structure that is planned to be erected in the near future. Its length will be 50 kilometers. It can be built in Japan,America, Switzerland or Russia.
Alzheimer's disease on petri dishes
There are currently 26 million people with Alzheimer's disease in the world. This is more than the population of all of Australia. There are 800,000 such patients in the UK. These numbers are expected to double by 2050. The cause of the disease is still unknown and there is no effective treatment. Patients can only slightly improve their quality of life. To study the disease, samples of the brain tissue of a living person are needed, but for obvious reasons it is impossible to obtain them. And in this case, it is useless to experiment on animals, because only people are susceptible to this disease. Therefore, it is difficult to overestimate the importance of the work of two independent groups of researchers from the University of Cambridge and California. They were able to grow brain cells in the laboratory and observe the development of Alzheimer's disease right on petri dishes. Managed to find outthat the disease begins with a gradual accumulation of small cellular abnormalities. Scientists took skin cells from patients in whose family there were patients, from which they received stem cells that can turn into any other, for example, brain cells. They study the effect of various substances in order to find means to stop the development of the disease. The researchers hope for a successful completion of the project in the next three to five years.
Search for extraterrestrial civilizations
Since 1995, when the first star similar to the Sun with the surrounding planets - 51 Pegasi and its planet Bellerophon - was discovered, astrophysicists began to study about 760 planets for the existence of a civilization on them. It turns out that these planets, which are at about the same distance from their suns as the Earth from their star, receive much less light and heat from them.
Astrophysicist and professor at the University of Colorado Webster Cash proposed a "star dimmer" device - a special spacecraft that can block light from a star, allowing the telescope's sensitive instruments to study any planet. This will enable spectroscopic examination of light from these planets to determine their chemical composition and the presence or absence of an atmosphere. You can also find out if there is water vapor around the planets. The key biomarker, that is, a substance that speaks of the presence of life, is oxygen. This is what researchers are trying to find.
Development of new engines for spacecraft
Launching a spacecraft into Earth's orbit is a rather difficult task. In this case, the speed of the spacecraft must be 25 times the speed of sound. This requires a multi-stage hulk with a large amount of fuel on board, which, if accidentally exploded, will resemble the explosion of a small nuclear bomb. In addition to this danger, there is also a financial problem. Such a flight costs tens of thousands of dollars per kilogram of cargo in the rocket. But this state of affairs can soon be changed.
The British company Reaction Engines has designed a reusable unmanned spacecraft Skylon, devoid of the above disadvantages. The key to the success of this project is the development of a completely new system SABER space engine that can operate in two modes: a jet (gas turbine) engine and a rocket engine.
The main fuel for it is hydrogen, and oxygen is the oxidizing agent. During takeoff and landing, oxygen will enter the engine directly from the atmosphere. And after going into space, the internal tanks with the oxidizer will come into play. The main components of the new engine have now been created and are being prepared for extensive testing. In case of success and implementation of the project, the cost of launching spacecraft into Earth's orbit will decrease by 15-50 times. The maximum payload mass that Skylon can deliver into space will be 12-15 tons for an altitude of 300 kilometers and 9.5-10.5 tons for an altitude of 460 kilometers.
Growing "super wheat"
In order to feed the population of the Earth, agricultural land with an area of the size of South America is required. Scientists are trying to find more efficient ways to get food. Experts from the Wheat Yield Consortium believe that one way to tackle this problem is to breed “super wheat,” a modified plant to produce more edible biomass. The goal of the development is to increase yields by 50% over 25 years. But how? By enhancing the efficiency of photosynthesis. Photosynthesis is a process in plants for the formation of organic matter from carbon dioxide and water in the light with the participation of photosynthetic pigments (chlorophyll in plants, bacteriochlorophyll and bacteriorhodopsin in bacteria). It is planned to increase the efficiency of this process by influencing one of the enzymes,which is responsible for the first stage of photosynthesis - carbon fixation. Here you can use both biochemical and genetic methods. The project is still poorly funded, but the first experiments have already begun in Mexico.
Creation of safe nuclear power plants
In 1954, the world's first nuclear power plant was built in Obninsk. Nuclear energy has since been hailed as an inexhaustible source of energy for the future. However, after the well-known events at Chernobyl and at Fukushima, it became clear that such power plants pose a huge danger. In connection with this problem, a project called ITER (ITER) is being developed - the world's largest thermonuclear reactor, which is now being built in France by joint efforts of the European Union, India, China, South Korea, Russia, the United States and Japan. A thermonuclear reactor is much safer than a nuclear reactor in terms of radiation. The amount of radioactive substances used in it is relatively small. The energy that can be released as a result of an accident is also small and cannot lead to the destruction of the reactor. The design of the reactor is such that there are natural barriers in it,preventing the spread of radioactive substances. Nevertheless, when designing ITER, much attention was paid to radiation safety - both during normal operation and during possible accidents. The energy in it will be produced by the fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei (isotopes of hydrogen with extra neutrons). This fuel is safe as there is no chain reaction when using it. As a result, no long-term radioactive contamination occurs. Moreover, there is a lot of deuterium in seawater, and tritium is easily obtained from lithium. The energy in it will be produced by the fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei (isotopes of hydrogen with extra neutrons). This fuel is safe as there is no chain reaction when using it. As a result, no long-term radioactive contamination occurs. Moreover, there is a lot of deuterium in seawater, and tritium is easily obtained from lithium. The energy in it will be produced by the fusion of deuterium and tritium nuclei (isotopes of hydrogen with extra neutrons). This fuel is safe as there is no chain reaction when using it. As a result, no long-term radioactive contamination occurs. Moreover, there is a lot of deuterium in seawater, and tritium is easily obtained from lithium.
Machines that can edit DNA
The possibility of changing human DNA has long occupied the minds of scientists and doctors around the world. Since it became known about the dependence of various diseases on the sequence of the genome of a living organism, many genetic, genetic engineering and biochemical studies have been carried out to develop methods of treatment using changes in DNA. The beginning of many discoveries in biology is associated with bacteria. These are relatively simple creatures, in which many fundamental processes occurring in the human body are represented. Already now, with their help, industrial synthesis of medicinal substances is being carried out. In order for microbes to serve a person the way he needs, scientists have learned to make appropriate changes in their DNA. However, such experiments require a lot of time, effort and expense and are not always successful.
In the near future, the American corporation LS9 is going to provide the population with inexpensive fuel, medicine and, perhaps, even food. All this will be produced in bioreactors based on cheap raw materials - various organic waste, wood chips and so on. One of the project leaders, George Church, together with his colleagues, developed a new approach to obtain microorganisms with the required properties. The new technology is called MAGE (Multiplex-automated genomic engineering), that is, “multiply-automated genomic engineering”. It is based on a new device that may well be called an "evolution machine".
It allows you to make 50 changes in bacterial DNA at the same time, that is, to check 50 variants in one experiment. And when the choice is so great, it is easier and faster to find what you need. Scientists are now looking for "fuel" microbes that will synthesize various mixtures of hydrocarbons, similar in composition to automotive fuel. The first such experimental facility was launched last year in San Francisco, and it is already employing first-generation bacteria-chemists. From sugar cane, they produce hundreds of gallons of biofuel a week. This fuel is crystal clear and meets international standards.
The authors of the development believe that the principle of accelerated evolution in the machine will make it possible to obtain such modified bacteria that will synthesize in huge quantities cheap nutrients and various drugs.
LS9 project executive Bill Haywood is optimistic: "We will heal the world." I really want to believe that it will be so.
Magazine: Secrets of the 20th century №41. Author: Irina Bakhlanova