Curio Cabinet / Nerdy Curio

If you’d like to be immune to most viruses, resilient against cancer, and have the ability to fly, what you actually want is to be a bat. A new study published by researchers at Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in the journal Genome Biology and Evolution works to reveal the secrets behind the winged mammals’ hale and hearty nature. The secret to bats’ extraordinary immunity to diseases (like ebola) that kill other mammals lies in their inflammation response—or, rather, their lack of one. In humans, many symptoms of illness are actually the result of our bodies’ own immune response. This includes inflammation. Bats don’t experience the same level of inflammation, allowing them to tolerate viral loads that would kill most other mammals. It’s also the reason that bats are famously disease-ridden (the technical term is viral reservoir) and easily spread diseases, even as they remain unaffected by them. Recently, after using long-read sequencing, which allows scientists to study much longer fragments of DNA than other methods, researchers found that the DNA of the Jamaican fruit bat (Artibeus jamaicensis) and the Mesoamerican mustached bat (Pteronotus mesoamericanus), lack the gene for interferon(INF)-alpha. This protein is produced by other mammals’ immune systems to fight viruses. Instead, bats rely on INF-omega, which is more potent. Researchers have theorized that targeting genes that produce INF-omega in humans could one day be used to treat viral illnesses. As for cancer, long-read sequencing revealed the presence of 6 DNA repair genes and 33 tumor-suppressor genes in bats. These are genes aren’t entirely unique to bats, but bats do seem to use them more effectively than other animals. It’s possible that, one day, gene therapy using bat immunity as a blueprint could treat cancer in humans as well. Seems like a good idea, as long as no one grows wings.

[Image description: A black-and-brown bat with brown eyes hanging from a green treetop.] Credit & copyright: Pixel-mixer, Pixabay
 

Progress can sometimes mean making compromises, but further progress can negate them entirely. The tomatoes we find in modern grocery stores are a bit tougher than they were a few decades ago. In fact, they had to undergo selective breeding to make them strong enough for mechanical harvesting. Unfortunately, this came at the cost of flavor (which is why softer, garden-variety tomatoes always seem yummier than the ones at the store.) Now, a team of plant geneticists at Shandong Agricultural University claim to have found a way to bring the flavor back to tomatoes while making them as strong as ever, according to a paper published in the journal Nature Plants. Most modern store-variety tomatoes available in the U.S. today are the result of a breeding program led by agronomist Gordie C. Hanna in the mid-1960s. After decades of experimenting, he created a cultivar known as the "square tomato,” which was capable of withstanding the rigors of mechanical harvesting. The veggies revolutionized California’s agricultural industry and made tomatoes more accessible, but whatever made them firm also made them slightly less flavorful. The Shandong Agricultural University team believes that the key to solving this problem lies in roma tomatoes, which are oblong and durable, yet delicious. They found the gene responsible for the variety’s shape, Solyc08g061910, and introduced it to two other cultivars, TB0249 and Ailsa Craig. With genetic editing, the cultivars took on the oblong shape of roma tomatoes and became more resistant to crushing while retaining their flavor. However, there is yet another problem: many restaurants prefer large, round tomatoes to get large, round slices for sandwiches and other dishes. The next step, then, is to figure out how to make the tomatoes larger too. Bigger, tastier tomatoes certainly sound good, no idea no matter how you slice it.

[Image description: A tomato plant with a vine of red tomatoes covered in drops of water.] Credit & copyright: kie-ker, Pixabay
 

Wanna keep your brain healthy? Hit the gym. A paper published in the journal Neuron by researchers from the Genetics and Aging Research Unit at Massachusetts General Hospital claims that a hormone released during exercise might be the key to treating Alzheimer’s disease. The hormone in question is irisin, which regulates glucose and lipid metabolism. Released during exercise, the hormone helps convert white fat into brown fat, which is more readily burned for energy. But as it turns out, this workout hormone pulls double duty, helping maintain brains as well as brawn. Previous research has shown that irisin injected into the bloodstreams of mice finds its way to their brains. This is the case with humans too, but levels of the hormone are lower in those who have Alzheimer’s. That’s a problem, because irisin in the brain is apparently responsible for the production of neprilysin, an enzyme that is responsible for ridding the organ of amyloid beta. Amyloid beta is the abnormal protein that accumulates as plaque in the brain, and is thought to be responsible for causing the symptoms of Alzheimer’s. Based on this discovery, the researchers believe that they have opened a pathway for new therapies based on the hormone. Injecting irisin might be a treatment for those who already have the disease, but regular exercise might help prevent it or slow its progress. For those who might want to get moving on getting moving, the researchers say that resistance training might be the most effective for raising irisin levels, although any kind of moderate exercise will trigger its release. In other words, if you want to keep breaking a mental sweat, it may benefit you to break an actual sweat too.

[Image description: A pair of sneakered feet running on asphalt.] Credit & copyright: Fotorech, Pixabay
 

A bad storm can make it feel like the sky is falling, and that may be more literal than you think. As climate change makes extreme weather events more common, it’s worth understanding all the ways that a storm can turn dangerous. Of course, tornadoes and other high-speed winds are dangerous, but a phenomenon known as a downburst can be just as threatening. Downbursts are sometimes confused with downdrafts, which are columns of air that sink toward the ground. As their name implies, downbursts are like supercharged downdrafts, pushing air to the ground much more quickly and with enough force to do massive damage. There are two types of downbursts: microbursts and macrobursts. A microburst describes a downburst less than 2.5 miles across that lasts around 5 to 10 minutes. Macrobursts, on the other hand, can cover much more mileage and can last up to 30 minutes. Both types occur when part of a storm system suddenly cools down more rapidly than the rest of the storm. This sometimes happens due to precipitation like melting hail, or via evaporating rain in heavy, dry air. Since cool air sinks, a massive body of air falls downward and crashes against the ground, spreading out like the contents of a dropped water balloon. That may not sound too menacing, but at one point, downbursts were considered the most common cause of airline crashes. Modern weather-monitoring technologies have greatly reduced that particular threat, allowing modern planes to steer clear of storms altogether. Still, downbursts are still capable of leveling entire sections of forests. They can also be difficult to predict and to get away from, assuming you’re on the ground. Downburst safety tips are similar to those for tornadoes. So, unlike an airplane, your best bet isn’t to fly away at top speed. Get to the basement, instead.

[Image description: A dark, cloudy sky with lightning.] Credit & copyright: bogitw, Pixabay
 

Finding a plane in the ocean is several orders of magnitude more difficult than finding a needle in a haystack. However, searchers may have found an unlikely ally from the sea itself. According to a paper published in the journal AGU Advances, Geoscientists at the University of South Florida may have found a way to locate the missing remnants of Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 by analyzing the shells of barnacles. MH370 went missing in 2014 while carrying 12 crew members and 227 passengers, with their last known location somewhere in the Indian Ocean. Since then, pieces of the plane have washed up on the shore of Reunion Island, located a few hundred miles off the coast of Africa. The authors of the study, Nassar Al-Qattan and Gregory Herbert, were inspired to try their novel plane-finding approach after one of these pieces was discovered entirely covered in barnacles. Barnacle shells change slightly in chemical composition depending on their environment. Namely, they could have varying levels of three stable oxygen isotopes, oxygen 16, 17 and 18. Through stable isotope analysis, scientists can determine the amount of each isotope present in the barnacles. This, in turn, can tell them the temperature of the water the barnacles grew in. For example, barnacles that grew in cold water tend to have higher numbers of heavy isotopes, while warm water leads to a higher number of light isotopes. In other words, the barnacles act as records of meteorological data. This can be compared to known oceanographic data collected during the time of the crash to narrow down where the rest of the plane could be. Who knew shellfish could be so helpful?

[Image description: A cluster of brown barnacles.] Credit & copyright: jothamsutharson, Pixabay
 

This takes hanging ten to a new frontier. Scientists at the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics have published a paper in the journal Nature Astronomy describing the colossal tidal waves that form on the surface of a binary star system. The specific star system, MACHO 80.7443.1718, was discovered in the early 1990s, and is considered a “heartbeat” star due to its periodic, rhythmic pulses. These pulses are caused by the two stars in the system orbiting each other, but there’s something unusual about MACHO. Most heartbeat star systems fluctuate in brightness by about 0.1 percent, but MACHO is the only one that fluctuates by a whopping 20 percent. As it turns out, the cause of the extreme fluctuations are massive tidal waves that form on the surface of the larger, primary star. These waves aren’t made of water, but of hot gasses and plasma that rise over 2.7 million miles above the surface due to the gravitational pull of the smaller star. To put that into perspective, that’s as tall as three of our suns stacked on top of each other. The primary star in MACHO is also only 24 times wider than the sun, so a substantial amount of the star’s material comes crashing down when the waves break. Morgan MacLeod, co-author of the study, explained, “Each crash of the star's towering tidal waves releases enough energy to disintegrate our entire planet several hundred times over. These are really big waves.” All you space surfers out there had better leave your boards at home.

[Image description: A blue, curled ocean wave photographed from the side.] Credit & copyright: Pexels, Pixabay
 

This could be one one of the biggest breakthroughs in physics history… or it’s complete baloney. A wild claim regarding semiconductor research by a team of South Korean scientists has the world clamoring for answers. The drama is centered around a material the team dubbed LK-99, which can supposedly conduct electricity with zero resistance—the definition of a superconductor. While traditional copper wires lose 10 to 15 percent of energy from the power station to the end user. Superconductors are already used for everything from MRI machines to particle accelerators, but they’d be even more common if not for their main flaw: they only work in high pressure, low temperature settings that are difficult to achieve. However, in the paper published about LK-99, the research team claimed that it functioned as a superconductor at room temperature and ambient pressure. If true, the discovery would be historic, so it’s no surprise that the paper immediately went somewhat viral. However, things quickly went downhill. Scientists and even science students expressed immediate skepticism on social media and in online articles. Then, members of the research team came forward to say that Professor Young-Wan Kwon of Korea University had published the paper prematurely, without their consent, even though it was full of flaws. Meanwhile, skeptics have described the data as “sloppy”, among other things. They may have been looking for zero resistance, but these researchers ended up getting a whole lot of heat.

[Image description: A hand wearing a blue glove holds a beaker of blue fluid in a lab.] Credit & copyright: Chokniti Khongchum, Pexels
 

They may be round, but they’re also steady. Diagrams of atoms often portray electrons as little round balls. You’d be forgiven for assuming that these models were incorrect oversimplifications, but in science, truth can be stranger than fiction. Physicists at the University of Colorado in Boulder have published a paper in the journal Science, reporting that electrons are, in fact, very, very round. They’re so round that if an electron were the size of Earth, any deviations to its roundness would be less than the width of an atom. Of course, measuring an electron’s dimensions is no easy matter, and requires indirect means of observation. In this case, physicists measured electrons within an electric field by blasting a laser beam at them for a fraction of a second while they were anchored to ytterbium fluoride molecules. If the electrons’ shape was anything other than round, the electric field would have exerted a measurable amount of torque on them, causing them to wobble. But the electrons remained un-wobbly. Researchers were very thorough in their work. Over the course of three months, they took 25 million measurements and averaged them out. In physics, “measure twice, cut once” isn’t quite good enough.

[Image description: A digital illustration of an atom featuring a red, round center surrounded by long, red ovals dotted with black circles.] Credit & copyright: Memed_Nurrohmad, Pixabay
 

Mountains don’t just soar above the clouds, they can hide beneath the waves as well. Scientists from Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Chungnam National University, and the University of Hawaii have just published a paper in the journal Earth and Space Science that describes how the number of seamounts has nearly doubled, after an in-depth analysis of satellite observations. Seamounts are mountains that rise up from the ocean floor, and they can dwarf mountains on land. The tallest among these is Mauna Kea, the peak of which looks like a mountain all on its own on the island of Hawaiʻi. Yet as large as they are, scientists have had a difficult time mapping seamounts on account of them being, well, covered in the world’s oceans. Sure, ships and submarines could potentially scan all the ocean with sonar, but that would be an impractical undertaking. Before the recent paper was published, there were only around 24,600 known seamounts. But that’s all changed thanks to satellites that can track gravitational influences underwater. Since rock is heavier than water, they create a slightly different level of gravitation attraction, affecting the height of the ocean surface around them. It’s imperceptible from the surface, but satellites can detect these minor fluctuations. Even researchers inspecting the data were surprised by how reliable and precise the satellites were after finding seamounts as small as 1,381 feet. In all, satellites helped identify 19,325 new seamounts for a total of 43,454 registered seamounts. Who’s up for a little deep-sea mountaineering?

[Image description: The top of a mountain poking through clouds.] Credit & copyright: ajs1980518, Pixabay
 

If a beam is buckling under pressure, you might have cracks in the ceiling, but if it starts fixing itself, you might have sealing in the cracks. Researchers at Sandia National Laboratories (SNL) and Texas A&M University have observed an instance of metal “healing” its own nanoscale cracks. Over time, metal structures experience fatigue damage, and tiny fractures accumulate in the metal over time. It’s a worrisome problem in structures like bridges, which are constantly flexing from carrying heavy, dynamic loads. If left unaddressed, metal fatigue can snowball into catastrophic metal failure, and the only way to prevent it is to replace metal structures once they reach a certain age. Scientists and engineers have long searched for a way to “heal” microscopic, metallic fractures in a cost-effective way. Now, Brad Boyce of SNL and his colleagues may have found the beginnings of a solution due to their experiments with platinum. Boyce and his team were originally trying to observe how microscopic cracks form in the first place. Using an electron microscope technique, they flexed a piece of platinum at 200 times per second. Nanoscale cracks formed as expected, but then researchers noticed that some of the fractures seemed to repair on their own. The phenomenon responsible for this is called cold welding. It’s a process in which two metal surfaces form a bond at the atomic level. This usually only happens in space, but during this recent experiment the platinum was held in a vacuum, which created a similar environment. This self-healing has only ever been observed in a lab, but researchers are hopeful that it could have practical applications one day. If it turns out that platinum is the only self-healing metal, we may all be driving on some very fancy bridges in the future!

[Image description: A black-and-white photo of vertical chain links.] Credit & copyright: Pixabay, Pexels
 

Plenty of sci-fi authors have imagined worlds where artificial intelligence controls humans, but it turns out that humans can actually get paid for properly controlling AI. As more companies begin to implement AI to help them create content for websites, social media pages and promotional emails, the demand for AI content assistants and prompt engineers is rising. AI content assistants are exactly what they sound like: humans who assist AI in creating usable content. While current AI models are good at churning out a lot of content very quickly, they can be notoriously inaccurate, making up facts and in some cases even citing non-existent sources. That’s where AI content assistants come in. They act as editors for AI, fact-checking and in some cases re-arranging AI-generated content to be more accurate and readable. Meanwhile, prompt engineers help create better AI content by training the AI models themselves. To do this, they give AI models text-based instructions on how to create accurate, to-the-point content. Although both AI content assistants and prompt engineers work closely with emerging technology, neither job requires a background in computer engineering. In fact, a background in English, communication, writing, and/or editing can be just as helpful, since AI models learn via text and generate content in text form. Who said an English degree wasn’t a technical degree?

 
[Image description: A digital illustration of a man in a suit extending one fist, with graph-like yellow graphics surrounding his fingers in midair.] Credit & copyright: geralt, Pixabay