Tag: science

CUTTING-EDGE ANALYSIS OF THE WINCHCOMBE METEORITE CONFIRMS PRESENCE OF LIFE-SUPPORTING ORGANIC COMPOUNDS

German researchers using a cutting-edge, chemical-free detection method have confirmed the presence of organic compounds in the Winchcombe Meteorite, including nitrogen and amino acids. The new findings confirm similar results from a previous analysis of the well-known space rock, although this is the first time such a detection was made without chemical treatments.

“The team of researchers are now the first to demonstrate, to a high degree of precision, the existence of some important nitrogen compounds in this meteorite with amino acids and heterocyclic hydrocarbons – without applying any chemical treatment, and by using a new type of detector design,” a press release announcing the findings explains.

WITNESSES SPOTTED WINCHCOMBE METEORITE FALLING OVER ENGLAND IN 2021

The Winchcombe meteorite gained some level of media attention after it was witnessed by a network of cameras falling from the sky over Winchcombe, England, in February 2021. This allowed researchers to locate it within days, offering those who study space rocks one of the most pristine specimens ever collected.

“Normally, meteorites are tracked down in the cold and hot deserts on Earth, where the dry climate means that they don’t weather very fast, but they do change as a result of humidity,” explained Dr. Christian Vollmer from the Institute of Mineralogy at Münster University. “If a meteorite fall is observed soon after the event and the meteorite is quickly collected, as was the case in Winchcombe, they are important ‘witnesses’ for us regarding the birth of our solar system – which makes them especially interesting for research purposes.”

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Here Come the Cyborgs: Mating AI with Human Brain Cells

If you read and believe headlines, it seems scientists are very close to being able to merge human brains with AI. In mid-December 2023, a Nature Electronics article triggered a flurry of excitement about progress on that transhuman front:

“‘Biocomputer’ combines lab-grown brain tissue with electronic hardware”

“A system that integrates brain cells into a hybrid machine can recognize voices”

“Brainoware: Pioneering AI and Brain Organoid Fusion”

Scientists are trying to inject human brain tissue into artificial networks because AI isn’t working quite as well as we have been led to think. AI uses a horrendous amount of energy do its kind of parallel processing, while the human brain uses about a light bulb’s worth of power to perform similar feats. So, AI designers are looking to cannibalize some parts from humans to make artificial networks work as efficiently as human brains. But let’s put the fact of AI’s shortcomings aside for the moment and examine this new cyborg innovation.

The breakthrough in biocomputing reported by Hongwei Cai et al. in Nature Electronics involves the creation of a brain organoid. That is a ball of artificially-cultured stem cells that have been coaxed into developing into neurons.

The cells are not taken from someone’s brain—which relieves us of certain ethical concerns. But because this lump of neurons does not have any blood vessels, as normal brain tissue does, the organoid cannot survive for long. And so ultimately, the prospect of training organoids on datasets does not seem practical, economically speaking, at present.

But that is not going to stop this research.  The drive to seamlessly integrate biology and technology is strong.  But can it be done?  And why do so many research scientists and funding agencies assume it’s possible?

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“CHIMERA” METAMATERIAL ACHIEVES PREVIOUSLY IMPOSSIBLE MULTI-TERRAIN INVISIBILITY

A new metamaterial that taps into the power of animals who camouflage themselves in nature has achieved the first successful multi-terrain invisibility, making it effectively invisible to visible, microwave, and thermal scanning techniques.

Dubbed Chimera after the multi-faceted monster of Greek mythology, the new material can achieve its previously impossible capabilities in a range of environments, much like the animals who inspired its development, offering significant potential for both scientific and military applications.

MULTI-TERRAIN INVISIBILITY INSPIRED BY UNIQUE CLASS OF ANIMAL

In nature, certain animals have adapted themselves to appear virtually invisible to both predators and prey. The most famous of these is the chameleon, which can adapt its outer appearance to match its environment almost perfectly.

However, the chameleon is not the only poikilotherm lauded for its ability to achieve a form of invisibility to aid its survival. For example, the bearded dragon is noted for its ability to conceal itself thermally by matching the temperature of its environment, while the glass frog can make itself transparent so that predators cannot see it directly.

Now, a team of researchers says they have combined the adaptive ability of all three animals to produce a metamaterial that is effectively invisible across microwave, visible, and infrared spectra to achieve previously impossible multi-terrain invisibility.

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Alzheimer’s transmitted from person to person

Alzheimer’s can be transmitted from person to person, discovered after patients who received human hormones decades ago went on to develop the disease.

Five cases of Alzheimer’s are believed to have been caused by medical treatment given as children.

The new study provides the first examples of Alzheimer’s disease in living people to have been ‘caught’ during a medical procedure.

In these cases, it appears to have been due to doctors administering children with a human growth hormone taken from dead donors.

According to the University College London (UCL) and University College London Hospitals (UCLH) researchers, the findings may have important implications for understanding and treating Alzheimer’s disease.

And although the procedure that led to this transmission was stopped in the 1980s, experts recommend medical procedures should be reviewed to ensure rare cases of Alzheimer’s transmission do not happen in the future.

Alzheimer’s, the most common form of Alzheimer’s, is caused by the build-up of the proteins in the brain, and usually occurs later in adult life with no specific family link. More rarely, it can be an inherited condition that occurs due to a faulty gene.

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CHANCES THAT ODD SOIL SAMPLES COLLECTED AT MARS’ JEZERO CRATER CONTAIN SIGNS OF ANCIENT LIFE JUST INCREASED DRAMATICALLY

A new analysis of subsurface deposit and erosion patterns beneath the dry lakebed in Mars’ Jezero crater indicates the process took place over eons, dramatically improving the chances that soil samples collected at the site by NASA’s Perseverance could contain signs of ancient life.

Although the exact timeline for a joint European Space Agency/NASA mission to retrieve Perseverance’s soil samples has not yet been set, the fact that the lake in Jezero crater had existed across numerous geological phases significantly increases the odds of finding signs of ancient life within those samples.

RESEARCHERS HAVE LONG SUSPECTED DEEP SEDIMENTARY LAYERS LIE BENEATH JEZERO

Over the last few decades, images captured by satellites orbiting Mars have long hinted at the idea of eroded subsurface layers in the region. However, researchers knew that up close analysis by Perseverance’s ground penetrating radar was the only way to confirm those suspicions.

“From orbit, we can see a bunch of different deposits, but we can’t tell for sure if what we’re seeing is their original state or if we’re seeing the conclusion of a long geological story,” said David Paige, a UCLA professor of Earth, planetary and space sciences and first author of the paper detailing the findings. “To tell how these things formed, we need to see below the surface.”

Fortunately, Perseverance’s mission planners included the Radar Imager for Mars’ Subsurface Experiment, or RIMFAX, as one of the seven instruments on board the rover. Like ground penetrating radar used on Earth, the RIFMAX fires radar waves directly into the Mars surface, then reads their reflections as they bounce off different sedimentary layers.

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From the boy with sonar vision to a man who hasn’t slept for over 50 years – meet the people with real-life superpowers that scientists just can’t explain

We have all wondered what superpower we would like to have given the chance.

It is a classic icebreaker question – flying, pausing time or going invisible – but we never expect our answers to come true.

However, a smattering of unique individuals across the globe have powers which seem impossible to explain.

Whether it is using sonar to work around blindness, living for 50 years on no sleep or surviving with no food or water to the age of 91, the human race is capable of more than you might think.

Learn more about them and other superhumans below.

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SOMETHING IS ORBITING THESE DISTANT EXOPLANETS AFTER ALL, ACCORDING TO RESEARCHERS WHO FIRE BACK OVER EXOMOON CONTROVERSY

The search for exomoons orbiting planets outside our solar system has sparked a significant debate within the astronomical community, involving a pair of contrasting studies that presented divergent viewpoints on the existence of exomoons Kepler-1625b-i and Kepler-1708b-i.

Much like Schrödinger’s oddball cat that is both dead and alive inside a box, we won’t really know until someone goes and looks. But in a new paper recently uploaded to the arXiv preprint server, a team of astronomers led by David Kipping from Columbia University takes issue with the drama surrounding the ongoing exomoon search. 

In 2017, Kipping, alongside Columbia University astronomer Alex Teachey, discovered the first possible exomoon candidate, Kepler-1625b-i, using the Hubble and Kepler telescopes. Years later, in 2022, Kipping, as well as astronomers from NASA, MIT, CalTech, UCLA, and other prominent institutions discovered a second possible exomoon, lovingly called Kepler-1708b-i.

For the astronomers, this was a home run. Not only were astronomers finding exoplanets out there, but finding exoplanets with exomoons. The team focused on known cold gas giants that were far away from their host stars, where the effect of the star’s gravity should not be enough to strip these gas giants of their exomoons. This makes sense. In our solar system, gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn have a lot of moons. It stands to reason that gas giant exoplanets could too.

In December of 2023, a study was published that dashed the exomoon theory against the proverbial lunar rocks. Published in Nature Astronomy, astronomers René Heller and Michael Hippke applied a new algorithm, called Pandora, to the previous exomoon research, and concluded, much like Obi-Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, that those were no moons.

It’s an astronomical roller coaster, and Kipping’s latest paper comes out swinging at Heller and Hippke.

“The reason they didn’t see them [the exomoons] is not because of the data (as they thought),” Kipping told The Debrief. “But it is actually because their algorithm for finding moons didn’t work properly.”

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Disease X and the Make-believe World of Experts

This week, world leaders met in Davos to discuss the threat of a so-called ‘Disease X’ pandemic and how best to prepare for such an event.  Described as a ‘placeholder name’ – nobody seems to know what the origins, epidemiology, or any other defining characteristics of this disease will be, other than the people promoting this idea suggesting that it is likely cause 20% more fatalities than the Covid-19 pandemic.  In a session titled: ‘Preparing for Disease X’, chair Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus led a panel discussion on ‘novel efforts needed to prepare healthcare systems for the multiple challenges ahead if we are to be prepared for a much more deadly pandemic’.

The current debate on ‘Disease X’ crystalises perhaps the biggest accusation that has been made against orthodox science during these times – the use of ‘scientism’ to promote both government policy and widespread changes to our society and to the ways in which we live.  This is a dangerous combination to be sure, the implications of which have been highlighted by Patrick M. Wood in his own take on scientism:

It is a fatal error to equate scientism with science.  True science explores the natural world using the time-tested scientific method of repeated experimentation and validation.  By comparison, scientism is a speculative, metaphysical, upside-down worldview about the nature of the universe and man’s relation to it.  If left unchecked, scientism – as expressed through technocracy and transhumanism, will end with the abolition of man and the civilization that it has built (Wood, 2022: 3).

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SCI-FI NIGHTMARE? THESE INSECT-INSPIRED MICRO-ROBOTS ARE THE SMALLEST, LIGHTEST, AND FASTEST EVER BUILT

Engineers from Washington State University (WSU) have created the smallest, lightest, and fastest micro-robots ever.

Inspired by actual mini-bugs and water striders, the insect-like micro-robots could one day be used for artificial pollination, search and rescue missions, remote environmental monitoring, micro-fabrication, or even robotic-assisted surgery.

SHAPE MEMORY ALLOY POWERS MOTION OF MICRO-ROBOTS

The waster strider-inspired micro-robot weighs only 55 milligrams, while the mini-bug-inspired robot clocks in at a paltry eight milligrams. Perhaps equally impressive, both can move at about six millimeters a second.

A typical ant weighs about 5 milligrams and can move at nearly a meter per second. While extremely slow compared to real-life insects, this is significantly faster than other micro-robots based on the same technology.

“That is fast compared to other micro-robots at this scale, although it still lags behind their biological relatives,” said Conor Trygstad, a PhD student in the School of Mechanical and Materials Engineering and lead author of the published work. An avid fly fisherman, Trygstad points out that real water striders move using an efficient rowing motion, while his micro-robot strider is currently limited to a less efficient flat flapping motion.

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SCIENTISTS SUCCESSFULLY TRAP INDIVIDUAL KRYPTON ATOMS TO CREATE THE FIRST-EVER ONE-DIMENSIONAL GAS

Scientists from the University of Nottingham’s School of Chemistry say they have successfully trapped individual krypton atoms to create the world’s first-ever one-dimensional gas. The atoms of Krypton (Kr), a noble gas, were trapped inside a carbon nanotube using an advanced version of transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

“As far as we know, this is the first time that chains of noble gas atoms have been imaged directly, leading to the creation of a one-dimensional gas in a solid material,” said Professor Paul Brown, director of the Nanoscale and Microscale Research Centre (nmRC), University of Nottingham.

In the future, the team says they are planning to employ electron microscopy to directly image temperature-controlled phase transitions and chemical reactions in these types of one-dimensional systems, which may “unlock the secrets” of such unusual states of matter.

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