Science this year
Sudhindra Haldodderi, Dec 29, 2015,
Major events
Science was never static ever since we started understanding it, and the year 2015 was no exception. From artificial spider silk development to the lightest ever gold film deployment the spread here is far and wide. Scientists have tried to take control on the rat’s consciousness and they have also attempted to peep into a monkey’s brain to know whether it perceives its own mirror image. Clean energy continues to be an interest for some who attempted to make artificial leaves while others tried to strap tiny computers on beetles to remote control them. With the advancement of information age, a discovery or an invention gets reported every minute. And let us keep our eyes and ears open to read and hear more in 2016. These are what made news this year, in case you missed them:
Manipulating consciousness in rats
Scientists like Jin Hyung Lee, an assistant professor of neurology, neurosurgery and bioengineering at Stanford University are prepared to lose sleep to understand the neuron functioning related to consciousness! Recently, his team showed that stimulation frequencies could alter brain activity of rats and either wake them up or put them in an unconscious state by changing the firing rates of neurons in the region which regulates arousal — the central thalamus. What Jin did to trigger neurons is that she flashed laser pulses onto light sensitive central thalamic neurons of sleeping rats, which caused the cells to fire. When the frequency of stimulation was raised beyond 40 and up to 100 pulses per second, the rats woke up. At the same time, in a low frequency stimulation of 10 pulses per second, the rats underwent a state of stiffening and staring before returning to sleep.
Tracing magnetic fields at Milky Way’s central black hole
Going by textbooks, we believed black holes to be giant suckers, gobbling anything and everything that gets too close to them. Contrary to this belief, some supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies are behaving like giant cosmic engines, converting energy from infalling matter into intense radiation. This amount of radiation is so huge that it can outshine the combined light from all the stars surrounding such black holes. Astronomers have detected for the first time, magnetic fields outside the black hole which is at the centre of Milky Way.
This major accomplishment was achieved using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a global network of radio telescopes that link together to function as one giant telescope as big as the size of Earth, according to principal investigator Shep Doeleman of MIT Haystack Observatory.
It is bacteria which make your drinking water safe!
Generally we believe that good drinking water must be free from bacteria. But we hardly realise that our drinking water is to a large extent purified by millions of “good bacteria” found in water pipes and purification plants. Most of us did not know this till a publication of Lund University explained it.
The work of doctoral student Katharina Lührig, who works with Prof Peter Radstrom and Kenneth Persson, has been published in Microbes and Environments. The findings indicate that the diversity of species of bacteria in water pipes is huge, and that bacteria may play a larger role than previously thought. Further, the research team has concluded that a large part of water purification actually takes place in the pipes than in water purification plants.
How old are you Mr Saturn?
Like all of us get cool over the years, even the planets tend to cool as they get older. However, the scientists have found that Saturn is hotter than it should have been. Because of this unexplained additional heat, the computer models estimating Saturn’s age has made an error to an extent of two-billion-years. The same computer models have correctly predicted Jupiter as 4.5 billion years old, while they indicated Saturn as only 2.5 billion years old.
According to Thomas Mattsson from Sandia’s high-energy-density physics theory group, experiments at its Z machine has helped solve that problem. The reason for the ‘hotness’ of Saturn is the presence molecular hydrogen, which is normally an insulator. This becomes metallic if squeezed by enough pressure. A pressured lattice of hydrogen molecules can break up into individual hydrogen atoms, releasing free-floating electrons that could carry current.
Gold foam, as light as air
The researchers at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zurich, led by Raffaele Mezzenga, professor of Food and Soft Materials, have produced a new kind of foam out of gold, a three-dimensional mesh of gold that consists mostly of pores. It is the lightest gold nugget ever created. This new type of foam made of real gold is thousand times lighter than its conventional form and yet it is nearly impossible to tell the difference with the naked eye. This gold foam can even float on the milk foam of a cappuccino cup.
How does your heart get the pumping power?
Elementary science has taught us that heart is a pump which contracts and expands. It was always believed that the muscles, which make the heart, aid pumping action. The special property called ‘contractility’ of these muscles helped making the heart a wonderful pumping machine.
But scientists like Prof Anthony Gramolini and Prof Thomas Kislinger in the Department of Medical Biophysics of Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, Canada, wanted to find answers about how our heart muscles gained the ‘contractility.’ Their team identified and analysed more than 500 membrane proteins on the surfaces of cardiac contractile cells which are likely to have a critical role in normal heart function. Now the scientists have found a treasure trove of proteins which hold answers about the contractility.
New metamaterial for better acoustic imaging.
Scientists always fancy discovering new materials which enhance the diagnostic capability of acoustic imaging as acoustic waves are safe for diagnosing human defects or injuries. At the same time, acoustic imaging tools are used in testing the structural integrity of aeroplane parts. Recently, scientists at North Carolina State University and Duke University developed a metamaterial made of paper and aluminium that can manipulate acoustic waves to more than double the resolution of normal acoustic imaging.
They can also focus acoustic waves and control the angles at which sound passes through the metamaterial. According to Yun Jing, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State (Raleigh, USA), the metamaterial is designed to block sound from most angles, leaving only a small opening for sound to pass through, which might be useful for microphones.
Aluminium can unlock the secrets of stars
In astrophysical terms, radioactive aluminium (aluminium-26, or Al26) has a relatively short lifespan, decaying in around one million years. Since Al26 emits gamma radiation through its decay, astronomers can locate it in our galaxy. By studying how Al26 is created in massive stars, scientists are now able to measure the rate of its production by nuclear fusion.
They have measured the fusion of helium and sodium at two separate particle accelerators in Canada and Denmark, and the rate of production of Al26 was determined to within a factor of two. Physicists at the University of York have further revealed that a new understanding of nucleosynthesis in stars, which can provide greater insight into the role of massive stars in the evolution of the Milky Way and the origins of our solar system.
Gold-plated onion cells to make artificial muscles
A group of researchers from National Taiwan University, lead by researcher Wen-Pin Shih, have found that the onion’s cell structure and its dimensions were similar to what they were expecting from artificial muscle cells. The initial goal was to develop an engineered microstructure in artificial muscles for increasing the actuation deformation (the amount the muscle can bend or stretch when triggered). With fine coating of gold on onion epidermal cells, they can either expand or contract to bend in different directions depending on the driving voltage applied on them.
(This compilation is based on the inputs from several blogs, news services, institutional releases and magazine articles.)
Manipulating consciousness in rats
Scientists like Jin Hyung Lee, an assistant professor of neurology, neurosurgery and bioengineering at Stanford University are prepared to lose sleep to understand the neuron functioning related to consciousness! Recently, his team showed that stimulation frequencies could alter brain activity of rats and either wake them up or put them in an unconscious state by changing the firing rates of neurons in the region which regulates arousal — the central thalamus. What Jin did to trigger neurons is that she flashed laser pulses onto light sensitive central thalamic neurons of sleeping rats, which caused the cells to fire. When the frequency of stimulation was raised beyond 40 and up to 100 pulses per second, the rats woke up. At the same time, in a low frequency stimulation of 10 pulses per second, the rats underwent a state of stiffening and staring before returning to sleep.
Tracing magnetic fields at Milky Way’s central black hole
Going by textbooks, we believed black holes to be giant suckers, gobbling anything and everything that gets too close to them. Contrary to this belief, some supermassive black holes at the centres of galaxies are behaving like giant cosmic engines, converting energy from infalling matter into intense radiation. This amount of radiation is so huge that it can outshine the combined light from all the stars surrounding such black holes. Astronomers have detected for the first time, magnetic fields outside the black hole which is at the centre of Milky Way.
This major accomplishment was achieved using the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) — a global network of radio telescopes that link together to function as one giant telescope as big as the size of Earth, according to principal investigator Shep Doeleman of MIT Haystack Observatory.
It is bacteria which make your drinking water safe!
Generally we believe that good drinking water must be free from bacteria. But we hardly realise that our drinking water is to a large extent purified by millions of “good bacteria” found in water pipes and purification plants. Most of us did not know this till a publication of Lund University explained it.
The work of doctoral student Katharina Lührig, who works with Prof Peter Radstrom and Kenneth Persson, has been published in Microbes and Environments. The findings indicate that the diversity of species of bacteria in water pipes is huge, and that bacteria may play a larger role than previously thought. Further, the research team has concluded that a large part of water purification actually takes place in the pipes than in water purification plants.
How old are you Mr Saturn?
Like all of us get cool over the years, even the planets tend to cool as they get older. However, the scientists have found that Saturn is hotter than it should have been. Because of this unexplained additional heat, the computer models estimating Saturn’s age has made an error to an extent of two-billion-years. The same computer models have correctly predicted Jupiter as 4.5 billion years old, while they indicated Saturn as only 2.5 billion years old.
According to Thomas Mattsson from Sandia’s high-energy-density physics theory group, experiments at its Z machine has helped solve that problem. The reason for the ‘hotness’ of Saturn is the presence molecular hydrogen, which is normally an insulator. This becomes metallic if squeezed by enough pressure. A pressured lattice of hydrogen molecules can break up into individual hydrogen atoms, releasing free-floating electrons that could carry current.
Gold foam, as light as air
The researchers at Eidgenössische Technische Hochschule, Zurich, led by Raffaele Mezzenga, professor of Food and Soft Materials, have produced a new kind of foam out of gold, a three-dimensional mesh of gold that consists mostly of pores. It is the lightest gold nugget ever created. This new type of foam made of real gold is thousand times lighter than its conventional form and yet it is nearly impossible to tell the difference with the naked eye. This gold foam can even float on the milk foam of a cappuccino cup.
How does your heart get the pumping power?
Elementary science has taught us that heart is a pump which contracts and expands. It was always believed that the muscles, which make the heart, aid pumping action. The special property called ‘contractility’ of these muscles helped making the heart a wonderful pumping machine.
But scientists like Prof Anthony Gramolini and Prof Thomas Kislinger in the Department of Medical Biophysics of Ted Rogers Centre for Heart Research, Canada, wanted to find answers about how our heart muscles gained the ‘contractility.’ Their team identified and analysed more than 500 membrane proteins on the surfaces of cardiac contractile cells which are likely to have a critical role in normal heart function. Now the scientists have found a treasure trove of proteins which hold answers about the contractility.
New metamaterial for better acoustic imaging.
Scientists always fancy discovering new materials which enhance the diagnostic capability of acoustic imaging as acoustic waves are safe for diagnosing human defects or injuries. At the same time, acoustic imaging tools are used in testing the structural integrity of aeroplane parts. Recently, scientists at North Carolina State University and Duke University developed a metamaterial made of paper and aluminium that can manipulate acoustic waves to more than double the resolution of normal acoustic imaging.
They can also focus acoustic waves and control the angles at which sound passes through the metamaterial. According to Yun Jing, an assistant professor of mechanical and aerospace engineering at NC State (Raleigh, USA), the metamaterial is designed to block sound from most angles, leaving only a small opening for sound to pass through, which might be useful for microphones.
Aluminium can unlock the secrets of stars
In astrophysical terms, radioactive aluminium (aluminium-26, or Al26) has a relatively short lifespan, decaying in around one million years. Since Al26 emits gamma radiation through its decay, astronomers can locate it in our galaxy. By studying how Al26 is created in massive stars, scientists are now able to measure the rate of its production by nuclear fusion.
They have measured the fusion of helium and sodium at two separate particle accelerators in Canada and Denmark, and the rate of production of Al26 was determined to within a factor of two. Physicists at the University of York have further revealed that a new understanding of nucleosynthesis in stars, which can provide greater insight into the role of massive stars in the evolution of the Milky Way and the origins of our solar system.
Gold-plated onion cells to make artificial muscles
A group of researchers from National Taiwan University, lead by researcher Wen-Pin Shih, have found that the onion’s cell structure and its dimensions were similar to what they were expecting from artificial muscle cells. The initial goal was to develop an engineered microstructure in artificial muscles for increasing the actuation deformation (the amount the muscle can bend or stretch when triggered). With fine coating of gold on onion epidermal cells, they can either expand or contract to bend in different directions depending on the driving voltage applied on them.
(This compilation is based on the inputs from several blogs, news services, institutional releases and magazine articles.)
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