Scientists Create Engineered Living Materials

On August !9th 2021, researchers at Imperil College, London, announced that they had created a material that could heal it's own damage. As published in Nature Communications, the new substance is called, Engineered Living Materials, or ELMs. The scientists say that the new creation, which was funded in part by the  U S Office of Naval Research Global London, could have may uses, from repairing skin to fixing roads or cracked windshields.

According to the study's lead author, Joaquin Caro-Astorga, the break through was made through the use of a genetically engineered bacteria called Komagataeibactor rhaeticus. The bacteria was given a sensor and then arranged into shereoid structures. Holes were then punched into a layer of bacterial cellulose and the shperoids were placed inside. When scientists checked the expeiriment after three days, they found that the holes had been completely repaired.

Dr. Caro-Astorga said, "The posible living materials that can come from this are diverse: For example, with yeast cells that secrete medically-relavent proteins, we could generate wound-healing films where hormones and emzymes are produced by a bandage to improve skin repair. 

Fusion Moves Closer To Reality

On August 8th, 2021, scientists at the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore Lab made a break through that brings them ever closer to sucessful nuclear fusion. An experiment took place that used a powerful laser to generate a temendous amount of energy. The new method of ignition moves the fusion pocess away from the eletro-magnetic field containment systems used in current Tokamak experiements or Stellarators.  

In the experiment, which uses a process called, "inertial confinment fusion,' a pellet of hydrogen no larger than a BB, was struck by a total of 192 laser beams. The result was the release of 1.3 megajoules or 10 quadrillion watts of power for about 100 trillionth of a second. Chief scientist for the ICFP (Inertial Confinement Fusion Program), Omar A. Hurricane, considers this a significant step. The expeiment is leading to the eventual self sustainment of the fusion process.