The Future of light, metabolic engineering, & nanotubes

Research being conducted at the Rochester Institute of Technology has used light to generate aerodynamic-like lift for the first time.

Dean Alhorn (NM B ’89), lead engineer of NASA’s NanoSail-D solar sail experiment, is also investigating the bending of light from one medium to another. He is hoping to “control the craft with reflected light alone.”
Read the full article from New Scientist

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A recent paper published in the journal Science explores the future of metabolic engineering. Chemical Engineer, Jay Keasling, authored the paper that “discusses the potential of metabolic engineering for the microbial production of many of the chemicals that are currently derived from non-renewable resources or limited natural resources.”

For more information click here

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Nanotech-based materials, composed of nanotubes, at the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (MD) are being developed that would work ten times better thank black paint at suppressing stray light.

The breakthrough has important applications for space including gathering “hard-to-obtain scientific measurements or observe currently unseen astronomical objects.”
See the article from PHYSORG.com, which includes a video

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