New Delhi: The world might soon see a rectangular-shaped telescope because scientists say it could be the best way to find life on other planets. A new paper by astrophysicists from the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in the US suggests that a unique rectangular-shaped telescope would be the best way to look at possibly habitable planets in our solar system. The paper was published in the Frontiers in Astronomy and Space Sciences Journal on 1 September.
When scientists look for habitable planets near us, they’re essentially looking for planets that have the same conditions as Earth—medium-sized, and near enough to a star like the Sun, but not so near that they’ll have too extreme temperatures. But the reason it is difficult to identify such planets is that stars like the Sun emit so much light that we often get confused between the light from the planet versus that from the Sun, when viewing from our atmosphere.
The common telescope shape used is circular, with circular mirrors and circular lenses. However, to be powerful enough to distinguish between light from planets and stars easily, these telescopes need to be much larger and have much better resolution, which is only possible by making them larger. It’s difficult to handle large circular mirrors and lenses, so now scientists suggest we can use a rectangular mirror instead to accommodate both the size and the resolution needs of telescopes.
Not only are they easier to build and launch, rectangular telescopes would have a higher aspect ratio, so a lot of the sky can be seen at once. They can be combined with light blocking techniques like coronographs to better capture signs from exoplanets that could have life.
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Artificial sweeteners & brain health—more connected than you thought
Brazilian scientists have found that using artificial sweeteners, like aspartame or saccharin, is linked to faster cognitive decline. A study published on 3 September in the American Academy of Neurology’s Journal looked at 12,772 adults, with an average age of 52, across eight years to study the effect of artificial sweeteners on brain health.
It found that people who consumed the most artificial sweeteners experienced 62 percent faster cognitive decline, compared to those who consumed the least. Cognitive decline in this case refers to the slowing down of thinking and memory skills. A 62 percent decline is roughly equal to 1.6 years of extra brain aging. Interestingly, they found this link only in people under 60 years of age, and found that it was strongly associated with those who had diabetes.
However, correlation is not causation, and the authors were quick to point out that they haven’t directly established that the sweeteners are causing this decline—they have just established a link. This study was supported by the Brazilian Health Ministry, and the authors did say that they need to conduct more research to look at other sugar alternatives, like honey and maple syrup, too.
Using genes to study language development across centuries
Scientists from the University of Zurich are using genes to understand how languages were shared and developed across human history. A new paper was published on this subject in Science Advances journal on 29 August. It is a known fact that as different groups of humans met and interacted with each other, their languages assimilated and had similarities.
Recent examples include words like pyjama, bungalow, chutney, or loot, which are originally Hindi words that have become common in English due to interactions between Indians and the British during colonisation.
But this history stretches way back, even before written records of language existed. For example, a few African languages, like Khoisan and Bantu, use click sounds in communication, even though they’re from quite distant regions in Africa. This is because at some points, these groups intermingled and borrowed from each other.
To clearly identify and trace how languages spread as humans interacted, the team from Zurich used genes from over 4,700 individuals across 558 populations with two global linguistic databases covering grammar, sounds and vocabulary. They found that there were more than 125 cases of genetic contact around the world, and that these encounters increased the likelihood of linguistic similarities in the groups by 4 to 9 percent, even between unrelated languages.
Engineered bacteria that can help detect microplastic pollution
Scientists from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University have developed a special kind of bacteria that can turn fluorescent on coming in contact with microplastics in water. The process is explained in a new paper published in ACS Publications on 3 September. Microplastics are minute particles of plastic that can get anywhere from the soil, the ocean, to even air, and then permeate into living beings through it.
Usually, the process to identify and remove microplastics from the water is to use infrared or Raman spectroscopy, which are based on light sensors. These are accurate methods, but very time-consuming, and so what the Hong Kong scientists decided to do was create a living bio-sensor to detect microplastics.
They used a special bacteria called pseudomonas aeruginosa, which has a natural tendency to attach to plastic. But they genetically engineered this bacteria so that one gene switches on when it encounters plastic, and another gene makes it emit green fluorescent protein when that happens. As a result, when the bacteria touch microplastics, they light up.
The scientists even tried this in actual ocean water, and were able to detect that for every 1 million parts of water, there were 100 parts of microplastics. According to the paper, this invention could change environmental health screening.
(Edited by Mannat Chugh)
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