Tag: science

We might have accidentally killed the only life we ever found on Mars nearly 50 years ago

Recently, I was invited to speak at a symposium organized by the Amsterdam Royal Palace Foundation, who, twice a year, brings in experts to discuss some big topic like the COVID pandemic or the future of work. This summer’s meeting was about the search for extraterrestrial life. While I focused on the search in our own Solar System, Sara Seager of MIT presented her ideas on how to look for life on planets circling other stars.

During our talks and the discussions that followed, I dropped a suggestion that some people surely will find provocative: that we already did find life on Mars nearly 50 years ago — but that we inadvertently killed it. 

The Viking lander experiments

In the mid-1970s, NASA sent two Viking landers to the surface of Mars equipped with instruments that conducted the only life detection experiments ever conducted on another planet. The results of those tests were very confusing at the time and remain so today. While some of them — particularly the labelled release experiment (which tested for microbial metabolism) and the pyrolytic release experiments (which tested for organic synthesis) — were initially positive for life, the gas exchange experiment was not.

The Viking landers also included an instrument to detect organic compounds. It saw trace amounts of chlorinated organics, which were interpreted at the time to be the result of contamination from Earth. This led Viking project scientist Gerald Soffen to utter his famous words, “No bodies, no life.” In other words, there couldn’t be Martian life without organic compounds. So Soffen concluded, as did most other scientists at the time, that the Viking project was negative as to the presence of life, or at best inconclusive.

In the half century since, the picture has changed a lot. Eight more landers and rovers have explored the Martian surface in greater detail. Thanks to the 2008 Phoenix lander, and to later confirmation by the Curiosity and Perseverance rovers, we know that indigenous organic compounds do, in fact, exist on Mars. They’re in a chlorinated form, however — not what the Viking-era scientists expected — and we don’t know whether they derive from biological processes or from some abiotic chemical reactions that have nothing to do with life. Still, one might wonder how Soffen would react today: Would he still say categorically that the Viking results were negative?

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CDC accused of ‘blurring politics and science’ over advice that suggests trans women CAN safely breastfeed — but fails to mention health risks to baby

US health officials were criticized today for advocating that trans women can breastfeed — without highlighting the health risks to the baby.

Several information pages on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) website appear to endorse ‘chestfeeding’ — a term used to describe feeding an infant milk directly from the breast by trans and non-binary parents.

One section, titled ‘Health Equity Considerations’, claims ‘an individual does not need to have given birth to breastfeed or chestfeed.’

Another section in a Q&A about breast surgery, titled ‘Can transgender parents who have had breast surgery breastfeed or chestfeed their infants?’, says families may need help with ‘medication to induce lactation.’

But doctors told DailyMail.com the CDC has a ‘responsibility’ to disclose the lack of research and potential risks. One of the medications used to produce milk in biological men has been linked to heart problems in babies. They claimed the agency was blurring lines between ‘politics and science’.

The CDC did not respond to a request for comment from DailyMail.com. 

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Scientists make groundbreaking discovery of low-frequency gravitational waves that create ripples in the fabric of space-time, proving Einstein correct 100 years later

Scientists made a groundbreaking discovery of low-frequency gravitational waves that are likely from supermassive black holes that create ripples in the fabric of space-time.

In 1915, Albert Einstein published his General Theory of Relativity, in which he determined that the intense gravity of extremely massive objects warps the fabric of space-time. If these gargantuan objects collide with each other, then gravitational waves would be sent into the universe.

Gravitational waves were first discovered in 2015 by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory.

The LIGO defines gravitational waves as “ripples in space-time caused by some of the most violent and energetic processes in the universe.

“The strongest gravitational waves are produced by cataclysmic events such as colliding black holes, supernovae (massive stars exploding at the end of their lifetimes), and colliding neutron stars,” the LIGO explains. “Other gravitational waves are predicted to be caused by the rotation of neutron stars that are not perfect spheres, and possibly even the remnants of gravitational radiation created by the Big Bang.”

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Massive ‘Gravity Anomaly’ Caused by Ancient Sea Remnants Deep Inside Earth, Study Says

The Indian Ocean features a massive gravity anomaly that has puzzled scientists for years. Now, a new study proposes that the ancient remains of another ocean that sank deep into the Earth itself gave rise to the Indian Ocean geoid low (IOGL), as the anomaly is called. 

The IOGL is a region covering nearly two million square miles south of the Indian peninsula where the ocean surface plunges over 300 feet. The anomaly was first discovered in 1948, Scientific American noted in its coverage of the new study. But while scientists agree it must be due to gravity and the physical properties of Earth itself—which in reality looks more like a lumpy ball of dough than a smooth sphere—the exact mechanisms of the IOGL’s formation have long eluded a definitive explanation. 

A recent study published in Geophysical Research Letters and authored by researchers Depanjan Pal and Attreyee Ghosh from the Indian Institute of Science used mantle convection models covering the Mesozoic era, which ended 60 million years ago, to the present in order to narrow down the solution. The result was that the IOGL is mainly caused by a geological formation known as a large low-shear-velocity province (LSVP) under Africa, also called a “blob.” According to the study, this region was “perturbed” by sinking slabs of the sea floor belonging to the ancient Tethys Ocean. 

The Tethys Ocean does not exist anymore, but in prehistoric times it was situated between the ancient landmasses of Gondwana and Laurasia. When these continents broke up and shifted, Tethys disappeared, and the modern Indian and Atlantic oceans were formed. The slabs that made up the ancient Tethyian sea floor sank into the Earth’s mantle, producing plumes that reach the upper mantle. 

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Lab Administers A.I.-Designed Drug to First Patient

Hong Kong- and New York-based Insilico Medicine on Tuesday announced a drug for treating idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) designed by generative artificial intelligence (A.I.) has advanced to Phase 2 clinical trials, which means the drug has been administered to its first human patient.

IPF is a chronic lung disease that makes it more difficult to breathe, starving the body of much-needed oxygen. IPF is currently regarded as incurable, but treatable. 

“Generative A.I.” is the level of artificial intelligence that can accept fairly broad commands from a human user and create a complex finished product. Such A.I. systems grow more powerful and useful as they “learn” by accumulating information. DALL-E, the computer art program that can fulfill instructions like “Show me what the Peanuts characters would look like if Picasso drew them” is a popular example.

Creating a new medicine is a daunting task. The design stage includes a great deal of labor-intensive research that could hopefully be completed more quickly by A.I.

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Decades-long bet on consciousness ends — and it’s philosopher 1, neuroscientist 0

A 25-year science wager has come to an end. In 1998, neuroscientist Christof Koch bet philosopher David Chalmers that the mechanism by which the brain’s neurons produce consciousness would be discovered by 2023. Both scientists agreed publicly on 23 June, at the annual meeting of the Association for the Scientific Study of Consciousness (ASSC) in New York City, that it is still an ongoing quest — and declared Chalmers the winner.

What ultimately helped to settle the bet was a key study testing two leading hypotheses about the neural basis of consciousness, whose findings were unveiled at the conference.

“It was always a relatively good bet for me and a bold bet for Christof,” says Chalmers, who is now co-director of the Center for Mind, Brain and Consciousness at New York University. But he also says this isn’t the end of the story, and that an answer will come eventually: “There’s been a lot of progress in the field.”

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US approves chicken made from cultivated cells, the nation’s first ‘lab-grown’ meat

For the first time, U.S. regulators on Wednesday approved the sale of chicken made from animal cells, allowing two California companies to offer “lab-grown” meat to the nation’s restaurant tables and eventually, supermarket shelves.

The Agriculture Department gave the green light to Upside Foods and Good Meat, firms that had been racing to be the first in the U.S. to sell meat that doesn’t come from slaughtered animals — what’s now being referred to as “cell-cultivated” or “cultured” meat as it emerges from the laboratory and arrives on dinner plates.

The move launches a new era of meat production aimed at eliminating harm to animals and drastically reducing the environmental impacts of grazing, growing feed for animals and animal waste.

“Instead of all of that land and all of that water that’s used to feed all of these animals that are slaughtered, we can do it in a different way,” said Josh Tetrick, co-founder and chief executive of Eat Just, which operates Good Meat.

The companies received approvals for federal inspections required to sell meat and poultry in the U.S. The action came months after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration deemed that products from both companies are safe to eat. A manufacturing company called Joinn Biologics, which works with Good Meat, was also cleared to make the products.

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Federal judge rules MA student’s ‘there are only two genders’ T-shirt ‘invades the rights of others,’ is NOT protected by free speech

On Friday, a federal judge in Massachusettes ruled a shirt that read “THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS” could be construed as bullying of a protected class and is not protected speech after a 12-year-old and his father filed suit against officials in the Middlesbrough Public School district for First and Fourteenth Amendment rights violations. 

Judge Indira Talwani said in the court ruling, the boy and his father had “not established a likelihood of success on the merits where he is unable to counter Defendants’ showing that enforcement of the Dress Code was undertaken to protect the invasion of the rights of other students to a safe and secure educational environment.” 

“School administrators were well within their discretion to conclude that the statement ‘THERE ARE ONLY TWO GENDERS’ may communicate that only two gender identities–male and female–are valid, and any others are invalid or nonexistent,” the ruling continued, “and to conclude that students who identify differently, whether they do so openly or not, have a right to attend school without being confronted by messages attacking their identities.”

Trans and gender non-conforming students are considered a protected class under Massachusetts law, and while this shirt does not constitute the bullying of a single student, the ruling says that the school was justified because it could make “a group of potentially vulnerable students” not feel safe. 

Citing multiple precedents, the judge ruled that “A school need not tolerate student speech that is inconsistent with its basic educational mission, [ ] even though the government could not censor similar speech outside the school.” So there was no constitutional violation that occurred. 

In reaction to the ruling, defense attorney Marina Medvin wrote on Twitter, “As someone who grew up in the USSR getting her teeth drilled without novocaine the idea that today’s US kids complain and prohibit— with the help of judges— another kid from wearing a shirt stating a scientific fact b/c it hurts their feelings is just…”

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Synthetic human embryos are created in the lab with NO egg or sperm: Scientists announce historic breakthrough raising hopes for new treatments for miscarriage and rare genetical disorders – but development poses huge ethical dilemmas

Human embryos made without eggs or sperm have been created in a scientific breakthrough which is bound to raise serious ethical and legal questions.

They were produced in a joint project between Cambridge University and the California Institute of Technology and resemble embryos in the earliest stages of human development.

They do not have the beginnings of a brain or a beating heart, but do include cells which would go on to form the placenta and yolk sac.

Scientists believe that their finding could provide significant insight and aid research into rare genetic disorders and the biological causes of miscarriage.

But the synthetic embryos are not covered by laws in the UK or in most countries around the world, meaning that they come with serious ethical and legal issues regarding the use of human embryos in a lab.

Until this breakthrough, scientists had to adhere to the 14-day rule which meant they were limited to allowing embryos to develop in a lab for a maximum of two weeks.

After this point researchers would have to wait until further along its development to pick up their study, relying on pregnancy scans and embryos donated to research. 

The desire to understand this period of an embryo’s development – which starts at day 14 and ends around day 28 – was the main motivation behind the work to create synthetic human embryos.

Professor Magdalena Zernicka-Goetz, a fellow at the University of Cambridge, described the work yesterday at the International Society for Stem Cell Research’s annual meeting in Boston: ‘We can create human embryo-like models by the reprogramming of [embryonic stem] cells.’

Before the talk, she told The Guardian: ‘It’s beautiful and created entirely from embryonic stem cells.’

While it is not yet clear if the synthetic embryos could continue developing beyond their early stages, implanting them into a patient’s womb would be illegal and there is no near-term prospect of them being used for medical purposes.

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