Science of 2019 links
Climate Change & the Anthropocene
A Clear Consensus
C5 NASA and NOAA confirm that 2018 was the fourth hottest year on record globally, at 0.83 degrees Ce lsius above the 1951 to 1980 mean.
C9 Atmospheric CO2, as measured by the Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii, reaches 415 parts per million (ppm), the highest level for 2.5 million years.[172][173] During the late Pliocene, sea levels were up to 20 m higher, and the global climate was 3 °C hotter.
C17 11,000 scientists from around the world publish a study in the journal BioScience, warning “clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency.”
A second study shows that the consensus among climate change scientists has grown to 100%, based on a review of 11,602 peer-reviewed articles published in the first seven months of 2019
Its Melting
C3 Scientists report that the Greenland ice sheet is melting four times faster than in 2003, with its largest sustained ice loss coming from the southwest region
C13 Danish polar research institution, Polar Portal, reports a spike in Greenland ice loss, with 11 billion tons melted in one day and 197 Gigatonnes during the month of July
That’s equivalent to 4.4 million Olympic swimming pools… in one day
C2. Antarctica experienced a sixfold increase in yearly ice mass loss between 1979 and 2017.[23]
From 2009 to 2017, antarctic ice was lost at a rate of about 252 gigatons of per year were lost. (a gigaton is 1 billion tonnes)
“As the Antarctic ice sheet continues to melt away, we expect multi-meter sea level rise from Antarctica in the coming centuries.”
Worse than we thought
C14 The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) releases its Special Report on the Ocean and Cryosphere in a Changing Climate. This includes a revised projection for sea level rise, upwards by 10 cm to 1.1 metres by 2100.
C16 A study in Nature concludes that rising sea levels will threaten 300 million people by 2050, more than triple previous estimates.
Just in terms of flooding
C4 A study by the International Centre for Integrated Mountain Development concludes that 36% of glaciers along the Hindu Kush and Himalaya range will disappear by 2100, even if carbon emissions are cut rapidly. Without emission reductions, the loss could reach two-thirds.
Will endanger 2 billion people who rely on it for water
C10 Researchers at Macquarie University report that plastic pollution is harming the growth, photosynthesis and oxygen production of Prochlorococcus, the ocean’s most abundant photosynthetic bacteria, responsible for 10% of oxygen breathed by humans
In Conclusion: This is The Anthropocene
C8 In its first report since 2005, the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) warns that biodiversity loss is “accelerating”, with over a million species now threatened with extinction; the decline of the natural living world is “unprecedented” and largely a result of human actions.
Biology — A Voyage Back Through Time
B7 A team of Japanese and Russian scientists report that cell nuclei from woolly mammoth remains showed biological activity when transplanted into mouse cells.
De-extinction?
B4 Scientists find evidence, based on genetics studies using artificial intelligence (AI), that suggest the existence of an unknown human ancestor species, not Neanderthal, Denisovan or human hybrid (like Denny (hybrid hominin)), in the genome of modern humans
Like searching for Neptune or Planet 9, but with ancient humans!
Neanderthal
B5 Scientists report evidence, based on carbon and nitrogen isotope studies from bone collagen, that at least some Neanderthals may have eaten meat.
B6 and that Neanderthals walked upright much like modern humans
Even Earlier
B13 Biologists report the discovery of the fossil remains of a first-of-its-kind extinct giant parrot named The Hercules parrot (or Heracles inexpectatus) in New Zealand. The parrot is thought to have stood up to 1 m (3 ft 3 in) tall and weighed approximately 7 kg (15 lb)
16 to 19 million years ago.
B11 Scientists report the discovery of a fossilized fungus, named Ourasphaira giraldae, in the Canadian Arctic, that may have grown on land a billion years ago, well before plants were living on land
Soft tissues like Fungi don’t fossilize well. May have paved the way for plants and animals
B10 — Biologists report that the very large medusavirus, or a relative, may have been responsible, at least in part, for the evolutionary emergence of complex eukaryotic cells from simpler prokaroytic cells.
Genetics — Let’s Get Weird?
Moving Forward!
G1 Scientists report the engineering of crops with a photorespiratory “shortcut” to boost plant growth by 40% in real-world agronomic conditions
The enzyme Rubisco (used in photosynthesis) grabs O2 instead of CO2 20% of the time
G4 February — Scientists announce a new form of DNA, named Hachimoji DNA, composed of four natural, and four unnatural nucleobases. Benefits of such an eight-base DNA system may include an enhanced ability to store digital data, as well as insights into what may be possible in the search for extraterrestrial life.
5.G Scientists report that all 16 GB of Wikipedia have been encoded into synthetic DNA
Thats 53,300 books worth of information
Will last longer than the latest computer storage tech
Catalog, based in Boston, has its own device to write data that can record 4 megabits per second right in DNA
G6 Researchers, in a milestone effort, report the creation of a new synthetic (possibly artificial) form of viable life, a variant of the bacteria Escherichia coli, by reducing the natural number of 64 codons in the bacterial genome to 59 codons instead, in order to encode 20 amino acids.
Theres a lot of redundancy in encoding for amino acids, because of math. Researchers got rid of it.
G8 In a study, published in the journal Nature, researchers at the Broad Institute describe a new method of genetic engineering superior to previous methods like CRISPR they call “prime editing.”
Ethically Cringe-y
G2 Scientists in China report the creation of five identical cloned gene-edited monkeys, using the same cloning technique that was used with Zhong Zhong and Hua Hua — the first ever cloned monkeys — and Dolly the sheep, and the same gene-editing CRISPR-Cas9 technique allegedly used by He Jiankui in creating the first ever gene-modified human babies Lulu and Nana. The genetically modified monkey clones were made in order to study several medical diseases[32][33][34]
The idea is to make a bunch of identically sick monkeys in order to study certain diseases
Fraught with ethical issues
G9 Scientists in China create pigs with monkey DNA; thus creating an animal hybrid with genetic material from two different species
This comes after, in 2017, scientists created human-pig chimeras that grew only one human cell for every 100,000 pig cells. Only allowed to live for a month.
interspecies chimeras were more than 99% pig.
4,000 embryos received an injection of monkey cells and were implanted in surrogate sows. 10 were born. 2 were chimeras
G5 Scientists report that the purportedly first-ever germline genetically edited humans, the twin babies Lulu and Nana, by Chinese researcher He Jiankui, may have inadvertently (or perhaps, intentionally[77]) had their brains enhanced.[78]
G7 Researchers report that the purportedly first-ever germline genetically edited humans, the twin babies Lulu and Nana, by Chinese scientist He Jiankui, may have been mutated in a way that shortens life expectancy.
Then it was redacted!
Medicine -Unfinished Section
Treatments
M11 A British teenager, Isabelle Holdaway, 17, is reported to be the first patient to receive a genetically modified phage therapy to treat a drug-resistant infection.
Girl given a genetically engineered virus to treat a drug-resistant infection after a lung transplant lead to a deadly infection
M10 A study of nearly 1,000 gay male couples who took antiretroviral therapy (drugs that suppress the virus) , published in The Lancet, finds no cases of HIV transmission over eight years
Men with HIV have had it treated to prevent transmitting it to their partners
The success of the medicine means that if everyone with HIV were fully treated, there would be no further infections.
97% of people on HIV treatment in the UK have an undetectable level of the virus
Aging
M2. Medical scientists announce that iridium attached to albumin, creating a photosensitized molecule, can penetrate cancer cells and, after being irradiated with light (a process called photodynamic therapy), destroy the cancer cells.
M5 Scientists use gene therapy to restore hearing in an adult mouse model of DFNB9 deafness.
In Mice
M4 A British woman becomes the first person in the world to have gene therapy for age-related macular degeneration (AMD)
Injection on a virus/gene to get the retinal cells to make a protein that inhibits the immune system from attacking retinal cells
M13 A small clinical trial, announced by U.S. company NeuroEM Therapeutics, shows reversal of cognitive impairment in Alzheimer’s disease patients after just two months of treatment using a wearable head device ((twice daily for 1-hour). Electromagnetic waves emitted by the device appear to break up aggregates of two toxic proteins inside brain cells called A-beta and tau.
as if the treated patients had gone back in time to their better cognitive performance of one year earlier
None of the patients wanted to return their headset after the trial, and One patient even exclaimed “I’ve come back.”
The Future of Medicine?
M12 Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University publish details of a new technique for 3D bioprinting of tissue scaffolds made from collagen, the major structural protein in the human body
“What we’ve shown is that we can print pieces of the heart out of cells and collagen into parts that truly function, like a heart valve or a small beating ventricle.” Dr Adam Feinberg
M6 Scientists report the creation of mice with infrared vision, using nanoparticles injected into their eyes.
In Mice!
Anchor to photoreceptor cells, and transduce the long infrared lightwaves into shorter visible spectrum rays
Effect lasted up to 10 weeks
Space
S1 M87 Black hole image : Scientists from the Event Horizon Telescope project announce the first-ever image of a black hole, located 54 million light years away in the centre of the M87 galaxy.
The stunning new image shows the shadow of the supermassive black hole in the center of Messier 87 (M87), an elliptical galaxy some 55 million light-years from Earth. This black hole is 6.5 billion times the mass of the Sun. Catching its shadow involved eight ground-based radio telescopes around the globe, operating together as if they were one telescope the size of our entire planet.
S2 Fast Radio Bursts : Astronomers report the detection of eight very unusual repeating Fast Radio Burst (FRB) signals in outer space
Start of the year only one was known to repeat, now there are ten.
A non-repeating FRB was traced to a galaxy for the first time.
Don’t know what the source of them is. Very powerful, very far away.
S3 Mars Water : Scientists report the first ever evidence of a former planet-wide groundwater system on the planet Mars. And perhaps a planet wide reservoir now.
Mars Express has revealed the first geological evidence of a system of ancient interconnected lakes that once lay deep beneath the Red Planet’s surface, five of which may contain minerals crucial to life.
Scientists report that the InSight lander on the planet Mars uncovered unexplained magnetic pulses, and magnetic oscillations may be consistent with a planet-wide reservoir of liquid water deep underground.[364]
Previously found channels of water flowing on Mars and last year a pool of liquid water beneath the planet’s south pole.
S4 Bodies in Space : Dormant viruses in the body may get activated in space, NASAs twins study Scott Kelly, bodies in space are prone to blood clots.
NASA reports that latent viruses in humans may be activated during space missions, adding possibly more risk to astronauts in future deep-space missions.
NASA reports medical results, from an Astronaut Twin Study, where one astronaut twin spent a year in space on the International Space Station, while the other twin spent the year on Earth, which demonstrated several long-lasting changes, including those related to alterations in DNA and cognition, when one twin was compared with the other
For a few measures, persistent changes were observed even after 6 months on Earth, including some genes’ expression levels, increased DNA damage from chromosomal inversions, increased numbers of short telomeres, and attenuated cognitive function.
Researchers report that astronauts experienced serious blood flow (blood stasis) and (blood clots) clot problems while onboard the International Space Station, based on a six month study of 11 healthy astronauts. The results may influence long-term spaceflight, including a mission to the planet Mars, according to the researchers.
S5 AT2018 COW Astronomers propose that AT2018cow, a very powerful astronomical explosion, 10–100 times brighter than a normal supernova, may have been a white dwarf being pulled apart by a black hole; or, a supernova leaving behind a black hole or a neutron star, the creation of a compact body being observed for the first time.
S6 NASA officials declare that the Mars rover Opportunity has ended its mission, after failing to respond to repeated transmitted wake-up signals. Its last contact was on 10 June 2018
S7 Scientists report that life-forms from Earth survived 18 months living in outer space outside the International Space Station (ISS), as part of the BIOMEX studies related to the EXPOSE-R2 mission, suggesting that life could survive, theoretically, on the planet Mars.
Archaea, and extremophiles.
In this project, lichens, archaea, bacteria, cyanobacteria, snow/permafrost algae, meristematic black fungi, and bryophytes from alpine and polar habitats were embedded, grown, and cultured on a mixture of martian and lunar regolith analogs or other terrestrial minerals.
All showed some level of survival, with the best survival amongst archaea, bacteria, fungus, and bio-films.
S8 20 new moons of Saturn are discovered by Scott S. Sheppard and his team at the Carnegie Institution for Science, taking the planet’s total known number to 82, surpassing Jupiter.
Saturn has 82, Jupiter has 79.
S9 Scientists, working with the Hubble Space Telescope, confirmed the detection of the large and complex ionized molecules of buckminsterfullerene (C60) (also known as “buckyballs”) in the interstellar medium spaces between the stars.
S10 NASA scientists report the discovery of the oldest known Earth rock — on the Moon. Apollo 14 astronauts returned several rocks from the Moon and later, scientists determined that a fragment from one of the rocks contained “a bit of Earth from about 4 billion years ago.” The rock fragment contained quartz, feldspar, and zircon, all common on the Earth, but highly uncommon on the Moon.
S11 An unmanned demonstration flight of the new crew capable version of the SpaceX Dragon spacecraft, intended to carry American astronauts into space, achieves successful autonomous docking with the International Space Station.[89] It returned to Earth a few days later.
SpaceX successfully launches the Falcon Heavy for the 3rd time with the STP-2 mission. This is also the first Falcon Heavy mission contracted by the United States Government.
S12 Astronomers report that the mass of the Milky Way galaxy is 1.5 trillion solar masses within a radius of about 129,000 light-years, over twice as much as was determined in earlier studies, and suggesting that about 90% of the mass of the galaxy is dark matter.
S13 Scientists report that a capsule containing tardigrades in cryptobiotic state (as well as a laser-etched copy of Wikipedia in glass) may have survived the April 2019 crash landing on the Moon of Beresheet, a failed Israeli lunar lander.
Technology
T1 Advances in 3D printing.
Researchers at the University of Michigan demonstrate a new approach to 3D printing, based on the lifting of shapes from a vat of liquid, which is up to 100 times faster than conventional processes.
Researchers at Carnegie Mellon University publish details of a new technique for 3D bioprinting of tissue scaffolds made from collagen, the major structural protein in the human body.
Northwestern University researchers unveil a new 3D printer known as HARP (high-area rapid printing), which can produce an object the size of an adult human within two hours, without sacrificing quality or resolution.
Researchers at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute demonstrate a way to 3D print living skin, complete with blood vessels, which could be used for more natural and accurate grafts.
T2 The first SD card with a storage capacity of 1 terabyte (TB) is announced by Lexar.
T3 Engineers at the University of Buffalo reveal a new device able to cool parts of buildings by up to 11 °C (20 °F), without consuming electricity. The system uses an inexpensive polymer/aluminum film at the bottom of a solar “shelter”, which absorbs heat from the air inside the box and transmits that energy back into outer space.
T4 Scientists use a new parallelised technique, known as femtosecond projection TPL (FP-TPL), to 3D print nanoscale structures up to 1,000 times faster than conventional two-photon lithography (TPL)
T5 Google announces that its 53-qubit ‘Sycamore’ processor has achieved quantum supremacy, performing a specific task in 200 seconds that would take the world’s best supercomputers 10,000 years to complete.[390][401][402][403] However, the claim is disputed by some IBM researchers.
T6 A new carbon capture system is described by MIT, which can work on the gas at almost any concentration, using electrodes combined with carbon nanotubes.
T7 Researchers at the KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden, develop a new film that is applied to solar cells, which combines nanocrystals and microlenses to capture infrared light. This can increase the solar energy conversion efficiency by 10 percent or more
T8 Alphabet’s Waymo subsidiary announces that it will later in 2019 begin construction in the US State of Michigan on the World’s first factory for mass-producing autonomous vehicles.
T9 The first computer chip to exceed one trillion transistors, known as the Wafer Scale Engine, is announced by Cerebras Systems in collaboration with Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC).
Artificial Intelligence
A1 AlphaStar, a new artificial intelligence algorithim by Alphabet’s DeepMind subsidiary, defeats professional players of the real-time strategy game StarCraft II in ten rounds out of eleven.
A2 Scientists find evidence, based on genetics studies using artificial intelligence (AI), that suggest the existence of an unknown human ancestor species, not Neanderthal, Denisovan or human hybrid (like Denny (hybrid hominin)), in the genome of modern humans.
That means that there is a third kind of hominid we bread with.
A3 Carnegie Mellon University reports an artificial intelligence program, developed in collaboration with Facebook AI, which is able to defeat leading professionals in six-player no-limit Texas hold’em poker.
A4 A new AI developed by RMIT University in Melbourne and trained to play the 1980s video game Montezuma’s Revenge is reported to be 10 times faster than Google DeepMind and able to finish the game.
A5 OpenAI demonstrates a pair of neural networks trained to solve a Rubik’s Cube with a highly dexterous, human-like robotic hand.
A6 Google reports the creation of a deep learning system, trained on 50,000 different diagnoses, able to detect 26 skin conditions as accurately as dermatologists.
A7 Canadian company Deep Genomics announces that its AI-based drug discovery platform has identified a target and drug candidate for Wilson’s disease. The candidate, DG12P1, is designed to correct the exon-skipping effect of Met645Arg, a genetic mutation affecting the ATP7B copper-binding protein.
A8
Chemistry
C1 Researchers at Purdue University’s College of Engineering release a paper in the journal ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering detailing a new process to turn plastic waste in hydrocarbon fuels.
C2 Researchers at RMIT University demonstrate a method of using a liquid metal catalyst to turn carbon dioxide gas back into coal, potentially offering a new way to store carbon in solid form
“To date, CO2 has only been converted into a solid at extremely high temperatures, making it industrially unviable.
“By using liquid metals as a catalyst, we’ve shown it’s possible to turn the gas back into carbon at room temperature, in a process that’s efficient and scalable.
C3 Scientists find a way to view reactions in “dark states” of molecules, i.e. those states that are normally inaccessible.
C4 Researchers at Columbia University report a new desalination method for hypersaline brines, known as “temperature swing solvent extraction (TSSE)”, which is low-cost and efficient.
C5 A team from the University of Minnesota and University of Massachusetts exceed the Sabatier maximum, with a 10,000-fold increase in the rate of chemical reactions, using waves to create an oscillating catalyst. ***
C6 Chemists report the formation, for the first time, of an 18-atom cyclocarbon of pure carbon; such chemical structures may be useful as molecular-sized electronic components.
C7 In a study published in PNAS, researchers at MIT detail a new emission free method of cement production, a major contributor to climate change. Currently contributes 8% of CO2.
Physics
P1 Physicists report, for the first time, capturing an image of quantum entanglement.
P2 Researchers from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Princeton Plasma Physics Laboratory (PPPL) report a new way to stabilise the “tearing modes” in fusion reactors, using radio waves to create small changes in the temperature of the plasma, allowing it to be controlled more easily.
P3 The UK’s National Nuclear Laboratory (NNL) and University of Leicester report the first generation of usable electricity from americium, which could lead to the development of “space batteries” that power missions for up to 400 years.
P4 Researchers at Ecole polytechnique fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL) report a way to control properties of excitons and change the polarisation of light they generate, which could lead to transistors that undergo less energy loss and heat dissipation.
P5 The redefinition of the SI system of measurement adopted by the majority of countries in the world takes effect.
P6 IBM unveils IBM Q System One, its first integrated quantum computing system for commercial use.
20 qubits
P7 Superconductivity at very high pressure is observed at a temperature of -23 °C (-9 °F), a jump of about 50 degrees compared to the previous confirmed record, by researchers at the University of Chicago.
P8 Scientists report the discovery of a new distinctive light wave, named a Dyakonov-Voigt wave, that results from a particular manipulation of crystals, that was first suggested in equations developed by physicist James Clerk Maxwell in the middle 1800s.
P9 A team of physicists report that the supposed discrepancy in the proton radius between electronic and muonic hydrogen does not exist, settling the proton radius puzzle.
P10 Physicists report a way of determining the state of Schrödinger’s cat before observing it.
