The Scientific Revolution We just keep finding out new things in science. Sometimes that is good, but sometimes the things we find out could be very bad for the human race. Gamma rays are probably the most destructive things in the entire universe. Gamma ray explosions happen to be the brightest electromagnetic event in the universe and if anyone could ever harness them for use as a weapon, they could blow apart huge sections of the galaxy. WR 104 is a fiery pinwheel in space and poses a very real threat to the earth. The reason for this is gamma ray explosions can release more energy than our sun would in its entire 10-billion-year lifetime and do it in milliseconds. WR 104 is 8,000 light years away and yet it is too close. Why am I mentioning this? I thought it was appropriate since it was just announced scientists have created the very first gamma ray explosion in the world in a lab. Will this become the basis for a really terrible weapon which makes hydrogen bombs seem like matches? Knowing human nature there is certainly that probability. We have been hearing about new breakthroughs in electronics. Recently there have been ideas how to combine biological items with electronics. One of the latest ideas is using bacteria to create sensors. There is also a movement to turn bacteria into computers. The reason for this is tiny electronics will be able to be created which can be worn. The idea is to use a 3D printer to print what has been called a living tattoo. One use which is being championed is the creation of mini-factories. These factories will be tiny yet be able to do many different things. The medical profession has become very worried about how antibiotics are becoming useless as the treatment for some diseases. The diseases are becoming resistant. Does this mean we are all being condemned to die from the thousands of diseases which we used to treat with them? Hope is on the horizon. Scientists have announced they have created the world’s first synthetic molecule and this is a very important step. The reason it is so important is it could mean we have a new tool to fight against diseases which would have needed antibiotics to recover from them. Another tool being developed to fight these diseases and avoid antibiotic resistance is by blocking genes which carry the antibiotic resistance. It seems we will not be as bad off in the future as we thought and maybe a lot better off. We have been hearing a lot about treating aging. Many scientists have claimed our bodies were made to live a lot longer. It is not all scientists who believe this however. Right now, I am voting for those who do and I bet you are too. Scientists have found a gene mutation which allowed people living in a small Indiana Amish community to live on average 10% longer. While that might not seem like a lot, it might be only the first step in extending the human lifespan. Scientists discovered the community had a gene associated with a bleeding disorder, but they don’t have the disorder and this allowed for longer life. It is not unusual for something like this to happen. People who have sickle-cell anemia are protected against malaria. There is more to this story. Researchers have found a molecular pathway which controls health and lifespan in certain types of worms. They found by artificially increasing or decreasing the levels of a family of proteins called Kruppel, they could regulate how long the worms lived, longer or shorter. China has a problem and it is all the leaves on the ground. Funny I seem to have the same problem, but China is going to put all these leaves to good use. They are going to turn them into super capacitors. They are doing this by grinding up the leaves into powder, then heating them to 220 degrees Celsius for 12 hours. When the 12 hours is up the next step will be to reheat the resulting black powder through a series of heating events until they are heated to 800 Celsius and mixed with a solution of potassium hydroxide which corrodes the surface of the grains creating more surface area. This powder is then used to create a capacitor which is 3 times more efficient than a graphene supercapacitor. The FDA has for the very first time has approved a new cancer treatment which entails gene therapy. The treatment is called Kymriah and was created to give a second change to those who failed to get cured using other available treatments. A virus is used to genetically modify a patient’s immune cells. Many scientists believe this will create a new standard of care for all of us. It is also believed the procedure which is only for leukemia will be able to be applied to other forms of cancer in the future. As science makes new discoveries these discoveries lead to others and the pace of discovery accelerates. A scientist might find a way to make a better refrigerant for example and it might be found this refrigerant has many other uses. Because the rate of discovery is increasing, we cannot compare our progress to any other time in history. We might see such a change in the next hundred years people from today would no longer recognize the world at that time. Every field in science is experiencing new discoveries at a rate which has never been seen before. |
