African Union membership to G20 supported by Researchers, Plastic rocks found in Oceans, Mission to Jupiter launched and other science news of Week

Hey there, welcome to my blog. In this weekly writeup, wherein I cover the current science, we will delve into the new scientific research that happened in the past week or so and explore the latest technologies and breakthroughs 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:

> Why African Union membership in the G20 is being supported by Researchers
> Researchers found that Octopus’ have taste buds on its arms
> Newly formed rocks made of plastics found in oceans
> JUICE mission that will orbit moons of the Jupiter launched
> Astronomers find a Giant Black Hole and it is on the run

African Union membership to G20 supported by Researchers, Plastic rocks found in Oceans, Mission to Jupiter launched and other science news of Week; Mufawad

Why African Union membership in the G20 is being supported by Researchers

Prominent researchers are backing the inclusion of the AU in the G20, a forum in which most of the world’s largest economic powers discuss and propose solutions to pressing global issues.

G20 summit; P.C: newsonair.gov.in

The G20 comprises 20 members, with the United States and China being the largest economies among 19 individual countries. India, which currently holds the rotating presidency, is also on board. India is pushing for a more inclusive world order, and this includes supporting the inclusion of the African Union in the G20 discussions formally as a member.

The G20 has limited membership, but many of the global challenges that fall within its mandate require broader engagement. Climate change is a strong example of this, as Africa is responsible for only around 3% of global carbon emissions yet loses about 5% to 15% of gross domestic product due to climate change.

The responses of many G20 members to COVID-19 constitute another reason to include the African Union. During the pandemic, high-income countries have been able to borrow US$17 trillion with zero interest rates, but many low-income countries could not borrow to protect their populations.  Besides that, In 2021 G20 member countries received up to 15 times more COVID-19 vaccine doses per capita compared to those in sub-Saharan Africa.

In the past, the group has backed African initiatives, but without the majority of the continent’s representatives being present at G20 meetings. The inclusion of the African Union would bring all 55 African countries into the G20, thus giving representation to 54 countries more than the status quo, at the cost of just one additional seat.

The ‘Advocating for a G21’ document is a good model of how to include ethics in decision-making and be inclusive in decision making as Mahatma Gandhi said, Whatever you do for me but without me, you do against me.

Researchers found that Octopus’ have taste buds on its arms

Squids and octopuses both utilise the suckers on their limbs to struggle with their prey while simultaneously tasting it.

A few research papers published in Nature on 12 April detail the structure of the receptors that stud the animals’ suckers, which transmit information that enables the creature to taste chemicals on a surface of its arms independently from those floating in the water.

Image generated by Mufawad using AI

The cephalopods that include octopuses have fascinated scientists as they have more neurons in their arms than in their central brain, and researchers have long known that the hundreds of suckers on each arm can both feel the environment and taste it. This helps each arm to function independently as of it has its own brain.

Molecular biologist Nicholas Bellono and neurobiologist Ryan Hibbs both researched on the receptors on the octopus’ arms they consist of five barrel-like proteins clustered to form a hollow tube.

The octopus’s genome was found to possess 26 genes for barrel-shaped proteins, which can be shuffled to create millions of distinct five-part combinations that detect various tastes. The researchers found that the octopus receptors tend to bind to ‘greasy’ molecules that don’t dissolve in water, suggesting that they are optimized for detecting chemicals on surfaces such as a fish’s skin, the sea floor or the octopus’s own eggs.

Bellono, Hibbs and their colleagues studied how these chemical receptors arose in cephalopods and found that the squid receptors responded to molecules that would produce a bitter taste. This suggests that a squid might choose to accept or reject its prey based on this particular taste.

The receptors are supposed to have developed separately after the progenitors of squids and octopuses parted ways some 300 million years ago, acquiring new features through time, according to an analysis of the squid and octopus genomes. Since squid’s float in the water, perceive their prey, then send out tentacles to grab it, their suckers don't taste a fish until they touch it, the necessity for several sorts of sensors makes sense. However, having a variety of delicate tentacle suckers is essential for octopuses, which frequently sit on the ocean floor and feel their way for food.

The findings raise many questions, including how the suckers send sensory information to the octopus’s brain and how the brain interprets it.

Rocks partially made of plastics found in oceans

Researchers have discovered a new form of plastic pollution: thin films of plastic waste chemically bonded to rocks. This discovery adds to scientists’ growing recognition that plastics have become part of Earth’s geology.

The source of the plastic is rubbish that accumulated in and around the oceans and water bodies, including polypropylene films and polyethylene films. When the researchers peered at the plastic-rock combos with spectroscopic instruments, they saw that carbon atoms at the surface of the polyethylene films were chemically bonded to silicon in the rock with the help of oxygen atoms.

Image generated by Mufawad using AI

This bonding might have been driven by ultraviolet light from the Sun or by the metabolic activity of a thriving community of microbes that the researchers found living on the plastic rocks. Plastic rocks are also concerning because they can shed microplastics into the environment, which can be transported long distances through the atmosphere and oceans, can penetrate plant tissues and might be mistaken for food by animals.

Deyi Hou and his colleagues at Tsinghua University in Beijing, China conducted research to see how much microplastic would be shed by the sheets bound to the rocks they found. The team reported rates of microplastic generation that were orders of magnitude greater than those reported in lab tests mimicking plastic shedding in landfill, seawater and marine sediment.

It is pertinent to mention that it was first in 2020, when the geologists described sedimentary rocks in Brazil that had plastic-lined bottle caps, plastic earrings and other litter embedded in their layers. They dubbed the rocks anthropoquinas.

Gerson Fernandino, a geoscientist at the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil, says the complexes are the first of their kind to be formed in a freshwater ecosystem.

Hou acknowledges that his research so far has been based on only four samples and is continuing to search for more examples of plastic interactions even in terrestrial ecosystems. Some geologists see the growing body of research on plastic rocks as evidence that humans have profoundly changed the planet’s geology since the mid-twentieth century, and some argue that this shift should be recognized as a new geological epoch, the Anthropocene.

Jan Zalasiewicz, a palaeobiologist at the University of Leicester, UK, says Hou’s research brings the Anthropocene home to the present.

JUICE mission that will orbit moons of the Jupiter launched

Europe’s space agency is preparing to launch a mission to Jupiter that would have made Galileo Galilei proud. The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (JUICE) craft positioned atop an Ariane 5 rocket at the European spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana, was launch on 13^th April. Three of the four major moons Galileo spotted in 1610 will be approached by the probe, and it will ultimately orbit around Ganymede to look for signs of a submerged ocean beneath its frozen surface.

Image generated by Mufawad using AI

It will be the first time that any spacecraft has orbited a natural satellite other than Earth’s Moon. The probe will circle back and pass close to both Earth and the Moon in around one year’s time, which will help to slingshot the spacecraft towards the outer Solar System.

JUICE will initially fly by Venus in 2025, subjecting it to intense heat, and then it will pass by Earth twice more in 2026 and 2029. When it reaches Jupiter in 2031, its primary engine will do a protracted retro-burn to slow down and start circling the planet.

In 2035, JUICE will fire up its main engine again to enter orbit around Ganymede, at an altitude of 500 kilometres, for at least 9 months. This will be a delicate manoeuvre, as Jupiter’s gravity pulls it away if it is moving too fast. Ganymede is the largest moon in the Solar System, and the only one known to currently have its own magnetic field.

In 2018, NASA launched JUNO that conducted fly-bys of two of the planet’s icy moons, sending back spectacular images including that of hidden oceans.

Hidden oceans are thought to harbour liquid water underneath their predominantly water-ice surfaces, potentially providing an environment for some form of life to have evolved.

JUICE’s laser altimeter will also make topographical maps made by Ganymede, which could make the surface swing up and down by as much as 10 metres on a water world with an ice crust. Loaded with 3.5 tonnes of propellant, JUICE weighs nearly 6 tonnes.

Besides that, JUICE will deploy 85 square metres of solar panels and a plethora of booms and antennas for its ten onboard instruments, which will map the icy moons’ surfaces, study the chemistry of the satellites’ thin atmospheres, Jupiter’s strong magnetic field and radiation belts, and more.

Besides that NASA will also launch Europa Clipper in 2024 to study Europa, one of the moons of the Jupiter.

By the time JUICE and Europa Clipper arrives near Jupiter, Juno will have already exhausted its propellant and ended its mission. Researchers are excited at the prospect of having two probes in the system at the same time, which could enable simultaneous measurements of Jupiter’s magnetic field at two locations. Both missions are scheduled to end with a controlled crash landing on Ganymede’s surface, with the one that lasts the longest might observe the other’s impact up close.

Astronomers find a Giant Black Hole and it is on the run

An international team of researchers have discovered a supermassive black hole weighing about 20 million suns that has escaped its host galaxy, zooming in the space at the rate of 1500 km/s. The discovery is detailed in a paper published in Astrophysical Journal Letters.

Supermassive black holes are mysterious giants that lurk at the centres of large galaxies such as our own Milky Way and are usually inert and easy to overlook. They often only betray their presence with celestial fireworks while swallowing immense volumes of gas and dust from their host galaxy.

Image generated by Mufawad using AI

Despite their terrifying dimensions, supermassive black holes are usually quite inert and easy to overlook. Across the past decade, astronomers have only managed to identify a small number of other candidate nomads darkly drifting through the intergalactic depths, but none of these are as convincing as their newfound escapee.

The most important details in this text are that a black hole was discovered by chance when it first appeared as a faint linear streak in a Hubble Space Telescope observation of globular clusters. Further observations via the ground-based W. M. Keck Observatory on Mauna Kea in Hawaii revealed that the streak was a stream of young blue stars stretching across an astonishing 200,000 light-years.

The stellar stream is the clinching evidence that a cosmic contrail arose from a feedstock of gas that the onrushing black hole shocked and compressed into stars. It traces back arrowlike to a probable source galaxy some 7.5 billion light-years from Earth that shows no signs of now harboring a giant, feasting black hole at its core.

Many academics are intrigued by the speed since any explanation other than a massive black hole trampled over galaxy would appear impossible. However, further observations using NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope and Chandra X-ray Observatory could eliminate any lingering doubts.

Erin Bonning, an astronomer at Emory University, thinks that direct gravitational effects of a compact, massive object are crucial for explaining how something weighing millions or billions of suns can be kicked out of a galaxy in the first place.

Astronomers have long known that big galaxies can grow from collisions and mergers of smaller ones, and that giant galaxies can merge with one another, forcing the black holes at their respective centers into close proximity. This observation suggests that supermassive black holes may be dislodged from the center in the aftermath and even flung out of galaxies altogether.

If two black holes become locked in a gravitational dance and then a third crashes in, the resulting instability can hurl one of the trio away at sufficient speed to exit the host galaxy entirely. Another possibility is that two black holes coming together, while only one could suffice. The second channel involves two black holes merging and emitting gravitational waves.

Finding more of these escapees may give researchers a powerful new tool to learn more about how galaxies are born, grow and even eventually die. The peculiar specifics of this latest candidate seen as a starry “scratch” on a Hubble image, leading Bonning and other experts to suspect that evidence for other similar escapees may already exist, as-yet-unnoticed and awaiting discovery.