Squirrel monkeys don’t see color like people. But inject their eyeballs with a genetically engineered virus and they suddenly can perceive a new rainbow. The same trick could someday be used on color-blind people.
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An invisible force is having an effect on our Universe. We can’t see it, and we can’t detect it — but we can observe how it interacts gravitationally with the things we can see and detect, such as light.
Now an international team of astronomers has used one of the world’s most powerful telescopes to analyse that effect across 10 million galaxies in the context of Einstein’s general relativity. The result? The most comprehensive map of dark matter across the history of the Universe to date.
It has yet to complete peer-review, but the map has suggested something unexpected — that dark matter structures might be evolving more slowly than previously predicted.
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In contrast, 3D-printed clothes can simply be dumped into blenderlike machines that turn the plastics into powder that can then be used to print out something new. And since 3D printing easily allows for custom sizing, the process is inherently frugal with materials.
But there are plenty of challenges that must be overcome before 3D-printed apparel goes mainstream.
One is cost. Even the smallest home 3D printers run several hundred dollars. A printer capable of printing human-sized apparel is beyond the reach of individual consumers. And it takes far longer to print an article of clothing than to produce a similar article via weaving or knitting. Peleg’s jacket, for example, takes about 100 hours to print.
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To create their glowing plants, engineers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) turned to an enzyme called luciferase.
Luciferase acts on a molecule called luciferin, causing it to emit light.
Another molecule called Co-enzyme A helps the process along by removing a reaction byproduct that can inhibit luciferase activity.
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