Making a light-harvesting antenna from scratch

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://news.wustl.edu/news/Pages/23039.aspx

Making a light-harvesting antenna from scratch

A biomimetic antenna for gathering sunlight may one day transform solar-powered devices.

November 29, 2011
By Diana Lutz

…

One team has just succeeded in making a crucial photosystem component -- a light-harvesting antenna -- from scratch. The new antenna is modeled on the chlorosome found in green bacteria.

Chlorosomes are giant assemblies of pigment molecules. Perhaps Nature’s most spectacular light-harvesting antennae, they allow green bacteria to photosynthesize even in the dim light in ocean deeps.

Dewey Holten, PhD, professor of chemistry in Arts & Sciences, ard collaborator Christine Kirmaier, PhD, research professor of chemistry are part of a team that is trying to make synthetic chlorosomes. Holten and Kirmaier use ultra-fast laser spectroscopy and other analytic techniques to follow the rapid-fire energy transfers in photosynthesis.

His team’s latest results, described in a recent issue of New Journal of Chemistry, were highlighted in http://blogs.rsc.org/nj/2011/09/21/towards-an-artificial-chlorosome/">the editor’s blog.

…

http://dx.doi.org/10.1039/C1NJ20611G

(Much more at the link.)

[truedelphi]

1. Thank you for psoting this information on this style antenna. n/t

[OKIsItJustMe]

2. You’re welcome

Truly amazing research…

[truedelphi]

3. Have you been able to check out this week or last week's Rolling Stone?

In Jeff Tietz's interview with a thirteen year old child genius, Santiago, the kid discusses putting magnetic particles in a fluid, adding another element that keeps the magnets suspended a certain way, and then using a small amount of energy, having the magnetic's repulsion of their negative to positive energy set off a chain reaction so that you could uyse the energy to charge your cell phone or other appliance.

And the device is tiny - the size of a small pencil.

Maybe that is how Tesla accomplished some of his miracles? The reporter that rode with Tesla in a car powered only by rods in an engine and also long rods Tesla added to that array upon gettin ginto the car, the vehicle travelled for over ninety miles at high speeds, and without and need for gas or steam. Tesla claimed the car was powered by earth energy.

(RS article is in mag with the "100 Greatest Guitarists" on the cover.)

[OKIsItJustMe]

5. I haven’t

While I have great respect for Tesla’s genius, I’ve never seen convincing evidence that he made something which did not obey physical laws as I understand them. Some of his theories appear to have simply been wrong. For example, Tesla apparently had great faith in some form of “http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luminiferous_aether">Luminiferous aether/ether.”

There are a number of legendary inventions of Tesla’s which I believe to simply be myths. This car is one of them.
http://www.tfcbooks.com/teslafaq/q&a_016.htm

Tesla was a man badly in need of money, but not without backers. An invention like this car would have been a much-needed financial boon.

[truedelphi]

7. He got backers, but those backers would back off when they

Started to realize the sum of his genius. Once you have free energy, then you have no ability for the large utilities to reap their profits.

And it is also suspicious that his workplace burned to the ground, with so many of his papers incinerated.

The people of Serbia have a monument to him, with many of his inventions working and fully explained. Marconi gavve Tesla full credit for his work on the radio.

To say nothing of how Eastlund went on to develop Tesla technology now known as HAARP.

[OKIsItJustMe]

8. This wouldn’t have been free

Assuming that Tesla could make such a car run, they would have needed to be built and maintained. He could have found investors for that kind of income.


As I said, I have great respect for Tesla’s genius. His genius shaped today’s world in many ways.

However, I think that far too often, hokum is given cachet by linking it to Tesla.

It’s too bad in my opinion. It sullies his reputation as a scientist.

[yurbud]

4. when can I buy one?

[mike_c]

6. LOL, buy 'em by the pound in the produce section of any supermarket....

The packaging is a little different, but photosystems are photosystems!

[Bill USA]

9. fascinating!