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The following is not an ordinary photograph created by regular digital camera. It’s a picture produced by living genetically-engineered E. coli bacteria—an alive 100-megapixel camera.

University of Texas at Austin Molecular Biology Department: A bacteria-produced photo of an enlarged E. coli bacterium—a “self portrait.”

PC Magazine:
It’s been a rough few years for film. First digital photography took all of its glory—and now even lowly bacteria can capture a Kodak moment. Using a genetically modified form of E coli—the bacteria that can wreak havoc at cookouts—researchers at the University of California San Francisco have developed a biological light sensor. The images it creates take hours to form and are monochrome only, but bacteria’s minute size allows for super-high resolution, about 100 megapixels per square inch—ten times what you can get today.

Holy macro. This “BioFilm” can potentially generate a resolution of 100MP per square inch!!! With this magnification, will the photo become ugly??? Imagine you can see things on your face that cannot be seen with your naked eyes. Micro deep valleys (aka wrinkles), maybe? More biofilm pictures here.

University of Texas at Austin:
Students Aaron Chevalier, Jeff Tabor and Laura Lavery beam with pride when passing around their new pictures. But the photos they’re showing off aren’t from a backpacking trip around Europe or a hiking expedition in the Rockies. They’re passing around some of the first-ever bacterial photographs—living pictures they created on biological film made of E. coli bacteria.

The ghostlike photos—images of people, words and buildings—were made when the students exposed Petri dishes holding billions of genetically engineered E. coli to patterns of light. A new biological circuit in the E. coli gives them the ability to sense light and make black pigment. Each bacterium acts like a pixel on a computer screen, turning black when growing in the dark part of a projection and staying clear in the light.

The University of Texas at Austin students made the bacterial photographs for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s annual intercollegiate Genetically Engineered Machine (iGEM) competition, which encourages students to build simple biological machines.

There’s no winner of the iGEM contest, but the team was rewarded when their research was published in the Nov. 26 issue of Nature, in an issue focused on the field of synthetic biology.

Read more on: utexas.edu

Already people have come up with ideas to apply this BioFilm technology in our daily living. Here is one at UCSF: Targeting Tumors with Bacteria to Create Tumor Imaging.

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PC Magazine:
The BetaBattery is not based on chemical reaction. Instead, it relies on the decay of the hydrogen isotope tritium. This continuous emission of electrons is the key to the ever-present charge in BetaBatteries. Tritium has a half-life of 12.3 years, so after 12.3 years, its output is half its original charge. At 40 years, it has one-tenth its original charge. That kind of longevity is much longer than conventional batteries can muster.

Whoa…after 12 years of use, this nuclear battery still have 50% of charge left!!! Incredible application of isotope. Unfortunately….it’s RADIOACTIVE!!! Hence, it cannot be used by the general public.

University of Rochester Press Release:
New ‘Nuclear Battery’ Runs 10 Years, 10 Times More Powerful
A battery with a lifespan measured in decades is in development at the University of Rochester, as scientists demonstrate a new fabrication method that in its roughest form is already 10 times more efficient than current nuclear batteries—and has the potential to be nearly 200 times more efficient. The details of the technology, already licensed to BetaBatt Inc., appears in today’s issue of Advanced Materials.

A layer of silicon riddled with pits, each of which would fill with the radioactive tritium gas, would be like dropping the sun into a deep well lined with solar panels. Almost all of the sun’s rays, no matter which way they were emitted, would strike a well wall. Only those rays that fired straight up and out of the well would be lost. With this reasoning, Fauchet devised a method to excavate pits into a microscopic piece of silicon. The pits, or wells, are only about a micron wide (about four ten-thousandths of an inch), but are more than 40 microns deep.

More pictures about BetaBatt battery can be found here.

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National nanotech research centre has officially opened on June 22, 2006. This state of art facility is built on the campus of University of Alberta in Edmonton and will be the foundation for the revolutionary work being done at the nano-scale, the world of individual atoms or molecules. NINT’s 15,000 square-metre building will be one of the world’s most technologically advanced research facilities and will house laboratory space that will be the quietest in Canada. NIN has attracted many young researchers from UAlberta, Canada, and around the world.

Here are the photos of this new facility.

The sign at the front entrance to National Institute for Nanotechnology (NIN) and National Research Council Canada (NRC-CNRC) on the campus of University of Alberta.

National Institute for Nanotechnology - NINT (click here for large image)

Another view of NIN at University of Alberta (click here for large picture)

The front door to NIN on UofA campus (click here for large pix)

Entire premise of NIN on UAlberta campus (click here for large picture)

A bulletin board, announcing the construction of NIN at U of A.

Panoramic view of NIN, by Kodak V610 Digital Camera Panoramic Technology.
Click here for larger panoramic view of NIN.

NINT web address: http://www.uofaweb.ualberta.ca/nint/english.cfm

An advanced research facility dedicated to the research and development of new materials on a minute scale has officially opened in Edmonton.

About 180 researchers are already setting up in the $52.2-million National Institute for Nanotechnology, which officially opened on Thursday.

Nanotechnology combines biology, physics and engineering to manipulate atoms and molecules on a microscopic scale.

Engineers work in the scale of a nanometre — one billionth of a metre, or 100,000 times smaller than the width of a human hair.

Nanotechnology is already used to put thin metallic film on the inside of bags to preserve potato chips, and to develop better sunscreens.

Second-to-none facilities

The research resources at the new institute are second-to-none, said Bob Wolkow, a University of Alberta physics professor who helped to create a nanoscale transistor that could lead to faster electronic devices.

In the field of biology, Shannon Lubitz, the institute’s technical officer, is working towarding changing the DNA in E.coli bacteria. Lubitz aims to reprogram the microbe’s ability to swim toward sugar and digest it to break up life-threatening blood clots, for example.

The first floor includes a suite of labs in “Canada’s quietest space,” designed that way because the finely calibrated equipment used in nano-scale research needs to free of noise, vibrations and interference from electro-magnetic fields.

The 20,000-square-metre building is also shared by the University of Alberta.

Of the national institute’s preliminary budget of $120 million for the first five years, half comes from federal government, and half from the Alberta government and University of Alberta.

Source: cbc.ca

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2SECONDS is a self-erecting tent. Just throw it in the air and it opens on its own before reaching the ground. All that’s required are six pegs to secure it to the ground. The key to the design are the two spring hoops made of fiberglass, a material that reduces the diameter of the hoops and allows it to be easily folded for compact storage. Compared to standard tents, 2SECONDS has fewer parts to lose and break while still providing an attractive, lightweight, waterproof shelter. Disassembly is easy as well: in 15 seconds the tent folds back into its self-contained package complete with carrying handles. Its affordable price and simple operation has brought camping to a wider range of customers. Sales in the first year have skyrocketed. Source: businessweek.com

Nice application to camping tent. I don’t think the idea is that original. When I was small, I had a hat similar to that, which unfolds into a normal shape of hat in 1 second and can be folded fast for packing after use. However, nice application extending to the tent.

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Archimedes Palimpsest manuscript is revealed in a video clip broadcased at San Francisco Exploratorium (McBean auditorium) on August 4, 2006.

View Making of Archimedes Palimpsest.
View Archimedes Palimpsest Webcast video clip.

To send this Ancient Science Revelation video clip, click “Email This Article” below.

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