Self-Healing Hydrogen Leaf Could Power the World

Back in 2011, scientists reported the creation of the “world’s first practical artificial leaf” that mimics the ability of real leaves to produce energy from sunlight and water. Touted as a potentially inexpensive source of electricity for those in developing countries and remote areas, the leaf’s creators have now given it a capability that would be especially beneficial in such environments – the ability to self heal and therefore produce energy from dirty water.

While the leaf mimics a real leaf’s ability to produce energy from sunlight and water, it doesn’t mimic the method real leaves rely on, namely photosynthesis. Instead, as described by Daniel G. Nocera, Ph.D. who led the research team, the artificial leaf is actually a simple wafer of silicon coated in a catalyst that, when dropped into a jar of water and exposed to sunlight, breaks down water into its hydrogen and oxygen components. These gases can be collected as they bubble up through the water to be used for fuel to produce electricity in fuel cells.

Because bacteria can build up on the leaf’s surface and stop the energy production process, previous versions of the device required pure water. Now Nocera’s team has found that some of the catalysts developed for the artificial leaf actually heal themselves, meaning the process can work with dirty water.

“Self-healing enables the artificial leaf to run on the impure, bacteria-contaminated water found in nature,” Nocera said. “We figured out a way to tweak the conditions so that part of the catalyst falls apart, denying bacteria the smooth surface needed to form a biofilm. Then the catalyst can heal and re-assemble.”

Where similar devices are expensive to manufacture due to the use of rare and expensive metals and complex wiring, Nocera’s artificial leaf uses cheaper materials and a simple “buried junction” design that he says would make it cheaper to mass produce. Additionally, less than one liter (0.25 gal) of water is enough to produce around 100 watts of electricity 24 hours a day. And while it isn’t necessarily the most efficient form of electricity generation, Nocera likens the approach to “fast-food energy.”

“We’re interested in making lots of inexpensive units that may not be the most efficient, but that get the job done. It’s kind of like going from huge mainframe computers to a personal laptop. This is personalized energy.

“A lot of people are designing complicated, expensive energy-producing devices, and it is difficult to see them being adopted on a large scale,” he added. “Ours is simple, less expensive, and it works.”

Nocera believes the artificial leaf is likely to find its first use in individual homes in areas that lack traditional electric production and distribution systems. As well as being cheaper than solar panels, because the artificial leaf doesn’t directly generate electricity, but produces hydrogen and oxygen that can be stored, the electricity could be generated for use at night.

The research team hopes to integrate the artificial leaf with technology for converting the hydrogen into a liquid fuel to power everything from traditional portable electric generators to cars.

Nocera described the artificial leaf at the 245th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society that is currently being held in New Orleans.

Source: American Chemical Society

Are we really all made of stardust?

We are all made of stardust. It sounds like a line from a poem, but there is some solid science behind this statement too: almost every element on Earth was formed at the heart of a star.

Next time you’re out gazing at stars twinkling in the night sky, spare a thought for the tumultuous reactions they play host to. It’s easy to forget that stars owe their light to the energy released by nuclear fusion reactions at their cores. These are the very same reactions which created chemical elements like carbon or iron - the building blocks which make up the world around us.

After the Big Bang, tiny particles bound together to form hydrogen and helium. As time went on, young stars formed when clouds of gas and dust gathered under the effect of gravity, heating up as they became denser. At the stars’ cores, bathed in temperatures of over 10 million degrees C, hydrogen and then helium nuclei fused to form heavier elements.  A reaction known as nucleosynthesis.

This reaction continues in stars today as lighter elements are converted into heavier ones. Relatively young stars like our Sun convert hydrogen to produce helium, just like the first stars of our universe. Once they run out of hydrogen, they begin to transform helium into beryllium and carbon. As these heavier nuclei are produced, they too are burnt inside stars to synthesise heavier and heavier elements. Different sized stars play host to different fusion reactions, eventually forming everything from oxygen to iron.

During a supernova, when a massive star explodes at the end of its life, the resulting high energy environment enables the creation of some of the heaviest elements including iron and nickel. The explosion also disperses the different elements across the universe, scattering the stardust which now makes up planets including Earth.

'Leadership' gene - discovered

A gene has been uncovered that may help to create born leaders.

The leadership gene, known as rs4950, is an inherited DNA sequence associated with people taking charge.

Scientists accept that leadership skills are also learned. But the gene may provide the vital push needed to make someone into a manager rather than a minion. Researchers found the gene after analysing DNA samples from around 4,000 individuals and matching them to information about jobs and relationships.

Workplace supervisory roles were used as a measurement of leadership behaviour.

The study showed that a quarter of the observed variation in leadership traits between individuals could be explained by genetics.

Lead scientist Dr Jan-Emmanuel De Neve, from University College London, said: “We have identified a genotype, called rs4950, which appears to be associated with the passing of leadership ability down through generations.

“The conventional wisdom — that leadership is a skill — remains largely true, but we show it is also, in part, a genetic trait.”

The findings appear online today in the journal Leadership Quarterly. Some of the greatest leaders in recent history include Martin Luther King, Gandhi, Nelson Mandela and Sir Winston Churchill.

But leaders do not necessarily have to be heroic or good. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin and Genghis Khan were also great leaders in their own way. The new research suggests at least the possibility that some of these historic figures were blessed with the leadership gene.

Despite the importance of the gene, acquiring a leadership position still mostly depends on developing the necessary skills, say the researchers.

"As recent as last August, Professor John Antonakis, who is known for his work on leadership, posed the question: is there a specific leadership gene?"

“This study allows us to answer yes — to an extent. Although leadership should still be thought of predominantly as a skill to be developed, genetics — in particular the rs4950 genotype — can also play a significant role in predicting who is more likely to occupy leadership roles.”

More research was needed to understand the ways in which rs4950 interacted with other factors, such as a child learning environment, he added.

Scientists discover potential cure for gray hair

Forget hair dye - scientists may have discovered a more permanent way to get rid of grays, Medical Daily reported.

Gray hair is thought to be caused by an accumulation of hydrogen peroxide in the roots of hair follicles, which causes harmful oxidative stress. The same phenomenon is also linked to a skin condition called vitiligo, which leads to patchy pigmentation in skin and can cause eyelashes to turn white, Medical Daily reported.

In a new study, researchers analyzed skin biopsies of a group of people suffering from vitiligo and discovered that patients had low levels of an enzyme called catalase, which helps break down hydrogen peroxide and relieve oxidative stress.

Researchers then treated vitiligo patients with a cream containing a ‘pseudo-catalase,’ which can be activated by sunlight. After patients applied the cream, and spent time in the sun, pigment returned in both their skin and eyelashes.

Based on this finding, researchers believe  a similar cream, applied to the hair, could restore color to strands that have gone gray, according to Medical Daily.

"For generations, numerous remedies have been concocted to hide gray hair," said Dr. Gerald Weissmann, editor-in-chief of  The Journal of the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology, which published the study, "but now, for the first time, an actual treatment that gets to the root of the problem has been developed.”

Scientists Prove DNA Can Be Reprogrammed by Words and Frequencies

THE HUMAN DNA IS A BIOLOGICAL INTERNET and superior in many aspects to the artificial one. Russian scientific research directly or indirectly explains phenomena such as clairvoyance, intuition, spontaneous and remote acts of healing, self healing, affirmation techniques, unusual light/auras around people (namely spiritual masters), mind’s influence on weather patterns and much more. In addition, there is evidence for a whole new type of medicine in which DNA can be influenced and reprogrammed by words and frequencies WITHOUT cutting out and replacing single genes.

Only 10% of our DNA is being used for building proteins. It is this subset of DNA that is of interest to western researchers and is being examined and categorized. The other 90% are considered “junk DNA.” The Russian researchers, however, convinced that nature was not dumb, joined linguists and geneticists in a venture to explore those 90% of “junk DNA.” Their results, findings and conclusions are simply revolutionary! According to them, our DNA is not only responsible for the construction of our body but also serves as data storage and in communication. The Russian linguists found that the genetic code, especially in the apparently useless 90%, follows the same rules as all our human languages. To this end they compared the rules of syntax (the way in which words are put together to form phrases and sentences), semantics (the study of meaning in language forms) and the basic rules of grammar. They found that the alkalines of our DNA follow a regular grammar and do have set rules just like our languages. So human languages did not appear coincidentally but are a reflection of our inherent DNA.

The Russian biophysicist and molecular biologist Pjotr Garjajev and his colleagues also explored the vibrational behavior of the DNA. [For the sake of brevity I will give only a summary here. For further exploration please refer to the appendix at the end of this article.] The bottom line was: “Living chromosomes function just like solitonic/holographic computers using the endogenous DNA laser radiation.” This means that they managed for example to modulate certain frequency patterns onto a laser ray and with it influenced the DNA frequency and thus the genetic information itself. Since the basic structure of DNA-alkaline pairs and of language (as explained earlier) are of the same structure, no DNA decoding is necessary.

One can simply use words and sentences of the human language! This, too, was experimentally proven! Living DNA substance (in living tissue, not in vitro) will always react to language-modulated laser rays and even to radio waves, if the proper frequencies are being used.

This finally and scientifically explains why affirmations, autogenous training, hypnosis and the like can have such strong effects on humans and their bodies. It is entirely normal and natural for our DNA to react to language. While western researchers cut single genes from the DNA strands and insert them elsewhere, the Russians enthusiastically worked on devices that can influence the cellular metabolism through suitable modulated radio and light frequencies and thus repair genetic defects.

Garjajev’s research group succeeded in proving that with this method chromosomes damaged by x-rays for example can be repaired. They even captured information patterns of a particular DNA and transmitted it onto another, thus reprogramming cells to another genome. ?So they successfully transformed, for example, frog embryos to salamander embryos simply by transmitting the DNA information patterns! This way the entire information was transmitted without any of the side effects or disharmonies encountered when cutting out and re-introducing single genes from the DNA. This represents an unbelievable, world-transforming revolution and sensation! All this by simply applying vibration and language instead of the archaic cutting-out procedure! This experiment points to the immense power of wave genetics, which obviously has a greater influence on the formation of organisms than the biochemical processes of alkaline sequences.

Esoteric and spiritual teachers have known for ages that our body is programmable by language, words and thought. This has now been scientifically proven and explained. Of course the frequency has to be correct. And this is why not everybody is equally successful or can do it with always the same strength. The individual person must work on the inner processes and maturity in order to establish a conscious communication with the DNA. The Russian researchers work on a method that is not dependent on these factors but will ALWAYS work, provided one uses the correct frequency.

But the higher developed an individual’s consciousness is, the less need is there for any type of device! One can achieve these results by oneself, and science will finally stop to laugh at such ideas and will confirm and explain the results. And it doesn’t end there.?The Russian scientists also found out that our DNA can cause disturbing patterns in the vacuum, thus producing magnetized wormholes! Wormholes are the microscopic equivalents of the so-called Einstein-Rosen bridges in the vicinity of black holes (left by burned-out stars).? These are tunnel connections between entirely different areas in the universe through which information can be transmitted outside of space and time. The DNA attracts these bits of information and passes them on to our consciousness. This process of hyper communication is most effective in a state of relaxation. Stress, worries or a hyperactive intellect prevent successful hyper communication or the information will be totally distorted and useless.

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