Curio Cabinet

The house might be burning, but at least the roof is intact. As climate change continues to affect Earth’s weather, there’s still some good news about the environment: the ozone layer is doing better and better, according to recent research. Concerns over the state of the ozone layer first emerged in the 1980s, when researchers discovered a hole in the layer over Antarctica. That was bad news considering how crucial the ozone layer is to the health of life on Earth. Consisting of 3 oxygen atoms, ozone mitigates the amount of harmful UV radiation that makes it to our planet’s surface. Without it, humans and animals would be much more prone to skin cancer and cataracts. Many plants, including some crops, could also die of excess radiation.
 
In 1986, researchers from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) set out on an expedition to Antarctica and discovered the culprit behind the missing patch of ozone layer: chlorofluorocarbons. Better known as CFCs, these synthetic chemicals were widely used at the time as refrigerants, insulation, and as aerosol propellants, showing up in common, everyday items like air conditioners and hair spray. Following the discovery, an international treaty limiting the use of CFCs was adopted. Known as the Montreal Protocol, the treaty’s benefits are becoming clearer by the day. A recent study from MIT shows that the ozone layer is recovering, and the data shows that it’s a direct result of CFC reduction. Susan Solomon, the author of the study, said in a university statement, “The conclusion is, with 95 percent confidence, it is recovering. Which is awesome. And it shows we can actually solve environmental problems.” So far, it’s 1-0 for ozone.

 
[Image description: A blue sky with white clouds.] Credit & copyright: Johann Piber, Pexels

If a comet is named after you, does that make you a star among the stars? German astronomer Caroline Herschel, born on this day in 1750, would probably say so. The 35P/Herschel–Rigollet comet bears her name, and she discovered plenty of other comets throughout her long career, which was mostly spent working alongside her brother, William Herschel. That’s not to say that she toiled in her sibling’s shadow, though. Herschel made a name for herself as the first woman in England to hold a government position and the first known woman in the world to receive a salary as a scientist.
 
Born on March 16, 1750, in Hanover, Germany, Herschel's childhood got off to a rough start. Though she was the eighth child and fourth daughter in her family, two of her sisters died in childhood, while the eldest married and left home when Herschel was just five years old, leaving her alone as the family’s main housekeeper. At just 10 years old, Herschel contracted typhus and nearly died. The infection blinded her in her left eye and severely stunted her growth, leaving her with an adult height of four feet, three inches. Though her father wanted her to be educated, her mother insisted that, since she likely wouldn’t marry due to her disabilities, she should be trained as a housekeeping servant. Though her father educated her as best he could, Herschel ultimately learned little more than basic reading, arithmetic, and some sewing throughout her teenage years.
 
Things changed in Herschel’s early 20s, when she received an invitation from her two brothers, William and Alexander, to join them in Bath, England. William was becoming a fairly successful singer, and the brothers proposed that Herschel sing with him during some performances. While learning to sing in Bath, Herschel was finally able to become educated in other subjects too. After a few years of running William’s household and participating in his music career, she offered him support when his interests turned from music to astronomy.
 
Soon, William was making his own telescope lenses, which proved to be more powerful than conventional ones. In 1781, William discovered the planet Uranus, though he mistook it for a comet. As the siblings worked together, Herschel began scanning the sky each night for interesting objects, and meticulously recording their positions in a record book, along with any discoveries that she and William made. She also compared their observations with the Messier Catalog, a book of astronomy by French astronomer Charles Messier, which at the time was considered the most comprehensive catalog of astronomical objects. On February 26, 1783, Herschel made her first two, independent discoveries when she noticed a nebula that didn’t appear in the Messier Catalog and a small galaxy that later came to be known as Messier 110, a satellite of the Andromeda Galaxy.
 
In 1798, Herschel presented her astronomical catalog to the Royal Society in England, to be used as an update to English astronomer John Flamsteed’s observations. Her catalog was meticulously detailed, and was organized by north polar distance rather than by constellation. Using telescopes built by William, Herschel went on to discover eight comets. As she and William published papers with the Royal Society, both of them began earning a wage for their work. Herschel was paid £50 a year, making her the first known woman to earn a wage as a scientist.
 
By 1799, Herschel’s work was so well known that she was independently invited to spend a week with the royal family. Three years later, the Royal Society published the most detailed version of her work yet, though they did so under William’s name. After her brother’s death, Herschel created yet another astronomical catalog, this one for William’s son, John, who had also shown a great interest in astronomy. This catalog eventually became the New General Catalogue, which gave us the NGC numbers by which many astronomical objects are still identified.
 
Despite her childhood hardships and growing up during a time when women weren't encouraged to practice science, Caroline Herschel made some of the 18th and 19 centuries’ most important contributions to astronomy. Her determination to “mind the heavens”, as she put it, has impacted centuries of astronomical study. Happy Women’s History Month!

 
[Image description: A black-and-white portrait of Caroline Herschel wearing a bonnet and high-collared, lacy blouse.] Credit & copyright: Portrait by M. F. Tielemann, 1829. From page 114-115 of Agnes Clerke's The Herschels and Modern Astronomy (1895).

Have you ever seen berkelocene? Not until now! Researchers led by the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) recently discovered a new organometallic molecule, called berkelocene. Organometallic molecules are made up of a carbon-based framework surrounding a metal ion, but this is the first time such a molecule has contained the element berkelium.
 
While organometallic molecules often contain metals from earlier in the periodic table, they’re rarely found to contain actinides, or metals with atomic numbers from 89-103. Berkelium’s atomic number is 97, making the discovery of berkelocene quite unusual. In fact, this is the first time that any chemical bond between carbon and berkelium has been observed. Like 23 other synthetic metals on the periodic table, berkelium is not naturally-occurring. It can only be created in labs via nuclear reactions, which makes it all the more unusual that it could bond with a natural element, like carbon. Berkelium is highly radioactive, which also makes it difficult to study. It’s fitting, though, that the discovery of berkelocene took place at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, since berkelium was originally discovered and named after Berkeley, California, in 1949. In chemistry, what goes around comes around, but be careful—it’s radioactive, after all.

[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of the periodic table cell for the element Berkelium.] Credit & copyright: Author’s own illustration.
 

Turns out, unicorns are real—they’ve been hanging out in the ocean this whole time. Narwhals, sometimes called the “unicorns of the sea” are some of the most unusual animals on Earth, but they’re also extremely elusive. In fact, until recently, there was little consensus on what narwhals used their long, horn-like tusks for. Now, drones have finally captured footage of narwhals using their tusks for hunting and play. The footage was captured thanks to researchers at Florida Atlantic University’s Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institute and Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans, in partnership with Inuit communities in Nunavut in Canada’s High Arctic. The narwhals used their tusks to “steer” prey fish, like Arctic char, in favorable directions and even to hit and stun the fish. They also used their tusks to prod and shake various things in their environment, behavior that researchers described as “exploratory play.”
 
Narwhals’ “horns” aren’t horns at all, but tusks. A narwhal’s tusk begins as a canine tooth (usually their upper left) that eventually grows through their upper lip. However, not all narwhals end up with tusks at all. Some males never grow them for unknown reasons, and only about 15 percent of female narwhals do. Narwhal tusks can reach lengths of up to 10 feet. That’s more than half the length of an adult male’s body, which can reach 15.7 feet and weigh more than 3,500 pounds. Narwhals come by their large size naturally, as they’re members of the Monodontidae family. This family also includes belugas, right whales, sperm whales, and blue whales, the latter of which are the largest animals that have ever lived on Earth.
 
Like most whales, narwhals live in pods, or groups, of up to 10 individuals. Females, calves, and young males form pods together, while sexually mature males have pods of their own. Narwhals are also migratory, meaning that they spend different parts of the year in different places. In the summer, they spend their time in Arctic bays and fjords, but as thick sea ice forms in the fall, they migrate to deeper Arctic waters. Most narwhals spend the winter between Canada and Greenland, in areas like Baffin Bay. When narwhals return to shallower, coastal waters in the spring, they also begin searching for mates. While male narwhals have never been observed fighting for mates, they do display behavior called “tusking”, in which two males raise their tusks out of the water and lay them against each other, probably to determine which male is larger. Whichever male “wins” the contest will go on to mate with nearby females. Narwhals give birth to just one calf per year.
 
Unfortunately, narwhals' low birth rate makes it difficult for their numbers to recover after disasters like ocean storms or oil spills. Luckily, narwhals are not currently considered endangered, but as climate change continues to affect the Arctic waters they call home, they may have difficulty adapting to a warming world. That’s not very cool for these unicorns of the sea.

 
[Image description: A black-and-white illustration of a narwhal diving through water.] Credit & copyright: Archives of Pearson Scott Foresman, donated to the Wikimedia Foundation. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Pearson Scott Foresman. This applies worldwide.

It’s a good thing your eye comes with a spare. Researchers at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Massachusetts Eye and Ear, and Boston Children’s Hospital have found a way to repair previously-irreversible corneal damage in one eye using stem cells from a person’s remaining, healthy eye.
 
Along with the lens, an eye’s cornea plays a critical role in focusing light. Damage to the cornea, whether from injury or disease, can permanently impair vision or even lead to blindness. The cornea also protects the eye behind it by keeping out debris and germs. Since the cornea is literally at the front and center of the eye, however, it is particularly vulnerable to damage from the very things it’s designed to protect against. Unfortunately, damage to the cornea is notoriously difficult to treat.
 
Now, researchers have managed to extract what they call cultivated autologous limbal epithelial cells (CALEC) from a healthy eye to restore function to a damaged cornea. The process works like this: CALEC is extracted via a biopsy from the healthy eye then placed in a cellular tissue graft, where it takes up to three weeks to grow. Once ready, the graft is transplanted into the damaged eye to replace the damaged cornea. One of the researchers, Ula Jurkunas, MD, said in press release, “Now we have this new data supporting that CALEC is more than 90% effective at restoring the cornea’s surface, which makes a meaningful difference in individuals with cornea damage that was considered untreatable.” Still, as they say, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. Common causes of corneal injury include damage from foreign objects entering the eye during yard work or while working with tools or chemicals. Too much exposure to UV rays can also cause damage to the cornea, as well as physical trauma during sports. The best way to prevent these injuries, of course, is to use eye protection. Even if they can fix your cornea, having someone poke around inside your one good eye should probably remain a last resort.

 
[Image description: An illustrated diagram of the human eye from the side, with labels.] Credit & copyright: Archives of Pearson Scott Foresman, donated to the Wikimedia Foundation. This work has been released into the public domain by its author, Pearson Scott Foresman. This applies worldwide.