… from today’s KurzweilAI.net newsletter. The first two are bits about solar energy — the first on even “greener” solar panels, and the second on inkjet printing organic solar cells.
The third story is on cancer and embryonic stem cells. I look forward to the day the US government no longer bans federal funding of this research. I’m all for private research, but the fact is medical research in the US is pretty much handled through the NIH.
Here’s all three:
Greener Green Energy: Today’s solar cells give more than they take Science News, March 1, 2008Solar power produces, per unit of energy, only about one-tenth as much carbondioxide and other harmful emissions (during manufacturing) as does conventional power generation, a new study by Brookhaven National Laboratory scientists shows. These improvements in efficiency mean that today’s solar panels can “pay back” in only 1 to 3 years the energy needed to make them, the study concludes.
Improvements in manufacturing efficiency could reduce emissions from solar power by another 50 percent within 5 to 7 years, the researchers say.
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Konarka Announces First-Ever Demonstration of Inkjet Printed Solar Cells nanowerk, Mar. 3, 2008Konarka Technologies has announced the company conducted the first-ever demonstration of manufacturing organic solar cells by efficient inkjet printing.
Cancers inhibited by embryonic stem cell protein NewScientist.com news service, March 4, 2008Northwestern University researchers have discovered that a protein, Lefty, produced by human embryonic stem cells (hESCs) can inhibit the growth and spread of breast cancer and malignant melanoma. Similarities between stem cells and tumors–both are self-renewing and have the capacity to give rise to different cells types–previously led the researchers to find the protein Nodal, which facilitates cell growth, and suggested that stem cells must have a way to control Nodal.
The Northwestern researchers found that was Lefty. When aggressive tumor cells were exposed to the chemical environment of hESCs, which contained Lefty, their Nodal production fell sharply, and the tumor cells became less invasive and even started to die.
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David Kirkpatrick 