PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATES EXPRESS CONCERN OVER CARBON EMISSIONS AT CLIMATE FORUM

Twelve Democratic presidential candidates visited Georgetown University on September 19 and September 20 to participate in the Climate Forum. Eager to share their ideas on climate change, each candidate had the opportunity to discuss their stance on climate policy and illustrate how they would respond to challenges from climate issues if elected.

The environmental reform movement has been rapidly gaining support and urgency as evidence of climate change continues to accumulate. Such evidence includes increasing land and sea surface temperatures and Arctic ice mass loss. The rising heat on Earth can be largely attributed to the greenhouse effect, in which ultraviolet radiation from the sun hits the earth and is degraded to infrared radiation. This infrared radiation is captured by greenhouse gases and re-emitted, trapping the heat in the lower atmosphere where we live. While the candidates did not focus their discussions on the science behind climate change or their proposed policies, many of their ideas are rooted in science. In fact, former-Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julián Castro stated, “We have to take what the scientists have told us and act on it.”

Former-Representative John Delaney expressed his desire to pioneer an advanced energy economy centered around carbon capture and nuclear power. Delaney said, “I want to take the $50 billion we provide in direct subsidies to fossil fuel companies, and I want to use that to create a market for direct air capture, meaning that the government buys carbon from firms.” He also wants to put a carbon pipeline down in the Midwest next to natural gas pipelines to further incentivize carbon capture in the economy. Delaney’s focus on carbon capture directly relates to the greenhouse effect. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that worsens the greenhouse effect, thus increasing temperatures. Reducing the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would reduce the amount available to trap heat in the system.

As an alternative source of energy, some of the candidates, including Delaney, proposed nuclear energy. Nuclear energy is considered favorable for the environment because not only does it not release any carbon, but it actually releases less radiation than many other sources of energy. Nuclear energy is also more consistently available than other forms of energy, including wind and solar. It is produced by the uranium fission process, which involves splitting uranium atoms in order to unlock energy that heats water. This heated water is then used to spin steam turbines inside reactors, producing electricity.

Other candidates looked to economic solutions to ameliorate concerns over carbon emissions. South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg advocated zero net carbon emissions and expressed interest in implementing a carbon tax. Similarly, former-Governor Bill Weld said he wants to establish a carbon fee for private industries and to invest in carbon capture technology.

RUSSIA REFUSES TO DISCLOSE SOURCE OF HOLE IN THE ISS

Russian officials have allegedly determined the cause of a hole in the International Space Station (ISS) that was discovered on August 29, 2018, but refuse to inform American officials of their conclusions. The leak from the hole, 0.07 inches in diameter, caused a drop in pressure in the Soyuz capsule. Astronauts aboard the ISS were able to fix the hole using epoxy-soaked gauze and heat-resistant tape. Analysis shows that were the leak not fixed, it could have caused a total loss of air from the capsule in just 18 days. Thankfully, NASA officials have affirmed that ISS crewmembers were never in any serious danger as a result of the leak.

While this is not the first time the ISS has sprung a leak, figuring out the sources of these leaks can often be an extremely difficult task. Scientists initially hypothesized that the hole was caused by a strike from a micrometeoroid, usually a tiny piece of rock or other hard material, or perhaps by a seal or valve failure. Evidence of a drill bit sliding across the surface of the capsule suggests either shoddy workmanship when building the capsule or perhaps that the hole may have been created on purpose.

When the hole was first discovered, an initial joint press release by NASA and Roscosmos, the Russian space agency, emphasized a commitment to “the necessity of further close interaction between NASA and Roscosmos technical teams in identifying and eliminating the cause of the leak.” Dmitry Rogozin, head of Roscosmos, initially suggested that the hole was “done by a human hand” rather than a micrometeoroid but in a recent meeting with Russian students on September 18, said, “What happened is clear to us, but we won't tell you anything.” NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine has said that he plans to speak with Rogozin directly because the Russian space agency has not informed NASA of their discoveries. Bridenstine wants NASA to remain civil with Roscosmos but added that the safety and security of the astronauts aboard ISS is his priority.

MARS CAN FEED ONE MILLION SETTLERS BY ITSELF

A new study by planetary scientists Kevin Cannon and Daniel Britt from the University of Central Florida, Orlando, predicts that Mars may be able to feed one million inhabitants through self-sufficient processes.

The researchers outlined five major resources to develop a civilization on Mars: energy, water, oxygen, construction materials, and food. They concluded that the most efficient way to sustain a Martian settlement would be through ending dependence on supply ships from Earth by taking advantage of the resources available on the Red Planet. Although solar power, ice and hydrated minerals for water, carbon dioxide which can be converted to oxygen, and Martian soil for construction are all naturally occurring, sources for food are non-existent. Therefore, feeding the colonists is the most pressing and fundamental challenge to successfully populating Mars.

"Food is probably going to be the hardest thing to make locally on Mars,” said Cannon. “You can't just import it all if you want to have a self-sufficient settlement."

Seeking to tackle this obstacle, researchers have turned to innovative methods to maximize agricultural efficiency and output. They consider greenhouses ineffective because sunlight is much weaker on Mars than on Earth. Therefore, they proposed using 9,000 miles of tunnels about 12-feet-wide lit with LED lights to grow crops.

To increase crop productivity, one researcher suggested a reliance on wheat, corn, soybeans, and sweet potatoes as well as an emphasis on genetic modification. Meanwhile, colonists would need to “move away from the idea of watery vegetables.”

Additionally, in order to provide meat-based products for the settlers, the researchers turn to insect farms. Insects are efficient sources of protein-based calories because they have a high nutritional value while taking up minor amounts of water, feed, and land. Furthermore, crickets can be grounded into flour to become a hidden ingredient in many foods so that they do not detract from taste.

Cellular agriculture–foods made up of cells grown in petri dishes–can also become an integral part of Martian cuisine. This technology can enable colonists to taste familiar foods through the development of cow-less milk or chicken-less eggs, for instance.

However, the scientists concluded that Martian inhabitants can only achieve self-sufficiency after at least 100 years. Within the first century of colonization, settlers would need to rely on nearly 54,000 cargo shipments of food imported from Earth. Nevertheless, they remain convinced that colonization is a possibility in the near-future, pointing out that anyone who thinks a Martian civilization is a fictional concept “needs to take a serious look at what SpaceX is doing.”

CHINESE SCIENTISTS ATTEMPT TO CURE AIDS WITH CRISPR GENE TECHNOLOGY

Chinese scientists recently made history by altering the DNA of a 27-year-old man in an attempt to treat his cases of AIDS and leukemia. Using the gene-altering tool CRISPR, the scientists modified the DNA of the patient’s bone marrow transplants, the combination of which resulted in his remission from leukemia. Though the experiment did not cure the patient’s AIDS, scientists consider it a success, as it proved that CRISPR can be a tool to cure otherwise deadly diseases.

The patient’s gene therapy, which began in 2017, involved the deletion of the CCR5 gene. Those with defective or absent CCR5 genes are typically highly immune to HIV and AIDS, making it an ideal candidate for CRISPR experimentation. The scientists were able to edit 17.8 percent of the transplanted bone marrow DNA. Nineteen months after the transplant, around one-half to two-thirds of the edited DNA had died out, leaving five to eight percent edited DNA.

Scientists around the world have hailed this achievement as a possible cure for HIV and AIDS. Currently, a similar process is believed to have fully cured two patients, both of whom also received bone marrow transplants from donors with naturally mutated CCR5 genes. “HIV–AIDS has been at the vanguard of cell and gene therapy for decades, and this trend has continued in genome editing,” cancer researcher Carl June wrote, adding that “the safety profile appears to be acceptable.”

While this experiment is largely commended by the broader scientific community, others have criticized Chinese scientists’ past gene therapy research as both unethical and dangerous. Most recently, scientist He Jiankui claimed to have edited the DNA of two twin girls. He used CRISPR to delete the babies’ copies of the same CCR5 gene in an attempt to reduce their risk of HIV and AIDS. His research is widely criticized both for its neglect of established ethics codes as well as for the possibility that the removal of the CCR5 gene may result in reduced cognitive function for the two girls. Chinese authorities subsequently placed him under house arrest and publicly condemned his actions.

This more recent development in AIDS research, however, is likely to result in continued experimentation. The scientists involved have already announced continued research into using CRISPR to help AIDS patients. “This is not an all-out success, but what to do next and how to get to that success is now even more clear,” Fyodor Urnov, a leader at the Innovative Genomics Lab at the University of California, Berkeley, said.

AI CAN NOW DIAGNOSE DISEASES WITH THE SAME ACCURACY AS DOCTORS

A group of international academics from hospitals in the U.K, the U.S. and Switzerland recently reviewed over 20,500 existing scientific articles comparing the performance of AI models and healthcare professionals published between January 2012 and June 2019. Computer algorithms were able to accurately identify 93 percent of all patients to not have a disease, while healthcare experts were able to do so with an accuracy of 91 percent, suggesting that artificial intelligence (AI) today is as knowledgeable as healthcare professionals, if not more so.

Nevertheless, only about one percent of the articles surveyed have a design that gives the researchers high confidence in their conclusions. A small number of 14 studies actually compared the performance of AI versus health professionals using the same test sample. Nonetheless, they agree that “diagnosis of disease using deep learning algorithms holds enormous potential.”

Other studies have found that AI has a relatively high capacity for diagnosing heart disease compared to doctors, only taking a fraction of the time with equal accuracy. Currently, there are 150,000 scans performed in the U.K. each year. Research suggests that if hospitals fully utilized AI in the diagnosis of heart disease, it would save 54 clinician days at each cardiac center per year. One researcher that led this research strongly believes in the potential of machine learning techniques and AI’s ability to greatly improve cardiovascular MRI analysis. AI could circumvent the problems caused by human errors in disease diagnosis, which is unavoidable especially when doctors work for such lengthy amounts of time. Another study from China found that AI could better diagnose diseases from annotated copies of children’s medical records with 90-97 percent accuracy.

Ultimately, AI will likely not replace doctors in the future, but instead become extremely helpful resources, particularly in areas such as disease diagnosis and even triage in emergency care, hopefully reducing patient wait times in the process.

NEW STUDY SHOWS THAT MACHU PICCHU WAS BUILT ON FAULT LINES

The ancient Incan citadel Machu Picchu was built in the mid-1400s on the peak of a narrow Andean mountain, above a river canyon. Its unusual location and relative inaccessibility, often requiring a four-day hike to reach, astounds scholars and tourists alike. However, on September 23, at the annual Geological Society of America meeting, Rualdo Menegat from Brazil’s Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul shared his findings on Machu Picchu’s location, resolving some of the mystery. Based on satellite images and field measurements that he collected over 11 years, Menegat concluded that Machu Picchu was built on fault lines.

The earth’s surface is separated into tectonic plates, areas of rock in the earth’s crust that are susceptible to movement. The boundaries that separate tectonic plates identify fault lines that sometimes present as singular cracks but more often manifest as a complex network of fractures. Fault lines range from a few millimeters to thousands of miles long, and they often establish zones of deformation, where natural disasters like earthquakes are frequent due to movement between the plates.

Menegat found that Machu Picchu was built on the intersection of fault lines traveling northeast-southeast and northwest-southwest, creating an “X” shape right beneath it. He also found that other ancient Incan cities such as Cusco, Ollantaytambo, and Pisac, were also built on fault lines. While it is unknown whether or not members of the ancient Incan civilization knew about these geological occurrences, a correlation between the locations of the cities and the locations of fault lines appears to exist. Menegat ultimately believes that "Machu Picchu's location is not a coincidence."

Attributing this phenomenon to the benefits that fault lines likely provided for Incan builders, Menegat believes that they assured Incas an abundance of broken rocks for building, in addition to access to running water. He explained, “The intense fracturing [in fault zones] predisposed the rocks to breaking along these same planes of weakness, which greatly reduced the energy needed to carve them.” Moreover, the fault lines provided a path for rainwater and melted snow from mountain tops into the site, while simultaneously allowing for excess water to drain from the city. Machu Picchu’s high elevation also proved beneficial as it protected against avalanches and landslides.