Category Environment/Geology

C. metallidurans can produce small gold nuggets. Credit: American Society for Microbiology

High concentrations of heavy metals, like copper and gold, are toxic for most living creatures. This is not the case for the bacterium C. metallidurans, which has found a way to extract valuable trace elements from a compound of heavy metals without poisoning itself. One interesting side-effect: the formation of tiny gold nuggets. A team of researchers from Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg (MLU), the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Adelaide in Australia has discovered the molecular processes that take place inside the bacteria.

The rod-shaped bacterium C. metallidurans primarily lives in soils that are enriched with numerous heavy metals...

Researchers Jan Kramers and Georgy Belyanin found mineral compounds unlike anything on Earth, or in known meteorites or comets, in these fragments from the Hypatia stone, which was picked up in south-west Egypt in the Libyan Desert Glass Field. Credit: Dr Mario di Martino, INAF Osservatorio Astrofysico di Torino

Analyses on a small pebble in south-west Egypt cast significant questions on a widely-held view about the primitive pre-solar dust cloud which our Sun, Earth and other planets were formed from. Researchers found exotic micro-mineral compounds in the ‘Hypatia’ stone that are not known to occur on Earth, elsewhere in our solar system, or in known meteorites or comets.

In 2013, researchers announced that a pebble found in south-west Egypt, was definitely not from Earth...

NUS Engineering researchers developed a novel air cooling technology that could redefine the future of air-conditioning.

All-weather friendly cooling technology works without mechanical compressors or chemical refrigerants, and generates drinking water. A team of researchers from the National University of Singapore (NUS) has pioneered a new water-based air-conditioning system that cools air to as low as 18C without the use of energy-intensive compressors and environmentally harmful refrigerants. This game-changing technology could potentially replace the century-old air-cooling principle that is still being used in our modern-day air-conditioners. Suitable for both indoor and outdoor use, the novel system is portable and it can also be customised for all types of weather conditions.

Led b...

Rice University’s indium-palladium nanoparticle catalysts clean nitrates from drinking water by converting the toxic molecules into air and water.
Credit: Jeff Fitlow/Rice University

Engineers at Rice University’s Nanotechnology Enabled Water Treatment (NEWT) Center have found a catalyst that cleans toxic nitrates from drinking water by converting them into air and water. “Nitrates come mainly from agricultural runoff, which affects farming communities all over the world,” said Rice chemical engineer Michael Wong, the lead scientist on the study. “Nitrates are both an environmental problem and health problem because they’re toxic...