Current Science Report: July 2024

Hey there, welcome to my blog Mufawad. In this monthly writeup, I try to unveil the latest breakthroughs & uncover tomorrow's possibilities in the field of science. Whether you are a student, a professional, or simply a science enthusiast, this article will provide you an engaging and informative insights and current updates in scientific world. Plus, as a compliment, you will get a peep into quirky AI images generated by me related to those very particular topics.

So, Let’s delve into the new scientific research that happened in the past month or so and explore the latest technologies that are being created and breakthroughs that were achieved in this field.

In the current blog, you will read about the following science events of the month:

• Mystery Oxygen being produced on the sea floor bewilder scientists
• Underground Caves, ideal for Lunar bases, found on Moon
• Researchers surprised as NASA cancels a $450 million mission to drill for ice on the Moon
• Stonehenge civilization in Europe wiped out by Plague, claim Scientists
• Temperatures between July 2023 to June 2024 highest ever recorded
• Whole Chromosome extracted from Mammoth Skin
• Virus spreading across South America may cause birth defects like Zika
• Heaviest Element on earth so near yet so far from Production
• AI changing the Olympics for athletes and fans
• New research shed light on the life and struggle of Denisovans on the top of World
• Can faecal transplant cure cancers! Research says yes
• Moscow will be only cold city present on the surface of Earth by 2070

Current Science Report: July 2024, Mufawad

Mystery Oxygen being produced on the sea floor bewilder scientists

Researchers have discovered large amounts of oxygen at the bottom of the Pacific Ocean, where photosynthesis is impossible due to a lack of sunlight. The phenomenon was discovered in a region strewn with ancient, plum-sized formations called polymetallic nodules, which could play a part in the oxygen production by catalyzing the splitting of water molecules. The findings could have implications for understanding how life began and the possible impact of deep-sea mining in the region.

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The researchers first noticed something amiss during field work in 2013 when they were studying sea-floor ecosystems in the Clarion–Clipperton Zone, an area between Hawaii and Mexico that is larger than India and a potential target for the mining of metal-rich nodules. During such expeditions, the team releases a module that sinks to the sea floor to perform automated experiments. Once there, the module drives cylindrical chambers down to close off small sections of the sea floor, together with some seawater, and create “an enclosed microcosm of the seafloor”. The lander then measures how the concentration of oxygen in the confined seawater changes over periods of up to several days.

Oxygen currents are produced when oxygen concentrations inside the chambers should slowly fall without photosynthetic organisms releasing oxygen into the water and with any other organisms consuming the gas. In the Clarion–Clipperton Zone, the instruments showed that the sequestered water became richer, not poorer, in oxygen. The amounts of oxygen produced are not small: the gas in the chambers reaches concentrations higher than those seen in algae-rich surface waters. None of the other regions Sweetman has surveyed contained polymetallic nodules, suggesting that these rocks have an important role in the production of this ‘dark oxygen’.

As a first test of this hypothesis, the team recreated the conditions found on the sea floor in a laboratory on their ship. They monitored samples collected from the sea floor, which included polymetallic nodules, and saw that the oxygen concentration increased, at least for a while. The researchers measured voltages across the surface of nodules, and found voltage differences of up to 0.95 volts. This is not quite the 1.5 volts needed to split a water molecule, but in principle, higher voltages could be produced in the same way that battery voltages can be doubled by connecting two batteries in series.

The results could also have implications for proposals to look for the signature of possible life in the light spectrum of extrasolar planets. Before deep-sea mining starts, researchers should map the areas where oxygen production is occurring to avoid collapse of ecosystems that have become dependent on that oxygen.

Courtesy: Nature

Underground Caves, ideal for Lunar base, found on Moon

Researchers have discovered evidence of a substantial underground cave on the moon accessible from the surface, making it a prime location for building a future lunar base. The cave appears to be reachable from an open pit in the Mare Tranquillitatis (Sea of Tranquility), the ancient lava plain where Apollo 11 astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin first set foot on the moon over half a century ago. Analyzing radar data collected by Nasa's lunar reconnaissance orbiter (LRO), the researchers found that the deepest known pit on the moon leads to a cave 45 meters wide and up to 80 meters long, an area equivalent to 14 tennis courts. The cave lies about 150 meters beneath the surface.

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Lorenzo Bruzzone, of the University of Trento in Italy, said the cave was "probably an empty lava tube," adding that such features could serve as human habitats for future explorers as they were "a natural shelter against the harsh lunar environment." Lunar orbiters first spotted pits on the moon more than a decade ago, many of which are thought to be "skylights" that connect to underground caves such as lava tubes, giant underground tunnels that form through volcanic processes.

The caves may also contain water ice, a resource Bruzzone said was essential for long-term lunar missions and colonisation. At least 200 pits have been spotted on the moon, and many found on lava fields could be entrances to cavernous subterranean lava tubes. Space agencies are now wondering how to assess the structural stability of caves and reinforce their walls and ceilings. Habitats may also need monitoring systems to warn of movement or seismic activity and have separate areas for astronauts to retreat to should sections of their cave collapse.

Courtesy: Guardian

Researchers surprised as NASA cancels a $450 million mission to drill for ice on the Moon

NASA has cancelled the Volatiles Investigating Polar Exploration Rover (VIPER), a mission to map ice and drill into it at the Moon's south pole. The cancellation was due to budget issues and delays in the construction of the rover and its lander, which have led to rising costs. The agency has already spent nearly US $450 million on building VIPER, and reports suggest that it would need to spend millions more to complete testing. This would threaten funding for other launches as part of its Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) programme, which works with private US aerospace companies to transport scientific instruments to the lunar surface.

The US Congress approved $433.5 million to be spent building VIPER and landing it on the Moon by the end of 2023. The idea was to sample ice in dark, cold craters at the lunar south pole, extracting chemical data trapped inside it, and learn more about the origin and formation of the Solar System. However, delays in building the rover and the commercial lander that would deliver it to the Moon pushed the launch date to late 2025, with an estimated cost rise of $176 million. This cost spike triggered an internal agency review, which was completed in June.

NASA officials remain confident in Astrobotic Technology, the aerospace company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, that is building the lander for this mission. However, some scientists are sceptical of the agency's statement, as their Peregrine spacecraft leaked propellant, tumbled out of control, and never made it to the lunar surface. Astrobotic is still eager to launch its Griffin lunar lander next year, despite VIPER no longer being onboard.

NASA is accepting proposals from interested parties to use the rover in its current state, or it will dismantle the craft and repurpose the components for other missions. NASA is committed to continuing to study the Moon and looking for water and ice in all of its future missions, including its Polar Resources Ice Mining Experiment-1 (PRIME-1), which is scheduled to fly to the Moon later this year on a commercial lander built by Intuitive Machines.

Courtesy: Nature

Stonehenge civilization in Europe wiped out by Plague, claim Scientists

The Neolithic culture in Europe, which produced megastructures like Stonehenge, experienced a significant decline around 5400 years ago. Recent evidence suggests that this decline was due to the plague. DNA sequencing from 108 individuals who lived in northern Europe at the time revealed that the plague bacterium Yersinia pestis was present in 18 of them when they died. Frederik Seersholm at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark believes that the plague did kill them.

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The population of Europe fell sharply around 5400 years ago, particularly in northern regions. Over the past decade, studies of ancient human DNA have revealed that local populations didn't fully recover from the Neolithic decline. Instead, they were largely replaced by other people moving in from the Eurasian steppes. In Britain, by around 4000 years ago, less than 10% of the population was derived from the people who built Stonehenge.

Several cases where the plague bacterium was present suggested a potential explanation – the plague might have wiped out Europe's population, allowing steppes people to move in with little opposition. However, Ben Krause-Kyora at Kiel University in Germany argued that occasional sporadic plague cases are to be expected and aren't evidence of a major pandemic.

Seersholm and his colleagues set out to find more evidence of a plague pandemic. The 108 individuals whose DNA his team managed to sequence were buried in nine tombs in Sweden and Denmark. Most died between 5200 and 4900 years ago, and they represent several generations of four families. There seem to have been three separate outbreaks of the plague over these generations. The last outbreak was caused by a strain with reshuffled genes that might have been much more dangerous.

The plague DNA was found mainly in teeth, which shows that the bacterium entered the blood and caused serious illness, and was probably the cause of death. In some cases, closely related individuals were infected, implying person-to-person spread. The team suggests that Y. pestis infecting the lungs and spreading via droplets – a form of the illness known as pneumonic plague – could have been the cause of death.

Seersholm and his team will now look for more evidence elsewhere in Europe. The only way to know for sure how deadly the reshuffled strain was would be to bring it back to life, which is far too risky to attempt.

Courtesy: New Scientist

Temperatures between July 2023 to June 2024 highest ever recorded

On July 22, 2024, temperatures reached an unprecedented high, according to NASA's global daily temperature data analysis. Both July 21 and 23 of this year also surpassed the previous record set in July 2023. These extreme temperatures are part of an ongoing warming trend attributed to human activities, mainly greenhouse gas emissions. To advance our understanding of Earth, NASA gathers essential long-term data on our planet's changes.

NASA Administrator Bill Nelson remarked, “In a year that has set temperature records, the past two weeks have been especially severe. Through our extensive network of over two dozen Earth-observing satellites and over 60 years of data, NASA is delivering crucial insights into how our planet is evolving and how communities can prepare, adapt, and protect themselves.”

This initial finding is based on data from the Modern-Era Retrospective analysis for Research and Applications, Version 2 (MERRA-2) and the Goddard Earth Observing System Forward Processing (GEOS-FP) systems. These systems integrate millions of global observations from various sources, including land, sea, air, and satellites, using atmospheric models.

GEOS-FP offers quick, near-real-time weather data, while MERRA-2 provides high-quality climate reanalysis over a longer period. Both models are managed by the Global Modeling and Assimilation Office (GMAO) at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland.

The latest temperature records follow 13 consecutive months of monthly temperature records, according to scientists from NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies in New York. Their analysis, based on the GISTEMP record, uses surface instrumental data to provide a long-term view of global temperature changes at both monthly and annual levels, extending back to the late 19th century.

Courtesy: NASA

Whole Chromosome extracted from Mammoth Skin

Researchers have discovered chromosomes preserved in their original 3D configuration in samples of a woolly mammoth on the frozen tundra of Siberia, 50,000 years ago. The study is the first to report the 3D structure of an ancient genome, as the spatial organization of the mammoth's DNA molecules and the active genes in its skin, including one responsible for giving the animal its fuzzy appearance, are crucial for understanding the cell biology of the mammoth's skin.

About 40 years ago, scientists discovered that scraps of DNA could survive in specimens from the distant past, including millennia-old Egyptian mummies. However, as time passes, DNA degrades and suffers chemical damage, so researchers had previously retrieved only DNA fragments that lacked a coherent structure. Reconstructing a 3D genome from such pieces is nearly impossible, as a mammalian genome is 30 million times the size of a typical ancient-DNA fragment. An intact chromosome, the single, long molecule of DNA that contains part of an organism’s genetic material, is about one million times longer than most ancient-DNA fragments.

The researchers analysed the structure of the mammoth’s chromosomes and revealed the folding of the DNA molecule and its spatial organization in the nucleus, two features that are crucial for determining which genes are turned on and for how long. Comparisons with modern elephants showed not only similarities in chromosome number and structure but also differences in the activity of genes involved in hair growth and cold adaptation.

The researchers proposed that mammoth chromosomes had been preserved in a glass-like state through a dehydration process similar to that used to produce beef jerky. The team's experiments on freeze-dried beef jerky confirmed the researchers' theory: the jerky shattered like glass but its chromosomes remained intact.

A full mammoth genome could help reveal features that could help produce an elephant-mammoth hybrid that resembles the extinct creature and could be reintroduced to its natural habitat.

Courtesy: Nature

Virus spreading across South America may cause birth defects like Zika

Brazilian scientists have raised concerns about the Oropouche virus, which is on the rise in South and Central America, potentially causing stillbirths and neurological defects in babies infected in the womb.

The Brazilian Ministry of Health reported four cases of microcephaly in newborns of infected mothers and one fetal death that might be associated with the virus. The link has yet to be confirmed, but the ministry recommends health professionals closely monitor pregnant people infected with Oropouche. The cases remind researchers of similar problems during outbreaks of Zika, a mosquito-borne disease, in the Americas. More than 3500 cases of infant microcephaly were recorded during a massive Zika outbreak in Brazil in 2015 and 2016, when an estimated 1.5 million people were infected.

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The Oropouche virus, which can cause sudden fever, headache, muscle and joint pain, dizziness, nausea, and vomiting, is transmitted primarily by Culicoides paraensis, a pinhead-size midge found all over the Americas. Cases of Oropouche fever have surged since late 2022, with Brazil having been hardest hit, with 7044 confirmed cases so far this year. Most cases are mild, but the virus can cause neurological damage in some patients.

Recent studies have shown the Oropouche virus can infect the human brain and cause neurological issues. In adults with severe disease, scientists have reported brain inflammation, vertigo, and lethargy.

Virologist Felipe Naveca of the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation expects to see complications from the virus as cases increased and testing became more widespread. Since early this year, Brazil has tested 10% of all samples from patients whose symptoms match Oropouche fever and who test negative for Zika, chikungunya, and dengue. Relatives of the Oropouche virus, including the Akabane virus and the Schmallenberg virus, are known to cause congenital defects in cows, sheep, and goats, including brain cysts and the absence of entire brain regions, as well as stillbirths.

Bolivia, Colombia, and Peru have also seen upticks in Oropouche cases but have not reported birth defects or stillbirths that might be related. The Oropouche virus naturally circulates among primates, sloths, and birds in the Amazon forest. Deforestation and climate change are suspected to drive the spread. The virus was first identified in 1955, and it's unclear why neurological damage in babies appears to have been very rare so far. One possibility is that nobody was really looking, another explanation is that the virus has evolved to become more pathogenic.

Judith Steen, a Harvard Medical School neurobiologist who studied how the Zika virus causes microcephaly, has another hypothesis. In the Amazon, the virus may have been circulating mostly among people who had some immunity from previous infections, but as it spread to new regions, it began to infect more people for the first time. Pregnant people are likely more vulnerable because their immune system becomes weaker. There are no vaccines or drugs for Oropouche, and Brazil's Ministry of Health recommends preventive measures such as avoiding places that might harbor many midges, using mosquito nets, installing insect screens on doors and windows, and using insect repellent.

Courtesy: Science.Org

Heaviest Element on earth so near yet so far from Production

Scientists at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California have demonstrated a new way to make superheavy elements, offering a method to create element 120, which would be the heaviest element ever made. The team used a beam of titanium to make livermorium, element 116, the first known superheavy element. After upgrading the lab's equipment, the team plans to use similar techniques to try to produce element 120. The heaviest element that has been made so far is oganesson, element 118, which was first synthesized in 2002.

The research is "truly groundbreaking," says Hiromitsu Haba, who leads the Superheavy Element Research Group at RIKEN Nishima Center for Accelerator-based Science in Saitama, Japan. The search for the superheavy elements beyond 118, oganesson, is proving to be a great challenge. Data from the experiment will "greatly improve the accuracy of existing theoretical calculations and will greatly advance mankind towards the discovery of elements 119 and 120."

Superheavy elements are extremely challenging to make, requiring hard-to-produce starting materials and long-running experiments. Some nuclear-physics groups focus on one rather than another. The Berkeley team presented its results at the Nuclear Structure 2024 conference in Lemont, Illinois, and describe them in a preprint posted to the arXiv1. The team says it has submitted the work to a journal.

Superheavy elements don't occur naturally on Earth, but scientists think that they might appear in stars. They are highly radioactive, break down quickly through nuclear fission, and have little prospect of direct practical applications. By making new elements, scientists deepen understanding of how the Universe works and fill in theoretical models of how the atomic nucleus behaves and of its limits — such as how many protons and neutrons it can hold.

To make new elements, researchers use particle accelerators to collide beams of ions with atoms in solid targets, hoping to induce nuclear reactions that will fuse their nuclei to produce elements with ever greater numbers of protons and neutrons. However, existing starting materials are running out of steam. The most recent set of superheavy elements to be discovered, numbers 114 to 118, were all produced by bombarding targets made of actinides (elements from the seventh period) with beams of calcium-48, which has 20 protons and 28 neutrons. This isotope of calcium is particularly stable, making it ideal for encouraging necessary nuclear-fusion reactions.

Getting to element 120 with a calcium beam would require a target that can provide at least an extra 100 protons. Making targets from such heavy elements, which are all rare and radioactive, is extremely challenging. The heaviest element scientists can produce in sufficient quantities to turn into targets is californium, which has just 98 protons. So the only way forward is to work with heavier beams.

Courtesy: Nature

AI changing the Olympics for athletes and fans

The 2024 Summer Olympic Games in Paris will feature over 10,000 athletes from around 200 countries, who will have a new friendly, but faceless, voice to greet and guide them. AthleteGPT, an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot designed for athletes, is accessible through the Athlete365 mobile app. It will be able to scour through thousands of information pages quickly and be available 24/7 to answer questions, says Todd Harple, the Olympics AI Innovation programme lead at Intel Labs in Hillsboro, Oregon.

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The International Olympics Committee (IOC) is embracing the technology by rolling out its AI agenda in April, an effort to streamline the explosive growth of AI research in sport and to strategize its use in the Olympics. “We have to be leaders of change, and not the object of change,” said Thomas Bach, the president of the IOC in Lausanne, Switzerland, at a press event in London which showcased the capabilities of various AI sports tools.

AI is changing how athletes and spectators will experience the Olympic Games. As early as 1900, French scientist Étienne-Jules Marey was pioneering the use of technology to study athletes in motion. Today, it is possible to do much more just by recording with a smartphone. Intel’s 3D athlete tracking (3DAT) technology uses AI to track 21 points across the human body to render its precise physical movement, providing “all the biomechanical insights that coaches look for” in elite athletes.

The ways in which AI is being used to enhance athletes’ performance range from designing custom-built athletic shoes and clothing to determining optimum nutrition and training schedules. “It may even accelerate our discovery of new strategies of playing sports,” he says. A historic example of such a fundamental change is the Fosbury flop, now the dominant style of high jump, and pioneered by US athlete Dick Fosbury at the 1968 Olympics.

The ease of collecting individual data, combined with AI analysis, could also help coaches to identify talent, making sports more equitable. In March, the IOC piloted a scouting program that used 3DAT to identify more than 40 children in Senegal who showed promise in becoming Olympic athletes, by analysing simple drills such as running and jumping.

Refereeing and real-time data are another area where AI is changing how athletes and spectators will experience the Olympic Games. AI is already informing such decisions in sports including football, using information recorded by an array of cameras around the stadium and chips implanted in the ball. However, AI will probably be slower to pervade areas such as refereeing, which requires real-time data analysis.

Another hurdle is funding, and the specific needs of each sport — there will be 32 events at the Paris games. Using AI in water polo would also present different challenges, such as training algorithms on images taken under water and in chaotic scenarios. Precision and open communication are key whenever AI assistance is used to make calls in real time.

Enhancing viewer experience is another area where AI is changing how athletes and spectators will experience the games. Broadcasters are rushing to find ways to augment this new wealth of information and put it onto television screens. In 2024, broadcasters have the ability to display much more, such as acceleration, top speeds, and stride lengths.

What excites Harple most is the prospect of personalized highlights made available to viewers through Intel’s Geti computer-vision AI platform, which could be a feature of future broadcasts. With so much sporting action being recorded simultaneously, the ability of AI to pick out exactly what viewers want to see will be a game-changer, particularly beneficial for coaches and broadcasters from nations with more limited access to production resources.

Courtesy: Nature

New research shed light on the life and struggle of Denisovans on the top of World

New research has revealed the lives of ancient humans, the Denisovans, from thousands of tiny animal bones discovered in Baishiya Karst Cave, China. The study, led by Frido Welker from the University of Copenhagen, reveals how Denisovans thrived in the harsh environment of the Tibetan plateau for over 100,000 years.

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The researchers found evidence that these ancient humans hunted a variety of animals, including birds, rodents, and hyenas, demonstrating their adaptability and resilience. Most of the bones were identified through protein signatures, a cutting-edge technique that included the discovery of a rib bone from a new Denisovan individual. DNA sequences from mitochondria from the site, matching those found in Denisova Cave in Russia, indicate that Denisovans had a much broader range across Asia than previously understood.

Further excavations at Baishiya Karst Cave, led by archaeologist Donju Zhang from Lanzhou University in China, continue to uncover more details about Denisovan life, including animal remains of caprines, wild yak, horses, wolves, gazelle, and even a marmot. These discoveries provide a clearer picture of how Denisovans interacted with their environment and utilized available resources. Researchers are optimistic that ongoing studies will reveal even more about the Denisovans' way of life, shedding light on their interactions with early Homo sapiens and other species.

Courtesy: Times of India

Can faecal transplant cure cancers! Research says yes

In February 2021, two clinical trials were published involving people with melanoma who had been successfully treated using immune checkpoint inhibitors. The researchers collected stool samples from the people who had benefited from the immunotherapy and implanted these samples and gut bacteria into the people who had not responded to the drugs. The hope was that this faecal microbiota transplant (FMT) would transfer the ability to respond to this potentially life-saving treatment.

Experiments in mice had already suggested that differences in the composition of people’s intestinal microbiomes might account for much of the notorious variability in responses to checkpoint inhibitors. Mice implanted with gut microbes from people who had responded positively to immunotherapy tended to respond well, too.

But when transplants came from non-responders, the drugs were ineffectual. Unconventional as the clinical trials were, they attracted many volunteers, says Hassane Zarour, an oncologist at the University of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, who led one of them.

In Zarour’s study, 6 of the 15 people who had received FMT benefited from the same form of immunotherapy that had previously done nothing for them. In the second trial, led by researchers at the Sheba Medical Center in Tel HaShomer, Israel, three of the ten participants became responders after receiving a transplant. The data were very impressive and very convincing, even if very preliminary.

Last year, Bertrand Routy, an oncologist at the University of Montreal, Canada, co-led a study involving 20 people with melanoma. After receiving FMT, 13 responded to checkpoint inhibitors, with 4 entering complete remission. However, this time, the implanted gut microbes came from healthy volunteers, rather than people who had already responded well to immunotherapy.

Preliminary results from a trial in which FMT was administered before first-line immunotherapy with two checkpoint inhibitors also indicate success — around three-quarters of people responded to the drugs, compared with a historical average of 58% when FMT is not used.

However, many oncologists want to take this idea further,, Jennifer Wargo, a cancer researcher at the MD Anderson Cancer Centre in Houston, Texas, wants to create standardized packages of known bacteria to modify the gut microbiome in a more controlled fashion. Other researchers intend to abandon live bacteria entirely and develop drugs that target the molecular mechanisms by which the microbiome affects immunotherapy responses.

FMT has provided a proof of concept that changing the gut microbiome of someone with cancer can save their life and has set the benchmark against which these prospective treatments will be judged.

The use of Functional Microbiome Therapy (FMT) has been gaining attention for its potential in treating recurrent Clostridium difficile infections as well. However, practical challenges such as difficulties recruiting donors, demanding screening requirements, and physician unease have limited clinical uptake. Physicians also worry that human stool is an inconsistent medicine, as they don't know if a donor has the right bacteria or which bacteria the recipient needs.

Courtesy: Nature

Moscow will be only cold city present on the surface of Earth by 2070

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Courtesy: Pudding.cool