The search for Aliens Is About To Get More Intense

People over time, where very anxious to find out if there is any other form of life in the universe. Now that scientists are making a new telescope, called the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT for short) it will be even easier to find some kind of life in the universe, and if we are lucky, some planets!

15 European countries and Brazil, will be making the telescope. It will cost more than 1.5 billion USD. However, the telescope will only be ready by 2020, and the constructions won’t begin in a few years from now.  It will be built on the Cerro Amazonas Mountain, which is 3060 meters high. This mountain lies  in the middle of Chile’s  Atacama Desert. 

When the telescope is ready the E-ELT will be ten times more sensitive to normal and infrared light than the Very Large Telescope. This new telescope will be so powerful, that it would also be able to glean inside some of the oldest galaxies and help unlock secrets about how the universe evolved to its current state. With this telescope we will even be able to take pictures that are 15 times sharper than the Hubble Telescope. Having this kind of source, we will surely take some amazing pictures of the universe!

Turning Wastewater Into Hydrogen Fuel

Finding a green fuel that is cheap and plentiful enough to replace fossil fuels is one of the biggest challenges that we face. This is not because of global warming issues but also because once we use up all fossil fuel there won’t be any left in the world. Since hydrogen is a good thing to replace with, we might use it in the future, but it doesn’t come naturally. And to produce it, it would take energy from “dirty” fossil fuels.

Researchers from Pennsylvania State University have devised a radical, energy-efficient way to extract unlimited amounts of hydrogen from wastewater, using seawater and, some special bacteria.

Since 2009, the team led by the Professor of Environmental Engineering, Bruce Logan, has been conducting tests with bacteria that are capable of releasing hydrogen from wastewater. Once they were able to figure out the 'right combination' of bacteria needed for the optimal extraction of hydrogen, they had to come with a 'clean' way to provide the bacteria with the energy it needed to eat through the wastewater.

After all this, they thought of a brilliant idea, reverse Desalination! They figured that since the process of removing salt from seawater takes up energy, doing the opposite would release energy. Knowing that all they had to do was find a source of seawater close to a wastewater treatment plant and hitch the two together. This should give the bacteria enough fuel to produce hydrogen.

When they tested it it turned out that they were completely correct. However, this only works in a lab, now, they must go and see if it works on larger scale, but not only that, if it makes economical sense. Let’s all hope it does because not only does it take care of our fuel needs, but also it helps us clean up our wastewater!