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A New Organic Compound has Potential in Removing Nuclear Uranium Wastes

          On September 20, 2018, Mohammad Chaudhry, a Ph. D student at the University of British Columbia and his team of researchers have produced a new chemical compound known as an expanded campestarene. This new compound is a large, cyclic molecular structure that possesses the unique property of binding strongly to uranium ions. This can have real-world applications in the future as a tool to manage nuclear waste since the uranium by-product produced by nuclear reactors is a growing concern. Expanded campestarenes’ ability to strongly bind to uranium ions can be used to specifically remove dangerous, radioactive uranium waste.

The hollow cavity of expanded campestarene in the middle will hold the uranium ion.

The Campastarene Creation:

          The process for making such a compound is not an easy process. It requires a lot of trial and error, and an extensive knowledge of macrocycle chemistry, a subsection of chemistry. Despite being an expert on this subject, it still took Chaudhry a lengthy time to obtain enough of these molecules to call it a success. According to Chaudhry, “I basically went through the periodic table, and I went through a list of which elements would make sense to work in this type of reaction, and uranium was one I thought would work.” Overall, this process took about eight months.

          After selection of uranium ion, a reflux reaction was used to produce the compounds. A reflux reaction is simply heating a bunch of chemical compounds in order to input energy and make the reaction more likely to happen. “Basically, you mix it and you heat it and then you purify it, and that’s it,” says Mohammad.

          The following video contains the journey that Chaudhry and his colleagues have taken to create this molecule.

SO Project Group 5 Video” by Group 5 is licensed under YouTube.

The Uranium Situation and the Campastarene Solution

          The expanded campestarenes produced by Chaudhry’s team are very unique molecular compounds. The most notable property is its ability to bind strongly to uranium ions. The expanded campestarenes have an internal cavity that can specifically bind to uranium ions, forming a very stable complex. As a result, it is a useful uranium sequestering agent. Uranium sequestration describes the process of removing uranium ions from solution by strongly binding to it.

          This property can be extremely useful when it comes to managing uranium waste produced by nuclear reactors. With our increasing need for nuclear energy, more uranium waste is being produced. There are two types of uranium waste produced from these power plants: non-radioactive and radioactive uranium.  Radioactive uranium is dangerous to humans and the environment. It can damage one’s DNA, cells, tissues, and organs, and can also contaminate groundwater and soil, drastically impacting the environment. In addition, uranium waste is very difficult to get rid of because it takes hundreds-of-thousands of years to decompose naturally

          However, removing radioactive uranium is not as easy as it may seem. It is hard to differentiate the safe, non-radioactive uranium from the harmful, radioactive uranium. Therefore, by creating an expanded campestarene that can specifically bind to dangerous, radioactive uranium, it can be safely removed. This binding process is called chelation, where a molecule with specific structure allows it to target specific metal ions (like uranium).

         The following podcast by SCIE 300 Group talks about the daily-used chelating agents, such as chelating food additives and chelating agents in water purification. Also, the podcast contains an interview with Mohammad Chaudhry about the practical implication of expanded campestarene.

SCIE 300 SO Project Podcast” by Group 5 is licensed under YouTube

          Although uranium sequestration has practical applications, especially when it comes to nuclear waste, modifications to Chaudhry’s expanded campestarenes still need to be made before it can be used for practical use. “This experiment was mostly an academic curiosity,” Chaudhry says. However, Chaudhry’s discovery has set the foundation for future research on the topic of expanded campestarenes. Perhaps in the future, the specific binding nature of expanded campestarenes can be put to applicable use, especially in dealing with the radioactive uranium waste problem.

A New Frontier to Our Red Neighbor

Being one of Earth’s closest neighbors and named after a Roman God of War, Mars is the 4th planet of the solar system. It has been an object of wonder for centuries due to being visible to the naked eye. Because of this, Mars has always been a popular choice for our new home. This has been considered more seriously in the recent years due to the rapid increase of human population and the depletion of resources on Earth.

Surface of Mars and its polar ice cap. Source Nasa

Mars One

Mars One is an organization founded in 2011 whose goal is to establish a permanent human settlement on Mars. With many PhD researchers and large suppliers like Lockheed Martin on board, Mars One planned multiple manned and unmanned missions over the span on 20 years. They plan to start Astronaut training by 2018 for prolonged stay in remote locations, repairing rovers, medical treatment, and food growth. Aiming to launch the first crew in 2031 via the Mars Transit Vehicle, many unmanned missions will be launched before that to experiment with crucial tasks such as water extraction and solar panels, satellite deployment, and setting up an outpost. After the landing, astronauts will set up solar panels and prepare for a second group of astronauts launching in 2033. Mars One has addressed potential risks of this project such as the lives of astronauts and the potential of over budget, however they plan on reducing cost by using existing technologies.

Mars One’s concept of Martian base. Source Mars One

Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne (EPFL)

Another plan was drafted recently by a group of scientists and researchers in EPFL, a Switzerland University. The plan was accepted on June of 2018 to set up Martian bases on the polar ice cap regions of Mars. The poles prove to be ideal places to set up a base because it provides a source of water and various elements to create materials. Like the Mars One, EPFL plan to send multiple unmanned missions to construct a habitable base. The design of the base consists of a central core which will act as a living quarter for the astronauts, 3 surrounding capsules will have airlock functionality to minimize pressure change, and a large dome to protect the area within from radiation and the harsh dust storms of the Martian surface. They plan on sending a crew of 6 astronauts to land during the polar summer to maximize sunlight during their stay. The astronauts are planned to stay for 9 months to set up power reactors and a second mission will be initiated to bring cranes for material transportation. A potential issue with this plan is that there is currently no rocket strong enough to carry the planned heavy load.

Floor plan of the proposed base. Source EPFL

 

The Future of Mars Colonization

As human population increase, so does the rate of consumption and the need for us to find a new home becomes increasingly real. With the many advantages that Mars provide and garnering the interest of groups like Mars One and the scientists of EPFL, the Red Planet is a likely option for us to call home in the near future.

– Jerry Chen

 

Insecticides are threatening the survival of bees

The most commonly used insecticide in the world, neonicotinoid insecticides, can effectively thresh many crop pests, but at the same time have a potential impact on key pollinators, bees. High doses of neurotoxin can damage the memory of bees and the ability to collect food. Now, using an innovative tracking technology, the researchers have confirmed that neonicotinoid insecticides can significantly reduce the activity of the hornet bee colony, making them less likely to take care of the young bees, and the colony regulates the temperature of the nest. more difficult. This discovery or help clarifies a long-standing puzzle: how insecticides harm bee colonies.

The bee lost its directionality (source: http://www.epochtimes.com/gb/12/7/12/n3634183.htm)

James Crall, an animal behavior biologist at Harvard University, wants to analyze the collective behavior of bees exposed to neonicotinoid insecticides. However, this is not an easy task. Past efforts to track bees involve applying pigments to bees, recording short videos, and then carefully analyzing and annotating these behaviors. “It’s difficult to shoot a 5-minute tracking video,” says Crall. “It’s hard to imagine tracking multiple bee colonies for several days in a row.”

Crall and the team found a solution with the tracking software they wrote at Harvard University. He and his colleagues glued a 3 x 4 mm label with a unique pattern to the back of hundreds of bumblebees. Finally, using a robotic device from the Drosophila Lab, they assembled a mobile platform with two high-resolution cameras. These cameras can “peep” a dozen bumblebee colonies on a regular basis, pick out the movements of labeled bees, and then transfer them to a computer for analysis.

Subsequently, the team provided syrup to nine bee colonies, which were spiked with imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid insecticide at a concentration of six parts per billion. These bees can “enjoy” the syrup whenever they want to eat. In the 12-day trial, the overall activity of bees and their social interactions decreased. For example, bees that control bee colonies spend about 25% of their time on caring for young bees, while bees that eat insecticides spend 20% less time on this.

Rescue bees, French banned nicotine-based insecticides (source: http://cn.rfi.fr)

The team also found that the ability of bees to fall asleep became inexplicable at night. In further experiments, Crall and colleagues confirmed that imidacloprid hindered the ability of colonies to regulate nest temperature.

Insecticides affect the normal life of bees in all aspects, so governments and regulators should control the use of pesticides.

 

Erasing Bad Memories

Our brain stores both good and bad memories. They don’t stay still and can fade away as time lapses. But every time when you happen to recall those bad moments in your brain, you might be overwhelmed with the come back of those “nightmares” and hope to wipe them out from your mind forever. In worse cases, this can even cause a mental illness that 1 in 5 Canadian adults will personally experience in their lifetime.

A recent study suggests that by applying an electrical shock to the brain shortly after recalling a troubling event will help a person forget many of those upsetting details. Particularly for people with severe anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, findings from the study can inspire the creation of more effective treating methods to help these people ease their mental burden, with the side effects on memory minimized. 

Erasure of negative memories one step closer to reality by Neale McDevitt; Image Source.

More Controllable Electroconvulsive Therapy(ECT)

Electroconvulsive therapy(ECT), an effective but commonly-held risky treating method was applied to 42 depression patients in the study, where their brains were jolted with a powerful electrical current under anesthesia. First, participants watched a series of pictures as they heard a narrator describe two upsetting stories. The first one was a car hitting a young boy and severing both of his feet, and the other was a woman being attacked in an alley. One week after they first heard the stories, they were asked to recall and describe the details of one of them. Immediately after recalling the story, the patients were anesthetized and treated with ECT. A day after that, participants were asked to take multiple-choice tests about the story.

The results have shown that participants performed no better than chance at remembering the details of the story that had been recalled just before ECT. But they were better at remembering the other story that hadn’t been recalled just before ECT.

“Scientists and patients know that ECT is bad for memory in general, but the results showed that the therapy, when carefully timed, can knock down specific memories”, says the study co-author Marijn Kroes of Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands.

‘Shock Therapy’ Could Erase Disturbing Memories by DNEWS; Image Source

“Elegant” Results

However, given the positive results for erasing specific bad memories, the study was queried and deemed as “elegant” by Daniela Schiller, a neuroscientist at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York. One disturbing factor is the uncertainty concerning whether ECT could interfere with natural memories, created in a person’s daily life and not in a lab.

Overall, ECT at this stage is still not applicable to simple memory erasing, and more clinical testing is required for wider applications. But for patients undergoing treatment for depression or other severe mental problems, ECT can allow them to gain control over crippling memories. This is to say, a person can better protect their good memories by not thinking about them prior to the treatment, yet try to recall those unpleasant ones with the hope that they would be weakened selectively. 

Leqi(Nancy) Wan

DNA storage technology

1 Introduction

Do you know DNA?  The gene which could store information of  inheritance.DNA has a double-helical structure with four chemical groups, nucleobases, which are arranged in a specific order to form genetic information that guides the growth and development of the organism.DNA storage technology is the use of synthetic DNA to store data such as text documents, pictures and sound files, followed by a complete reading technique.

2 Advantages

One of the significant advantages of DNA storage technology  is its large capacity. DNA molecules are an incredibly dense storage medium, and 1 gram of DNA can store about 2 pats, which is equal to 300GB.
Using DNA to store data can save to thousands of years. Unlike storage media such as hard disks and tapes, DNA does not require frequent maintenance. As far as reading is concerned, DNA storage does not involve compatibility issues

 

Now the DNA storage

 

Picture 1 DNA structure

(cite: https://www.technologynetworks.com/genomics/lists/what-are-the-key-differences-between-dna-and-rna-296719)

3 Method

Therefore how could it be possible for storage process?

Picture 2 DNA storage progress

(cite:https://gss3.bdstatic.com/-Po3dSag_xI4khGkpoWK1HF6hhy/baike/c0%3Dbaike80%2C5%2C5%2C80%2C26/sign=651b5cbd8694a4c21e2eef796f9d70b0/4e4a20a4462309f723c110a0730e0cf3d6cad6d2.jpg)

(1)The DNA digital storage system developed by the researchers also uses these four-base “letters” to develop custom code that is completely different from the “language” used by the organism.

(2)When copying a computer file, the DNA digital storage system first translates the binary numbers in the hard disk information into custom code, and then creates the corresponding base sequence by means of a standard DNA synthesis machine. This sequence is not a long molecule, but multiple repeats, each carrying some index details, clarifying where each is located in the overall sequence.

(3)Although such a system is redundant, the advantage is that even if some fragments are destroyed, the data will not be lost. The standard device used by the Molecular Biology Laboratory (like this one)to read biological DNA can read information and present it on a computer screen.

Will Artificial Intelligence One Day Rule the World?

So what is artificial intelligence (AI) anyways? Just as humans scientifically exhibit what we call “natural learning”, artificial intelligence gives machines the same essence of knowledge enhancement called “machine learning”. AI allows machines to think about previous experiences and predict future unseen data without humans explicitly programming them to do so. So does that mean one day they will accumulate enough learning material to outsmart the creators? If so, scientists hypothetically refer to this as “super intelligence”.

Image result for what is ai

Photo Credit: ProSysCom

https://www.prosyscom.tech/innovation-future/what-is-ai-and-machine-learning-in-construction-our-definitive-answer-innovation/

Google AI: Alphago phenomenon

Go is an abstract strategy board game, created by humans more than 2,500 years ago. AlphaGo AI developed by Google, astonishingly defeated the world’s best Go players. AlphaGo not only defeated them, but impressively “trained on 160,000 games recorded from top Go players and then on 30 million more games it played against itself” said Brenden Lake. Clearly,  the AI was able to train repeatedly at speeds unachievable by humans, learned from them and invented moves that no human has played before.

Photo Credit: Fiuba Consulting Club

http://fiubaconsulting.club/go-game-board/

So is AlphaGo considered a type of “super intelligence”?

Not quite. AlphaGo’s knowledge was encapsulated to the game Go, and only Go. It has no other signs of expanding into solving chess, checkers or anything else. Therefore we can state that although AlphaGo have officially outclassed humans at Go, it is not a “super intelligence”.

From within our phones, laptops to Google Homes and Amazon Alexa, AI is in our daily lives. We as humans tend to be skeptical of the unknown, and it is no different with AI. The lack of understanding of the general public is sole reason these topics to arise. Although AI does allows a machine to learn tasks without a human’s guidance, but at the end of the day it comes down to highly statistical algorithms. In the nutshell of AI, it’s primary function is to recognize relationships amongst enormous data to predict relevant, measurable answers. Hence over time, as new data comes in and joins the statistical model, its able to “learn” and perform even more accurate predictions for the future.

“Machine learning and artificial intelligence are tools. They can be used in a right or a wrong way, like everything else.” – Brenden Lake

Ultimately,  AI’s capability to learn at speeds beyond any human doesn’t implicitly mean it will secretly learn other intelligence as well to outsmart us. There simply is no definition of “natural learning” for humans yet, therefore “machine learning” also cannot possibly surpass such threshold and go beyond our capabilities. Hence, AI will only learn and be exceptional in the field they are designed to thrive in. Even if AI one day is able to learn outside of it’s design specifications, it doesn’t necessarily mean it will be successful either.  As we are only understand the surface of AI’s true powers, its difficult to predict what other possibilities exist, but taking over the world is improbable.

– Jason Gan