Hi there, welcome to my blog Mufawad. In this monthly writeup, we will try to unveil the latest breakthroughs & uncover tomorrow's possibilities. 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 quirky AI images generated by me related to those particular topics.
Let’s delve
into the new scientific research that happened in the past month or so and
explore the latest technologies and breakthroughs that were achieved in this field
of science. In current blog, you will read about the following science events
of the month:
Private iSpace Moon mission fails
The Godfather of A.I quits AI
New Cell organelle discovered in
fruit flies
First ever “PANGENOME” draft
released
Largest ever cosmic explosion
witnessed by astronauts
International Space station to be
replaced soon
First Amphibian that pollinates
flowers found
New soft electronic skin invented
that mimics our sense of touch
New data about 2019 Black Hole
image reveals new details
Orcas found not only sinking boats
in Europe but also teaching others how to do it
Lonely
Parrots taught to video call each other
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| Current Science Report: May 2023, www.mufawad.com |
Private iSpace Moon mission fails
The HAKUTO-R Mission 1 (M1) lander,
developed by Tokyo-based company ispace, was set to make the first successful
lunar landing by a commercial mission on 25 April at around 16:40 universal
time.
However, the team lost contact with
the craft when it was just around 90 meters above the lunar surface, and was
unable to re-establish communication after the landing as planned.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
ispace CEO Takeshi Hakamada
announced that there was a "high probability" that M1 had made a
crash-landing on the Moon. The 2.3-meter-tall lander was in an upright position
during its final approach but was running low on fuel. Data also show that the
spacecraft picked up speed as it descended towards the lunar surface.
The lander was doing what it should
have done, which was descending vertically with its engines keeping it to the
low velocity. However, for the last few hundred meters, it was in freefall.
Telemetry showed that it was at
zero altitude, but in reality, it wasn't. The main cause of the freefall was
the gap between the estimated altitude and the actual altitude, which could
have been caused by a sensor or software issue.
The lander was carrying the United
Arab Emirates' 50-centimeter-long Rashid rover, developed by the Mohammed bin
Rashid Space Centre in Dubai, which was designed to study particles in the
lunar soil and investigate the geological properties of the Moon's surface.
The lander was launched on 11
December 2022 from Cape Canaveral, Florida, on board a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket.
Data acquired during the landing sequence will offer insights for ispace's
second attempt to land on the Moon, planned for 2024.
Scientists explain that post this disaster the team must have more confidence in the flight operation because they already know how to operate the lander. The team will have learned a lot about how to get to a certain point, putting them in a strong position for the next attempt.
The Godfather of A.I quits AI
Geoffrey Hinton, a pioneer in
artificial intelligence (AI), has quit his job at Google and became one of the latest
personalities to raise voices against dangers of A.I. His journey from AI
groundbreaker to doomsayer marks a remarkable moment for the technology
industry at perhaps its most important inflection point in decades.
Industry leaders believe the new AI
systems could be as important as the introduction of the web browser in the
early 1990s and could lead to breakthroughs in areas ranging from drug research
to education.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
However, many industry insiders fear
that they are releasing something dangerous into the wild. Generative AI can
already be a tool for misinformation. Soon, it could be a risk to jobs.
Somewhere down the line, tech’s biggest worriers say, it could be a risk to
humanity.
Since the San Francisco start-up
OpenAI released a new version of ChatGPT in March, more than 1,000 technology
leaders and researchers signed an open letter calling for a six-month
moratorium on the development of new systems because A.I. technologies pose
what they said “profound risks to
society and humanity.”
Several days later, 19 current and
former leaders of the Association for the Advancement of Artificial
Intelligence, a 40-year-old academic society, released their own letter warning
of the risks of A.I. That group included Eric Horvitz, chief scientific officer
at Microsoft, which has deployed OpenAI’s technology across a wide range of
products, including its Bing search engine.
Dr. Hinton, often called “the
Godfather of A.I.,” did not sign either of those letters and said he did not
want to publicly criticize Google or other companies until he had quit his job.
He notified the company last month that he was resigning, and on Thursday, he
talked by phone with Sundar Pichai, the chief executive of Google’s parent
company, Alphabet.
Dr. Hinton believes that the race
between Google and Microsoft and others will escalate into a global race that ought
to have some checks and balances and global regulation.
He believes this may be impossible,
as there is no way to know whether companies or countries are secretly working
on the technology. The best hope is for the world's leading scientists to
collaborate on controlling the technology. He doesn't think they should scale
up more until they understand whether they can control it.
Dr Hinton quoted Robert Oppenheimer, who led the U.S. effort to build the atomic bomb, "When you see something technically sweet, you go ahead and do it."
New Cell organelle discovered in fruit flies
Researchers have discovered a tiny
structure/organelle inside animal cells that acts as a reservoir of phosphate,
helping to regulate nutrient levels and triggering processes that maintain
tissues when it is in short supply.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
This is one of the first studies to
actually find phosphate storage in an animal cell, according to Rebekka Wild, a
structural biologist at the French national research agency CNRS in Grenoble.
Phosphate is essential to life and is known to be essential in plants,
bacteria, and yeast.
However, few studies have explored
its specific functions in animal tissues and cells. Charles Xu, a geneticist at
the Rockefeller University in New York City, was curious about the role
phosphate plays in regulating tissue renewal in the fruit-fly gut, a useful
model for studying how diseases affect cells in the human intestine.
The fruit-fly findings revealed
that the lack of phosphate led to a spike in cell numbers, and this rapid cell
multiplication also occurred when the flies' food contained 10% less phosphate
than standard levels.
To understand how phosphate was
having this effect, Xu and his team investigated whether low phosphate levels
affected gene expression. They found that PXo, a gene similar to a
mammalian gene that encodes a phosphate-sensing protein, was weaker when cells
were deprived of phosphate. This reduced gene expression also kicked cell
division into overdrive.
However, cell division slowed down
when the gene was tweaked to overexpress the PXo protein. The
researchers labelled the PXo protein with a fluorescent tag and noticed
that it was associated with an array of oval-shaped structures in the cells
that did not seem to be any of the known organelles.
These structures had several
membrane layers, and the PXo protein was transporting phosphate across them.
Once inside the unfamiliar organelles, the phosphate was converted to
phospholipids, the main building blocks of cellular membranes. When the fly
cells were deprived of phosphate, the organelles broke apart and released the
stored phospholipids into each cell, indicating that they function like
reservoirs.
This breakdown activated cellular
machinery known as Cka, triggering a stress signal that increased the
production of new cells. This could be a way for the intestinal lining to keep
phosphate levels stable, as the increased number of cells can absorb more of
the nutrient.
Scientists wonder if the findings lay the groundwork for exploring whether there are similar phosphate-storing organelles in other animals, including humans. Further research could be needed to investigate how these phosphate-storing organelles interact with other organelles and how their dynamics change over time. The discovery of a new organelle in animal cells also highlights the beauty of cell physiology and the potential for further research.
First ever “PANGENOME” draft released
Researchers have published a draft
human "pangenome" more than 20 years after the first draft genome
from the landmark Human Genome Project was released. The draft pangenome,
published in Nature on 10 May, is produced by the Human Pangenome Reference
Consortium.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
Launched in 2019, the international
project aims to map the entirety of human genetic variation, creating a
comprehensive reference against which geneticists will be able to compare other
sequences. Such a reference would aid studies done in investigating potential
links between genes and disease.
The draft pangenome represents a
collection of sequences from a diverse selection of 47 people from around the
globe, including individuals from Africa, the Americas, Asia, and Europe.
Eimear Kenny, a geneticist at the
Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and her colleagues
aligned all these sequences computationally to form a "pangenome
graph," conceptually similar to a London Underground map, in which
branching paths indicate genetic variation.
The researchers found that the
pangenome enabled them to identify twice as many structural variants i.e., large
genomic alterations such as gene duplications or deletions per person than is
possible using the original, linear reference genome.
The team aims to analyze sequences
from 350 people by mid-2024. Many of the samples being analysed are from people
who took part in the 1000 Genomes Project, a sequencing effort initiated in
2008 to map genetic variation across 26 diverse populations.
The participants' frozen DNA
samples are being defrosted and reanalyzed by the pangenome consortium using a
more detailed technique called "long-read sequencing." This analysis
allows for the distinction between chromosome pairs from the same person.
Consent forms signed by the
participants at the time of the 1000 Genomes Project cover the reanalysis of
their samples, and the consortium has committed not to include people who are
members of Indigenous tribes or other groups with formal policies preventing
sample contribution.
However, some researchers are
concerned that the project risks repeating ethically questionable practices
from other large-scale genetic-diversity projects. For instance, the Human
Genome Diversity Project in the 1990s and the ongoing All of Us Research
Program received criticism for failing to engage sufficiently with members of
the communities whose DNA they were sampling.
Krystal Tsosie, a genetic
epidemiologist and bioethicist at Arizona State University in Tempe, co-founder
of the Native BioData Consortium, believes that the progress should be the
equitable engagement of under-represented communities in this work from the
ground up.
Some scientist argue that data from
the Human Pangenome Reference Project could be used by the pharmaceutical
industry for commercial purposes without tangible benefits to study
participants or their communities.
Latifa Jackson, a geneticist at Howard University in Washington DC, points out that many of the participating pangenome locations have samples collected many years before it was launched. The pangenome consortium recognizes that this work is at the forefront of genomic research and has specific features, including open access of data, that warrant a great deal of consideration.
Largest ever cosmic explosion witnessed by astronauts
Astronomers have captured the
largest cosmic explosion ever witnessed, believed to be triggered by a giant
cloud of gas being gobbled up by a supermassive black hole. The flare-up,
traced to 8 billion light years away, is more than 10 times brighter than any
known supernova and has lasted more than three years, making it the most
energetic explosion on record.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
The explosion, known as AT2021lwx,
is the result of a vast cloud of gas, possibly thousands of times larger than
our sun, plunging into the inescapable mouth of a supermassive black hole. The
cloud of gas may have originated from the large dusty "doughnut" that
typically surrounds black holes, although it is not clear what may have knocked
it off course from its orbit and down the cosmic sinkhole.
The explosion was first detected in
2020 by the Zwicky Transient Facility in California, which surveys the night
sky for sudden increases in brightness that could signal cosmic events such as
supernova or passing asteroids and comets. The event initially did not stand
out, but with follow-up observations, its distance was be calculated and astronomers
realized they had captured an incredibly rare event. They turned to the other
common scenario that causes bright flashes in the night sky e.g., so-called
tidal disruption event.
Simulations suggested a star up to
15 times the mass of the sun would have been required to account for AT2021lwx.
Supermassive blackholes are typically surrounded by a vast halo of gas and
dust, and the authors speculate that some of this material may have been
disrupted, possibly by a collision of galaxies, and sent inwards. As the
material spiralled towards the black hole's event horizon, it would have given
off vast amounts of heat and light, illuminating a portion of the doughnut and
heating it to 12K-13Ko C.
International Space station to be replaced soon
The International Space Station
(ISS) will be decommissioned in eight years, marking the end of a long-standing
partnership between the US and Russia. The project began in 1998 with the
launch of Russia's Zarya module, marking the beginning of a new era of human
collaboration in space.
The ISS has been continuously
occupied since its first crew arrived in November 2000, with its hardware
ageing. Thousands of scientific experiments have been conducted on the ISS,
including studying diseases like Alzheimer's and Parkinson's, studying new
states of matter, and developing ways to grow food in space.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
However, some argue that the
station's main accomplishment was solidifying humanity as a space-faring
species. Before its launch, humans had explored long-duration spaceflight, but
the ISS has been on another level. However, the end of the ISS will bring an
end to this impressive display of human collaboration, which has outlasted wars
and conflicts on our planet.
The European Space Agency (ESA) is
already exploring opportunities for new commercial space stations to replace
the ISS. NASA has outsourced the transportation of humans to low Earth orbit to
companies like SpaceX and Boeing in the US, and has begun awarding contracts
worth hundreds of millions of dollars to companies to develop new space
stations.
These could become small research
laboratories or destinations for space tourists, maintaining humanity's
presence in orbit around our planet. One such company, Axiom Space, has already
been transporting astronauts on SpaceX rockets into orbit.
In 2025, the company hopes to begin
attaching modules to the ISS, which could eventually be detached to form its
own station that could be rented out to paying customers.
Josef Aschbacher, head of the
European Space Agency (Esa), says they are very much in discussion with all
these players. They are keen on finding a way to continue after the end of the
ISS. Freeing up the $3bn (£2.4bn) spent on the ISS each year will allow the
agency to pursue other human spaceflight goals, such as sending astronauts back
to the Moon and Mars. The agency is currently carrying out its Artemis
program to return to the lunar surface, with four astronauts flying around the
Moon for the first time since Apollo 17 in 1972.
NASA also plans to build a new
space station near the moon, known as the Lunar Gateway, with the help of
international partners. Construction could begin later this decade, while it
won't match the size of the ISS but could become a key part of future human
spaceflight to the Moon and beyond, acting as an outpost for astronauts
travelling to and from the Moon. Lastly, there is the possibility that the ISS
will not be completely destroyed. Some companies worry that deorbiting the
entire station would be a waste, and that some of its modules and resources
could be repurposed or reused in space. NASA has not yet said it is open to
such ideas, but it could change its mind as the deadline to deorbit the ISS
approaches.
The ISS project is set to end in
2031, with smaller space stations potentially replacing it. The legacy of the
ISS may be just the beginning, as it demonstrates that despite nationalism and
borders, cooperation is possible and that we can share in the riches. As
astronauts continue to explore the Moon, the ISS will leave behind an
impressive legacy.
First Amphibian that pollinates flowers found
On rainy nights in Rio de Janeiro Brazil, frog species named, Xenohyla truncata, gather around milk fruit trees doing what could
be possibly the world's first seen pollination by any amphibian.
The discovery adds to growing evidence that we need to broaden our understanding of which animals act as pollinators and look beyond birds and insects.
Researchers observed a
group of Brazilian tree frogs feeding on milk fruit in December
2020, which was already supposed to be one of the few amphibians in the world that do eat fruits.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
The researchers saw one frog wiggle
into a flower in search of nectar, then emerge with pollen clinging to the
secretions on its moist back. This led them to suggest that the amphibians
might play a role in carrying pollen from bloom to bloom, aiding the tree's
reproduction.
The discovery is an encouraging
first step, but more research is needed to prove the frogs are pollinators.
Future research could include long-term monitoring of flowers with cameras or
the use of frog-barring cages to see if milk flowers are less successful at
reproducing when frogs can't access them.
Other questions still need to be
answered, such as whether the secretions on the frogs' back harm the pollen or
stop it from brushing off on different flowers. The researchers also wonder
whether the frogs visit enough flowers to make a difference in the trees'
reproduction.
The new tree frog observations are
an intriguing glimpse into a species that gets little respect in its homeland.
In Brazil, frogs that brush up against human habitation, including X. truncata,
often meet unhappy ends, thanks to predatory cats or panicky homeowners.
New soft electronic skin invented that mimics our sense of touch
Researchers at Stanford University
have developed a single, multilayer, soft, and stretchable material with
integrated nerve-like electronics that can sense pressure, temperature, strain,
and more, just like real skin.
The researchers hope that these signals
could be directed to implanted wireless communication chips in the peripheral
nerve, allowing amputees to control prosthetic limbs. The new e-skin runs on
just 5 volts and can detect stimuli similar to real skin.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
The team invented a tri-layer
dielectric structure that increased the mobility of electrical charge carriers
by 30 times compared to single-layer dielectrics, allowing the circuits to
operate at low voltage.
One of the layers in the tri-layer
is nitrile, the same rubber used in surgical gloves. The majority of e-skin is
made of many layers of skin-like materials, with integrated networks of organic
nanostructures that transmit electrical signals even when stretched. Each
sensory input has its own integrated circuit.
The e-skin is sandwiched together
into a single monolithic material that does not delaminate, tear, or lose
electrical function. Each electronic layer is just a few tens to hundred nanometres
thick, and the finished material is less than a micron thick.
The e-skin is in a similar thickness
range to the outer layer of human skin, making it a promising advancement in
artificial electronic skin.
New data about 2019 Black Hole image reveals new details
In 2019, the first image of a black
hole was released, showing the supermassive black hole at the centre of the
galaxy named M87. The orange doughnut must have been produced not directly by
the black hole but by matter in its vicinity that is 'superheated' and twisted
by magnetic fields which is supposed representing radio-wavelength emissions.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
The black hole's gravity bent rays
of light to produce the ring shape, as expected from Albert Einstein's general
theory of relativity. However, there was no clear indication of the origin of
the radiation on the basis of that image alone. The most likely explanation was
that the glow resulted from the same mechanism that causes a bright jet of
superheated matter to protrude far out from the host galaxy.
The original M87 image was blurry
and showed only the immediate vicinity of the black hole's event horizon, the
spherical surface that shrouds its interior. Any material that crossed the
event horizon fell inwards, never to return. It was challenging to link the
image to the larger-scale pictures of the jet.
In a paper published in Nature,
radio astronomers including Krichbaum crunched through a separate data set and
found a cone of radio emissions emanating from the black hole in the same
direction as the jet.
The original M87 image used 2017
data from the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT), a network of observatories
scattered across four continents that examined the black hole at a wavelength
of 1.3 millimetres.
However, the latest paper used data
taken in 2018 with the Global Millimetre VLBI Array (GMVA), a separate and
older network that shares many collaborators with the EHT and uses some of the
same facilities but observes at 3.5 millimetres. Both networks use a technique
called interferometry, which combines data taken simultaneously at multiple
locations.
A different perspective was
published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters on 13 April this year, by
astrophysicist Lia Medeiros at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton,
New Jersey, and her collaborators. The EHT team used conservative algorithms
that artificially blurred the image in the 2019 results.
Medeiros's team developed an
algorithm based on dictionary learning that maximizes the resolution and
produces a substantially thinner ring. Medeiros is eager to apply the similar technique
to data on Sagittarius A, the black hole at the centre of our Galaxy.
The EHT has already released an
image of Sagittarius A and M87 images, including magnetic field signatures.
They conducted observation campaigns in 2018 and annually between 2021 and
2023, but has not yet analysed the data.
Orcas found not only sinking boats in Europe but also teaching others how to do it
Orcas have attacked and sunk a atleast
four boat off the Iberian coast of Europe, and experts now believe the behaviour
is being copied by the rest of the population. Three orcas (Orcinus orca), also
known as killer whales, struck the yacht on the night of May 4 in the Strait of
Gibraltar, off the coast of Spain. The smaller orcas imitated the larger one,
and the two smaller orcas slammed into the boat with a slight run-up.
Spanish coast guards rescued the
crew and towed the boat to Barbate, but it sank at the port entrance. Two days
earlier, a pod of six orcas assailed another sailboat navigating the strait.
Greg Blackburn, who was aboard the vessel, looked on as a mother orca appeared
to teach her calf how to charge into the rudder.
Reports of aggressive encounters
with orcas off the Iberian coast began in May 2020 and are becoming more
frequent, according to a study published June 2022 in the journal Marine Mammal
Science.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
Assaults seem to be mainly directed
at sailing boats and follow a clear pattern, with orcas approaching from the
stern to strike the rudder, then losing interest once they have successfully
stopped the boat.
Most earlier encounters with the orcas
have been harmless, however the spike in aggression towards boats is a recent
phenomenon, and researchers think that a traumatic event may have triggered a
change in the behaviour of one orca, which the rest of the population has
learned to imitate.
Orcas are social creatures that can
easily learn and reproduce behaviors performed by others. In the majority of
reported cases, orcas have made a beeline for a boat's rudder and either
bitten, bent, or broken it.
The behaviour has spread to the
young vertically, simply by imitation, and later horizontally among them,
because they consider it something important in their lives. Orcas appear to
perceive the behaviour as advantageous, despite the risk they run by slamming
into moving boat structures.
Since the abnormal interactions
began in 2020, four orcas belonging to a subpopulation living in Iberian waters
have died, although their deaths cannot be directly linked to encounters with
boats. The unusual behaviour could also be playful or a "fad," a behaviour
initiated by one or two individuals and temporarily picked up by others before
it's abandoned.
As the number of incidents grows,
there is increased concern both for sailors and the Iberian orca subpopulation,
which is listed as critically endangered by the IUCN Red List.
Lonely Parrots taught to video call each other
Scientists have discovered that pet
parrots who are allowed to make video calls to other birds show lesser signs of
feeling isolated. The study involved giving the birds a tablet to make video
calls, and the birds engaged in more social behaviors, including preening,
singing, and play.
The most popular choice was the
parrots that called other birds most often. Dr. Ilyena Hirskyj-Douglas, a
co-author of the research, said that video calls might have helped many people
feel less isolated during the pandemic.
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| Image generated by Mufawad using AI |
The researchers analyzed over 1,000
hours of footage of 18 pet parrots and found that there were indeed benefits
for the birds. In the wild, many species of parrots live in large flocks, but
as pets tend to be kept alone or in a small group, isolation and boredom can
cause birds to develop psychological problems.
Video calling could reproduce some
of the social benefits of living in a flock, according to Dr Rébecca
Kleinberger, first author of the study. The parrots were recruited from users
of Parrot Kindergarten, an online coaching and educational program for parrots
and their owners.
The birds first learned to ring a
bell and then touch a photo of another bird on the screen of a tablet device to
trigger a call to that bird, with the assistance of their owners.
In total, the birds made 147
deliberate calls to each other during the study, while owners took detailed
notes on the birds' behavior. Dr. Jennifer Cunha, co-founder of Parrot
Kindergarten, said that the parrots "seemed to grasp" that they were
engaging with other birds because their behavior mirrored that seen during
real-life interactions. All participants in the study said they valued the
experience and would want to continue using the system with their parrots in
the future.
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