Electricity from Air, Room Temperature Superconductors and Treating Heart Attacks before they happen
March 16
Welcome to the 200th edition of What’s on Craig’s Mind. Who knew that I so many things on my mind. One way to stay young is to stay curious. I hope that your curiosity has been peaked and that we all stay young forever.
In this edition we will discover an enzyme that can create electricity from the hydrogen in air. We examine a new room temperature superconductor and a new transmitter that will make smaller communication devices possible. Finally we investigate a way for heart attacks in mice to be treated prior to the heart attack occurring.
Electricity from Air
A team at Monash University in Melbourne have discovered an enzyme that can convert air into energy. The team has previously shown that many bacteria use hydrogen from the atmosphere as an energy source in environments lacking nutrients. This helps the bacteria grow and survive in hostile environments including Antarctic soils, volcanoes and the deep ocean. The team now knows how the bacteria do this.
The bacterium Mycobacterium smegmatis has an enzyme which is responsible for the conversion of atmospheric hydrogen. The enzyme, called Huc, turns hydrogen gas into an electrical current. It can do this at concentrations of hydrogen well below atmospheric levels.
The team also found that it is possible to store purified Huc for long periods. Huc can be frozen or heated to 80C without losing its’ power to generate energy. The team described Huc as a natural battery that produces a sustained electrical current from air or added hydrogen. The bacteria that produces enzymes like Huc are common and can be grown in large quantities.
The research is at an early stage however there is potential to develop small air-powered devices and once we produce the enzymes at scale, the sky is the limit for producing clean energy.
Room Temperature Superconductors
We have spoken about room temperature superconducting several times however it was always a “when we develop them” discussion. A team at the University of Rochester in New York State claim to have created a superconducting material that works at room temperature and at feasible levels of pressure.
Superconducting is a state of matter that can expel magnetic fields and eliminate electrical resistance. Superconducting magnets are currently used in MRI machines, mass spectrometers and particle accelerators. They also allow the superheated plasma in fusion reactors to be contained.
To date superconducting materials need to be kept at extremely low temperatures (below -320F or -195C). The team claims that their new material can operate at 20C and 10 kilobars of pressure (a common level of pressure used in microchip factories. The material is a form of nitrogen-doped lutetium hydride (NDLH).
Lutetium is a rare earth that is found with other rare earths (but never alone). Deposits have been found in China, US, Brazil, India, Sri Lanka and Australia. It is a by product of the processing of other rare earths and is very difficult to separate. Currently costing $10,000 per kilogram it is one of the rarest and most expensive rare earth metals.
A word of caution though. The team had to retract a paper last year due to the lack of repeatability (science is about developing reactions or processes that can be repeated) and non standard procedures. The new material has been publicly demonstrated so they may have it right this time.
If proven true room temperature superconductors have application in consumer electronics, power lines, transportation and potentially fusion energy generation.
Smaller Communication Devices
A team at the University of Michigan announced a new ferroelectric semiconductor at a nanoscale thickness approximately a month ago. Now they have demonstrated a reconfigurable transistor using that material.
The transistor is a type of switch that allows an electric current through or prevents it from passing. The ferroelectric high electron mobility transistor can increase the signal as well as offering high switching speed and low noise. This makes them ideal for use as amplifiers for sending out signals to cell towers and wifi routers at high speeds.
The use of this type of transistor requires less power in addition to the other gains making them suitable for next generation communications and computing. The transistor is able to be integrated with gallium nitride semiconductors offering speeds up to 100 times that of silicon in addition to high efficiency and low cost. This makes gallium nitride semiconductors a contender to displace silicon in electronic devices.
Treating Heart Attacks before they occur
A team at Israel’s Weizmann Institute of Science have effectively treated mice for heart attacks before the heart attack happened. The mice had a gene in their cardiomyocytes (the cells responsible for contractions) toggled off and then on again. This allowed them to recover from heart damage that occurred months after the initial treatment.
.This procedure is a long way from ready to be tested on humans however it does provide a proof of concept for the field of regenerative heart therapies. This is where we seek to restore function lost in a heart attack or from disease.
Heart attacks usually occur when the blood supply to the heart muscle is cut off or severely restricted. When cut off from blood the muscle begins to die. If the person survives, there is usually permanent damage to the heart as the tissues do not regenerate naturally.
The therapy used on the mice focused on a gene called ERBB2. The team found that triggering ERBB2 (switching it off and on again) caused the cardiomyocytes to divide and replicate, this ability is usually lost at birth. In testing, one mouse that had ERBB2 triggered at 3 months old recovered from a major injury to the heart two months later. This is equivalent to an 18 year old human having the procedure and then surviving a heart attack at 50 years old.
The therapy is a long way from ready for humans but it does point the way in how we might eventually treat people with a high risk of heart attack (family history etc.) before the heart attack ever happens.
Paying it Forward
If you have a start-up or know of a start-up that has a product ready for market please let me know. I would be happy to have a look and feature the startup in this newsletter. Also if any startups need introductions please get in touch and I will help where I can.
If you have any questions or comments please comment below.
I would also appreciate it if you could forward this newsletter to anyone that you think might be interested.
Till next week.