Solar energy - a hi tech, modern thing, right??

Who invented solar energy?? When was it first used as an energy source?
By this I mean who (or what) developed the ability to collect and convert the sun's rays into usable energy -- specifically into electrical energy?

You will be astounded at the answer...

I am not talking about plants using solar energy in photosynthesis.
Nor am I talking about using the sun's rays and heat to dry or prepare food or heat water.

If you were asked these questions and were required to write an essay answer...

Then in short you'd say that in 1883 Charles Fritz invented the first solar cell...
and improvements and new concepts were added by Einstein in the 1920's as well as Lange, von Siemens, Maxwell, and Ohl...
But in the 1950's the silicon solar cell was developed which is in use still otoday.....
Pearson, Fuller, Chapin being the main names responsible.

OK - so there you have it, right?? this is a fairly modern development and nobody back much more than 100 years would have had a clue nor could they have possibly converted sunlight into usabe electricity -- unless you believe one of those stupid "aliens came to earth long ago" theories.

But the answer is something that I bet you've never envisioned.....
Nope -- photoelectric energy was used effectively many, many eons earlier than any of this. And I will leave it to you to name the actual "Inventor"...


Here is the proof...

This first article from 2010 is widely acclaimed and backed by the NIH

http://blogs.discovery.com/files/fulltext.pdf

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21052618


If you don't want to read the scientific articles, then I will summarize...

Science has proven -- confirmed beyond doubt - that this wasp - the Oriental Wasp (scientific name = Vespa orientalis (how many people have ridden a Vespa - Latin for wasp - and Vespa motorbikes even sound like little hornets, right?))


...but this Oriental Wasp is endowed with a system by which they can convert the sun's rays to usable electric energy!
In other words -- they no longer would need food to keep going during the busiest part of their pollinating day job - they can simply draw energy direct from the sun....and keep right on going!
This is a concept that would have been considered preposterous throughout all of history until about a year ago...but this concept DOES exist and obviously HAS existed in nature, in this wasp and possibly others, since long ago - long before science or history ever existed!


Here's a slightly more readable version of the article - from January 2011...made for the layman...

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/01/110105102725.htm

"...the brown and yellow stripes on the hornet abdomen can absorb solar radiation, and the yellow pigment transforms that into electric power.

The team determined that the brown shell of the hornet was made from grooves that split light into diverging beams. The yellow stripe on the abdomen is made from pinhole depressions, and contains a pigment called xanthopterin. Together, the light diverging grooves, pinhole depressions and xanthopterin change light into electrical energy. The shell traps the light and the pigment does the conversion."


So the answer of who or what developed photovoltaic energy first - takes us back eons.
I don't know if this wasp was first, maybe something did it even earlier...but we know wasps have remained essentially unchanged since prehistoric times -- and as far back as 30-50 million years according to some science...

Here's proof, as wasps were trapped in amber long ago...

http://petrifiedwoodmuseum.org/Images/AmberBaltic230.jpeg

http://www.ambericawest.com/gramber.html

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/first-african-amber-pictures--thunder-fly--wasps--more/


You can even buy one of these specimens that are said to be 30 to 40 to even 60 million years old..

http://wasp.amberdepot.com/


But there are two other intriguing factors here --
This research - done by scientists in Tel Aviv - has been largely ignored by the scientists elsewhere. Nobody can really explain why, but it's pretty earth shattering science...and may have some very valuable practical applications if it can lead to more efficient and lucrative ways of converting sunlight to usable energy. so why is the rest of the world so stunned at this discovery that they simply don't know what to make of it yet are ignoring it currently?

First -- there's always a worldwide bias against Jewish scientists so many could simply NOT want to give these guys their due...

But there appears to be even more to this...maybe a fear by some scientists that this system found inside of incredibly ancient and tiny creatures is far, far, far too complex to have simply evolved by itself over eons of mutations and happenstance...
it is more complex and refined that systems that man in all his intelligence has designed in 2011!!

In other words...if you believe in evolution, this should be interesting to you because it should challenge you to find some explanation of how such a "simple" creature that existed apparently millions of years before humans could have such a complex and highly specialized function beyond what anyone who proposes evolution can explain..
you shouldn't run away from this remarkable discovery just because it shatters your pre-held foundations.

Or if you believe in creation then this one is quite easy for you since some One of extremely HIGH intelligence could have easily designed this any time in the distant past.

Remember the worldwide publicity that was given to the supposed discovery of arsenic in organisms, even though much of that bad science has since been totally debunked...
and to the discovery of vague evidence of a planet in some other star system that just might have a 1 in a million chance of being like earth??
http://www.space.com/9631-arsenic-eating-bacteria-opens-possibilities-alien-life.html

The how come nobody's made much of this discovery in the past year -- a discovery that can have massive implications about life but also might be as valuable for our future energy needs as the discovery of insulin was to the future needs of diabetic patients.

I don't know if I can answer this except to say only a couple standard media articles covered this then the whole story fell into obscurity...
http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/animals/news-amazing-oriental-hornet-living-solar-cell

but I think we'll be hearing more....but more of what shatters long held evolutionary theories is what the majority of scientists in the scientific community seem to NOT want to hear...


You are free to believe as you wish - but as science marches on -- I think you folks with your ancient, slow, gradually, happenstance mutations-based theory are gonna be embarrassed....

And just in case you want one more to stump you...try this one on...
well preserved proteins found in dinosaur fossils that couldn't have possibly survived and still be in their organic, soft, protein form after "80 millions years".

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/316/5822/277

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/324/5927/626

http://www.nature.com/news/2011/110614/full/news.2011.369.html

http://www.onenewsnow.com/Perspectives/Default.aspx?id=1379096