SEARCH · PubMed Health
Explore indexed PubMed citations for clinical trials, systematic reviews and public health research. Read source abstracts and follow each citation to its original PubMed record.
Quote a phrase for an exact phrase match. Source license links do not imply unrestricted reuse.
Enzymes similar in function to contemporary bacteriorhodopsin could have been active in primordial living organisms for the utilization of solar energy to produce ATP. The energy-conversion system, which depends on a light-driven proton pump, is enzymatically simple, insensitive to cyanide inhibition and functional under highly lipid conditions in an anaerobic atmosphere.
The labour conditions of the personnel engaged in servicing an experimental solar electric power station in warm seasons of the year were characterized by the unfavourable environmental factors peculiar of working out-doors (heliostat sites) and in the station's shops (solar radiation, heating microclimate, noise). Combinations and activity of those factors were professionally determined. Established was the role of the labour conditions and respective occupational peculiarities in the individual response formation to work overload. A set of health-related preventive measures was also proposed.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
Explore the source record for details and available documents.
There is widespread agreement that solar energy is the most promising long-range energy source. However, contemporary technology for bulk energy storage is so primitive that full use of the inevitably erratic solar energy flux is severely limited. Biological systems have perfected methods of storing solar energy for later use in periods of darkness, and it is argued in this symposium presentation that there are many frontiers in biophysics related to the solar energy storage problem. Moreover, the conceivable biological storage systems span a wide range of technology, with appropriate applications in societies of widely varying degrees of industrial development. Use of biological systems to produce hydrogen from solar energy may be among the most versatile of these applications. The entire problem of bioconversion of solar energy presents an excellent example of how the needs for basic scientific understanding and application engineering can be very tightly interwoven.
A global energy system is conceptualized and analyzed, the energy distributor sub-system of the worldwide supranational system. Its many interconnections are examined and traced back to their source to determine the major elements of this global energy system. Long-term trends are emphasized. The analysis begins with a discussion of the local systems that resulted from the deployment of technology in the mid-nineteenth century, continues with a description of the global system based on oil that has existed for the past two decades, and ends with a scenario implying that an energy transition will occur in the future in which use of coal, nuclear, and solar energy will predominate. A major problem for the future will be the management of this energy transition. The optimal use of global resources and the efficient management of this transition will require a stable and persistent global order.
The photosynthetic light-harvesting complex, peridinin-chlorophyll a-protein, was isolated from several marine dinoflagellates including Glenodinium sp. by Sephadex and ion-exchange chromatography. The carotenoid (peridinin)-chlorophyll a ratio in the complex is estimated to be 4:1. The fluorescence excitation spectrum of the complex indicates that energy absorbed by the carotenoid is transferred to the chlorophyll a molecule with 100% efficiency. Fluorescence lifetime measurements indicate that the energy transfer is much faster than fluorescence emission from chlorophyll a. The four peridinin molecules within the complex appear to form two allowed exciton bands which split the main absorption band of the carotenoid into two circular dichronic bands (with negative ellipticity band at 538 nm and positive band at 463 nm in the case of peridinin-chlorophyl a-protein complex from Glenodinium sp.). The fluorescence polarization of chlorophyll a in the complex at 200 K is about 0.1 in both circular dichroic excitation bands of the carotenoid chromophore. From these circular dichroic and fluorescence polarization data, a possible molecular arrangement of the four peridinin and chlorophyll molecules has been deduced for the complex. The structure of the complex deduced is also consistent with the magnitude of the exciton spliting (ca. greater than 3000 cm-1) at the intermolecular distance in the dimer pair of peridinin (ca. 12 A). This structural feature accounts for the efficient light-harvesting process of dinoflagellates as the exciton interaction lengthens the lifetime of peridinin (radiative) and the complex topology increases the energy transfer probability. The complex is, therefore, a useful molecular model for elucidating the mechanism and efficiency of solar energy conversion in vivo as well as in vitro.
Solar energy is discussed as an energy resource that can be converted into useful energy forms to meet a variety of energy needs. The review briefly explains the nature of this energy resource, the kinds of applications that can be made useful, and the status of several systems to which it has been applied. More specifically, information on solar collectors, solar water heating, solar heating of buildings, solar cooling plus other applications, are included.
There are strong indications that microbial life is widespread at depth in the crust of the Earth, just as such life has been identified in numerous ocean vents. This life is not dependent on solar energy and photosynthesis for its primary energy supply, and it is essentially independent of the surface circumstances. Its energy supply comes from chemical sources, due to fluids that migrate upward from deeper levels in the Earth. In mass and volume it may be comparable with all surface life. Such microbial life may account for the presence of biological molecules in all carbonaceous materials in the outer crust, and the inference that these materials must have derived from biological deposits accumulated at the surface is therefore not necessarily valid. Subsurface life may be widespread among the planetary bodies of our solar system, since many of them have equally suitable conditions below, while having totally inhospitable surfaces. One may even speculate that such life may be widely disseminated in the universe, since planetary type bodies with similar subsurface conditions may be common as solitary objects in space, as well as in other solar-type systems.
NH+4 excretion was undetectable in N2-fixing cultures of Rhodospirillum rubrum (S-1) and nitrogenase activity in these cultures was repressed by the addition of 10 mM NH+4 to the medium. The glutamate analog, L-methionine-DL-sulfoximine (MSX), derepressed N2 fixation even in the presence of 10 mM extracellular NH+4. When 10 mg MSX/ml was added to cultures just prior to nitrogenase induction they developed nitrogenase activity (20% of the control activities) and excreted most of their fixed N2 as NH+4. Nitrogenase activities and NH+4 production from fixed N2 were increased considerably when a combined nitrogen source, NH+4 (greater than 40 mumoles NH+4/mg cell protein in 6 days) or L-glutamate (greater than 60 mumoles NH+4/ mg cell protein in 6 days) was added to the cultures together with MSX. Biochemical analysis revealed that R. rubrum produced glutamine synthetase and glutamate synthase (NADP-dependent) but no detectable NADP-dependent glutamate dehydrogenase. The specific activity of glutamine synthetase was observed to be maximal when nitrogenase activity was also maximal. Nitrogenase and glutamine synthetase activities were repressed by NH+4 as well as by glutamate. The results demonstrate that utilization of solar energy to photoproduce large quantities of NH+4 from N2 is possible with photosynthetic bacteria by interfering with their regulatory control of N2 fixation.
Growth and lipid production of microalgae were investigated, with attention to the feasibility of making use of flue gas CO2 as a carbon source. The effect of a high CO2 level in artificial seawater differed from strain to strain. Three algal strains from the Solar Energy Research Institute (Golden, CO) collection were selected as good fixers of CO2 when the level of CO2 in the sparging gas was high. These algae also accumulated large amounts of crude lipids. SOx and NOx inhibited algal growth, but a green alga, Nannochloris sp. NANNO2 grew after a lag period, even when it received NO gas at the concentration of 300 ppm.
It is now well established that the production of primary hematopoietic cells is controlled at different levels of the biological organization. Bone marrow (BM) stromal cells, the extracellular matrix (ECM), polypeptide hematopoietic growth factors (HGF) as well as endogenous cell-division cycle (CDC) related factors play a dominant role in this control. Recent information suggest that the 2 lipophilic hormones, transRA and 1 alpha,25D3, depending on and/or perhaps mediating solar energy, play a role in the maintenance of BM homeostasis. Here we show that both transRA and 1 alpha,25D3: a) modulate the growth and/or stimulate the adipocytic differentiation of fibroblastic stromal cells (F-CFU); b) inhibit the synthesis and extracellular processing but stimulate the solubilization of matrix collagen; c) modulate the clonal growth of myeloid progenitor cells (GM-CFU) in synergy with HGFs; and d) inhibit the production of lactic acid in standard, normal long-term BM cultures (LTBMC). Comparative analysis of normal, preleukemic and leukemic BM cells in LTBMC indicated a positive correlation between the induction of terminal differentiation and reduced lactate production elicited by transRA or 1 alpha,25D3. These results raise a hypothesis according to which the terminal differentiation induced by the helicodynamic hormones is dependent on the mitochondrial aerobic ATP-generating system whose impairment may be a critical step during the process of leukemic transformation.
The photosynthetic bacteria are found in a wide range of specialized aquatic environments. These bacteria represent important members of the microbial community since they are capable of carrying out two of the most important processes on earth, namely, photosynthesis and nitrogen fixation, at the expense of solar energy. Since the discovery that these bacteria could fix atmospheric nitrogen, there has been an intensification of studies relating to both the biochemistry and physiology of this process. The practical importance of this field is emphasized by a consideration of the tremendous energy input required for the production of artificial nitrogenous fertilizer. The present communication aims to briefly review the current state of knowledge relating to certain aspects of nitrogen fixation by the photosynthetic bacteria. The topics that will be discussed include a general survey of the nitrogenase system in the various photosynthetic bacteria, the regulation of both nitrogenase biosynthesis and activity, recent advances in the genetics of the nitrogen fixing system, and the hydrogen cycle in these bacteria. In addition, a brief discussion of some of some of the possible practical applications provided by the photosynthetic bacteria will be presented.