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Wednesday, June 21, 2017
10 Amazing Science Discoveries that you may have Missed This Year! vol 6 rel 4
We are all familiar with the phrase, "She Blinded Me with Science". Well, we thought just in case you were blinded by Science - we would assist in preventing you from keeping your "Eyes Wide Shut" by revisiting the 10 most amazing scientific discoveries that many of you may have missed...
1) New Device Pulls Water Out of Thin Air!
Researchers at MIT and University of California, Berkeley figured out how to pull water out of thin air. Scientists developed a device that pulls water out of the air in weather conditions where there's as low as 20% humidity. It's a solar-powered device that uses a metal-organic framework made of zirconium and fumarate to suck water vapor out of the air. The prototype was able to pull three quarts of water in 12 hours while sitting in an area that had 20% to 30% humidity. The solar-powered harvester, reported in the journal Science, was constructed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology using a special material — a metal-organic framework, or MOF — produced at the University of California, Berkeley. “This is a major breakthrough in the long-standing challenge of harvesting water from the air at low humidity,” said Omar Yaghi, one of two senior authors of the paper, who holds the James and Neeltje Tretter chair in chemistry at UC Berkeley and is a faculty scientist at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. “There is no other way to do that right now, except by using extra energy. Your electric dehumidifier at home ‘produces’ very expensive water.” The prototype, under conditions of 20-30 percent humidity, was able to pull 2.8 liters (3 quarts) of water from the air over a 12-hour period, using one kilogram (2.2 pounds) of MOF. Rooftop tests at MIT confirmed that the device works in real-world conditions.
2) BRING OUT YOUR DEAD - Road Kill May Hold the Key to Life
The team of chemists and microbiologists are on the lookout for roadkill. Their macabre task is swabbing dead animals they find by the side of the road to get hold of their microbiomes – the communities of microorganisms that inhabit these mammals. The researchers are hoping to uncover new molecules, perhaps even potential drug candidates, produced by bacteria isolated from these roadkill and they’ve already had some success. ‘Conceptually the idea was launched in terms of microbiomes having this amazing potential, harbouring so many different microorganisms – many of which are producing natural products that could influence health and wellbeing,’ explains Cichewicz. With several research groups already looking at human microbiomes, the team decided that other mammalian systems had been overlooked. Following the roadside testing, a newly developed discovery pipeline helped identify molecules of interest. A single animal could provide multiple samples, each of which could lead to hundreds of bacterial isolates and compounds. Swabs taken from armadillos, deer, opossums, racoons, skunks and squirrels eventually led to the isolation of almost 4000 different bacteria. To narrow the search, the team used a mixture of chemical techniques, including laser ablation electrospray ionisation mass spectrometry, bioassay testing and genomic analysis to target biologically active metabolites. ‘One of the beauties of the study is that now we’ve got multiple approaches to the discovery process,’ explains Stevenson. ‘If it’s direct chemistry on a colony, or compounds detected from isolated organisms, we know where we’re likely to find a hit.’ Demonstrating the potential of the process, a selection of cyclic lipodepsipeptides produced by two bacterial isolates that the team obtained from an opossum’s ear, were shown to limit biofilm formation by fungal cells associated with yeast infections.
Retreating glaciers over the last 14,000 years caused a population explosion among Adelie penguins – a trend that could continue as Antarctic ice shrinks further thanks to global warming. Scientists say the current environmental conditions are far more favorable to the species than colder conditions seen at the end of the last Ice Age. East Antarctica makes up around 30% of the global population of Adelie penguins. In total, there are estimated to be 1.14 million breeding pairs living there. Over the last 14,000 years, their numbers have increased 135-fold – largely due to the increase in ice-free land along the Antarctic coastline on which they form breeding colonies. As glaciers retreat further, it is suggested populations should continue to grow. However, this does not necessarily make them 'climate change winners', scientists have warned. adelie penguins Retreating glaciers allowed the population expansionWendyPyper The study by the University of Tasmania, Australia, looked at how Adelie penguin populations have changed over the last 22,000 years by studying mitochondrial DNA from multiple living colonies. They sequenced 56 individuals from six different colonies to find the past population dynamics, including abundance and response to changes in the environment. The findings, published in the journal BMC Evolutionary Biology, showed that long term population growth was coincident with the deglaciation of East Antarctica and subsequent Adelie penguin nesting grounds. In comparison, success over decadal and yearly time periods was due to changes in sea ice conditions.
4) Hole in ozone layer is closing and will be 'healed' by 2050, scientists say
The hole in the Antarctic ozone layer is beginning to close, scientists have discovered. Researchers from the University of Leeds and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in the US, have confirmed the first signs of an increase of ozone, which shields life on Earth from the sun’s harmful ultraviolet rays. New findings, published today in the journal Science, show that the average size of the ozone hole each September has shrunk by more than 1.7 million square miles since 2000 – about 18 times the area of the United Kingdom. We can now be confident that the things we’ve done have put the planet on a path to heal. Prof Susan Solomon, MIT They now predict that the hole above the South Pole will close permanently by 2050. The improvement is down to the success of the 1987 Montreal Protocol – which banned the use of chlorofluorocarbons in aerosols and fridges. “Observations and computer models agree; healing of the Antarctic ozone has begun,” said Dr Ryan Neely, a Lecturer in Observational Atmospheric Science at Leeds. The ozone hole was first discovered using ground-based data that began in the 1950s and in the mid-1980s, scientists from the British Antarctic survey noticed that the October total ozone was dropping.
5) Giant Panda No Longer on Endangered List
The Giant Panda is no longer an endangered species following decades of rescue efforts, conservationists have confirmed. The International Union for Conservation of Nature, which keeps track of threatened species across the world, said it was reclassifying the animal as only ‘vulnerable.’ Panda populations have grown as a result of Chinese government efforts to protect their habitat and re-establish forests. Over the past decade numbers have risen by nearly 17 per cent in the wild and there are now around 2,000 outside of captivity. Their geographic range has also increased by nearly 12 per cent since 2003, according to the most recent Giant Panda Survey conducted with the help of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) The WWF, whose symbol is the giant panda, described the results for the animals as "hugely encouraging". "It is a significant conservation success following years of enormous efforts on the part of the Chinese Government, communities and non-governmental organisations,” said Glyn Davies, executive director of global programmes at WWF-UK, said: "This is a cause for celebration and proves that a united approach can bring a substantial difference to threatened species, even at a time of great economic growth in China."
6) Hydrogen turned into metal in stunning act of alchemy that could revolutionize technology and spaceflight
For nearly 100 years, scientists have dreamed of turning the lightest of all the elements, hydrogen, into a metal. Now, in a stunning act of modern-day alchemy, scientists at Harvard University have finally succeeded in creating a tiny amount of what is the rarest, and possibly most valuable, material on the planet, they reported in the journal Science. Update: Physicists are lining up to discredit the discovery of hydrogen into a metal, experts say - they are probably seeing iron oxide For metallic hydrogen could theoretically revolutionise technology, enabling the creation of super-fast computers, high-speed levitating trains and ultra-efficient vehicles and dramatically improving almost anything involving electricity. And it could also allow humanity to explore outer space as never before. But the prospect of this bright future could be at risk if the scientists’ next step – to establish whether the metal is stable at normal pressures and temperatures – fails to go as hoped. Professor Isaac Silvera, who made the breakthrough with Dr Ranga Dias, said: “This is the holy grail of high-pressure physics. “It's the first-ever sample of metallic hydrogen on Earth, so when you're looking at it, you're looking at something that’s never existed before.” At the moment the tiny piece of metal can only be seen through two diamonds that were used to crush liquid hydrogen at a temperature far below freezing. The amount of pressure needed was immense – more than is found at the centre of the Earth. The sample has remained trapped in this astonishing grip, but sometime in the next few weeks, the researchers plan to carefully ease the pressure. According to one theory, metallic hydrogen will be stable at room temperature – a prediction that Professor Silvera said was “very important”. “That means if you take the pressure off, it will stay metallic, similar to the way diamonds form from graphite under intense heat and pressure, but remains a diamond when that pressure and heat is removed,” he said. If this is true, then its properties as a super-conductor could dramatically improve anything that uses electricity. “As much as 15 per cent of energy is lost to dissipation during transmission, so if you could make wires from this material and use them in the electrical grid, it could change that story,” the scientist said. And metallic hydrogen could also transform humanity’s efforts to explore our solar system by providing a form of rocket fuel nearly four times more powerful than the best available today. “It takes a tremendous amount of energy to make metallic hydrogen,” Professor Silvera said. “And if you convert it back to molecular hydrogen, all that energy is released, so it would make it the most powerful rocket propellant known to man, and could revolutionize rocketry. “That would easily allow you to explore the outer planets. “We would be able to put rockets into orbit with only one stage, versus two, and could send up larger payloads, so it could be very important.” However some scientists have theorized that metallic hydrogen will be unstable on its surface and so would gradually decay. Asked what he thought would happen, Professor Silvera said: “I don’t want to guess, I want to do the experiment.” But it could be a moment almost as exciting as the time the researchers first realized what they had created.
7) By converting heat to focused beams of light, a new solar device could create cheap and continuous power
Solar panels cover a growing number of rooftops, but even decades after they were first developed, the slabs of silicon remain bulky, expensive, and inefficient. Fundamental limitations prevent these conventional photovoltaics from absorbing more than a fraction of the energy in sunlight. But a team of MIT scientists has built a different sort of solar energy device that uses inventive engineering and advances in materials science to capture far more of the sun’s energy. The trick is to first turn sunlight into heat and then convert it back into light, but now focused within the spectrum that solar cells can use. While various researchers have been working for years on so-called solar thermophotovoltaics, the MIT device is the first one to absorb more energy than its photovoltaic cell alone, demonstrating that the approach could dramatically increase efficiency. Standard silicon solar cells mainly capture the visual light from violet to red. That and other factors mean that they can never turn more than around 32 percent of the energy in sunlight into electricity. The MIT device is still a crude prototype, operating at just 6.8 percent efficiency—but with various enhancements it could be roughly twice as efficient as conventional photovoltaics. The key step in creating the device was the development of something called an absorber-emitter. It essentially acts as a light funnel above the solar cells. The absorbing layer is built from solid black carbon nano-tubes that capture all the energy in sunlight and convert most of it into heat. As temperatures reach around 1,000 °C, the adjacent emitting layer radiates that energy back out as light, now mostly narrowed to bands that the photovoltaic cells can absorb. The emitter is made from a photonic crystal, a structure that can be designed at the nanoscale to control which wavelengths of light flow through it. Another critical advance was the addition of a highly specialized optical filter that transmits the tailored light while reflecting nearly all the unusable photons back. This “photon recycling” produces more heat, which generates more of the light that the solar cell can absorb, improving the efficiency of the system. Black carbon nanotubes sit on top of the absorber-emitter layer, collecting energy across the solar spectrum and converting it to heat.
The absorber-emitter layer is situated above an optical filter and photovoltaic cell, which is visible underneath. There are some downsides to the MIT team’s approach, including the relatively high cost of certain components. It also currently works only in a vacuum. But the economics should improve as efficiency levels climb, and the researchers now have a clear path to achieving that. “We can further tailor the components now that we’ve improved our understanding of what we need to get to higher efficiency,” says Evelyn Wang, an associate professor who helped lead the effort.
8) Scientists have solved fundamental problems that were holding back cure
Today, crucial puzzles have been solved and gene therapies are on the verge of curing devastating genetic disorders. Two gene therapies for inherited diseases—Strimvelis for a form of SCID and Glybera for a disorder that makes fat build up in the bloodstream—have won regulatory approval in Europe. In the United States, Spark Therapeutics could be the first to market; it has a treatment for a progressive form of blindness. Other gene therapies in development point to a cure for hemophilia and relief from an incapacitating skin disorder called epidermolysis bullosa.
Fixing rare diseases, impressive in its own right, could be just the start. Researchers are studying gene therapy in clinical trials for about 40 to 50 different diseases, says Maria-Grazia Roncarolo, a pediatrician and scientist at Stanford University who led early gene-therapy experiments in Italy that laid the foundation for Strimvelis. That’s up from just a few conditions 10 years ago. And in addition to treating disorders caused by malfunctions in single genes, researchers are looking to engineer these therapies for more common diseases, like Alzheimer’s, diabetes, heart failure, and cancer. Harvard geneticist George Church has said that someday, everyone may be able to take gene therapy to combat the effects of aging.
9) Brain implants to restore the freedom of movement in spinal cord injuries.
In recent years, lab animals and a few people have controlled computer cursors or robotic arms with their thoughts, thanks to a brain implant wired to machines. Now researchers are taking a significant next step toward reversing paralysis once and for all. They are wirelessly connecting the brain-reading technology directly to electrical stimulators on the body, creating what Courtine calls a “neural bypass” so that people’s thoughts can again move their limbs.
At Case Western Reserve University, in Cleveland, a middle-aged quadriplegic—he can’t move anything but his head and shoulder—agreed to let doctors place two recording implants in his brain, of the same type Courtine used in the monkeys. Made of silicon, and smaller than a postage stamp, they bristle with a hundred hair-size metal probes that can “listen” as neurons fire off commands.
To complete the bypass, the Case team, led by Robert Kirsch and Bolu Ajiboye, also slid more than 16 fine electrodes into the muscles of the man’s arm and hand. In videos of the experiment, the volunteer can be seen slowly raising his arm with the help of a spring-loaded arm rest, and willing his hand to open and close. He even raises a cup with a straw to his lips. Without the system, he can’t do any of that.
Just try sitting on your hands for a day. That will give you an idea of the shattering consequences of spinal cord injury. You can’t scratch your nose or tousle a child’s hair. “But if you have this,” says Courtine, reaching for a red espresso cup and raising it to his mouth with an actor’s exaggerated motion, “it changes your life.” 10. Our Last Living Link to the 18th Century Has Passed. Not necessarily a scientific discovery; however, we felt a "tip of the hat" was in order... World's oldest person, Emma Morano, dies aged 117. Emma Morano, the world’s oldest person, has died at the age of 117, after a life that has spanned three centuries. Mrs. Morano was born in November 1899, when Britain was at war with the Boers in South Africa. She was one of eight children – five sisters and three brothers – and was the world’s last living link to the 19th century.
Mrs Morano was officially recognised as the world’s oldest person after the previous holder of the title, Susannah Mushatt Jones, died in New York in May last year. One of her carers told The Telegraph then that the secret to her longevity was eating three eggs a day, two of them raw, and a little raw minced meat. She maintained the regime ever since a doctor advised her that it would be good for her health when she was diagnosed with anemia at the age of 20. Her social life became more limited towards the end, as her sight and hearing failed and she lost more and more of her contemporaries. Mrs Morano was born in the village of Civiasco in the Piedmont region of northern Italy in 1899, the year in which Guglielmo Marconi first transmitted a radio signal across the English Channel. She was one of eight children – five sisters and three brothers – and was the world’s last living link to the 19th century.
She lived through two World Wars, worked in a jute factory and courageously decided to separate from an abusive husband at a time when divorce was frowned on. She worked in a factory making jute sacks, and then as a cook. Aside from eating raw food, not smoking and drinking wine in moderation, she credits her longevity with having left a violent husband in 1938, shortly after the death of her only child at the age of seven months. She remained single for the rest of her life. The centenarian had become something of a celebrity, with her own Wikipedia entry, and earlier this year her long life was marked by a party and concert organized by Verbania, the town in which she lived on the shores of Lake Maggiore in northern Italy.
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1) New Device Pulls Water Out of Thin Air!
5) Giant Panda No Longer on Endangered List
7) By converting heat to focused beams of light, a new solar device could create cheap and continuous power
9) Brain implants to restore the freedom of movement in spinal cord injuries.
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