Colonizing Mars and other planets has been a thing in science fiction for quite some time now. But before we do this, we should secure first and foremost the production of essential stuff, like organic compounds, which are too expensive to ship from our planet.
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University of California, Berkeley, and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) chemists have a plan for that.
For the past eight years, the researchers have been working on a hybrid system combining bacteria and nanowires that can capture the energy of sunlight to convert carbon dioxide and water into building blocks for organic molecules. Nanowires are thin silicon wires about one-hundredth the width of a human hair, used as electronic components, and also as sensors and solar cells.
The biohybrid, which pulls CO2 from the atmosphere, can also be implemented here on Earth, which makes it a promising candidate in battling climate change.
More details about this over at ScienceDaily.
(Image Credit: ESA/MPS/UPD/LAM/IAA/RSSD/INTA/UPM/DASP/IDA/ Wikimedia Commons)
Source: neatorama