Air Pollution Aids Superbug Spread

Polluted city air may be means of transmission for ‘superbugs’, warn scientists who have found that air samples from Beijing contain DNA from genes that make bacteria resistant to the most powerful antibiotics. This may be a more important means of transmission than previously thought. The researchers looked for genes that make bacteria resistant to antibiotics in a total of 864 samples of DNA collected from humans, animals and different environments worldwide. Researchers studied only a small number of air samples, so to generalize; they need to examine the air from more places. But the air samples they did analyse showed a wide mix of different resistance genes. Of particular concern is that researchers found a series of genes that provide resistance to carbapenems, a group of last resort antibiotics taken for infections caused by bacteria that are often very difficult to treat. The results do not show whether the sampled bacteria were actually alive in the air, which would make them a real threat. It is reasonable to believe that there is a mixture of live and dead bacteria, based on experience from other studies of air. The next step for the research is to find if resistance spreads through air from European sewage treatment plants. Researchers are going to let treatment plant employees carry air samplers. They will also study their bacterial flora and flora people who live very close and farther away, and see if there seems to be a connection to the treatment plants.

Soon, Glow In The Dark Dye Could Power Cars

Researchers have identified a glow-in-the –dark fluorescent dye which may be an ideal material for stockpiling energy in rechargeable, liquid-based batteries that could one day power cars and homes. The dye called Bodipy – or boron-dipyrromethene shines brightly in the dark under a black light. Researchers from University at Buffalo (UB), US, say the dye has unusual chemical properties that enable it to excel at two key tasks: storing electrons and participating in their transfer. Batteries must perform these functions to save and deliver energy, and Bodipy is very good at them. In experiments, a Bodipy-based test battery operated efficiently and with longevity, running well after researchers drained and recharged it 100 times. Bodipy is a promising material for a liquid-based battery called a “redox flow battery”. These fluid-filled power cells present several advantages over those made from conventional materials. Unlike lithium-ion batteries, the dye based batteries would not catch fire; if they ruptured, they would simply leak.

New 'Super Earth' Found Orbiting A Nearby Star

Scientists have discovered a new ‘super Earth’ planet with a mass around 5.4 times that of the Earth, orbiting a very bright star near to our Sun. the exoplanet, GJ 536 b, is not within the star’s habitable zone, but its short orbital period of 8.7 days and the luminosity of its star make it an attractive candidate for investigating its atmospheric composition. The star, GJ 536, is a red dwarf which is quite cool and near to our Sun. During the research, a cycle of magnetic activity similar to that of the Sun has been observed, but with a shorter period, three years. So far, the only planet researchers found is GJ 536 b, but researchers are continuing to monitor the star to see if they can find other companions. Rocky planets are usually found in groups, especially around stars of this type, and they are pretty sure that they can find other low-mass planets in orbits further from the star, with periods from 100 days up to a few years. Researchers are preparing a programme of monitoring for transits of this new exoplanet to determine its radius and mean density.

Length Of A Second About To Change

Time is running out for the current length of second after an “optical clock” was sent into space for the first time. Such clocks are up to 1,000 times more accurate than the current international standard, which dates back to 1967 and is based on the natural oscillation of an atom of caesium, rather than the swing of a traditional pendulum. While no one would notice the difference in everyday life, optical clocks would be extremely useful for a number of reasons. For example, it would enable GPS navigation to be accurate to within a few centimeters. But changing the way a second is defined – currently 9,192,631,770 cycles of the microwave signal produced by caesium – to about 429,000 billion cycles form a strontium atom used in some optical clocks, would also inevitably introduce a tiny error, changing its length ever so slightly. Writing in Optica, researchers described how they had successfully sent an optical clock into space – a journey they would need to survive if they were to be used on the satellites providing GPS signals. This device represents a corner-stone in the development of future space-based precision clocks and metrology. The optical clock had about a tenth the accuracy of the current atomic clocks. Researchers plan to develop an improved version next year.