Lightning diverted away by Lasers, ChatGPT being used to write Research Papers and other Science News of the Week

Hey there, Welcome to my blog. Let me start with a funny incident that happened with Albert Einstein. One day when he was traveling for a conference to Japan and was asked by customs official about his occupation. Einstein said "Theoretical physicist" which confused the man. So, sensing the perplexity, Quick witted Einstein swiftly exclaimed "That meant plumber" and moved on.
Anyways, the Japanese, by then, didn't had www.mufawad.com blog at their disposal to give them top scientific news of week, so their oblivion is quite understandable.

So, jokes apart, In this weekly write up on current science affairs/news, I try to delve into the exciting current research that happened in past week, trying to explore the latest breakthroughs and events and emergence of new technologies.

Whether you are a student, a professional, or simply a science enthusiast, this article will provide you an engaging and informative insights and update you about the fascinating research that happened in the field of science past week.

1. Lightning diverted away using Laser technology.

A group of Scientists created a lightning diverting technology using Lasers to protect important high rise and high altitute vulnerable infrastructure.

Pc: AFP

Today, metal lightning rods are commonly used to divert lightning from buildings. But these rods have their own limitation of area under their protection.

A Laser lightning project with high power laser and a rod, was set up by group of researchers, near Santis telecom tower in the Swiss Alps.

A sufficiently intense laser beam did create a conductive path for lightning to travel down, just how a metal wire can. This happened by change in the properties of air as the laser system rapidly heated the air, it reduced its density and created a favourable path for lightning.

Rather than trying to divert lightning from the tower, the laser guided the lightning trajectory through the laser systems lightning rod.

In future use, similar beams would guide strikes away from sensitive installations and onto a distant lightning rod, said one scientist as reported in 'Nature.'

It is pertinent to mention that previous attempt had been made to use a laser to divert lightning but those lasers fired only a few pulses per second. However, this team used a specialist laser that fires 1000 high energy pulses per second, which boosted its chance of intercepting the lightning.

The next big challange is to miniaturise the technology and make it cheaper for commercial use.

2. Year 2022 becomes the record year for Rocket launches.

In the year 2022, the Governments as well as Private firms launched the total of 180 rockets into the space. This is the highest ever tally in any particular calendar year.

It is pertinent to mention that in 2021, 136 rockets were launched into the space.

PC: SpaceX webpage

Most of the launches were done by a famous US company SpaceX followed from the Chinese government and its companies.

The SpaceX launched 61 rockets successfully into the space, all of them Falcon type where as other US space entities including NASA launched 17 rockets.

USA was closely followed by Chinese in the Space race, they launched 62 rockets into the space in 2022, including Solar observatory Kuafu-I and Tiangong. In 2021, their tally was 53.

Other big players in the race included European space agency which launced only 5 satallites, South Korea's first ever moon mission and interestingly New Zealand with 9 launches, although, by a US based company Rocket Lab.

However, more and more concerns are growing about the junk getting accumulated in space and its potential hazards.

3. AI tools being used to write Science papers and abstracts

Post launch of 'AI based chatbots' such as Open AI's ChatGPT, many incidents of fake research paper abstracts have come to forefront.

What is more worrying is that scientists are not able to distinguish between the fake papers from real ones.

The chatbots such as ChatGPT are based on neural networks that performs a task by absorbing existing human-generated information and generating an output. This output of AI based text is difficult to distinguish from human-written text.

PC: OpenAI webpage

Although, Scientists at Northwestern University in Chicago, are studying how to distinguish between the two by using ChatGPT to generate artificial research paper abstracts and test whether they can spot them using certain tools and techniques. However, The ChatGPT-generated abstracts are said to have even passed the plagiarism checker softwares.

Scientists believe that such fake research papers and research abstracts could have "dire consequences” on society at large.

But the question remains whether a serious researcher would use ChatGPT to generate abstracts because the AI tool, most likely, would not be able generate an abstract that is most likely accurate in nature.

4. Largest ever fossil of a flower discovered.

"Fossil" is derived from a latin word "fossilis" which means "To dig out." Fossils are basically preserved remains of plants and animals such as bones, teeth, shells etc.

Museum für Naturkunde Berlin

The plant fossils are generally preserved inside amber which forms from its plant resins when any part of plant is trapped in resin.

Recently, Palaeontologists discovered a 40 million year old fossilised flower and it happens to be largest ever fossil of a flower to be discovered ever.

The fossil was orginally discovered as early as 150 years near baltic sea, Europe. Near that region, where once occured the resin secreting coniferous forests

The fossil flower named as Stewartia kowalewskii is about an Inch in length and is three times bigger than the previously known flower fossil and is placed at Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources in Germany.

5. The variety of bacteria inside our bodies depends upon our social interactions, Says Research:

Pete Gamlen Illustration: Pete Gamlen

Our Biotechnology HOD at university often used to exclaim the 2.5% of our body mass is not ours own but of the microbes that live inside and upon us.

Pete Gamlen Illustration: Pete Gamlen

Now, according to recent study, it has been found that microbes living with us evolve through our lives and are shaped by our social interactions. People living in the same niche share similar microbes and more importantly, longer the cohabitation, the more similar the microbiomes becomes.

The first contact of a child with microbes occurs via their mothers. This act as microbial starter kit for child.

A study done at University of Trento, Italy, analysed microbial DNA from nearly 10,000 stool and saliva samples from people all over the world. The analysis confirmed the strong link between the microbiomes of mothers and those of their children, particularly early in life.

During an infant’s first year of life, most of the microbes in their guts were shared with their mothers. However, it decreased as children aged. Even the older people, aged 50 to 85, still had gut microbe strains in common with their mothers.

Not only the mothers, children shared similar numbers of microbe strains with their father as they grew up. Shared microbiome happened to be more in the rural households than urban ones. Also the Couples tended to share strains to a greater extent than their children and parents.

The study also raises the questions whether the diseases such as cancer, diabetes and obesity, could be partly transmissible as such diseases are believed to have connection with the microbiome dysfunction.

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