March 2023
After you’ve tried everything else, expose your cheese to music. In Burgdorf, Switzerland, the cheese creator Beat Wampfler cooperated with the University if the Arts in Bern to run an experiment where cheese in the aging process was exposed to different types of music to see if the vibrations caused effects on the resulting flavor. Nine wheels of Emmental cheese were placed in individual boxes which contained mini-speakers playing such varieties of music as rock, classical, techno, hip hop and more. The sound transmitters were affixed to the bottom of the board that the cheese was resting on. Low and high frequencies were also tested. One of course was given silence as a control. All day long for 6 months the cheese was exposed to the varieties of music. A panel of judges was selected to review the results and there was a surprising amount of variety in the resulting flavors. Hip Hop seems to have been a favorite producing a cheese that while it looked like a typical Emmental was actually more sweet in flavor. All of this means that Beat Wampfler are now suddenly being asked to become cheese DJs as people request cheese exposed to their favorite forms of music.
Built in batteries – what if your building’s concrete doubled as a battery? Researchers are looking at including short carbon fibers into the concrete to not only increase conductivity but also add strength. Meshes of carbon fiber some coated with iron and others with nickel then for the poles of the battery. Concrete in this fashion could contain 7 watt hours per square meter in a rechargeable format. While that doesn’t match commercial batteries it does take advantage of otherwise merely structural space. In the future, building lights could run off of energy stored directly in them as well as buildings becoming collection points to power structure around them.
July 2022
-If you’ve ever watched a woodpecker at work, their heads slam their beaks into a tree with the same sort of rapidity that you could compare to the beating of a hummingbird’s wings. It’s not accurate but close, since a hummingbird’s wingbeats are around 200 compared to the woodpecker’s 20 per second cycle. Still, that’s a lot of impacts and it begs the question, what happens to the woodpecker’s brain? If a human slammed their head into a tree hard enough to penetrate the bark and wood just once there’s a good chance of concussion. Yet the woodpecker is doing it repeatedly, for a good portion of their day. Just how does that work? Scientists thought they had the answer, but it turns out that they were wrong. For the longest time, a spongy layer of bone was thought to provide enough protection. Head protection for humans is designed in the same way for such things as football, bicycle and other helmets. The issue is stopping the brain from continuing to move forward inside the skull once the skull comes to an abrupt halt. But recent research involving a great deal of high-speed image capture of woodpeckers at work revealed that their skulls remain stiff throughout the impact. Observation indicates that if the shock absorber effect of the spongy bone were happening, then birds could not peck with enough force to break into the trees. So, there’s no cushioning going on here. Just how does the brain of the woodpecker survive all of this hammering? Instead, the size and the orientation are what make the difference. Experts even posit that there could be something inside the woodpecker brain that helps repair or minimize brain trauma. That would be a good thing, since woodpeckers will occasionally take on tougher opponents than trees and still manage to fly away. We are each day a little closer to solving the mysteries of headbanging birds.
June 2022
-Crossing genetics with Neandertals may have cost us in the Covid pandemic in an unexpected way. Professor James Davies of Oxford University points to a union between species probably about 60,000 years ago whose resulting child brought with them a gene that makes us more likely to have lungs that are more susceptible to the viral attack. That gene could rest in many of us and it’s a ticking bomb when it comes to Covid-19, which typically attacks the lungs. As many as a million deaths could be linked to the expression of this gene. Can you find out if you have the gene? Well, it is possible, but the genetic tests are often costly, and results often vary in accuracy.
-While we’re talking about genetic testing scientists are working on a new method which could be put into use as soon as two years from now enabling technicians to look for up to 50 diseases. This new method called Nanopere Sequencing scans a DNA sample, typically from blood, and compares it to 40 or more genes associated with known diseases. The system looks for long repeated sequences that are often hallmarks of illness. But instead of testing for a single issue, they are looking at multiple possibilities. Better yet the machine involved in the process has been reduced to a size that fits in the palm of the hand and costs about $1000. Scientists also believe that using it to perform tests on groups of individuals may allow us to find diseases we haven’t even identified yet. The big win for the test is its predictive ability, which will allow doctors to identify in advance diseases that often do not present until adulthood.
May 2022
-Maybe what we eat could save the Earth. Scientists are point out that raising animals as a meat source typically leads to deforestation. It’s not an uncommon theme, the solution is a little unusual. What if our protein came from somewhere else? (you in the back with the Soylent solution, you can sit down). The real solution could be underfoot. What if you had a portobello instead of a steak? Fungi, and more specifically, microprotein sources, as well as algae converted by fermentation into spirulina, are alternatives to traditional methods. While these do require additional sugars, they do not require us to provide pasture space, obviously creating less of a carbon footprint. They also don’t add to the methane content of the atmosphere as well. Taking 20% of a meat diet and replacing it with microprotein foodstuffs could help cut the forest loss going on right now in half over the next thirty years. We’re not there yet because culturing and raising microproteins for consumption will take time (and probably an amazing marketing program) but like many things, this is a viable alternative to a non-sustainable life style.
April 2022
Holoportation. Have we caught your attention with a word that sounds like a mish mash or plotonium? But wait, it’s real. In fact, NASA just used this technology to virtually place a flight surgeon aboard the ISS. Microsoft developed the technology a few years ago and is working on adapting it to real world circumstances. As trial run, Dr. Josef Schmid was 3D imaged and the package of the information about him was transmitted to the ISS. There, using a set up with a mixed reality medium called the Microsoft Hololens, the team aboard the ISS was able to interact with the doctor. They even “virtually” shook hands. Transmission delays of course can be a problem but imagine if something serious occurred on the station and an expert needed to be “on hand”. Using this technology, the right people can be placed in impossible to reach places. Improvements are already being planned such as the addition of augmented reality aspects to allow the holopresent visitor to roam around the station itself. In addition to this, further developments will allow holoportation to be used on Earth itself allowing doctors, educators or performers to reach patients, students or audiences in places they would have never imagined being able to help or entertain. One day, if we find Martians, we could be holoporting to greet them before heading out in a ship.
SEPTEMBER 2021
Going to the Moon or Mars and surviving in the long term is based on a number of important systems and the best method now of testing these is by creating approximations of the environments here on Earth. SAM, the Space Analog for the Moon and Mars, aims to provide a test bed for various technologies as well as the psychological effects on humans. Right now, there are around twelve of these manufactured environments around the world. One thing that makes SAM unique is that it is resting on the grounds of a prior such experiment in Arizona. Biosphere 2 is now thirty years old. It was an attempt to make a sealed self-sustaining system that would have a crew living inside and maintaining the plantings as well as conducting experiments. Eight people lived inside the domes which included acres of crops, a small desert as well as a sea. Unfortunately, conflicts among the crew and the need to continually add oxygen from outside, prevented Biosphere 2’s success. The director of the SAM project, Kai Staats, has a somewhat smaller vision with more limited goals. The idea is to gradually increase the number of humans inside as the amount of oxygen generated increases with the hope of balancing that against the amount of CO2 created. By beginning with a machine focused system, the researchers hope to eventually transition to a plant based one. After all, this is the most likely progression once we start landing on either of the two location and begin working towards long-term habitation. Right now, the building is set up inside the repressurized main Biosphere 2 structure in Tucson, AZ and is about the size of a small home. Staats hopes to eventually attach 3 shipping containers as well, which will contain living and lab spaces. SAM will eventually have areas where people can rent space to work and a Mars yard – the most exacting replica possible of the surface. The future occupants include two of the occupants of the original Biosphere 2. So far private investors have funded the project to the tune of 100k, but to truly make things work Staats will need about an additional 250k. NASA is also revamping its projects as well and plans to begin recruiting for a 3D printed isolated biosphere.
August 2021
Israel may have tardigraded the Moon… What else do you call it when thousands of the little buggers are accidentally scattered across the lunar landscape? The mission, called Beresheet (which in consideration that tardigrades are called “water bears” suddenly takes on humorous aspects), unfortunately crashed into the Moon scattering its cargo. These particular tardigrades were in a “tun” state, which leaves them in a sort of suspended animation with no metabolic activity. So, after coming down on April 11th 2019, they were probably completely unaware of their new circumstances. What happens now? Not much more than likely. Tardigrades are tough little buggers. They shrug off vacuum, freezing, boiling and excessive pressure. Ultraviolet rays apparently are their downfall. In that case, our lunar exploring Water Bears would need to find a way to be in the shade since there is no atmosphere on the Moon to limit any infalling UV radiation. The possibility of them encountering water to bring them out of their tun state is exceptionally low and even if that were to occur, there is nothing for them to feed on. That means a very short unhappy life for the first tardigrade explorers of the Moon. Let’s face it, none of it’s been fun so far and that’s a hell of an ending – congratulations on surviving the crash, now you can starve to death. Looking at things another way, how much responsibility does Israel have for the problem? There are laws in place that cover what can be left behind on space missions, but most of them deal with poisonous or radioactive materials. After all, there are still frozen bags of astronaut feces on the Moon somewhere. (In fact, some of our gut bacteria could possibly be revived after becoming dormant in their unexpected circumstances, according to scientists. So, before we point any fingers, it might be good to remember who might have been the first polluters…) However, even if the tardigrades were deemed to be something worthy of legal action, there really isn’t an international body that has the power to pursue an offender. It is generally accepted that countries involved in missions that may propagate Earth microfauna will do their best to keep things sterile to avoid transmission to places off the planet. This was obviously an accident on Israel’s part. Mars on the other hand would be a different story. Since we are actively pursuing the evidence of Martian life, adding anything from Earth to the mix is definitely not part of the program. Even colonization by humans would more than likely introduce bacteria and other invaders from Earth into an ecosystem whose life (should it be found) probably exists in a delicate balance. Invading organisms could wipe out natives. We’ve seen plenty of evidence of this, including local invasive species such as the spotted lantern fly. The tardigrades are probably still there even now. So, why isn’t there a Save the Tardigrades campaign on facebook? In the Martian, they went back for Matt Damon, why aren’t we making this part of our future lunar missions, NASA? I suspect that the reality of an astronaut holding something similar to a pooper scooper ever so slowly sweeping up the dust around the impact site lacks the punch of putting down some new footprints and a wire reinforced flag at a jaunty angle reminiscent of the MTV logo. So sorry tardigrades, you’ve been bumped down the mission priority list.
June 2021
Volcano fueled bitcoin?
That’s right! Bitcoin is the leader in the crypto currency industry. Recently El Salvador has voted to make bitcoin legal tender in their country. IF a merchant has the ability or technology to accept bitcoin then they will be required to take it when presented as payment. To get more Bitcoin, one must “mine” for it. The issue is that mining for Bitcoin eats electricity at a monumental rate. “Global Bitcoin mining consumes more electricity than the amount used over equivalent time by the entire nation of Argentina, according to one Cambridge University analysis – and the strain on the environment has prompted crackdowns in countries including China”. The answer? Why volcanoes of course! The president of the country has directed the nation’s state-owned power company to develop a plan to tap the geothermal power of the country’s volcanoes. Lava Power!
Not Jonah.
Recently a lobster diver off the New England coast got a surprising ride back to the surface. The diver was in the water checking in on their traps when a humpback whale swallowed him whole. Humpback whales are “gulp” feeders, attempting to suck in fish and krill. These creatures can be as long as 50 feet and weigh in around 36 tons – unsurprisingly, they gather an awful lot in one gulp! This time the whale gathered in the diver as well. After a brief time, the whale surfaced, shook its head and tossed the diver back into the water. The diver survived relatively unscathed and claims he will continue to dive!
Blood Snow.
There are places in the French Alps where at certain times of year the glacial snow takes on bright colors. Sometimes called “sang de glacier” or watermelon snow it is a color burst based on a type of algae that grows under certain conditions. There is not a deep understanding of why this happens, but in recently scientists have begun to look deeper into the phenomenon. There is a concern that changes in weather patterns and temperature are causing shifts that will affect the flora and fauna in the area.
May 2021
-Pasta innovation? Isn’t pasta something that one is supposed to follow Aunt So&So’s recipe and any deviation creates something that sticks to just about anything instead of the wall when you throw it at it to see if it’s done? Maybe not. The problem with pasta is its shape. Some pastas like spaghetti or fettucine are perfect for boxing. Move up to some more complex pasta topography like bowties, rotini, farfalle, and fusilli and suddenly there more space involved in bulk packaging. But what if you could make them flat to begin with? Enter the scientists. By using a semolina flour and then creating grooves on the flat pastas created, the experimenters were able to cause certain familiar shapes to occur when the pasta was boiled. Computer modeling assisted in determining the perfect groove structure. Now, you can stack the flat pastas to your content, save packaging material that might have ended up in a landfill making you more environmentally friendly, and maybe, just maybe, even get a little more pasta per package as a consumer.
-A wolf by any other name – is the dire wolf really a wolf? Suddenly, scientists aren’t so sure after a DNA assay discovers that their evolutionary path diverged from the wolf family much earlier than previously believed. Contemporaries of mammoths and sabretooth cats, dire wolves were natives of North America from 13,000 – 250,000 years ago. Researchers looking at their DNA now know that are different from what were previously believed to be relatives like wolves, dogs, and coyotes. Different enough that it means rearranging their classification. Quite a few of the dire wolf remains found were recovered from the La Brea Tar pits, a location which unfortunately cooks off quite a bit of the DNA in the recovered bones. After a hunt through other found remains, scientists were able to recover enough DNA to do the research that led them to their discovery. The dire wolf line diverged 6 million years ago. Since they occupy a similar niche in the ecosystem, they developed in similar ways to gray wolves, but their size was typically 20% larger. There are a number of skeletal similarities as well that once again points to a parallel evolution. Scientists are recommending that dire wolves be taken out of the Canis genus and renamed Aeocyon Dirus. It’s likely that only a dire wolf historian would recognize that name, but it was actually proposed for the species in 1918. Now that we are thinking of dire wolves in a different way in related to their ancestors, we should also reconsider the images we have in our heads. Paleontologists are beginning to believe that unlike an amped up gray wolf, dire wolfs may have instead had more rounded ears, a reddish instead of gray coloration, and even a bushier tail. In fact, they may have looked more like a super coyote instead of an extra-large wolf. The DNA that led to these discoveries was unfortunately not a complete genome, so there is obviously still more work to be done. As for their disappearance, paleontologists look to the climactic change that killed off their larger prey animals like the mammoths, competition with smaller species like the wolf and coyote, and even hunting by humans, who were contemporaries. Hopefully, a full review of the genome will provide even more clues about Aeocyon Dirus.
April 2021
2.5 billion Tyrannosaurus Rexes lived over the lifetime of their species. That’s quite a statement that scientists have recently issued. It seems like an immense number since they were so big and certainly would tend to be territorial. Let’s have a brief look at the math that lets you come up with a number like that. The first bit to focus on is the lifetime of the species. In consideration, 124 million years certainly spreads out the T.Rex population. In fact, scientists believe that at any given time there were around 20,000 or so of the dinosaurs living. So, as another dinosaur that might find oneself on the menu, the odds of survival just got better than being neck deep in T.Rex’s everywhere you turned. That feels like a more reasonable number. But how would scientists come up with that particular head count for the species? A formula, called Damuth’s Law, which looks at body mass and then relates it to population density, allowed the researchers to create their estimate. The larger the body mass, the lower the population density. This makes sense since it’s simple supply and demand. Large animals need a larger area to themselves since they need to be able to supply themselves with greater amounts of food (especially if they are giant carnivores). Given that archeologists and researchers believe a T. Rex tips the scales at around 11 and a half thousand pounds, adding this to the formula indicates a 40 square mile radius per one T.Rex. For example, two T. Rex’s would likely share an area about the size of Washington, D.C., this sounds reasonable given the amount of dinosaur consumption these giant beasts must have had to accomplish to stay alive. In order to get to that 2.5 billion number, the next trick would be to find out how long a generation of T. Rex’s lasted. Researchers settled on 19 years. Taking that number, their species time frame and a bit of division yields about 127,000 generations. Multiply things out and 2.5 billion is the result. A number of scientists are quick to point out that there are definitely places where errors can creep in such as the population density calculation, while they feel fairly confident about such things as body mass. It’s very catchy to focus on T.Rex’s – let’s face it, they are one of the poster children for dinosaurs. Having said that, the math obviously can then be applied to other species both living and vanished. Want to know how many Dodos there were ever? We can do that now and that’s sort of impressive. But what about us? Let’s be a little egocentric and ask how many human beings have there been so far? In 2019, the Population Reference Bureau came up with the number of 108 billion. They are not using Damuth’s law, but something similar that considers familiar factors such as estimated population and generational length. Both obviously change over time, for example during the Iron age, life expectancy could be as low as twelve years. In order to keep the species a going concern, there need to be at least 80 births per 1000 people. That’s a pretty short generation. For perspective, about 43% of the 108 billion were born before 1 AD. Human existence (homo sapiens) has been estimated at 50,000 years for this calculation. Will we last as long as the T. Rex’s 124 million years, it’s hard to say. However, it is pretty obvious that the population number is something to watch. We’ll need more real estate or other options.
March 2021
Wind toys have taught an expat Afghani how to combat landmines left in behind after military exercises. Massoud Hassani’s Mine Kafon Ball is an odd-looking thing, like a simplified Standbeest, it rolls along with out any guidance until one of its round padlike feet contact and detonate an anti-personnel device. Since, this typically results in the loss of only one to three of the pads, the Ball can continue on its way seeking out more danger. Massoud was able to construct his with materials costing about 40 euros. The Ball is reminiscent of a dandelion puffball and covered in round pads. An iron core is covered with contact areas where bamboo legs can be attached. Completed, the Ball is about the same height and weight as a man. The pads and the legs are low cost and once replaced, the Ball can be released to begin a new traverse. This is a brilliant low-tech solution to an ongoing issue. Of course, the Ball’s do have limitations. There needs to be enough wind to power the device. The ground needs to be relatively level and brush or trees can impede its progress. However, considering the round design, it can just simply bounce off of them.
Scientists are ready and waiting for our new Moon because it could have secrets about the nature of long-term space travel. Wait, you say, there’s only one Moon, well actually the Earth has had several Minimoons and 2020 SO is just the latest one expected to fall into our orbit. 2006 RH120 was a small bit of rock that got stuck circling the Earth in 2006 and escaped a year later. 2020 CD3 spent its time in orbit from 2015-2016. There have probably been others that we just haven’t noticed before in the past. What interesting about 2020 SO is that it’s a little familiar. So familiar that instead of visiting, it might actually be coming home. Observers believe that due to its shape, mass and low velocity, what we a seeing is actually a Centaur Rocket stage. In fact, they believe that it came from the Surveyor 2 mission. Surveyor 2 landed an unmanned craft on the Moon and was launched in 1966. 2020 SO’s closest approach to Earth was 50k miles in this past December. The next pass was in February and only came as close as 222k. We’re already pretty sure that 2020 SO will not come close enough to impact Earth, so why should be interested in it? If it does turn out to be the Centaur Rocket stage, then we’re looking at something that has been in space for 54 years. Now we can discover what sort of effects radiation and cosmic rays might have on materials that we use for space exploration over an extended period of time. Researchers hope to be able to gather spectroscopic data to gain this information. Other damage like micrometeorite impacts might also be visible. Other scientists also want to know about the reflectivity of 2020 SO. How well does the spacecraft reflect sunlight after all of these years? A leftover piece of junk that randomly found its way back to us may just hold the key to extending the life of materials we could use for long-term space missions like the Breakthrough Starshot mission, that hopes to launch many small probes powered by light sails on interstellar trajectories. But time is running out. Astronomers believe that 2020 SO is likely to escape from its orbit in May and once again begin its wandering.
FEBRUARY 2021
Where’s My Jet Pack?
In the consideration, that over the past 20 years, as the editor and author of a number of the science articles published in Watch the Skies, I’ve begun to wonder what exactly happens to the technologies I’ve reported on? Logically, if a new development could vastly improve our lives, one would only hope that eventually we could reap the benefits of its introduction into general use. Some a certainly coming into play. Take for example quantum computing, which you can actually play with since IBM introduced a quantum computer into their cloud all the way back in 2016 – https://quantum-computing.ibm.com/composer/new-experiment. This is coming and people are saying it’s coming fast. Just like everything though, the price tag needs to reasonable for everyone until the revolution goes the whole way round. We’ve hopped from mainframes to PCs to Clouds, quantum is next.
But what happened to things like Tactus? This is an interesting new way to expand the touch screen into actual buttons. The buttons are pockets that are filled with a liquid that is in a layer and pulled up into gaps on request. The buttons are not tall they are only a few millimeters above the surface, but they can be used to create a better representation of a keyboard than keys that are merely graphics. The company will produce the screens which can then be attached to tablet or reader surfaces. The buttons can represent anything from a standard keyboard to game controllers. WTS first reported on Tactus in 2013 and it vanished.
Did we lose track of this idea or did it simply not make it to the U.S.? In an effort to reduce the need for streetlamps, a highway in the Netherlands was recently painted with glow in the dark line markings. For a half a kilometer photoluminescent paint was used to mark the centerline and sides. Daan Rosegaard was the instigator and he has further plans to create reactive icons that would respond to weather and motion sensing lights that would turn on and off as cars passed by. (WTS 2014)
On a positive note, magazines and other outlets are now featuring advertisements for Tesla Batteries. From WTS 2015 – Tesla is not just trying to get caught up on their car orders, they are also looking to develop a battery that can be used to power a home. This might come in really handy if the electricity goes out, specifically if you are in an emergency situation. Tesla has been working on this for over a year. The battery would be stand alone and as simple as possible to use.
Researchers at Tufts University have developed an unusual way of monitoring healing – with wireless microcircuitry embedded in the actual sutures holding the wounds closed. The threads are filled with nanoscale sensors, electronics and wireless elements. A cell phone or a computer can read the transmitted information. While the monitoring of healing is a very commendable usage for the technology, its successful use will also pave the way for more effective wearable technology. In this case the wireless and monitoring elements would literally be built directly into the clothes. To bad this doesn’t seem to be coming into use soon even though we reported it in 2016.
This sounds awesome, but we don’t seem to be sending it to our arid places to solve issues of water scarcity. MIT has created a device, which can pull water from low humidity air powered by the sun. The primary component is a metal-organic framework composed of zirconium and adipic acid. This framework can bind water vapor and then the solar energy forces it to a condenser and this and allows the collection of water over time. A single one-kilogram unit can condense 3 quarts of water from air with 20-30% humidity in a day’s time. (WTS 2017)
It’s a shame but we don’t seem to have an infrasound system set up to help us identify dangerous weather quite yet. By using multiple microphones which can detect the pressure fluctuations that occur at the heart of a developing tornado, the researchers can detect the direction of the twister. The scientists recently were able to pinpoint a tornado ten minutes before it formed and even correctly estimate its size. The frequency of the infrasound offers clues as to the size of the tornado. The detectors are composed of three mics, with a separation of about 200 feet. (WTS 2018)
So, let’s talk about a few current scientific developments and ponder whether or not they will disappear as some of these have. In case you’ve missed it, the U.S. Navy has filed a number of patents based around the work of Dr. Salvatore Cezar Pais that promise everything from a compact fusion reactor to “inertial mass reduction”, which could power an engine. These sound so outlandish; they’ve been called the “UFO patents”. However, Dr. Pais’s work has already gone through some preliminary testing and some prototyping. At the core of these ideas lies the “Pais Effect” – “controlled motion of electrically charged matter via accelerated vibration and/or accelerated spin subjected to smooth yet rapid acceleration transients, in order to generate extremely high energy/high intensity electromagnetic fields.” In in the instance of the reactor, correctly spun electromagnetic fields would provide the containment for the reaction. Other aspects of the effect lead to an electromagnetic field generator, a high frequency gravitational field generator and a high temperature superconductor. A quick glance over Pais’s explanations makes him sound a bit like Doctor Who, but the proof of course is in the devices and the effects – all of which, right now, remain to be seen.
Not to be outdone, NASA just recently proposed a reactionless drive that could open up interplanetary and interstellar exploration. Their idea revolves around resonance-based technology which may result in inertial mass reduction. (Sounds familiar doesn’t it (see above)). Torus Tech founded by Nassim Haramein is working on both zero-point energy production (energy from the quantum flux of spacetime) and gravitational control. At Marshall Space Center, David Burns is also looking at unique ways to move through space and his Helical Engine is the one that is conveyed by the reactionless drive – in other words, a propulsive force that does not require expulsion of a propellant due to some sort of energy reaction. This drive uses relativistic effects to move its cargo forward, essentially the transference of momentum. The Helical nomenclature comes from the nature of the drive which is housed in a helical conduit. A particle accelerator pushes ions through the conduit that is smaller at the top and wider at the bottom. The increase in the size causes an increase in rotation and absolute velocity. At the end, the ions retrace their path in reverse and decrease the rotation and velocity. The difference creates a variance in mass where the momentum is then transferred to the ship in the direction of desired travel. Of course, one ion doesn’t provide a whole lot of momentum, but a sufficient quantity at a speed of 500k cycles per second changes the whole equation. The pluses here lie in the facts that propellant mass is often prohibitive in order to move even a reasonable payload. Also, the Helical Drive has no moving components other than the particle accelerator, so it can run for extended periods of time with little to no maintenance. Right now, it still would take quite a bit of energy to power the ship initially – maybe a compact fusion reactor perhaps?
Finally, lets look at diamonds – diamonds which could be batteries for not exactly forever, but an awful lot longer than our current ones. Sounds special, right? Very true, because these batteries are made from radioactive graphite that has been used to moderate the reactions inside a nuclear reactor. Typically ending up as nuclear waste, the graphite, now imbued with radioactive Carbon-14 can be converted into small diamonds by the company NDB. These diamonds are still radioactive, so they are coated in a layer of Carbon-12 diamond, which by virtue of being as tough as a diamond, solves the problem. Imagine a series of these put together with a supercapacitor and a small control board to manage the release of energy. NDB says that a satellite battery could last as long as 28k years, a vehicle battery around 90 years and a personal device such as a tablet or phone’s battery would have a life of around 9 years. The batteries are expected to be assembled in similar formats to current use and have a low power version available in a few years, with more powerful models in about five. The expectation also is the cost will be similar to current batteries and perhaps even cheaper since companies are paying to have nuclear waste taken off of their hands.
If something sounds too good, sometimes it is. All of these are wonderful stories. They are all filled with hope and right now with good intentions. It’s obvious of course that every hammer is just a weapon waiting to be used, so perhaps these potentials could spell disaster. But the real question to consider right now is how many will truly come to fruition? Have all of these possibilities not proven out? Maybe it’s time to start wondering where your jetpack is and not necessarily your flying car…
JANUARY 2021
We’ve talked about graphene before, a sort of wonder substance formed by using the strongest bonds a carbon atom can produce attached to other carbon atoms. You should be familiar with how strong carbon can be since diamond is one of its forms. The trick with graphene is the fact that up until now it’s been not only difficult but also expensive to produce. Now scientists from Rice University are about to turn that completely around. In fact, they are going to start making graphene in a way that is reminiscent of Doc Smith shoving garbage into his Mr. Fusion to power his DeLorean. That’s right, they are using garbage, specifically carbon-based items like food and plastic and converting it into flakes of graphene. Right now, the world, while we appear to being responsible, is not doing a particularly good job of recycling plastic. The other problem is the plastic given to recyclers that contained food in the past would be considered contaminated. What if instead, that’s actually a plus? Current methods of production can cost as much as $200k per ton. Rice’s solution is something called flash Joule heating which is much simpler. The input garbage is heated at 5k Fahrenheit for 10 milliseconds. This pops apart all of the chemical bonds. Everything but carbon turns into gas and is removed (possibly to be separated and used for other applications). The carbon atoms then seek out new bonds and since there’s just carbon, they tend to assemble into a stable state – graphene. In this case, the resulting graphene tends to form a single sheet of what is called turbostatic graphene. Other processes produce graphene layers that tend to stack one atop one another. The problem there is trying to get them apart. So, now that we’ve solved part of the issue of production, what could be done right away with some of this newly available graphene? A quick and easy use would be to add it to concrete. The stability and strength of graphene would mean that the density of concrete would not be the major determining aspect with regards to its reliability. Adding graphene to alloys and fiberglass are obvious methods to increase strength. But that’s not the only thing graphene is good for because it is also an amazing conductor. The electronic applications are nearly endless. LED improvements and battery boosts are just a few. Watch the Skies has previously discussed Blue Water energy systems that use graphene sheets to capture ions generating electricity and also graphene as the basis of the cables for space elevators. The proponents of the elevators have been waiting for a breakthrough to allow mass production of graphene and this could be it.
NOVEMBER 2020
Glowing ice on Europa could help identify the composition of the surface. Occasionally referred to as a failed star, massive Jupiter throws around more than just its weight in its local neighborhood. The area around Jupiter is constantly affected by the magnetic fields that the planet hurls off and the heat that comes from its core. Electrons flung around it come into contact with the ices of Europa and cause them to glow. It gives off its own moonlight. But we haven’t observed this. NASA JPL was doing an experiment to understand the how incoming electrons might alter Europa’s chemistry. When they recreated the situation, their ice sample began to glow. Those familiar with the concept of spectroscopy know that when you have light emitted from something, measuring the nature of the light can give you insight into the make up the origin. We learn a great deal about the composition of stars and their accompanying planets by reviewing their spectra. Now that we know about the phenomenon, observing Europa’s glow could so some of the hard work for us. Not only does the energy of the infalling electrons alter the chemical structure of the ice, but it also reveals the nature of the resulting chemicals. Why is this important? Europa and its suspected internal ocean still remain one of the best potential areas to discover life outside of the Earth and inside of the Solar System. As missions to Europa are designed, knowledge about the conditions will be key to the potential for success. The Europa Clipper mission has a camera that should be capable of observing the ice glow. One scientist commented that looking at the glow would be like looking at Earth moonlight on the beach.
October 2020
-When your laptop warms up your lap; it’s generating waste heat. That energy is not being put to any good use. Up until now things like refrigerators, air conditioners and all sorts of appliances and engines are throwing off excess heat as they operate. What if there was a way to convert that directly to electricity? It’s a neat trick and the method is something that scientists have been seeking for some time, but a good answer was found recently. We’ve known for quite some time that certain materials exposed to heat can generate electricity by moving electrons from one part to another. The important part is to avoid also transporting the heat. Experimenters, like Jun Zhou at the Huazhong University of Science and technology and his colleagues developed thermocells that use a liquid to transfer the charged ions from one side to another of the cell, generating current. In order to avoid the transmission of heat, the liquid is spiked with a particular chemical that when it reaches the cold terminal crystallize into solid particles. These particles help to block the transmission of heat. As they grow, their weight causes them to fall to the warm terminal. Here the heat causes the crystals to liquefy and the cycle begins again. What’s also important here is that fact that this process is much more efficient than previous versions – as much as five times as efficient. The cells are about the size of a domino and a collection gathered together about the size of a paperback book can power several devices, lights and even power your phone. The next step is working on insulating the thermocell appropriately so that the environment doesn’t affect its efficiency. After that, the skies the limit. Attachments of all sorts could recycle waste heat into cheap electricity, and you may end charging you phone right off of the excess energy from your toaster oven.
-While we’re discussing small opportunities for efficiencies, a new tiny turbine has been designed to convert breezes into electricity. The turbine has two leaves that are moved back and forth due to the passage of air. The disruption and clapping together of the elements generate a current. While this works at nearly any speed, 4-8 meters per second tends to generate the maximum efficiency. The turbine can power up to 100 LED lights and temperature sensors. Tacking these on to things like bicycles or cars would once again boost our efficiency.
-Finally, researchers have created a room temperature superconductor. It’s been the holy grail of a long search and could have many implications to computing and electronics. But, the champagne is still on ice- there’s a catch. The new superconductor works very well – but only under the pressure equivalent of 3/4s of that at the Earth’s core! One problem solved and onto the next. The search for the method of stabilization at ambient temperatures continues. If they are successful, all sorts of applications like maglev and cheaper MRI’s will open up. It’s a long way from the 4.2 degrees above absolute zero first required, but there’s still a ways to go.
September 2020
-Sometimes science pays – sometimes science pays big, to the tune of 3 million dollars. Blayne Heckel, Eric Adelberger and Jens Gundlach, researchers into the nature of gravity, were just awarded the Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics for 2021. The award was given for their research including measurements of gravitation to look at the coupling of dark matter and dark energy. One of the aspects considered was the continuity of the Inverse Square Law. All the way back to Isaac Newton, the concept that the strength of gravity is based on the idea that between two objects the attraction is proportional to the square of the distance between them. Move objects twice as far apart and the attraction will decrease by a factor of four. There has been thought that while this appears constant, that at extremely small separations, the law may not hold. The scientists developed new sensors and tests that allowed them to measure the attraction all the way down to 0.002 of an inch. Proponents of String Theory believe that there are additional dimensions of space we cannot easily observe because they are curled in upon themselves. These would cause differences in the attraction between objects at an extremely small scale. The researchers were able to verify the continuity of the Inverse Square Law down to the extreme end of their measurements. What does this mean? It sets a limit to the size of the String Theory dimensions. We now know that they must be smaller the finest measurement taken or 52 microns. Science is series of steps. By doing the work, these researchers have defined further aspects of gravity. The breakthrough here is in the quality of the measurement and the development of the devices to do it. It’s not all flash and its nice to see that hard work is rewarded in the community with a nice paycheck. The Breakthrough Prize’s payout is three times that of the Nobel Prize and was founded to encourage research in life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics.
-The mouse, maze, and cheese is a very familiar combination, but it could work on a much smaller scale. Scientists are now testing mazes with single celled organisms like amoebas. By providing a chemical stimulus at the opposite end of the structure, these cells can be induced to follow a path through various turns and twists. Since this behavior is seen at this small a level it may also explain how certain things like cancer cells could also be attracted to sites where they could grow. Recently amoebas were run through a mock up of London’s Hampton Court Maze in miniature. The creatures could detect which areas had higher concentrations of the attractants and follow the trail. Those following in their footsteps were less lucky as the amount of attractant dropped as the first group absorbed it.
AUGUST 2020
It’s been in multiple movies and you may not even know its name, but the Arecibo radio telescope recently received damage that puts its future in question. On the 10th of August one of the many cables that supports the dish shaped structure snapped and the tremendous energy stored in the tension of the cable caused it to flail about creating destruction. The resulting 30-meter hole has put observations on a two-week standby as investigations continue on the cause. Since the dish is 307 meters wide, the resulting gap hinders the function of the radio telescope. The Arecibo dish has seen service for 60 years for radio astronomy, planetary science and even investigating the atmosphere. Built in a depression the fixed nature of the dish makes it very photogenic and it has appeared in James Bond’s Goldeneye as well as the X-Files. Reigning as the largest dish in the world until 2016, when it was unseated by the Chinese 500 Meter Aperture Spherical radio telescope, some believe Arecibo has passed its peak. The telescope also took some damage from Hurricane Maria. Concerns about a manufacturing defect the in cable are causing scientists to review the other parts of the support structure to ensure further damage will be prevented. Officials are vague as to the date for the telescope’s return to work.
We may have more in common with dinosaurs than we imagined. Recent work has identified osteosarcoma, a bone cancer in a 76-million-year-old Centrosaurus leg bone. Known for attacking teens, osteosarcoma is identified by the tumors it causes in immature tissue. In this specimen, the tumor identified by high resolution tomography scans, was present long enough to cause the dinosaur definite discomfort. Osteosarcoma tumors were also found in a prehistoric turtle, benign tumors in T-rex bones and even hadrosaurs apparently suffered from arthritis. Diseases have been with us throughout history and a study of their earliest instances may lead to new treatments and cures.
JULY 2020
Kenya is either getting a saucer invasion or the internet curtesy of Alphabet. Loon balloons are a new project developed by the company that owns Google. What makes these giant clear balloons special, besides the fact that they go all the way up to the stratosphere is what they carry. The telecommunications electronics each of the fleet of 35 Loons carries enables a 4G LTE network covering up to 31K square miles. What’s even more impressive is that the area being provided for is a mountainous part of the country. Imagine if you could float cell phone towers 12 miles up in the air and then network them. Alphabet’s effort is the first non- emergency use of the Loons. Previously, networks were launched over Peru after a massive earthquake and over Puerto Rico when Hurricane Maria caused devasting damage in 2017. Alphabet is testing the process and hopes to find ways to avoid one of the most obvious issues with the network – the Loons drift off due to high level winds. The flipside of course is that if you put a lot of shiny objects in the sky, people will inevitably start mistaking them for UFOs.
Sometimes it takes something huge to observe something quite small. CERN’s massive collider allows us to observe the tiniest of particles. But what if we took something designed to measure gravity waves and put it to another use? Scientists are using the LIGO project to observe quantum effects on objects in the human scale and that’s quite a breakthrough. LIGO consists of two complexes in the US where light shot down long corridors ends up reflected back to its source. Complex and fine measurements are done of the returning light and then compared against the results from the other area. Both sets of data should be the same, unless they are disrupted by a gravitational wave. The mirrors and receptors are isolated in order to stop outside influences from altering the measurements. After successfully detecting gravity waves, the LIGO was then turned to another purpose. Now the system measures the incipient quantum fluctuations in the laser light, which can deliver a “kick” to the mirrors in the system. These fluctuations are the result of the formation and decay of virtual particles at the quantum level. Until now, we’ve been able to infer their actions up the observable world, but not measure them. Scientists at MIT’s Kavli Institute were able to detect deflection in the 40 kilogram mirror in the LIGO complex. This means that we too experience these fluctuations. However, the thermal energy associated with our lives is so large in comparison to the quantum flux that we will never feel it.
JUNE 2020
Covid-19 has become a battleground for rapid learning as scientists struggle to understand the smallest of things that has changed our entire world. Recently, they have come to understand that some of the drugs we already have can make a positive difference in the fight. Make no mistake, these aren’t the cure, but they are the weapons that can help once the battle has started. Once our bodies are infected, they react as quickly as possible and the conflict that occurs is in earnest and that may be the problem. Our immune system launches its defense and creates something called a cytokine storm. Instinctively, our bodies know we are under an unusual threat. The problem however lies in how a system that we have no conscious control over decides to solve the issue. As the virus enters a cell (in the lungs, where it is most at home), it takes with it the receptor on the surface of the cell it was seeking. An imbalance occurs and the body reacts and as things progress, this causes a positive feedback that pushes things out of control leading to the cytokine storm. The virus propagates, since it is where it wanted to be all along on the inside, and then spreads to other cells increasing the reaction. In older patients, as they are more susceptible to immunity issues, the reaction is more progressive. The problem is therefore exacerbated. Taking on the issue and remediating it is what some scientists are now focusing on. Work is being done to find drugs capable of blocking the receptor on the lung cells that Covid-19 is seeking, which could help people recently diagnosed. In addition to looking for new methods, scientists are also making sure we don’t have what we already need in the toolbox and in this case, it turns out we do. Dexamethasone is a steroid that can be used to help alleviate symptoms of the cytokine storm in patients who have been forced to use ventilators and oxygen. The steroid can reduce the risk of death of those on oxygen by a fifth and on ventilators by a third. Is it a cure, no, but it’s a new way to save lives. What’s even better is that the drug is relatively cheap at $6.30 per dose with a ten-day treatment regimen. The benefit here is only for those in distress and hospitalized. Dexamethasone is being recommended for immediate use. Another drug under consideration is remdesivir, which is typically used against ebola and is an anti-viral. Remdesivir can limit the length of recovery time necessary for those already infected. Unfortunately, unlike dexamethasone, it is not readily available or as cheap. There is no cure yet for Covid-19, nor a complete vaccine, but scientists are hard at work learning to fight it and its effects.
MAY 2020
In the 80s we used something called distributed acoustic sensing to track and search for submarines. Now scientists are reviving the idea using an unusual element in their detectors – fiber optics in cables underground. All of the cable we have in giant webs under our cities isn’t in use at the same time. Since light traveling through the cables carries the information, cables not in use are referred to as “dark”. By shooting light at close to infrared through a dark cable, scientists can detect where there are defects in the cable and build up a map of them down to very exact measurements. These defects cause echoes that propagate through the light. If a seismic event occurs, it causes the location to shift and that can be detected by the observing the echoes. It’s a rather brilliant way of reusing something that is already there. Experiments were done during the Rose Parade in Pasadena measuring the sonic turned seismic disruption of bands marching over the underground cables. California cities with their thousands of miles of fiber cable would greatly benefit from a seismic network built out of seldom used fibers. The idea also has some very basic uses as well. Imagine observing traffic patterns at intersections by using the cable already present there. Also, the detectors can be placed, used and then removed without any further disruption to the system. It’s a rather brilliant way of using present technology for a new potential with minimal cost.
There is another pandemic still going on during the current Covid-19 situation. AIDs has been with us long enough that is has sort of faded from view, but it still is present at levels to give it the rating of a pandemic. However, new drugs are being developed even now, that while they can’t cure the disease, can instead drastically lower the chances of infection. Pre-exposure prophylaxis or PrEP, got the USDA stamp of approval in 2012 in the form of a pill called Truvada. The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases started a new test in 2016 concerning an injectable drug called cabotegravir in comparison with Truvada. What they found was that an injection once every 2 months was just as effective as the pills. Out of the cabotegravir group, a portion of the 4500 tested, 12 incidences of AIDS occurred. In the Truvada group 38 instances occurred and some of those were tied to not taking the daily pills. Researchers are of course now focusing on the 12 cases to determine the cause, but finding their work disrupted by the current pandemic. With the injections, the idea is to provide an alternative to a vaccine until one is found. The PrEP idea is one of many involved in programs with the goal to eliminate AIDs by 2030.
April 2020
We’ve made very impressive progress with developing artificial limbs for amputees, especially the 3D printed models. Unfortunately, what’s taken more time to develop is the method of control. Currently, we often tap signals from the muscles remaining in the limb, but that has some drawbacks. When the wearer loses contact in the socket of the prostheses due to sweat or swelling, the whole system may even need to be reset. The next step, when looking at finer control for robotic hands, would be a nerve connection. These however are sometimes difficult to define well and can be quite faint. Researchers are considering combining both methods and are taking a different approach. Instead of seeking connection with the initial muscles, which may actually be missing in some cases, now scientists are recreating small new muscles and grafting them to the nerves responsible for motor control. Bits of muscle are taken from elsewhere in the body and used. After which, fine wires are inserted, and the signals are then run through a program that learns the movements the wearer desired as they run a virtual hand. Using the combination of the program, a robotic prosthesis and the wired muscle, users were able to demonstrate a very fine degree of control. Wearers were often able to perform complex tasks on the first go and after long term testing were found to have no change or degradation of their abilities. In the future developers hope to create an implant to provide the connection, but things are looking very hopeful for wearers of artificial limbs. Sadly, the news of dolphins in the canals of Venice is fake news, but something that isn’t fake is that bottlenose dolphins have been observed synchronizing their calls when they are cooperating. Humans are very used to having a leader, co-workers or friends running a conversation in order to keep us focused together on a task for both timing and even encouragement. We just don’t expect animals to be as specific as we are. We know animals communicate, but until now most of what we’ve seen is competitive or warning. Male bottlenose dolphins were recorded creating a noise similar to popping and while the males do make this noise on their own in various tempos, it’s the way things happen when they are together that gets interesting. Males were observed looking out for their female companions often form triads and “pop” together. Females often drew closer to their guardians when this occurred, and scientist think it may even serve as a warning to other dolphins. What important here is the “popping” is cooperative, whereas other instances like synchronous firefly flashing are purely competitive.
February 2020
The same thing that makes us wash our hands repeatedly could be powering some of our devices in the future—bacteria. These little organisms sometimes grow nano-wires, tiny protein filaments, which can then transfer electrons from one point to another. The bacterium Geobacter actually moves electrons from organic molecules to metal-based ones. Some even transfer electrons from one bacterium to another. All of this transferring causes current, even if it is a small one. So how do we scale this up? By creating a film of the nanowires and exposing them to moist air. After absorbing the humidity, the film begins moving electrons through the nano-wires creating current. Take about 17 of these films and you suddenly have 10 volts of electricity. To keep moving towards truly useable amounts of electricity, scientists discovered that sandwiching the nanowires between two gold sheets and once again introducing humidity created more current. The moisture on top of the film diffusing through it creates an opportunity for the water to dissociate into ions of hydrogen and oxygen. This causes a charge to build up near the top and the difference between the top and the bottom is the impetus powering the flow of electrons through the wires. Most experiments indicate that 45% moisture is the optimal, but the cells would work even in moisture poor areas like a desert. Experimenters are looking for new ways to create the nanowires for their cells since the ones from Geobacter bacterium are not always consistent in make up. Instead, scientists are now manufacturing their own wires by genetically modifying a bacterium we’re all a little too familiar with—E. coli. Other researchers are also investigating the very peptides used in the nanowires to remove the process from the bacterium completely. Take this one step further, we are a moist environment. You could have hydrostatic cells either on your skin or even within you. Imagine a pacemaker whose battery doesn’t have to be replaced because your insides are actually powering it. This would also work with any prosthetics that might require power as well. While this all sounds well and good, there’s a few things that are stopping us from going wild with moist bacteria batteries. We’re really not exactly sure why the whole process works. The researchers behind the cells are getting results, but once you get past that, nobody is really sure where the electrons that are moving and creating the current are actually coming from. So, while this has perhaps a little more of a solid footing than the reactionless microwave drive, a reliable hydrostatic cell is going to require a great deal more research, but all of the evidence so far indicates it is definitely worth the time.
January 2020
-It’s no wonder zombies are after your brains; the tissue of the brain tends to rot very rapidly postmortem. But scientists in Britain found something unusual in the skull of a man beheaded 2600 years ago in York – his brain. When uncovered, the tissue within still contained folds and grooves making it recognizable. Was it the clay rich mud that preserved things so well? Perhaps not, but new research using molecular techniques to look at the state of the brain uncovered two structural proteins that may have shore up the tissue to preserve it. These proteins are part of neurons and astrocytes(star shaped glial cells) providing building blocks that hold together the cells, but in the case of our unfortunate victim, these proteins were packed together more densely than they typically are. That made them more stable than those of a typical brain. Aggregation of proteins in such a fashion does tend to occur as we grow older and can also be signs of Alzheimer’s, but the samples of the brain showed no such disease. So now that they have a reason why, the scientists are still working on the how and they’ve even come back around to examining that clay rich mud once again. The benefits of such a discovery are twofold: we’ve been taught more about the nature of the brain that could lead to techniques of preservation as well as an opportunity to look at a tissue that would not ordinarily be available from the past.
-We look to our environment to find non-destructive methods of power generation like solar cells, wind turbines and tide stations, but scientists believe we’re missing something obvious every time a river meets the sea. Blue power is the result of the saltwater containing ions with a positive or negative charge in solution. These ions of course attract and repel due to their charges. Creating a situation where two pools of water of opposite charges are connected by a semipermeable membrane and then connected can cause a flow of electrons creating electricity. But so far, it’s been expensive, and the membrane is a sticking point. French experimenters created a new membrane in 2013 that uses a boron nitrate nanotube as the connector between the sides. This passage through the negatively charged tube allows the passage of positive particle and prevents negative ones, effectively sorting things out. But it was difficult to get the nanotubes where they wanted them. However, recent developments have allowed more and accurate placement and scientist rate their efficiency at a meter square membrane producing as much as 120 megawatt hours per year. Even after this new process only 2% of the nanotubes are open on both ends of the membrane, so increasing the flow would obviously increase the output.
November 2019
Sunnyvale sounds like the hometown of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, but in reality, it’s the home of a new kind of drone that could help identify true killers—earthquakes. Liquid Robotics created a drone called the Wave Glider and this device could be more effective and a great deal cheaper than our current method of watching over subduction zones (the edge of one crustal plate plunging under another) where earthquakes can begin. The Wave Glider consists of a surface element, 3 meters long and a subsurface element which is 8 meters below the surface. The underwater portion consists a tube full of oscillating fins whose motion in the waves helps power the drone. There are also solar cells on the surface element whose charge is used to power both sensors and guidance to allow the drone to stay on track. Right now, we use a system of acoustic beacons on the sea floor, a ship above them to intercept their signals and GPS satellites to fix the positions of the ship. That can get expensive when an expedition can cost as much as $50k a day. On the other hand, the Wave Glider is almost self-sufficient. Successful tests have already run for 40 continuous days. The Glider is also nearly silent compared to the ships and therefore creates little interference. The National Science Foundation has already sunk $5.5 million into the idea. The money will fund 16 seafloor beacons and three drones to monitor them. Given the severity of the Tohoku earthquake , Japan is investing heavily into detection and has spent over $3 billion dollars on a system that will next year consist of 27 stations with groups of beacons. The drones, whose operating costs work out to about $500 a day could make a significant difference and allow for a greater coverage if the same amount were invested. Other GPS stations are set up on land and using both types more complete images of the activity along both subduction zones and seams (where spreading occurs) allow scientists to predict the severity and timing of earthquakes. Obviously, the more detection networks we can field, the greater warning we have, and the Wave Glider could be a game changer.
SEPTEMBER 2019
When we hear about genetic modification a lot of words are thrown around that may not be immediately recognizable and one of these is “gene drive”. With typical transmission of traits through a population there is a 50/50 chance of expressing a particular gene, after which the positive or negative nature of the trait tends to over time determine the likelihood of survival of the carrier. Certain DNA sequences do not follow this pattern and can affect their expression. These are self-propagating and can carry a specific trait much more quickly through a population or in simpler terms, a gene drive. Since the gene drives are so successful, even a negative effect can rapidly be carried throughout a species. We’ve been working with gene drives since the 60’s to try to control various pests. You might remember the concept of introducing certain mosquitoes which have a gene that tends toward sterility, in areas that suffer from diseases like Malaria or West Nile Virus. In this case a natural gene drive was discovered and then mosquitoes with this trait were cultivated for release with that idea that while they could breed, they would spread the gene drive to the local population. In the 90’s new technologies allowed for the engineering of certain genetic sequences. Now scientists could insert gene drives into the DNA of subjects. Unfortunately, there was a tendency towards mutations, which caused the failure of the gene drive before it could be passed along effectively. 2012 brought scientists a new tool called CRISPR or Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats. Now it became possible to edit DNA by forcing a break and influencing the repair done to the strand. Gene drives can be used in one of two ways: as a modification drive or a suppression drive. By passing along the drive to wild organisms, a specific trait can be encouraged and may spread either through all the cells of the organism or is only its reproductive cells. Suppression drives accomplish what earlier scientists were attempting with the mosquitoes. Here deleterious traits are encouraged through the introduction of the drive into the subject species DNA but are done in such a fashion that a first they are only expressed in the reproductive cells. Eventually, the drive also passes to all of the genetic material and this causes anything from decline in numbers, sterility or death. As much as we might dislike them, mosquitoes are part of the ecosystem, so scientists are also working on a different gene drive that would create Malaria resistant mosquitoes to halt transmission of the disease. Invasive species such as the Lantern Fly could potentially be dealt with using the drives. On the flip-side, a number of amphibian populations are experiencing declines due to a fungus and a modification drive could be derived to provide immunity. Computer modelling is used to look at populations altered by drives for long term effects. Right now, due to the complexity of the overall DNA, most drives are being developed for plants and insects, however a team in 2018 created a gene drive that effected the color of hair for laboratory mice. Mice could also become a target for gene drive use since they have become serious pests in certain grain growing areas. Controlling their population via suppressive drives could be beneficial. Another project called Mice Against Ticks is looking to create a Lyme disease resistant mouse and then release them into the population of Martha’s Vineyard Island, where the results could be studied since the mice would be isolated. Of course, mice are just the first step on the ladder that could reach all the way to us. While most of the CRISPR talk about modification of humans tends to look at things from an individual point of view, such as modifying embryos, the gene drive aspect suddenly adds a new twist. What if instead of making the mice Lyme Disease resistant, we made ourselves not only disease resistant but set it up so that from now on our children would also be as well? This is just the tip of the iceberg and we’re not even talking about gene drive altered species effecting the environment—but it is something to think about…
AUGUST 2019
-Here’s a recycling story that’s told us more about the universe. When the construction of the Large Hadron Collider was in progress, the engineers decided they would a tremendous amount of brass to make one of the detectors, the Compact Muon Solenoid. But where do you get that much brass? Turns out that the Russians had tons of brass casings from ammunition left over from World War II. 600 metric tons went into the construction of the detector and three years later the first evidence of the Higgs Boson was recorded. But this is not a unique situation. In the 60’s & 70’s warship plating was used as cladding on particle physics experiments to contain radiation.
-Card skimmers just took a hit as a new phone app becomes available to law enforcement. Bluetana, devised by developers at the University of Illinois measures the Bluetooth signals from suspected card readers and sorts them by legitimate and illegitimate usage. This cuts the detection time down to an amazing 3 seconds. Of course, not everybody is going to be able to download the app because the skimmers will of course want to know how Bluetana sorts the signals in order to make their devices less detectable.
-Carbon is a really cool element. Let the atoms have four bonds and they are quite happy in a very stable situation we’ve come to know as a diamond. Poke them a little and you can get them down to three bonds and things get interesting. Now you can have graphene, buckyballs or nanotubes. But up until now, no one has convinced carbon to be happy with just two bonds. Swedish and British scientists were able to create 18 carbon atoms rings. Other molecular rings exist such as benzene, but the carbon ring took work rather than a natural occurrence. The scientists maneuvered the carbon atoms into a triangle with a carbon monoxide molecule at each vertex. They then snipped off the CO molecules utilizing the end of an atomic force microscope. The result is something called “cyclocarbon” and the 18-atom structure is believed to be the smallest stable version of the molecule. The rings fuse well with other rings and scientists foresee numerous potential uses for the resulting molecules.
-In the days of sail, shipworms boring away at one’s hull were a true concern. These creatures even ate their way through dikes in the Netherlands. Wood eating marine ship worms have developed drilling pads from 2 vestigial shells that are covered in small teeth. They ingest the wood and store inside them where it is slowly digested. Recently, naturalists have found a different worm in the same family that not only drills into rock, but also likes freshwater. These rock eating worms do not actually derive food from the rocks they ingest. Like the shipworms though, they can cause damage. In this case, they can undermine shorelines and even potentially shift the course of rivers. The worms were found in a river in the Philippines and scientists continue to study them.
-You may have seen Jason Momoa recently arrested protesting in Hawaii about construction of a new telescope there. What also was occurring was the 4-week shut down of all of the other operating telescopes on Mauna Kea. A deal was struck with protesters: a roadway was built around their camp to allow them to stay in place and promises were made that authorities would share a list of all of the vehicles using the road to prove that they were not carrying materials or workers to continue construction on the 30 Meter Telescope, or TMT. Since its inception in 2014, the construction of the TMT has been fraught with difficulty as locals protested over the sacredness of its site and also about the legitimacy of the building permits. Protesters also claim that the University of Hawaii also mismanages the current observatories. Up to a thousand protesters have been on site at various times. The dissenters have capitalized on the issue through well run social media campaigns and the involvement of media celebrities including Dwayne Johnson. Following the court’s dismissal of charges and the reissuance of the building permit, Hawaii’s governor announced in June that construction would begin again, which of course ratcheted up the level of protests once again. Those running the TMT project have also filed for a building permit on their fallback site in the Canary Islands. Their statements to the press though continue to emphasize that their preference is the Mauna Kea site.
JULY 2019
Amber is a time capsule and scientist keep making new discoveries by examining it. But by drawing attention to this goldmine of information, it is suddenly becoming a commodity. Recently, an amber encased dinosaur tail proved conclusively that they had feathers. The secrets of a world from 100 million years ago are now being cataloged with each find. A great deal of the amber containing these finds comes from Kachin state in Myanmar. As with most fossils, not only is the piece itself of interest but also the place from which it was removed. The problem here is the political conflict in the Kachin area. Not only is it dangerous there, but the funds from the sales of amber are also providing arms and support to insurgents. The amber is smuggled out of the region and then sold in China, where funds are funneled back via electronic transfers. In China, collectors and scientist both compete for the pieces with collectors often winning. That means the only way these finds can be studied is if the scientists can arrange a loan. It’s estimated this trade tops 1 billion dollars. Myanmar’s cache of amber is some of the oldest around, where Dominican and Baltic amber seldom contains the variety of preserved animals. While the law in Myanmar prohibits the export of fossils without approval, amber is considered a gemstone and therefore exempt. China on the other hand taxes the import of jewelry, which is why the transporters resort to smuggling it in concealed in parts of vehicles. So, scientists find themselves strolling the street markets of amber sellers in the hope of making the next big find. That too can cause a problem. Once a scientist makes an observation about a piece or seeks the advice of experts, if that information leaks, the price can skyrocket. Recently, the government has stepped into the Kachin area to wrest it from the Kachin Independence Army. In so doing, they have driven off most of the mining operations or taxed them to the point that they are no longer profitable. Supposedly, most deep mines are closed and only a few shallow and secret ones continue to operate.
Similar to the issue of amber being treated as a gemstone and not a fossil and a lot closer to home is the recent case of the Montana Supreme court being asked to rule whether or not dinosaur fossils are actually minerals. Part of the issue here is how mineral rights are dealt with. Surface rights and mineral rights are two different things typically. In the past, fossils were tied to the surface rights. That all changed with the discovery of a complete T-rex skeleton and two dinosaurs who appear to be preserved in combat. Worth millions, the fossils are causing a stir because the owners of the mineral rights to the ranch where the fossils were discovered convinced the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to side with them. Mineral rights are often very complicated and are tangled up in various corporate ownerships. Scientists suddenly realized that acquiring new specimens would now become exceptionally complicated since they would need to acquire both sets of rights before excavating the fossils. Even worse, if this was now the case, how many other instances could generate lawsuits after the fact since the paleontologists did not have the mineral rights? The Seversons and the Murrays are tangled up in the contest. The Seversons initially owned the area and leased it to the Murrays. After time, the surface rights were sold to the Murrays and the Seversons kept this mineral rights and then the dinosaurs were found. The fighting dinosaurs were discovered in 2006, followed by triceratops pieces in 2011 and the T-Rex in 2013. When the Murrays tried to sell the T-rex, the fight over ownership broke out. A lawsuit by the Murrays at a district court caused the Seversons to appeal and the response was in their favor. When questioned on the ruling, the 9th Circuit Court referred the dispute to Montana Supreme Court. Montana also reacted as well, in April a new law was passed stating that fossils belong to the surface estate and are not to be considered minerals. That is the law going forward; however, the Murray/Severson case precedes this, so it will still have to be decided in court.
JUNE 2019
The universe is sometimes pretty odd and some of it even happens to be here on Earth. Recently, there’s been some news about tarantulas keeping frogs as pets. It’s not exactly true, because “pet” is a word that tends to anthropomorphize the relationship. Certain small frogs and tarantulas can share living space in something that is more accurately called mutualism. The spiders benefit because the frogs eat any ants in the spider burrows. Ants are one of the prime predators of tarantula eggs and due to the difference in size compared to the large spider are very difficult for the tarantula to deal with. On the other hand, besides the ants, the frogs also can take advantage of any leftovers from the tarantula’s meals and any insects attracted to the remains. In some cases where there is water present, the frog tadpoles even feed on the leftovers. Since these frogs are generally very small, being in the proximity of the spiders decreases the likelihood that they might become prey to birds, lizards or snakes. The tarantulas in question are also capable of eating frogs as well. Field researchers have observed the spiders checking to see if the frog is one it recognizes. If it doesn’t recognize the frog, things may not go so well for the amphibian. In Sri Lanka, spiders and frogs sometimes share a hole in a tree as a home. Other instances of this relationship have been found in Peru, India and Mexico. In another case of strange but true, what was once thought to be a loner octopus apparently lives in underwater communities. The gloomy octopus or Octopus tetricus, has set up camp off of Australia in Jervis Bay. Researchers say that as many as 15 of the octopi have created dens in 33-49 feet of water. The scientists are calling the community, Octlantis. Location is a key because other naturalists also found something similar in 2009 and called that gathering Octopolis. In both cases, the rocky outcroppings in the area may have provided an ideal place for the octopi, whereas much of the surrounding seabed is relatively flat. Observers noted the social behavior between the octopi and even some antisocial as some were driven from their dens by competitors. Before scientists believed that the gloomy octopus tended to only seek out others when it was time to mate. It is possible the particular nature of the locations of Octlantis and Octopolis may have encouraged the octopi to stay. Animals may also have learned not to stay when humans are around. A recent study by the University of California, Berkley indicates that there are a number of species who have adapted to the presence of humans by becoming more nocturnal. The reporting accumulates the result of 76 studies that encompasses 62 species and is much more comprehensive than anything currently in publication. Our outdoor activities such as camping and hiking are causing changes very similar to the way that agriculture changes where animals live. Despite the fact that the animals are being very adaptable to these new situations, stresses on them can create weaknesses that may affect them in the long run. Animals studied included coyotes, otters, wild boars, lions and even tigers from six different continents. Some scientists believe that it is a good sign that we can share the outdoors in such a fashion and others feel it is concerning how we effect the animals without realizing it.
MAY 2019
There are a number of things in our nature, that as humans, keep us out of trouble. When it comes to AIs all of their reactions are programmed by us. So, if we put them in situations where we want them to react similarly, we can perhaps emulate our responses to achieve the desired results. However, does it make sense to teach a machine to fear? Microsoft believes that emulating this reaction could actually make the software running self-driving cars safer. Human fight-or-flight response keeps us on the road and out of trouble with other drivers and potential obstacles. How do you do that though? Well, you start with the original. Researchers hooked up a several volunteers and ran them through driving simulations. They measured their pulse and the way that it changed in certain situations. From this, an algorithm was built to determine the areas in the course where there were problems. This was then applied to a self-driving program and run through the same course. What scientists found was a 25% decrease in the number of potential crashes versus an unaltered program. They also ran a separate test where a different algorithm was built based around merely the proximity of objects. While this one works, it doesn’t provide the depth of responses the original does. This is obviously just the beginning of things, since the next step would to be to build a lexicon of reasons to apply to this algorithm and then run things on numerous different courses. At the heart of things though, are we teaching our AIs our caution, our fear? At what point does a reaction become an overreaction for an AI? Human accidents occur because we’ve reacted to one danger and then put ourselves in the way of someone else—a deer in the road causes you to veer into another lane and an oncoming driver hits you. It may be impossible to consider all possible outcomes, but having said that, a machine will do a much better job of accessing all of the ones that we give it. One of the sidebars to this, is the fact that developing programs that react to situations in a more human way could even improve your experience when you take a robo-uber. There are several ways that a self-driving car can move in a safe fashion that we as a passenger could find uncomfortable or even make us carsick. However, since we are approximating the way a human would drive the car, these suddenly become much more unlikely. Something else recently came up about self-driving cars—they can actually help stop traffic jams. The beginning of a jam lies in how drivers apply their brakes. Everyone reacts slightly more than the person in front of them and suddenly a large wave propagates down through a long chain of traffic eventually bringing the tail end to a halt. But a self-driven car doesn’t overreact. It has the ability to brake exactly the same amount as the car ahead of it to avoid a collision. Researchers found that adding just one automated for every fourteen in a simulation could double the speed of cars passing through an intersection. The self-driving cars created more of a buffer between themselves and the other drivers meaning the human drivers had to brake less often. Researchers pointed out that the results of this study can also be used for current adaptive cruise control systems.
APRIL 2019
-Cloning, gene editing, altering the nature of the nature of what it is to be human is a very slippery slope. Ever since the introduction of Dolly the sheep, the scientific community has held its breath as the moratorium on this aspect of human reproduction was tested by adventurous or reckless, depending on your view, researchers. He Jiankui, a biologist in China, made a set of gene-edited twins, which were born in October. He did post-doctoral work at a lab with a bioengineer, Stephen Quake and also consulted with a bioethicist, William Hurlbut and hematologist, Matthew Porteus, all of whom are associated with Stanford University. The University recently put forth a statement that they felt exonerated their employees from any wrong-doing. The president of the University where He worked, however addressed Stanford’s president alleging Stephen Quake’s involvement in the experiment. Quake responded that he had encouraged He to seek the appropriate approvals before proceeding. It has become apparent that He had quite a few conversations with a number of American researchers concerning his planned experiment and now some are questioning whether or not enough was done to stop him from proceeding. The line between trying to ensure that our children will be able to grow up to their full potential and tailoring our offspring to our desires is becoming easier and easier to cross. Are we on the road to clone armies, workforces or populations? Are we headed towards a Gattaca future where the purity of the geneline is jealously guarded? Or are we planning on making all of our children into our image of perfection? Will we tailor our offspring into beings that are able to survive on other worlds in harsh conditions? Not all of the prospects are bad, but its apparently something scientists are willing to try.
-In the future, MRI machines could not only become cheaper but lighter, to the point that they might also be used regularly instead of as they are currently. A new system, weighing as little as 880 pounds, could be ready in three years and cost as little as $200k, a significant drop in both categories. Scientists also hope to have a model eventually that could be used to assess injuries on the battlefield. It could be that MRIs could become part of a yearly health exam. A primary use of MRI is the diagnosis of brain issues. Right now, MRI scans are done as needed because they are so costly. What if instead, it was possible to do them purely for research? We could discover all kinds of interesting things with a greater sample of data. However, there is also another aspect to this from the scifi point of view—what we’re talking about here is a portable brain scanner. Do we want to open up a similar can of worms like we have with genetics and 23andme by giving the public and other access to the state of our heads? What if your employer starts requiring brain scans? The future, bright or dark, probably will include portable MRIs. It’s up to us to decide how to use them.
February 2019
Farewell, Opportunity
In January 2004, the NASA rover, Opportunity, touched down on Mars, with a 90-day mission to search for evidence that water once existed on the planet. Those three months turned into 15 years, and on February 13, 2019, Earth said it’s goodbyes to the rover that changed our view of the planet forever.
Opportunity gave us proof that water once existed on Mars, and mineral analyses further indicated that there was the chance, dare I say, opportunity, for life to have previously existed on the planet. Opportunity continued to explore past its original mission, giving us more data about the planet than ever expected, and allowing those of us on Earth to see Mars in a way we never had before. In June 2018, a dust storm so large that it engulfed the entire planet occurred, and Opportunity went into hibernation. Months of attempts to wake Opportunity back up proved fruitless, and finally it was announced that Opportunity was no more. Opportunity’s last message? “My battery is low, and it is getting dark.”
It quickly became evident across the internet that Opportunity had an impact on so many. Folks across the globe shared the story, posted pictures the rover had captured over the years, and some even wrote touching poetic homages on Facebook and Twitter. It is a rare moment when the world can feel so impacted by the loss of something so small and so very far away, but Opportunity managed to bring us all together as we said “farewell.”
By Krystal Bloom
JANUARY 2019
We would like to believe that science preservers and overcomes all obstacles in its search for the truth; the reality is sometimes a little more sad. With the recent shutdown of the US government, various endeavors are starting to feel the crunch. Ecologist Jeff Atkins has been sampling water from the streams of Shenandoah National park for eight years as part of an ongoing project to measure the recovery of the waters from years of acid rain. His eight years are almost a quarter of the 40 year project and he does the work despite the weather and the time it takes to reach the remote areas. But what’s put a halt to his research is access. With the government shut down, so is the park and he can’t get in to continue his work. NASA, NOAA and the National Science Foundation (NSF) are all suddenly on hold. Scientists are sent home without pay and forbidden any kind of work on their projects, contacting their co-workers and collaborators and are also banned from traveling to various conferences. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. The many companies, universities and research assistants working with the furloughed scientists are also suddenly out in the cold. Research being done on crops that will be planted this year has come to a halt and may not be available in time for sowing. Agencies, such as the National Institutes of Health remain open, but since they rely on closed parts of the government, such as the U.S. Census Bureau, are stymied by their lack of access. 95% of NASA employees are furloughed, with exceptions to keep assets and people safe. That’s good news with the recent receipt of data from New Horizon. OSIRIS-Rex in orbit around asteroid Bennu is another stream of information we certainly wouldn’t want to see interrupted. NASA TV and their website are all victims of the shutdown. Data collected by science is both time dependent and of timely necessity. Prior government shutdowns have only lasted 72 hours. How much information and potential we might lose can only be estimated as the shutdown continues.
SEPTEMBER 2018
-What if your bowl could tell future scientists about the weather you experienced? If it was made of clay then it is possible, according to new scientific findings. It’s all about fat, specifically animal fat, which becomes absorbed into the unglazed bowls. Researchers started this unusual method of investigation to find out about a climactic change known as the 8.2 kiloyear event, so named for the occurrence 8.2k years ago. At this point in time there was a massive global cooling that occurred and this would have affected not only the inhabitants but also their livestock. Since the change would have limited the food supply, the livestock would be leaner, which would change the nature of their fat. So after investigating pottery shards from the time period to collect the preserved fat, researchers used gas chromatography-mass spectrometry to identify isotopes of hydrogen, specifically heavy hydrogen. This variant of hydrogen is often present in plants experiencing low rainfall conditions. The livestock eat the plants and the heavy hydrogen is passed along to them and locked up in their fats. When the livestock are slaughtered and their meat stored or served in the bowls, these vessel collect the fats and preserve them for history. Quite a long way to go for proof, but if all of the elements are there, this can become a new methodology of discovering climate information from the past.
-The Remote Solar Observatory has recently re-opened after being closed on 9-6-18 under mysterious circumstances. The FBI closed the observatory and the local Post Office in Sunspot, New Mexico. According to the Bureau, there was a suspect involved in criminal activity on the site and they wished to keep the staff safe. They kept the area closed and blanket the news coverage to ensure that the suspect remained unaware of the investigation. The Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, or AURA, issued a statement that the observatory was closed due to an ongoing security concern. Conspiracy theorists have brought up everything from the government concealing a Coronal Mass Ejection, the Chinese using one of the Observatory’s antennas to spy on missile tests at the White Sands Military Base to the inevitable aliens. But that can’t be true right? Because then they’d have called in the CIA and gone all Mulder and Scully on things …
AUGUST 2018
-The dog did not become man’s best friend overnight, however convincing Siberian Silver foxes apparently takes a lot less time than we imagined and now we might know why. In the 1960’s an experiment, known as the Fox Farm, was conducted where foxes were specifically bred for two purposes. In the first case, foxes that were least aggressive were bred to other similar foxes. After 8 generations, the resultant foxes were actively seeking out human interaction and demonstrated affection. On the other hand, another breeding program specifically selected aggressive foxes, which produced animals that had a distinct dislike for humans and even other foxes. Enter one, Anna Kukekova, a behavioral geneticist who became interested in the old program and wanted to search for a genetic reason for the results. She took samples from the two groups of foxes and then compared them with a control group. With 10 genomes sequenced from each of the groups, Anna began to work on identifying the areas of variation. 103 different genetic regions differed among the specimens and of these almost half overlapped with areas identified previously with domestication of canines. Another 30 were also identified with fox behaviors, specifically those in the Fox Farm experiment. One gene caught her attention, SorCS1. This gene assists proteins connected with learning and memory. With this information, Anna and her assistants surveyed how 1600 foxes responded to humans and then compared the presence of SorCS1 in their genetic make up. Tame foxes were more likely to carry the same version of the gene. From this Anna inferred that as the foxes underwent breeding leading towards domestication, the increase in a specific time of SorCS1 was altering their genetic structure to influence memory and learning. We’ve always had the evidence that domestication works, but now we are beginning to understand the why.
July 2018
-Cancer, since it can affect any of us and is so difficult to treat, is always a topic of interest in the news. One of the aspects of
cancer is that it consists of our own cells that are no longer following established patterns and growing out of control. This obviously makes it not only difficult to treat, but also to detect. So what if you could use cancer cells to locate and treat the cancer? Some cells exhibit what scientists are calling a homing behavior where they return to site of the original tumor. Researchers are hoping to make them into poison bullets to deliver treatments directly to their former homes. If that wasn’t ambitious enough, they’ve also built in a failsafe where the
homing cells can then be killed off with a drug treatment. Tests are underway in mice and the researchers say they have had initial positive results.
-Carbon. Here you really can’t have life without it, but we keep adding more of it to the environment. What if the energy efficient fuel we’re looking for, that doesn’t add to our carbon debt, is something we haven’t considered before—ammonia. Sure it’s not something you want to fill a room with, but it actually has more energy density than liquid hydrogen (a source we are already considering). Similarly, it can be stored and transported as a liquid and since it is Nitrogen and three Hydrogen molecules, breaks down into something that is already in the environment. The real trick is how you manufacture it and the Australians made be ahead of us on this one. Douglas MacFarlane, a Melbourne chemist, says that all of the open areas in the land down under are perfect for solar plants and windmill farms. In his system, the energy from the environment is converted into chemicals, storing it for later use. Adding nitrogen, water and electricity together produces the ammonia. Breaking down those bonds then releases the energy once more for use. Right now there are plenty of companies producing
ammonia, but they are using it for fertilizer. MacFarlane looks a ammonia as a multiuse material since even after it’s been used for fuel, the hydrogen that comes out as a waste product can then be collected and used to power hydrogen fuel cell systems. Australia is already looking at an ammonia driven economy.
June 2018
Apparently, their crap could save them. Koalas are known as picky eaters, preferring only unique species of eucalyptus for their diet. There may be a very good reason why. Koala gut bacteria vary from koala to koala depending on their choice of eucalyptus. So eating a different variety means it won’t be digested properly. How was this discovered? By examining a lot of koala crap. Interestingly enough, if bacteria from one koala’s crap are introduced into the gut of a koala that is used to eating a different eucalyptus species, they are able to switch their diet. Strange as it sounds, this could help endangered species. Now scientists just have to convince the koalas it tastes good—the eucalyptus that is…
It seems that the San Quentin kangaroo rat is really good at hiding—so good no one has seen one in 30 years and they were considered extinct. That was of course until four of the little devils showed up in a survey trap last year. San Quentin kangaroo rats can run as fast as 10 kph and leap up to 2 meters. Named after their home area, the rats who once thrived in a valley in northern Baja California, were displaced by farmers. The researchers who discovered the rats actually had to compare them to specimens since they’d never seen them before. Those familiar with Frank Herbert’s Dune will recognize the kangaroo rat as the animal whose mythical shadow on the moon of Arrakis bore the name Paul Atreides chose as his fremen name—Muad’dib.
2022 could be the year for a Red Nova. Astronomers in 2013 discovered something unusual that they couldn’t immediately identify as a binary pair of stars or a single pulsating star. What they’ve determined is that it is actually two stars, but they are orbiting so close to each other that their atmospheres have merged. This reminded them of a similar discovery made in 2008. In this case, the speed that the stars orbited about each other began to increase and eventually the stars came together and merged causing what’s known as a red nova. Using the data from this earlier observation, astronomers feel that another nova is on the way in slightly more than four years.
MAY 2018
-It may have taken more than 40 years, but scientists may have found the smoking gun that caused a die off of amphibians,
primarily tree frogs first discovered in the forests of South America. Once they started investigating, it became apparent that this was occurring around the world and even causing several species extinctions. In 1998, a fungus called Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis was linked to the deaths, but where it came from remained a mystery. The fungus is relatively well known with at least four varieties identified, including one that has a nearly world wide spread. It took digging into the genetics of over 170 samples for scientists to discovery the identity of a fifth genetic line. This was found in South Korean frogs. It is believed that through import and accidental transport, amphibians carrying this strain was introduced to the wild frogs causing the world wide decline.
-It’s often said that animals react strangely before tornadoes and earthquakes and researchers are taking a cue from them. More than a thousand tornados occurred in the US last year and detection with advance warning is key to saving lives. Scientists are now developing infrasound systems, which can detect the pressure fluctuations that occur at the heart of a developing tornado. By using multiple microphones, the researchers can detect the direction of the twister. The scientists recently were able to pinpoint a tornado ten minutes before it formed and even correctly estimate its size. The frequency of the infrasound offers clues as to the size of the tornado. The detectors are composed of three mics, with a separation of about 200 feet. Researchers use a series of hoses set up between the microphones to help sort out the local noise by canceling out the resulting waves that occur inside them. A large source, like a tornado has a more uniform
structure and is easier to detect. These are early days for the infrasound detector, but many have high hopes that it could be very useful in the future.
MARCH 2018
-If you want to go from dark to light, graphene might be the answer. Carbon could change your hair color, avoid the toxicity of current dyes and even last longer. From nanotubes to more, carbon is a very handy element and its single atom thick sheets are known as graphene. Researchers took a gel substrate and added graphene oxide (oxygen, hydrogen and graphene) and sprayed the results on blond hair. After a short drying time, they had a dark hair dye that withstood 30 rinses without fading. These are just early days, so don’t expect it on the shelf in the immediate future.
-The issue of plastic pollution in the oceans is a constant one without a solution on the horizon, but it may actually be becoming worse in a way we can barely see. The largest animals on Earth feed on the smallest, plankton and krill. Riding that fuzzy gap between being the smallest and in with the plankton and chowing down on their compatriots are krill. These creatures are very similar in appearance to shrimp. They are also known for their digestive system’s ability to handle a wide variety of food, which if you’re not a real observant little krill could include plastics. Curious scientists feed krill microplastic beads and observed that while they weren’t digested, the resultant nanoplastic particles were significantly smaller and passed through the krill or were absorbed into their bodies. So when a whale or whale shark sifts the krill out of the ocean to eat, they are now inadvertently gaining a dose of plastic. Also the bits passed through the krill are now the right size for even smaller creatures to eat, which means the plastic can be passed along again. It’s good to keep in mind that the images of ducks tangled in can holders and the central Pacific garbage spiral are images of the problem we can see, but there maybe other elements that prove the problems we face are deeper still.
February 2018
In the past we’ve talked about radioactive reindeer in Norway and radioactive boars in Japan, but now there are additional concerns and they only happened last year. In September and October radioactivity detectors in Europe were triggered by an man made isotope called ruthenium-106 all the way from Norway and the Ukraine through Switzerland and Greece. The amount of the material dispersed was not a danger, but the French Institute of Radioprotection and Nuclear Security has pointed a finger at the Mayak facility in Russia. The facility was supposed to be making a radioactive element for an experiment at the Gran Sasso National Laboratory in Italy but instead it may have released a cloud of radioactivity. Russia denies the incident occurred, but several computer models put Mayak at the center of the dispersal pattern. Interestingly enough Mayak is also the scene of Kyshtym Disaster where poor management of liquid radioactive waste allowed the heat from the radiation to boil off the water leaving a dangerous dust. The result was volatile because it contained significant quantities of ammonium-nitrate (you’ll recognize that from the Oklahoma City bombing) which not only was an explosion waiting to happen but also radioactive, essentially creating an unplanned dirty bomb. 270,000 people were exposed to the resulting radioactive cloud and 8,000 died. The Russian press subsequently buried all of this and despite the damage Mayak continued to be used for nuclear work, including dealing with spent fuel rods. The project Mayak was supposed to be involved in was the production of a cerium-144 capsule, which was to be used in a sterile neutrino detection experiment. When the Mayak facility reported they were not able to produce the required capsule, no mention of a discharge or incident came to light. Shortly after that the experiment was cancelled. Mayak has a more than 60-year history of nuclear issues, so the health agencies of Europe have legitimate concerns.
JANUARY 2018
The Carrington Event or It’s the End of the World and I feel Fine, Look at the Pretty Lights … From September 1st through the 2nd in 1859 the world was treated to fantastic aurora’s that lit up the skies everywhere. Telegraph systems went down. In fact some telegraph operators were able to disconnect the power from their systems and still send messages. Others watched in disbelief as the paper in their systems actually caught fire. Two astronomers, Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson were observing the sun. Both were intrigued by the sudden proliferation of sunspots in the days leading up to the event and then stunned by the sudden burst of light from a massive solar flare. Each reported the flare but Carrington was the one that linked it to the geomagnetic storm the occurred on Earth and provided the spectacular effects. But what Carrington was not aware of was the coronal mass ejection that occurred during the flare. The CME transited from the Sun to the Earth in 17.6 hours and set off the geomagnetic storm. It is believed that a prior ejection, the one that set off the first round of auroras, actually created a path through the plasma of the solar wind. This allowed the second CME to maintain its strength and momentum until it collided with Earth. At this point in time most folks would have been stunned by the auroras and perhaps frightened by sparks that flew from the telegraph pylons. They however did not have a world interconnected and dependent on technology like we do. Similar geomagnetic storms have
occurred like one in 1989 which caused power issues in Quebec. Radio disruption in 1921 and 1960 provides evidence of other potential storms. What was referred to as a ‘Carrington Class’ flare and CME combination occurred in 2012 but fortunately, the Earth was not in the path of the CME. Scientists know that the Sun follows a cycle of activity that typically lasts about 20 years. They also believe that Carrington Class events occur every several hundred years. Are we due for another one and what might
happen? Right now it’s very possible that a strong CME and the resulting geomagnetic storm could cause significant damage. Researchers estimate that a Carrington Class event could cost the US from .6 to 2.6 trillion dollars in damages. The damage is of course only the beginning. There are hundreds of lives currently tied to the ability of hospitals to provide them care. Others who depend on electricity for heat. Industries that depend on electricity for production. Electricity would be the first thing that we would lose. Our connectivity would be next. The internet is very redundant, but it has also become in some ways very necessary. All of the infrastructure we have based upon it, could rapidly collapse. The Sun is relatively stable compared to many other stars. On the other hand it also has the means to rapidly bring down our civilization. We will only ever have 8 minutes warning…
November 2017
Scientists did the math and still couldn’t explain where a great deal of the mass of the universe had gone and now they think they’ve found it. By using the cosmic background radiation to confirm estimates of the hydrogen and helium created in the instant of the big bang and other observations, cosmologists feel that our universe is composed of dark energy—70%, dark matter—23% and baryonic matter—4.6%. Of the ordinary, or baryonic matter, our observable universe of stars and galaxies only a tenth of the expected mass. Scientists now believe that the galaxies are embedded in a network of strands of dark matter and what’s been missing could be following those strands. Astronomers have confirmed that warm-hot Intergalactic matter or WHIM exists in strands between galaxies as tenuous clouds of ionized matter. With observations of in the ultraviolet spectrum, using instruments like the Hubble telescope, Astronomers have found evidence that supports WHIM existing in enough quantity to account for half to 70% of the missing mass. Additional observations using the cosmic background radiation in conjunction with something known as the Sunyaev-Zel’dovich effect, when photons emitted by the big bang interact with electrons in the WHIM their wavelength shortens as they gain energy. While this is difficult to detect, it does confirm that WHIM is responsible for a portion of the missing mass. The SZ effect can only confirm 30% of the missing baryonic mass, but shows that the WHIM fields are about six times denser than the universal average. Some scientists have expressed concerns about the SZ study and these may explain the difference between their results and the UV observations. The SZ survey tends to expect that the WHIM fields will align between galaxies rather than have a more standard 3D distribution, so there may be more WHIM out there than measured. It will take a powerful x-ray telescope to make a more final determination, but for now the mysterious WHIMs have provided an answer to a sought after question.
September 2017
The Square-Cube Law or Why Godzilla Isn’t
There are lots of reasons why creatures are the size they are and why they aren’t larger or even ridiculously huge. Galileo pointed one of the simplest out a long time ago. If you take a square of any given size and make it twice as large, the area increases by the square of any increase – so two squared or four times larger than the original. So lets hop into 3D, if we increase the volume of a cube and make it three times as large it’s suddenly twenty-seven times larger in terms of volume than the original. The increase curve rises rapidly. So back to our cube, it’s suddenly twenty-seven times more massive than the original. Take an ant, which are known to be comparatively very strong for their size and scale it up to the size of a man and things go horribly awry. The very nature of the chitin and body parts of the ant are not designed to hold up to the strain of such an increase in mass, so our monster collapses under its own weight. So the only way you will end up with ants the size of those in the movie THEM, is to literally redesign the creature. There are plenty of other issues that arise, but the simplest is the bigger the creature, the greater amount of effort required to fight the force of gravity to remain upright. There are ways around that and whales and the large creatures of the ocean take advantage of them. Some archeologists believe that the Diplodocus was able to grow to its immense size due to the fact they spent a great deal of their times in swamps where the buoyancy of the water would set aside the stress on them due to their immense size. But on to our Kaiju of the moment, a certain Gohjira. At first, the initial locale of Godzilla seems to fit with what we’ve just mentioned. Godzilla comes from the sea, so therefore if it was neutrally buoyant, and then the insane weight of our kaiju might not immediately be a problem. If you imagine Godzilla merely wreaking terror in the local fishing boats and walking about on the continental shelf with just his snout appearing occasionally, this might work. But if you consider the design of Godzilla, this is a creature with a great deal of similarity to the T-Rex, on other words; it is made to walk upright. In every movie, Godzilla towers over the local buildings and is obviously several degrees larger than a T-Rex (whose physical attributes prove that you can have an upright creature of that size). The radiation that created Godzilla must have been pretty amazing in order to change its very nature to allow such a massive creature to remain upright and to also move freely. However, it should be pointed out that a number of Godzilla’s instances are rather bottom heavy with thick legs, so someone has definitely tried to balance the excess mass of Godzilla. But what if we consider one of Godzilla’s foes – Mechagodzilla. Could a bit of steel solve this problem? Sadly, unless we’re talking about some brand new version of carbon fiber steel, there just isn’t the tensile strength to create something that can move the way either Godzilla or Mechagodzilla move and remain in one piece. If we wanted to create a Godzilla building (why have you done that Japan, really?) there are certainly ways to accomplish that. Mass is just the tip of the iceberg. There are plenty of other things that limit a creature’s size, but mass and gravity are pretty obvious, so they remain the first obstacle to be overcome in order to allow creatures to scale upward.
Mermaiding for a Cause
Sometimes it’s not just enough to do what you love. Hannah Fraser (known as Hannah Mermaid), inspired by the film Splash, created her first tail at age 9. Now she prefers to use a Finis Monofin. A talented free diver and swimmer, Hannah discovered that donning the tail and playing the part wasn’t enough. While she is an active advocate for the activity of mermaiding, she also became involved in conservation and awareness efforts around the state of her favorite place, the ocean. In 2003 she began to make her pastime a career, promoting herself as a freelance mermaid. She’s done everything from underwater fashion photography to conservationist videos, as well as advertising for Finis. Hannah works with an promotes such organizations as Surfers for Cetaceans, Greenpeace and Blue Sphere in their efforts to stop pollution, over fishing and unsustainable fishing practices and the hunting of whales, sharks and other species. She also makes her own tails, which are complicated pieces that create a fluid motion underwater. All in all, the little girl who dreamed of being a mermaid found a way to not only become one but use it as a strong female role model to advocate the preservation and care of our oceans and their inhabitants.
AUGUST 2017
-What exactly was on those magnetic reels located in a Pittsburgh man’s home, the world may never now. After he passed away, an unidentified man’s friend discovered a pair of computers identified as property of Goddard Space Center and a collection of 325 magnetic reels of data. Being conscientious about the find, the friend then notified NASA who collected the magnetic reels. The computers were left at the residence. A number of the reels were labeled with the indication that they were used during some very interesting missions: Pioneer 8, Pioneer 9, Pioneer 10, Pioneer 11, Helios 1, Helios A, and Intelsat 4. While reels were often reused or erased, it is possible there might be some interesting data on there since not all of these missions have complete archives of the information acquired. However, NASA made the determination that it would be too costly to retrieve the information and there was some health concerns about the reels, which were extremely moldy. Ultimately, NASA decided to destroy the reels. While it may seem unusual that information like this was readily available, these may have been copies of copies, items that were sold in auction when NASA hit hard times or even, as inferred by one source, kept by a contractor who liked to hoard NASA memorabilia. What is ultimately missing is the answer—what was on those tapes? Something important, something irrelevant, something we already know? The answer is out there somewhere …
-Turkey bones could help solve the mystery of the missing Anasazi. This Pueblo building culture disappeared from the Four Corners area of the West leaving behind tantalizing clues of their lives. Their fate has never been determined (in fact there was an X-Files episode about them). Experts believe that due to a massive drought, the Anasazi left Chaco Canyon and migrated south to the area along the Rio Grande. The problem is finding proof because the native peoples of the area do not want their ancient burial grounds disturbed to collect DNA evidence. However, the Anasazi had domesticated turkeys, so scientists are now looking for fowl bones instead of human ones. Mitochondrial DNA of the Chaco Canyon turkeys is similar enough to the DNA of the Rio Grande birds that experts hope it will prove that the Anasazi brought the turkeys with them and they gradually replaced the native population, thus confirming that the Anasazi moved to the river area.
June 2017
-What if it’s a photonic brain and not a positronic brain? Scientists are now building neural networks with light. Typical computing is done with transistors, which inhibit or allow the passage of electricity and require current to continue running. Using light and interacting it with other beams of light is much more efficient since the energy input does not need to be continuous. MIT researchers have created an optical chip only millimeters in size that can represent a network of 16 neural connections, four layers with four links in each. The intensity of the light represents information and the interaction of the beams is used to seek solutions to problems providing an answer that is derived from the addition or subtraction of frequencies. In effect the interactions act as surrogate neurons. Right now this is all very much at the beginning stages and a test designed to have a traditional computer and an optical neural network discern vowel sounds in human speech found the light based system had only a 77% success rate compare to a greater than 90% success rate for the ordinary computer. Keep in mind that this is still only a single chip with 16 optical neurons, the computing power will definitely in crease as more chips are added to the network. Also, the chips are silicon based and cheaper to make than traditional computer components.
-So what would you do with the resultant AI? Well, the Portland Guinea Pig Rescue went looking for some help and a neural network created by scientist Janelle Shane gave them a hand. Sometimes the issue is quantity, quantity and cuteness. The Guinea Pig Rescue had a lot of pets that needed placement and they’d realized that cute names made them more likely to be adopted. So how do you come up with that many really cute names? Enter Janelle and her creation. First she gave the network 600+ guinea pig names to start with, instructions on how closely to follow the naming nomenclature and then let it fly. The resultant: Splanky, Spockers, Princess Pow, Stargoon, Popchop, and After Pie seem to indicate that the network is on the right track. Of course there were a few flops like Butty Brlomy. What’s interesting here is this is just an initial run. The network could also be fed the information about which of its names are more successful and then learn to create even cuter names
May 2017
-Iron is very important to our society. Just imagine where we’d be without it or it’s antecedent, steel. But it’s also important to your body, primarily because it helps to change sugar to energy for our cells as well as transporting oxygen. So, if your body has issues with iron, too little or too much, that’s a very serious problem. Also it’s hard to treat because the issue is usually a protein that is not there or working incorrectly, whereas medicine either blocks or alters said the ordinary proteins behavior. Enter Martin Burke a researcher who began with yeast cells created without the means for usual iron transport and then looked for molecules that could help the process occur. Right now hinokitiol is the number one contender having produced excellent results in the lab. Derived from the hinoki, native to Taiwan, the substance has produced surprising results. Three hinokitiol molecules fasten to an iron and the outside of the composite is easily absorbed into cells aiding the transport of iron. Essentially, the hinokitiol becomes a molecular prosthesis for the missing or damaged proteins. Burke believes that hinokitiol could be used to help diseases like anemia, cystic fibrosis and lupus.
-Sometimes it’s not what’s in the foreground, but rather in the background that makes people speculate. Many are familiar with Edvard Munch’s painting The Scream, primarily due to the central image of the open mouthed figure. But others are looking at the background, in particular the clouds. One theory goes that the reds and oranges that are prevalent were inspired by the sunsets resulting from the Krakatoa eruption. However, a new theory has come to light – an unusual weather phenomenon called Mother of Pearl Clouds could be what Munch was trying to portray. These stratospheric clouds, also known as Nacreous Clouds require a very unique set of circumstances: high humidity, extreme cold, very thin cloud layers and sunset or sunrise. The result is very striking and looks like smeared bands of color. So meteorologists believe that the rarity of the event and the uniqueness of the clouds would have made a lasting impression on the artist.
-Congratulations, artificial meat is arriving – but which government is going to regulate it? Memphis Meats produced what it is calling Clean Poultry, chicken and duck meat produced from cultured cells and hopes to have it on the shelf in 5 years. Another company, Perfect Day expects to have dairy products (made without the cow) out for consumption by the end of this year. The issue is that who is in charge of regulating these products is unclear. The FDA usually approves biologics and the USDA approves meat, eggs and poultry. Right now the process of deciding is still going on. In the past, marketing was usually done to align a new product with something already marked as safe. Perfect Day’s products are comparable to natural components that are already regulated, so they can make a case that their whole product should be safe because what it’s made of are already regulated. It’s merely a case of how the product is made, rather than the building blocks. The question does still remain – who puts the stamp of approval on the package.
April 2017
-MIT has created a device, which can pull water from low humidity air powered by the sun. The primary component is a metal-organic framework composed of zirconium and adipic acid. This framework can bind water vapor and then the solar energy forces it to a condenser and this and allows the collection of water over time. A single one kilogram unit can condense 3 quarts of water from air with 20-30%
humidity in a day’s time. One of the senior authors of the paper recently presented announcing the device, Omar Yaghi, states that he feels that there are other metal-organic frameworks that may be more efficient. So perhaps it is best to view this as a proof of concept, the condenser works and now it is up to future scientist to improve on its efficiency. (In consideration of this month’s book, The Parable of the Sower– Octavia Butler, and the character’s continual struggles to obtain water—this article jumped to the top of the list…)
-But if you are still looking for water and need to gain it through desalinization or even treat it for contaminants, MIT is once again working on solutions. Their Solar Vapor Generator is composed of a concentrator, which is a material often used to insulate solar water heaters that selectively absorbs visible light but does not radiate infrared. Below this is a copper sheet. Since the copper is a good conductor is reradiates the heat into the next element a piece of insulated foam. When the entire device is placed in water, the foam draws up the liquid which is then exposed to the radiated heat. However, the experimenters were still missing one key element and it came from an unexpected place. The generated heat was still escaping due to convection– even a little bit of breeze could steal away the device’s efficiency. One of the researcher’s daughters was participating in a science fair and building her own greenhouse using bubble wrap. Suddenly, bubble wrap appeared to be the answer to the problem!
Larger bubble wrap with clearer bubbles provided the missing link to make the Solar Vapor Generator work. In typical MIT fashion (tested the same way as the device mentioned above), researchers took their experiment onto the roof of their building and tested it out. Even in cool overcast weather, the generator was able to boil water. Since this technology is relatively easy to scale up, scientists hope that it can be used in sheets to treat water or even desalinate it. There are no moving pieces to fail and with a relatively low cost, these sheets are an interesting alternative to current methods.
March 2017
-Diabetes sufferers maybe in for a surprise and also might be able to leave behind jabbing their fingers for glucose monitoring. A new development in soft bioelectronics uses a patch, which detects levels of glucose on the sweat produced by the wearers body. The patch is disposable and also contains necessary medicine to control the glucose level of the wearer. Through a system of microneedles and nanoparticles the necessary drugs are imparted to the wearer. The internal sensors are designed to additional
monitor temperature, humidity and PH to adjust the treatment.
-What if there’s another reason to create humaniform androids and it’s one we’ve missed. A new study suggests that we should consider using these androids and their structures as frameworks over which we can grow tissue grafts. Since the androids can be designed to mimic our skeletal and muscular shapes, there are actually trellises that we can use to then create tissue that will be the right size and shape to be grafted onto human bodies. With a built in range of motion similar to our own, the android bodies can also test the grafts to ensure that they will perform as necessary before they are used on their human recipients.
-Two fragmentary skulls found in China may have ties to a discovery in Siberia and may represent a branch of humanity called the Denisovans. Originally discovered in the Denisova cave and represented only by a sliver of bone and a DNA sequence, the Denisovans are believed to have lived over 100,000 years ago. Using computer modeling, the Chinese archeologists pieced together evidence that seems to point toward a similarity between the two discoveries. The model also indicates a number of features, which are similar to those of Neandteral man– prominent brow ridges and similar inner ear construction. There are enough differences that they would be considers “cousins” of the Neandertals. DNA was unable to be extracted to confirm a Denisovan ID.
The Family Tree of Fairy Tales
How old is the fairy tale you just read? Researchers believe that some of them may be as old as 6,000 years. Much like tracing lineages through family trees, stories can be followed backwards to their original birth places. The problem is that not only can stories grow upwards, in a treelike analogy (which allows us to follow them downwards to their roots), they can also cross pollinate with other cultures and spread laterally like branches. Using a large compendium of Indo-European stories called the Aarne-Thompson-Uther Index, researchers began to pare down the similarities. Specifically, they focused on stories containing supernatural or magical elements, since these tended to be the most familiar. This limited the scope from over 2,000 stories to 275, which included tales from the Brothers Grimm and other popular stories. Finding similar stories in different languages allowed researchers to back track to the ancestor of both. The fairy tale of the Smith and the Devil (a Faustian type deal struck to be the best metal worker ever) can be traced all the way back to the Proto-Indo-European peoples, which could make it one of the oldest stories still in existence. Jamshid Tehrani lead the research and commented that tales that survived the longest contained a mixture of the strange, but weren’t to strange– citing the Beauty and the Beast as an example. Magical transformation wrapped around the idea of not judging other’s by their appearances. The fairy tales in a sense are extended versions of memes. When we speak of memes here we don’t mean Grumpy Cat with a smarmy comment below the image, instead we are looking at the transmittable elements of ideas. Successful fairy tales, which endure over time, do so for the same reason that successful memes do. In fact, it might be simpler to say that fairy tales are the carriers of memes. A great many of the stories fall in to the category of “don’t do the following” and are therefore considered cautionary tales. However, the ideas carried along with the story can also be important learning elements that need to be transmitted to the young. Since these stories in their early formats were primarily oral in tradition, the repetition, the rhyme, the fantastic elements are all embedding medium that allow the successful transmission of the important idea. So whatever your favorite story, there’s a history and a relevance you might have missed.
February 2017
-You too can show up for Science, the March for Science will be held on April 22 in Washington, D.C. and many other locations including Philadelphia, PA. Initially started by a tweet, which voiced concerns over the present administration’s stance on the importance of science and the freedom of scientific information, the idea of a March gained viral popularity. It’s important to note that these marches and demonstrations are happening around the globe. In fact there is an interactive map online to help you locate a march near you. Support has come in from all over and there are large organizations like the Earth Day Network and Sigma Xi who are providing guidance and volunteers. Others feel that the march is not the best idea and some of their concerns center around the fact that there are a number of potential themes dear to marchers. These viewpoints may detract from the whole because there are too many different voices vying for attention. Other recent demonstrations have received similar criticism. As the date draws near it will be interesting to see if some of the “Rock Stars” of the science world will be marching as well.
-Could our own bomb have given us clues about the formation of the Moon? Trinite, the green glass that was leftover at the Trinity test site where the first nuclear was exploded shows a dissipation of volatiles, such as water, in a manner very similar to that of lunar rocks. By studying the range of the dispersion, scientists will be able to apply the information to determine the rate at which the Moon lost it’s water. This may also shed more light on other planetary formation timelines.
-Your body could keep going at a cellular level even after you are dead. Scientists have found that some gene transcriptions, the writing of genetic information actually increases post mortem. In fact certain factors like immune responses and inflammation since they are bodily responses to damage could go on for as long as two days. Scientist’s describe their new understanding of this as if one were shutting a computer off instead of a light bulb. In this case there are ordered systems that react instead of instantaneous shut down. What gets really interesting is when we learn to interrupt the shut down ….
January 2017
-TPP is a new flame retardant that could stop your lithium battery from exploding into flame—you know the one in your phone, in your pocket… TPP can put a stop to the electrolyte that allows connectivity between the poles of the battery. Unfortunately, it also then cuts down on the conductivity and decreases the efficiency of the battery. Cleverly, developers have bundled the TPP in microscopic fibers, which will melt and then release the TPP as necessary. It’s like building a fire extinguisher right into your battery. Granted the battery will be dead, but your pants won’t be in fire.
-The Princess Elisabeth research base in Antarctica is sitting empty because the coalition between the government and the private foundation that funded it can’t reach an agreement. Science brought to a standstill in the South Polar Summer is frustrating researchers who know that they are missing out on data. Adventurer and celebrity Alain Hubert brought the cash to the table from his International Polar Foundation and the Belgian government brought the experts. Built in 2007, was 99.9% donated to the Belgian government who would organize and fund the expeditions. The IPF would run the base. After several years of operation the Belgian government began to allege mismanagement, broken agreements and soaring costs. In 2015 Hubert was removed from the board of directors. In 2016 a battle in court found Hubert once again gaining access to the base. His wife, Nighat Amin was able to travel to the station and reported that it was not being properly maintained. The Belgian government refuses to give the IPF the codes to the satellite uplink and has left the base with minimal communication and no internet access. As the two sides continue to struggle for control, scientists can only express unhappiness at the wasted opportunity.
DRONE BUYERS GUIDE
Some things to consider before making your purchase:
What kind of control does my drone have? If it has one in the box, great – if not then it will probably need to be run by either your tablet or your phone. You’ll want to confirm that the app for the drone will run on your device. In many cases the location to acquire the app is one the outside of the box and sometimes there’s even a QR Code so that you can go directly to the spot. If you discover that there is an
issue, make sure that your device is up to date, there is a new Android release out right now that might cause an issue if you’re not up to speed.
Watch some video and don’t just watch the video from the manufacturer. With the advent of YOUtube, there are plenty of people who enjoy making how to videos and they will give you an honest opinion of the product in most cases. They will probably also tell you how they got around any issues they had or even suggest simple modifications you can consider once you are comfortable with your purchase.
What does my drone do for me? The big consideration here is what kind of software is assisting you in the flight of your drone? Does your drone have some sort of stabilization? Does is have a land and take off mode? If there’s not something there helping you, then you will be the one keeping things level and safe. That might be a little daunting for a beginner. What kind of signal connects my drone to the controller? Bluetooth, WiFi? And more importantly, what happens when my drone loses connection with the controller? Does my drone have a camera and how do I store the video and images? Finally, ask yourself what do you want your drone to do for you? Do you need the high-end model or is something simpler better?
What’s the flight time like on my drone? What are the charging solutions for it? Something as simple as a portable phone re-charger can make your life easier if you are out in the field and a car adapter with a wall socket input can also be useful.
SCIENCY STUFF
-Sometimes all it takes is a movie to inspire you. Nanotechnologist Jayan Thomas was prompted by Marty McFly’s self-lacing Nikes to come up with something a little more electric—filaments that capture solar energy. The Filaments can be woven into various materials and power wearable technology in more. Jayan pointed out that troops in desert locations such as Iraq and Afghanistan would have the benefit of battery power without having to have them shipped to them. The power of the concept here is its flexibility, that’s only one use. These
fibers could be imbedded in the surface of a vehicle to help charge its battery as well. Your jacket could run your phone and or laptop. Jayan is no slouch either when it comes to research, he’s already received a grant to develop semi-transparent solar cells to be applied to windows allowing illumination as well as power generation.
-Your phone could be ratting you out. In most cases, we spend some time trying to get the finger prints off of the screen and don’t consider what else it might have caught. Researchers now believe that they can capture from phones information about their owners health, use of hygiene products, diet and even where they might have visited. Other than the big brother treatment, such information would become very interesting to law enforcement individuals who recover a phone from either the victim or perpetrator of a crime. Medications like eye drops, antidepressants and anti-inflammatories left traces on the phones. Sunscreen was a big culprit and often lasted the longest. Obviously these are generalities but once you start adding more than one incidence, you actually begin to generate a profile. This can then help to identify the sex of the phone’s owner or user, possible health concerns and perhaps even their location based on certain pollens that may adhere to the screen. One of the researchers even suggested the possibility of creating a database similar to a fingerprint file so that certain results could be paired up with indicators to help detectives and others.
SCIENCY STUFF
-Small dark glassy spheres may hold the answer to a strange event that occurred after the death of the dinosaurs and a as recently as 56 million years ago. The Paleocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum, often referred to as the PETM was a time when an influx of carbon in the atmosphere caused a temperature rise of 5-8 degrees celsius. Fossil evidence indicates that the event caused massive wildlife migrations. Reviewing sediments from the coast of New Jersey, scientists found the spheres when they were looking for fossils to aid them in dating the material. Since the spheres are so dark, the researchers believe they were missed in previous experiments since they would blend in to dark background of the trays used to sort the sediment. The chemical nature of the spheres excludes volcanic activity as a source and it is believed that they are microtektites of the kind caused by comets or asteroids impacting the Earth. In the same samples excess amounts of charcoal and charred plant matter were found indicating the type of heat attributable to an impact. This impact unlike the prior one 10 million years earlier (the dino-killer) is apparently one puzzle piece in a group of consequences which caused the PETM. There was also oceanic vulcanism which released organic carbon from rocks. The continuing rise of temperature may have also freed seafloor methane or caused melting of the permafrost, which also would have released methane cycling the climate into a run-away greenhouse effect. While charcoal has been found in other areas to back up the burning, additional searches for the microtektites are proving difficult. The scientists are also unsure if the impact would have global or merely local effects since they are only beginning their investigation into the nature of the impactor.
Sciency Stuff
(News from the High Frontier is focused on the nearest star so sciency stuff will handle the space news closer to home this time)
-Some times they come back. STEREO-B has finally been reached after a long silence. Mute since 2014, NASA, with the help of the International Deep Space Network, was able to restore contact with the satellite. STEREO-B was created to keep an eye on the Sun monitoring flares and coronal mass ejections. After making their connection, NASA scientists learned as much as they could about the satellite’s state and then powered it down to save its batteries. They will occasionally re-establish contact to evaluate the state of the satellite and its potential use.
-Here’s a really interesting twist on recycling and it’s actually something that’s been written about in science fiction—NASA is considering using spent fuel tanks to create habitats. If we ride them all the way up there, we might as well put them to use. A Centaur upper stage tank has 54 cubic meters of interior space. To give you something to compare that to consider the BEAM module of the International Space Station which has a volume of 16 cubic meters. The upper stage tanks actually have their own attitude control, propulsion and even a guidance system. Their interiors consist of tanks that are designed to take up to 6-7 gees of acceleration. Skylab was actually designed off of a Saturn V rocket tank. It could be might begin our experiments by linking tanks to the ISS and adapting them to produce even more space.
Sciency Stuff
July 2016
-Biohybrids are machines that incorporate biological and mechanical elements and they are popping up in the news recently. Scientists at Case Western Reserve University have created a biohybrid that crawls like a turtle on the beach using elements from a sea slug. The mechanical elements are created using a 3D printer and the muscles from the mouth of a sea slug provide the motive part. An electrical field activates the muscle tissue. A similar biohybrid was recently constructed using stingray tissue. In this case the creature uses no electronic elements to provide motion. The electronic parts are used to allow the scientists to remotely control the stingray. The robot is guided and powered by light sensitive cells taken from a rat’s heart. Returning to the seaslug biohybrid, the CWRU team is also working on developing a skin for their creation using the collagen of the sea slug. The goal of their effort is to eventually develop a purely organic machine. In the mean time, the biohybrids can used for a number of different purposes such as exploring the ocean floor and looking for lost or damaged ships. Also if they are able to develop organic robots, when their tasks are completed they could simply be left to decompose.
-In another biological development, researchers at Tufts University have developed an unusual way of monitoring healing – with wireless microcircuitry embedded in the actual sutures holding the wounds closed. The threads are filled with nanoscale sensors, electronics and wireless elements. A cell phone or a computer can read the transmitted information. While the monitoring of healing is a very commendable usage for the technology, its successful use will also pave the way for more effective wearable technology. In this case the wireless and monitoring elements would literally be built directly into the clothes.
-Pokemon Go™ has been doing a lot of unexpected things – to us. Due to the nature of the game, it’s encouraged exercise, especially to the truly devoted. In order to hatch one egg, a player may walk as many as one or more miles. It’s also more effective to visit a number of pokestop locations. The game also fosters cooperation amongst its player as well as bringing families together as parents teach their children and travel with them to the various locations in order to catch the pokemon. Pokestop locations were chosen with safety in mind and are often based around historical monuments, post offices and other public places using the Google Maps template. It’s also possible for players to spend an excessive amount of time on the game ignoring their responsibilities, travel unto private property and become obsessively attached to the game. This is really the tip of the iceberg considering the possibility of augmented reality games. We looked at Google glass and decided it wasn’t something that we really wanted. However, Pokemon Go™ demonstrates that we are looking for some aspects the glasses were capable of if it is packaged in a device we are familiar with. So it’s a very good question what’s next and will it succeed like Pokemon Go™?
Sciency Stuff
June 2016
-Paleontologists recently took a bite from history and discovered something surprising about the stegasaurus. Most of us are familiar with the crest backed dinosaur with the spiky tail which ate plants. We might not be familiar with the fact that its teeth have puzzled scientists for years. They are just too small and their surface area is just not big enough to effectively cut and chew up the amount of vegetation necessary to keep a large animal like a stegasaur fed. It turns out that we’ve been looking at the wrong piece of evidence, in fact we should have looked harder at the jaw. 3D scans and modeling of stegasaur jaws now prove that the dinosaur’s mouth was similar to that of a sheep and the jaws were capable of quite a bit of force allowing the mouth to cut through vegetation.
-Using stem cells, scientists were able to grow pituitary cells and tissue that could be used as replacements in humans that suffer from failing or disabled pituitary glands. The gland is a sort of master control for the hormone production of the body and it failure can have lasting and catastrophic effects on the victim’s body, especially children. Stimulating the stem cells to grow and take on the characteristics of pituitary cells, scientists then inserted the cells into lab rats whose glands were removed and were able to document improvements based on the proper regulation of hormones by the implanted tissue. Current sufferers from pituitary diseases and failure have to take injections to maintain their health as long as they live. This new treatment would offer them freedom from this expense. Pluripotent stem cells, which are readily available to the scientists, are exposed to stimuli similar to an embryonic environment to encourage maturation in to pituitary cells.
SCIENCY STUFF
May 2016
-How do you print delicate 3D objects in midair? Use a frickin’ laser, well something like that. Laser Assisted Direct Ink Writing is the new process allowing for the production of delicate hair thin structures in a single step. The ink is composed of silver nanoparticles, applied with a nozzle that moves in three dimensions and then activated by the precise heat of the laser to result in solidification. This new technique allows conductive wires to be printed in curved structures without the addition of support material that must be removed before use. This process will allow not only structures for delicate biomedical implants but also the production of other circuitry, which can then be encased in plastic.
-In other delicate but strong news, Scientists working to discover the structure of spider silk, which allows it to maintain tension will use their research to develop a “liquid wire”. What appears simply a single thread laid out by the spider has surprising complexity. The glue that coats the central threads of a spider’s capture spiral also reacts to collect loose thread spooling it inside its droplets. So the glue itself is taking up any slack in the threads of the web. Researchers then went on to develop a material, which compresses like a liquid but is expresses solid characteristics when extended. The trick here is to balance the surface tension of the drops and the elasticity of the filaments. Since we know understand the process, the threads can now be created from a number of different materials and may even include nanosize structures like micromotors.
SCIENCY STUFF
April 2016
All it took was one bite from a radioactive spider and we got our favorite webslinger superhero in comics, but what happens when we have real radioactive wildlife? In areas like Fukushima, Japan and Chernobyl the human presence is kept away but
nature is already hard at work rebuilding and wildlife can flourish. Fukushima is experiencing a problem with a sudden rise in the wild boar population who are contaminated by eating irradiated plants. Since the humans are not holding the population in check, in the three years since the meltdown of the Daiichi plant, boar population has increased from 3000 to 13,000. Not do the locals have problems with the boars outside of the quarantined area, but they also have the issue of dealing with the radioactive carcasses of any that they kill. Boars have done nearly a million dollars worth of damage to the surrounding farms. Special incinerating facilities were created to control the spread of radioactive materials but these can only deal with three boars a day and became rapidly overwhelmed. Similarly, in Norway radioactive reindeer are mixed among the herds that the Sami People keep due to the Chernobyl disaster. Even though the Chernobyl meltdown happened 30 years ago, some reindeer are still testing higher than the EU limit for human consumption. The reindeer forage on fungus and lichen, both of which typically absorbed large amounts of radioactivity from the accident. Since the Sami people raise and herd the reindeer as a chief staple in their diet, the limits placed by the EU are done so that continued consumption over time will not cause harmful exposure. Spikes in the level of radioactivity occur and have been tied to periods where the weather has favored exceptional crops of wild
mushrooms. The radiation levels continue to fall but they also still effect the life of a people who maintained their way of life for centuries in a simpler wilderness. One lesson that’s obvious in this case is that the wildlife that was exposed doesn’t have to stay in the locale. Migratory species can move from the area or for that matter through the area without concern about the
exclusion and quarantine zones and transplant or acquire contamination.
SCIENCY STUFF
March 2016
-Burn baby burn—NASA plans on setting one of its spacecraft on fire to see just how bad things can really get and investigate methods of controlling the blaze. The Saffire-1 or Space Fire Experiment—1, will use the next Cygnus supply vehicle. The craft will be about 4 hours from the International Space Station and in a lower orbit when the experiment begins. The keywords here are that NASA wants to investigate a ‘large scale fire in space’. Smaller burns were already used in experiments but the scientists are looking for data from something that would approximate a disaster to either a spacecraft or the ISS itself. Various sensors will autonomously collect the necessary information and also hopes to de-orbit the vehicle where it can be further examined on the ground. The fire will be started by the remote ignition of a length of cotton-fiberglass and is expected to last about 15-20 minutes.
-The remains of the Fukushima Daiichi reactor are apparently killing off the robots sent in to help with clean up of the radioactivity since the 2011 meltdown. Originally designed to search out and collect the remains of melted fuel rods, the robots are succumbing to exceptionally intense radiation. Concern continues to grow as radioactive leaks from the power plant seep into the groundwater and make their way to the Pacific Ocean. Tepco, or the Tokyo Electric Power Company, has met limited success in controlling the leakage and moving the cleanup forward. So far they have removed 1535 fuel rods and assemblies from Reactor 4. They were able to accomplish this due to lower amounts of radioactivity, which allowed for human intervention. Reactor 3, where the robots were working is another story. Here there are 566 rods that require removal and since the rods melted through their containment, no one is certain exactly where they are in the reactor. It took two years to build the robots and they were specifically designed to deal with the structures in the reactors. However, they quickly became inactive when approaching the reactors because their wiring was melted. It is uncertain if Tepco can procure robots that can survive in this environment. Tepco initially said that it could take as much as 30-40 years to complete the cleanup.
SCIENCY STUFF
November 2015
-By 2030 you could be riding in a driverless cab (just like Total Recall!) and you could be paying less for your fare as well as being environmentally conscious. Berkely Labs recently did a study that indicates that electric self-guided vehicles could replace our current system yielding beneficial results. Part of this is sending the right size vehicle for the fare. So unless you’re planning on hiring a stretch limo, if you are traveling by yourself a smart car might show up for your trip. On the flipside taking your family to the airport would likely require a sedan. The economic point of the taxi also takes into consideration the amount of use in terms of distance traveled. The electric vehicles really don’t save until they surpass the average usage of a typical family car. At around 40k miles in a year, they are much more economically efficient than their gas counterparts. Of course by being electric they also cut into the carbon footprint.
-Instead of having many six-legged visitors to your picnic there really could be only one. Ants may react as a super-organism instead of individuals. Scientists are experimenting with colonies and their reactions. When they remove a scout ant, the entire colony tends to act as if they were poked. In order to provoke a more extreme reaction, workers were taken from the center of a colony. In this case the response was the scattering of the entire colony. Scientists are comparing this to neurologic reactions in an organism. So when you slap a scout ant on its way across your picnic table, the rest of the colony knows there’s trouble ahead.
-Elizabeth Freedman Fowler, an adjunct professor at Montana State University uncovered,Probrachylophosaurus bergei, what looks like the missing link in the development of duckbilled dinosaurs. Her dinosaur has the beginnings of an elongated bill but lacks the full crest of later evolutions.
SCIENCY STUFF
October 2015
-Sometimes technology catches us by surprise and it can be even more surprising when it’s suddenly in the hands of the public. The military keeps looking for a better answer to the standard gun. It could be that an electronics enthusiast nicknamed “xtamared” may have beat them to the punch. Recently, put up on Youtube, xtamared demonstrates the use of a working 3D printed hand-held railgun. For those unfamiliar with the concept, the railgun is a weapon that electromagnetically accelerates the projectile along rails instead of using the controlled explosion of gunpowder. This is similar to the maglev trains, which ride above the rails themselves accelerated by a generated electromagnetic field. xtamared’s gun can fire bullets up to 560MPH and in the case of the carbon projectiles they actually vaporized. The military has been working on the idea for some time but on a large scale for use on ships. xtamared’s gun is portable, sort of and that’s the deal breaker here. The gun is big because it’s carrying six capacitors to power it. It also has a very definite homemade look to it. Essentially, it looks like a tossed together version of a BFG from a video game. It’s not perfect, but it’s a proof of concept that works. Now this gun just didn’t come out of nowhere since xtamared said that he looked at other rail gun projects and spent a year and a half on the research and build. The thing is xtamared hasn’t hidden his creation. Instead he’s put it out there where anyone can see. Now that people know they can make one and infer the how to from the information, there’s going to be a run on people working on builds for these new weapons. It is a good question exactly what the response might be to this invention. How will the government want to regulate the technology? It’s not possible to put the genie back in the bottle and it will be interesting to see what happens next.
SCIENCY STUFF
September 2015
Every day 3D Printing is finding new ways to improve and save our lives. The latest development, however, is quite a bit different than most. At the Salamanca University Hospital surgeons replaced one side and part of the other of a 54 year old man’s rib cage with a 3D printed replica made of titanium. The design creates caps that fit over the ends of the remaining rib portions that attach directly over the center piece for the short side of the replica. The longer side has thinner arches that take the place of four ribs. Only twelve days after the surgery the patient was released and recovering well.
The Volkswagon Bus is on the way back and this time it will be electric. The designers are saying that it will likely look very similar to the Westphalia that stopped being manufactured in 2003. Volkswagon currently manufactures two campers now the Microbus and the Bulli. The company also plans to invest 10 million dollars in electric charging infrastructure. Greenland recently gave up one of its secrets to scientists using ground penetrating radar while doing research on melting ice due to global warming. There is a canyon that rivals the Grand Canyon in depth and is two times as long. We’ve missed it before because it is completely buried under and filled by the ice sheet. Researchers discovered the canyon because they were seeing outflow from the end of the canyon from water melted due to the pressure of the ice. Speaking of surprise geologic findings, scientists in Jamtland Sweden have found the first conclusive evidence of a double simultaneous impact from asteroid fragments. A crater 7.5 kilometers was discovered 16 kilometers from another one 700 meters wide. These are believed to be the result of the a collision in the asteroid belt 470 million years ago followed by an impact 458 million years ago. At that point Jamtland was actually underwater so the impacts boiled away the water and then took the material from the bottom of the ocean throwing it all around. The similarities of the scattered sediment prove the time factor. Scientists have discovered a way of improving solar energy by collecting the hot (or high energetic) electrons more efficiently using gold nanoparticles. Not only does this layering of gold, water and aluminum separates the low energy electrons from the hot electrons increasing the energy efficiency and also separating the oxygen from the hydrogen in the water—so that’s three pluses using solar energy.
August 2015
SCIENCY PARTS OF THE MARTIAN BY ANDY WEIR
The RTG, also known as the Radioisotope Thermoelectric Generator converts the heat from the decay of its internal nuclear stockpile into electricity. Despite the danger, the system has no moving parts and therefore does not suffer breakdowns due to motion and friction. The major danger is the lost of containment. RTGs were used in unmanned Soviet lighthouses as well as they more typical applications in satellites and space probes. Although they were first developed in the 50s, the first RTG powered craft was the Navy’s Transit 4A launched in 1961. New Horizons carries an RTG known as a SNAP or Systems for Nuclear Auxiliary Power. Viking,
Voyager, Galileo and Cassini are just a few of the other missions that contain RTGs. Tiny plutonium RTGs were at one time used to power pacemakers. There is a growing concern about the available amounts of plutonium 238 for use creating new RTGs. In the past weapons development created enough material but with nuclear bans we are no longer actively producing the material needed for the cells. Scientists believe there is enough Pu238 available to construct three more Multi Use RTGs such as the one aboard New Horizon. Also there are worries about RTGs that are unaccounted for in the Soviet Union where lighthouse locations have been forgotten or lost. These RTGs were initially designed to have a ten-year lifespan and are all currently past this date. However, their interior fuels still give off significant radiation that causes danger as well as environmental
issues.
Pure hydrazine was first created by Lobry de Bruyn, a Dutch chemist in 1895. Since then it has been used for rocket fuel, a
foaming agent when creating polymer foams, the production of air bags and in steam cycles in power plants for control corrosion caused by dissolved oxygen. F16 jets use hydrazine to run the planes’
emergency power unit. The auxiliary power units of the Space Shuttle also ran on hydrazine. An Italian manufacturer is suggesting that the replacement of hydrogen with hydrazine could create fuel cells with greater efficiency. Finally, hydrazine is even used as gun propellant that is known for its stability in terms of its pressure profile. Composed primarily of hydrogen and nitrogen, hydrazine is colorless and very flammable. There is a long list of bad things that occur to humans who are exposed to the compound including damage to the liver, spleen, lungs and central nervous system.
SCIENCY STUFF
July 2015
-The next wireless frontier might be the one left behind by your old TV. Rice University was able to transmit wireless data via a TV broadcast. UHF, which typically covers the band from 400-700 megahertz is the next hot property. With more and more television viewing being done through cable, satellite and other services, the areas that were previously reserved for broadcast TV may open up to wireless and this is a very good thing. There a number of positive differences between regular wireless and signals transmitted on the UHF band. UHF will penetrate walls and tree and also travel for miles. Researchers have developed an active system called WATCH the looks at nearby television receivers and can alter the range of the wireless transmission in UHF if it might interfere with television reception. As the use of the UHF spectrum decreases, the WATCH system can be added to new devices and smart TVs to allow for more efficient use of the available bandwidth,
-In 1964 two scientists George Zweig and Murray Gell-Mann postulated the existence of a pentaquark, a particle made from five quarks. Most particles we are familiar with like neutrons and protons are composed of three quarks and unstable particles which are part of cosmic rays have four quarks. Gell-Mann and Zweig’s math suggested that there may be pentaquarks and it’s taken determination and the Large Hadron Collider to prove their existence. Information derived from a number of collisions shows a statistical marker in their graph that would be indicative of a pentaquark. So far scientists have be able to identify two distinct pentaquarks and believe they will uncover more given time. It could even be that these mysterious particle which are so difficult to detect could shed light on the exact nature of things like dark matter and dark energy.
-It’s pretty amazing any more what you can do with your smart phone and because it is such a flexible device, people keep finding new adaptations. At the University of Huston, researchers have created a cheap but effective lens that can convert the camera on your cell phone into magnifying lens. The add on lens which can be attached directly to the phone’s camera lens increases the magnification of the view by 120 times essentially creating a portable microscope you can carry in your pocket. This can be invaluable for field technicians or isolated researchers who can’t carry about large equipment. Best of all is the cost- these lenses only can be made for only three cents a piece. The physical nature of the lens, similar to a contact, allows for easy adhesion and removal.