Hey there, welcome to my blog Mufawad. In this weekly writeup, wherein I cover the current science, I will try to delve into the new scientific research that happened in the past week or so and explore the latest technologies and breakthroughs/events that were achieved in this domain.
Whether you
are a student, a professional, or simply a science enthusiast, this article
will provide you an engaging and informative insights and updates. Plus, as a
compliment, you will get a peep into pretty quirky AI generated images by me
related to those particular topics.
In today's blog, you will read about the following science events of the week:
- Under stress, Some Plants do “Cry” and yes, few animals can hear them
- Glass crystals on the moon's surface could be holding billions of tonnes of water; Research
- Researchers now believe that Oumuamua was a Comet
- Newly invented molecular Syringe delivers proteins into human cells
- Proteins being used to make new biodegradable 3D-printable glass
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| Plants cry under stress, Billions of tonnes of Water on Moon and other Science news of the Week; Mufawad |
Under
stress, Some Plants do “Cry” and yes, few animals can hear them
Researchers suggest that plants
make "airborne sounds" when thirsty or stressed, which are ultrasonic
and high-pitched.
According to NYT Science, Lilach
Hadany at Tel-Aviv University in Israel and her colleagues found that plants
that need water or have recently had their stems cut produce up to 35 sounds
per hour, while well-hydrated and uncut plants are much quieter.
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| Pic generated by Mufawad using AI |
The noises were particularly
obvious for plants that were stressed by a lack of water or recent cutting.
Bats, mice and moths could potentially live in a world filled with the sounds
of plants, and previous work has found that plants respond to sounds made by
animals.
The current theory for how plants
make noises centers on their xylem, the tubes that transport water and
nutrients from their roots to their stems and leaves. Pilot studies suggest
that tomato, tobacco plants, wheat (Triticum aestivum), corn (Zea mays) and
wine grapes (Vitis vinifera) do make noises when they are thirsty.
The team produced a
machine-learning model to deduce whether a plant had been cut or was water
stressed from the sounds it made, with about 70% accuracy. To test the
practicality of this approach, the team tried recording plants in a greenhouse,
with the aid of a computer program trained to filter out background noise from
wind and air-conditioning units.
Previous research has also found
that plants can 'hear' sounds, and that beach evening-primoses (Oenothera
drummondii) release sweeter nectar when exposed to the sound of a flying bee.
However, Graham Pyke, a retired biologist at Macquarie University in Sydney, Australia, is sceptical that animals are able to hear the sound at such distances.
Further research is
needed to shed more light on the matter.
Glass
crystals on the moon's surface could be holding billions of tonnes of water;
Research
Researchers have discovered that
tiny glass beads spread across the moon's surface contain potentially billions
of tonnes of water that could be extracted and used by astronauts on future lunar
missions.
This is thought to be one of the
most important breakthroughs yet for space agencies that have set their sights
on building bases on the moon, as it means there could be a highly accessible
source of not only water but also hydrogen and oxygen.
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| Pic generated by Mufawad using AI |
According to The Nature, Mahesh
Anand, professor of planetary science and exploration at the Open University,
and a team of Chinese scientists analysed fine glass beads from lunar soil
samples returned to Earth in December 2020 by the Chinese Chang'e-5 mission.
The beads, which measure less than a millimetre across, have formed when meteoroids slam into the moon and send up showers of molten droplets. Tests on the glass particles revealed that together they contain substantial quantities of water, amounting to between 300 million to 200 billion tonnes across the entire moon's surface.
This should open up new avenues
which many of us have been thinking about, such as how to extract the water and
concentrate it in significant quantities. Previous missions have suggested that
the moon might not be an entirely arid wasteland, with evidence for frozen
water in deep, steep-sided craters near the moon's poles.
The most important fact is that the
moon is more water-rich than previously thought, and that the water appears to
form when high-energy particles from the sun strike the molten droplets.
Further tests showed that the water
diffuses in and out of the beads on the timeframe of a few years, confirming an
active water cycle on the moon.
According to The Nature, Prof Sen
Hu, a senior co-author of the study at the Chinese Academy of Sciences in
Beijing, suggests that such impact glasses could store and release water on
other airless rocks in the solar system.
Ian Crawford, professor of planetary science
and astrobiology at Birkbeck, University of London, suggests that the amount of
water present is ‘at most’ 130 ml per cubic metre of lunar soil.
This additional reservoir of lunar water could prove a useful resource in areas that are distant from the presumed polar ice deposits, but we should not over-estimate the amount of water present, which is at most 130 ml per cubic metre of lunar soil
Researchers now believe that Oumuamua was a Comet
In 2017, astronomers in Hawaii
discovered an object they called Oumuamua (Hawaiian for "scout")
zipping through the solar system. It was reddish, cigar-shaped, and perhaps a
few hundred meters long.
Initially, it was pegged as an
asteroid, as it exhibited none of the sizzle and flash typical of comets.
However, further analysis revealed that something was making it speed up as it
exited the solar system, leaving scientists with a curious puzzle.
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| Pic generated by Mufawad using AI |
Now, two astronomers have found what they call a surprisingly simple explanation: The object was propelled by minuscule amounts of hydrogen gas spurting from an icy core. The paper published in Nature provides further support that the object originated as a planetesimal relic broadly similar to solar system comets.
However, the controversy
surrounding Oumuamua is not likely to end anytime soon. Avi Loeb, an astronomer
at Harvard, had proposed that it could have been a light-sail or some other
alien artifact.
Dr. Bergner and Dr. Seligman,
postdoctoral fellows at the University of Chicago, have proposed that molecular
hydrogen gas, the lightest, most abundant and most volatile element in the
universe, could be responsible for propelling the comet.
Lab experiments done as far back as
the 1970s showed that when ice is struck by high-energy particles, its
molecules can break apart, leaving tiny bubbles of hydrogen gas trapped several
meters deep in the ice.
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| Pic Credits: ESO |
A comet traveling through the
interstellar medium is getting cooked by cosmic radiation, forming hydrogen as
a result. This process leads to the collapse of pockets and the formation of
channels within the ice, through which trapped gas can escape.
For a normal-size comet, this
release of gas would have a negligible effect, but because Oumuamua was so
small, it actually produced sufficient force to power this acceleration. Any dust in the ice would remain trapped
there, taking much of the show out of the comet's tail.
In recent years, astronomers have spotted a half-dozen "dark" comets that exhibit acceleration but have no observable comas or tails, revealing that there is much to be learned about the nature of small bodies in the solar system.
Newly invented molecular Syringe delivers proteins into human cells
Researchers have hijacked a
molecular 'syringe' that some viruses and bacteria use to infect their hosts
and used it to deliver potentially therapeutic proteins into human cells grown
in the laboratory. The technique could offer a new way to administer
protein-based drugs directly into the cells, but will need more testing before
it can be used in people.
With further optimization, the
approach might also be useful for delivering the components needed for
CRISPR–Cas9 genome editing into the cells. The medical applications of CRISPR
are currently limited by the challenges of getting the reagents i.e., the
DNA-cutting Cas9 enzyme and a short piece of RNA that guides Cas9 to a specific
region in the genome into cells.
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| Pic Credits: Nature |
To address this, microbiologists
were learning more about an unusual group of bacteria that use molecular spikes
to pierce a hole in the membranes of host cells and transport proteins through
the perforation and into the cell, exploiting the host's physiology in their
favour.
Researchers from MIT reported that
they could manipulate this syringe-like system in the bioluminescent bacterium Photorhabdus
asymbiotica, loading proteins of their choosing from mammals, plants and
fungi into the syringe.
They were working on ways to
engineer the P. asymbiotica molecular syringe so that it would recognize human
cells. Using the artificial-intelligence program AlphaFold, they designed ways
to modify the tail fibre so that it could recognize mouse and human cells
instead.
They then loaded the syringes with
various proteins, including Cas9 and toxins that could be used to kill cancer
cells, and delivered them into human cells grown in the lab, and into the
brains of mice.
Although the
system was unable to transport the mRNA guide needed for CRISPR–Cas9 genome
editing but it definitely was able to ferry Cas9 into the cells. This speaks volumes
about the technique’s flexibility given that the Cas9 protein is about five
times larger than the syringes’ usual cargo.
These molecular syringes are
currently being studied by only a handful of labs, and their roles in microbial
ecology are only beginning to be understood, but they could have a
transformational effect on medicine.
Proteins being used to make new biodegradable 3D-printable glass
Researchers have transformed amino
acids and peptides into glass, which can be 3D printed and cast in moulds as
reported in Science Advances. Researchers suggests that these glass biodegrades
quickly, but unfortunately wouldn't be suitable for applications such as drinks
bottles because the liquid would cause it to decompose.
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| Pic generated by Mufawad using AI |
However, amino acids are readily broken down by microorganisms, meaning that instead of sitting for years in a dump, the nutrients in biomolecular glass could reenter the ecosystem.
The development of renewable,
benign and degradable materials is highly appealing for a sustainable future. Researchers
modified the ends of amino acids to change how they assemble and stop them from
breaking up.
They then supercooled them to
solidify them into glass, which stayed solid when it returned to room
temperature. This method prevents the amino acids and peptides from forming a
crystalline structure when they solidify, which would make the glass cloudy.
When exposed to digestive fluids
and compost, the biomolecular glass took between a few weeks and several months
to break down, depending on the chemical modification and amino acid or peptide
used.
Scientists from the field of
material science speculates that the peptide glass would be less rigid than
standard glass, but could be beneficial in flexible, miniature devices such as the lenses of a microscope.
