A TV series from the 1970s, ‘‘The Six Million Dollar Man,’’ imagines a former astronaut with bionic implants and superhuman strength acting as a secret agent for the government. Such enhancement of human abilities with artificial components (all at a reasonable price tag) might resonate with some of today’s scientists who are working on a more modest goal of augmenting the properties of cells a...

The marine cyanobacterium, Synechococcus sp. Nägeli (strain RRIMP N1) changes its affinity for external inorganic carbon used in photosynthesis, depending on the concentration of CO(2) provided during growth. The high affinity for CO(2) + HCO(3) (-) of air-grown cells (K((1/2)) < 80 nanomoles [pH 8.2]) would seem to be the result of the presence of an inducible mechanism which concentrates inor...

Ionic liquids (ILs), made of relatively large organic cations and inorganic anions, could contribute as solvents and catalysts to green organic synthetic reactions [1-5]. The reaction systems using no organic solvents, dense phase carbon dioxide (supercritical and carbon dioxide-dissolved expanded liquid phases), and/or water are obviously advantageous from environmental viewpoints [1]. ILs wou...

The principles of design of information-analytical system (IAS) intended for design of new inorganic compounds are considered. IAS includes the integrated system of databases on properties of inorganic substances and materials, the system of the programs of pattern recognition, the knowledge base and managing program. IAS allows a prediction of inorganic compounds not yet synthesized and estima...