Launching and operating a spacecraft is even more complicated than you might imagine; besides having to carry its own fuel the craft also usually has to carry its own oxygen. These factors both limit the distance spacecraft are able to travel and the amount of time they can spend away from Earth.

Royal College of Art graduate Julian Melchiorri may have come up with a brilliant way to solve the oxygen issue. He developed a “synthetic biological leaf” that takes in water, light, and carbon dioxide before emitting oxygen – just like a real plant.

Melchiorri’s Silk Leaf consists of chloroplasts – photosynthesis-conducting organelles present in plant cells – suspended in a framework of silk protein. The silk protein is ideal for holding and stabilizing the chloroplasts.

The resulting synthetic leaf is 100 percent natural, lightweight, and “breathes” just like a biological plant.

The implications of this invention are vast. It could eliminate the need for spacecraft to carry oxygen on board and do away with heavy oxygen generators on the ISS and other long-term space missions.

Melchiorri sees potential for his invention right here on Earth, however. He created some light fixtures using the Silk Leaf that act as both lamps and air purifiers, and he envisions using the leaves on a large scale as building-size biological air filters.

[via: Dezeen]

The post Breath of Fresh Air: Synthetic Silk Leaf Produces Oxygen first appeared on Gajitz.

Bioluminescence occurs in insects, animals, plants, and bacteria fairly frequently, but so far we haven’t harnessed it for our own personal use. A company called Bioglow is changing all that by creating the first autoluminescent plant: a glowing plant that doesn’t need chemicals, special lights, or electricity to glow.

They call their first prototype Starlight Avatar. It was developed from a strain of ornamental plants and genetically modified to glow on its own. The plant’s life cycle is only 2-3 months – with the brightest glow coming from the younger growth – so don’t expect the light show to continue for years to come. But Bioglow is working on making the plants brighter and longer-lasting so that eventually they may reduce our reliance on electricity for light.

While the first thought that popped into our heads was creating a whole outdoor garden full of glowing plants, the Starlight Avatar is strictly an indoor ornamental plant. The plants emit light continuously, though, so you can still build an interesting terrarium or array of planters indoors.

The actual mechanism for creating the glowing flora can be found in a 2010 PL0S One article by Dr. Alexander Krichevsky, the head of the project, and his colleagues. Although the Starlight Avatar isn’t exactly for sale at the time of writing, the company decided to auction off 20 of the glowing plants with starting prices of just $1 for people who can’t wait to get their hands on one.

The post Glowing Plants Are a Step Toward Electricity-Free Lighting first appeared on Gajitz.

In 2009, a company called Organovo came up with what, at the time, sounded like an insane goal: they wanted to make machines that could print human organs. The printed organs could then be used as ransplants so that patients would no longer have to wait for donors. Their amazing dream of creating human organs with machines has finally come true – in a way. The company announced that they have successfully created three miniature bioprinted human livers.

The livers, of course, are not ready to be stuck into a person just yet. These little organs are a mere four millimeters across and just half a millimeter deep, but they can be used for testing in a way that no artificial liver ever has. They perform most of the functions of biologically-produced livers and can stay alive and viable for up to five days. In contrast, the liver tissues currently used for testing and research only stay alive for about two days and can’t perform nearly as many functions.

These tiny livers are a huge step forward in research. Now diseases can be intentionally introduced to the liver cells and medications administered in real time. Researchers can actually see what would happen to a real liver were these types of events to take place inside a human body. Organovo isn’t giving up on their ultimate goal just yet, though: they still hope to create full-size livers that can be transplanted into humans who need them.

The post World’s First Functional 3D Printed Livers Created in Lab first appeared on Gajitz.

Let’s get personal for a moment – how much attention do you pay to your poo? It might surprise you to know that your bowel movements can actually say a lot about your health. A group of scientists and designers wants to make it even easier for you to gauge your health just by looking at your solid waste with a product called E. chromi.

Users would have only to drink a special beverage laced with an engineered strain of E. coli – don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe. When the bacteria makes its way through through the gut, it turns poo into a color that identifies what type of digestive system malady the user is suffering from. Rotavirus, worms, salmonella, colorectal cancer, colitis and stomach ulcers are all represented by different colors. But a normal brown result means that all is well in your bowels.

The bioengineered bacteria could be useful not only for identifying the gnarly diseases making your gut feel gross – it could also be used in other industries in the future. The engineered bacteria could make for chemical-free food dyes in the future as well as eco-friendly textile dyes and simple water safety tests.

The post Bio-Engineered Bacteria Colors Poo, Translates Your Health first appeared on Gajitz.