Show Notes:

China Aims for a Permanent Moon Base in the 2030s | IEEE Spectrum (01:33)

• With multiple successes these past few years,  China plans to embark on a new lunar project that builds on the Chang’e program’s newly acquired capabilities.
  • China’s lunar space mission
• The International Lunar Research Station (ILRS) is a complex, multiphase megaproject that the China National Space Administration (CNSA) unveiled jointly with Russia in June in St. Petersburg.
• The designers of the mission envision:
  • robotic landing and orbiting missions in the 2020s
  • a permanently inhabited lunar base by the mid-2030s
• ILRS will begin with a robotic reconnaissance phase running up to 2030, using orbiting and surface spacecraft to do the following:
  • survey potential landing areas and resources
  • conduct technology-verification tests
  • Assess whether a permanent lunar base is viable
• Phase will consist of
  • Chang’e-4, a lander & rover that landed on the far side of the Moon in 2018
  • Chang’e-6, mission to collect samples at the South Pole-Aitken (SPA) on the far side of the moon
  • Chang’e-7, a mission making detailed surveys of the south polar region of the Moon
  • Russian Luna spacecraft, Luna 25, which the primary mission of proving out the landing technology
• CNSA will help select the site for a two-stage construction phase that will involve in situ resource utilization (ISRU) tests with Chang’e-8, massive cargo delivery with precision landings, and the start of joint operations between partners. 
  • ISRU: using the lunar regolith (i.e. dirt) for construction and extraction of resources such as oxygen and water
• The utilization phase will begin in the early 2030s
  • consists of missions numbered ILRS-1 through 5
  • relies on heavy-lift launch vehicles to establish command, energy, and telecommunications infrastructure
• Plans indicate that the completed ILRS would host and support crewed missions to the moon in around 2036.
• China and Russia are inviting all interested countries and partners to cooperate in the project. 
  • Separate from the United States’ Artemis moon program, however
• The final details and partners may change, but China, for its part, seems set on continuing the accumulation of expertise and technologies necessary to get to the moon and back, and stay there in the long term.

‘Jumping gene’ may have erased tails in humans and other apes—and boosted our risk of birth defects | Science.Org (08:32)

• Mammals from mice to monkeys have tails, however, humans and our cousins the great apes lack them. Why is that?
• Researchers may have unearthed a simple genetic change that led to this: an itinerant piece of DNA that leapt into a new chromosomal home and changed how great apes make a key developmental protein. 
• Additionally, the finding suggests the genetic shift came with a less visible and more dangerous effect: a higher risk of birth defects involving the developing spinal cord.
• The gene culprit?
  • TBXT, a short DNA insertion called an Alu element that was present in all great apes but missing in other primates.
  • Alu sequences can move around the genome and are sometimes called jumping genes
• The researchers found that human embryonic stem cells make two versions of the TBXT messenger RNA (mRNA), one longer and one shorter.
  •  Mouse cells, on the other hand, only produce the longer one. 
• Through CRISPR experiments with mice, they found that the shorter version of TBXT interferes with tail development
  • The genetically modified mice had unusually high levels of defects in the developing spinal cord.
• Just because that happened in mice doesn’t mean the same for us humans, because defects seen in the mice could have a different source than the human disorders.

Winged microchip is smallest-ever human-made flying structure  | TechXplore (12:47)

• Northwestern University engineers have added a new capability to electronic microchips: flight.
  • About the size of a grain of sand.
  • Does not have a motor or engine
  • Catches flight on the wind and spins like a helicopter through the air toward the ground.
  • Smallest-ever human-made flying structures
• Through studying maple tree’s propeller seed, the engineers optimized the microflier’s aerodynamics to ensure that it—when dropped at a high elevation—falls at a slow velocity in a controlled manner.
  • Stabilizes its flight
  • Ensures dispersal over a broad area
  • Increases the amount of time it interacts with the air
• These microfliers can be packed with ultra-miniaturized technology, including sensors, power sources, antennas for wireless communication and embedded memory to store data.
• John A. Rogers, who led the device’s development, provides an insight as to what would be the benefits for this flying electronic:
  • “Our goal was to add winged flight to small-scale electronic systems, with the idea that these capabilities would allow us to distribute highly functional, miniaturized electronic devices to sense the environment for contamination monitoring, population surveillance or disease tracking”
• What would happen to all these electronics in the environment?
  • The utilization of transient electronics that can harmlessly dissolve in water after they are no longer needed.

In a First, Scientists Track 1 Million Neurons Near-Simultaneously in a Mouse Brain | Science Alert (19:25)

•  Researchers have managed to keep tabs on 1 million different neurons in the brains of mice at one time. 
  • A step closer towards being able to track the very-complex activity of human brains.
• The key innovation? Light beads microscopy
  • Uses lasers to trigger introduced fluorescence in living cells. As the cells are lit up, scientists can see how they’re moving and interacting.
• Scientists can now get the speed, scale, and resolution required to map a mouse brain in detail as its neural activity changes.
• Why is this important to neuroscience? Neuroscientist Alipasha Vaziri, from the Rockefeller University, has the answer for that:
  • “Understanding the nature of the brain’s densely interconnected network requires developing novel imaging techniques that can capture the activity of neurons across vastly separated brain regions at high speed and single-cell resolution … We need to capture many neurons at distant parts of the brain at the same time at high resolution.”
• In other words, choosing to get detail or s​​ee the whole picture. This innovation does both!
• With light beads microscopy, multiple depths can be visualized in the same pulse, giving scientists a deeper, faster look at what’s happening. 
  • Showed that with the million neurons at once in a mouse
• Scientists are hoping, with this innovation, to be able to track the interactions between the sensory, motor, and visual regions of the brain – not just in mice but in other animals too.
  • “Light beads microscopy will allow us to investigate biological questions in a way that had not been possible before,” says Vaziri.
• The better we can see inside the brain, the better we can work out how it operates.

Indian Scientists Discover Bacteria That Eats Toxic Metals From Water, Making It Safe | India Times (23:55)

• Scientists at the Indian Institute of Technology, Banaras Hindu University (IIT-BHU) have discovered a bacteria capable of separating toxic metal from water, making the water safe for human consumption.
  • The bacteria separates toxic hexavalent chromium from wastewater. 
• If consumed, this metal is responsible for causing health problems among humans including different kinds of cancers, liver ailments, and kidney issues.
  • A big problem especially in India and China
• The bacteria, according to the researchers, is able to tolerate high concentrations of this metal allowing it to be highly effective for removing the toxic material from wastewater.

• Quote from researcher Dr Vishal Mishra on the bacterial strain: 
  • “It is very effective for removal of hexavalent chromium from wastewater compared to other conventional methods. This bacterial strain showed fast growth rate in the Hexavalent chromium– Cr (VI)– containing aqueous medium and gets easily separated from the aqueous medium after the treatment process.” 
• If this strain is deployed in water treatment practices, the need for an extra separation process is effectively eliminated. 
  • Researchers claim that this bacteria process would be cheaper in terms of required equipment and chemicals. 
  • Unlike water treatment, no skilled workforce is required to culture bacteria. 
• Its easy-to-use capability could serve multiple functions in India where clean water access remains a privilege in many regions.