The Mysterious Pulse from Deep Space Imagine capturing a fleeting whisper from the depths of the universe, so powerful that it releases as much energy in a millisecond as our sun does over 30 years. This is not science fiction. Recently, astronomers traced the origins of a Fast Radio Burst (FRB), known as FRB 20220610A,… Continue reading Unraveling Cosmic Mysteries: The Fascinating Discovery of FRB 20220610A
Category: Discoveries
Revolutionizing Antibiotic Discovery with Artificial Intelligence
The threat of antibiotic resistance has been growing rapidly, concerning medical professionals and hospitals. Applying AI to medical research now opens a new pathway for the discovery of antibiotics, meeting an essential demand in healthcare. Antibiotic resistance is a significant threat to global health, leading to harder-to-treat infections, increased spread of diseases. Acknowledged by the… Continue reading Revolutionizing Antibiotic Discovery with Artificial Intelligence
CRISPR:
From Bacterial Defense to Gene Editing Tool The implications of Doudna and Charpentier’s CRISPR (Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats) discovery were monumental. Scientists realized that if they could program CRISPR-Cas9 to target specific DNA sequences in bacteria, they could use this technology in any organism. This adaptability transformed it into a gene-editing tool of… Continue reading CRISPR:
Unseen Conflict:
How Bacterial Battles Paved the Way for CRISPR Gene Editing In the microscopic world, a relentless battle has been raging for millennia, one that has inadvertently given rise to one of the most significant scientific breakthroughs of our time: CRISPR gene editing technology. This discovery, stemming from the age-old war between bacteria and viruses, reshaped… Continue reading Unseen Conflict:
A Tale of Two Elements:
Marie Curie and Lise Meitner November 7th marked the shared birthday of Marie Curie and Lise Meitner, pioneers whose discoveries transformed our understanding of the atom. These two are the only women with elements of the periodic table named after them: Curium and Meitnerium. They also shared both the brilliance and tenacity to succeed when… Continue reading A Tale of Two Elements:
Jennifer Doudna:
Rewriting the Code of Life with CRISPR-Cas9 Few discoveries in modern science have generated as much excitement and promise as CRISPR-Cas9, a revolutionary gene-editing system. Standing for Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats, CRISPR is a powerful tool that allows scientists to make precise changes to DNA, revolutionizing the field of biology. UC Berkeley biochemist… Continue reading Jennifer Doudna:
Ernest Everett Just
Great Underappreciated Black Biologist Ernest Everett Just was a pioneering African American biologist, academic, and science writer known for his work in the fields of cellular biology and marine biology. I learned about his life and contributions listening to a talk given by Mélina Mangal, author, school library teacher, and biographer of Ernest Everett Just.… Continue reading Ernest Everett Just
AI vs. Lethal Superbugs
Artificial intelligence helped identify a promising new antibiotic. Researchers deployed AI to zero in on a chemical that might be the nemesis of the notorious Acinetobacter baumannii. The CDC reports that this drug-resistant “superbug” caused 8,500 infections and 700 deaths in hospitals during 2017 alone. In this pioneering work, they showed a potential antibiotic called… Continue reading AI vs. Lethal Superbugs
The Coriolis Effect
Answering a Reader’s Questions As posted last week, the Coriolis Effect steers the winds and ocean currents around the globe in huge spiral patterns, all because our Earth spins. A reader asked who discovered this pattern in nature and wanted to know what happens at the equator. Does the prevailing north counterclockwise and south clockwise… Continue reading The Coriolis Effect
A New Hot Jupiter
Discovering Exoplanet TOI-2109b Looking out my west-facing bedroom window on a clear, dark night, I see hundreds of stars, each just a point of light. Many of those stars may be like our sun with a system of orbiting planets. We’ve long suspected that other suns have other planets. Back in 1979, Gordon Walker began… Continue reading A New Hot Jupiter