In Abraham Stroock's lab at Cornell, the world's first synthetic tree sits in a palm-sized piece of clear, flexible hydrogel -- the type found in soft contact lenses.
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| ©Abraham Stroock and Tobias Wheeler
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| A transparent sheet of pHEMA, 1 millimeter thick, is etched with 80 parallel channels of varying lengths arranged to form a circle and connected by a single channel. The inset shows an optical micrograph of the cross-section of one microchannel.
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Stroock and graduate student Tobias Wheeler have created a "tree" that simulates the process of transpiration, the cohesive capillary action that allows trees to wick moisture upward to their highest branches.
The researchers' work, reported in the Sept. 11 issue of the journal
Nature, bolsters the long-standing theory that transpiration in trees and plants is a purely physical process, requiring no biological energy. It also may lead to new passive heat transfer technologies for cars or buildings, better methods for remediating soil and more effective ways to draw water out of partially dry ground.
Of course, the synthetic tree doesn't look much like a tree at all. It consists of two circles side by side in the gel, patterned with evenly spaced microfluidic channels to mimic a tree's vascular system.
Comment: Though the author makes some good points regarding the results of scientific advancement without the parallel development of conscience, what is missing from his account is the awareness that some of these technologies are deliberately invented to be used against the majority of common people, by the pathocratic elite.