{"id":40,"date":"2014-09-28T23:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-09-28T13:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/science-news-on-one-foot-circa-september-25"},"modified":"2019-07-28T04:46:34","modified_gmt":"2019-07-28T04:46:34","slug":"science-news-on-one-foot-circa-september-25","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2014\/09\/28\/science-news-on-one-foot-circa-september-25\/","title":{"rendered":"Science News on One Foot (circa September 25)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Browsing the latest editions of Science<\/em> and Nature<\/em>. What is of interest to me? But also, why? Herein I summarize some of what I read, with an interest in why this person is interested. I present 3 selections:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Training innate\u00a0immune cells (Science<\/a>)<\/li>\n
  2. Water in extrasolar atmospheres (Nature<\/a>)<\/li>\n
  3. Enhanced photosynthesis in crops (Nature<\/a>)<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    1.\u00a0Training innate immune cells<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    One part of the immune system is generally thought of as dumb. The innate<\/em> immune system is (normally) characterized as those cells that employ generic techniques for identifying foreign or dangerous materials, responding in a containment manner whilst calling upon the “smarter” adaptive<\/em> immune system (viz. the system\u00a0responsible for immunization working). A set of publications have come out of an\u00a0EU\u00a0consortium’s work into blood cells’ epigenetics\u00a0(i.e changes around the DNA molecules, and not to the DNA sequences themselves). What caught my eye were the demonstrations that innate\u00a0<\/em>immune cells learn (via epigenetic changes) in response to disease exposure.<\/p>\n

    Interesting?<\/strong> Two (point five) avenues of interest: (1)<\/strong> The consortium project (called BLUEPRINT<\/a>) is expanding the impact of epigenetics.\u00a0It seems as if epigenetics is life’s\u00a0technique for modifying the product (organism) once it’s out of the packet (bred and born). Might the majority of tissue and cell types have their use for epigenetics, and if so that could change our conception of (say) organs from static functions to dynamic ones. (2)<\/strong> This finding is one of those that is more interesting to those with preconceptions (e.g. those that have learned immunology) than others. It is a case of something that was known with a surety that included names and definitions (e.g. “innate immune system”) being undermined by a blurring of boundaries. What other boundaries are there waiting to be undermined? (E.g. between the nervous and digestive systems, between the kidney and the emotions). (2.5)<\/strong> I should mention the futurism mentioned in the editorial. It might be possible to use drugs to epigenetically modify the innate system, against cancer or diabetes,\u00a0(or perhaps, I imagine, as a targeted boost versus the flu).<\/p>\n

    2.\u00a0Water in extrasolar atmospheres<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Planets outside the solar system are already an old story, but the ability to determine their composition is a challenge unto itself. Here water vapour was confirmed in the atmosphere of a Neptune size exoplanet by the Hubble and Spitzer space telescopes. The story is part luck – finding a suitable planet for study and then checking that it doesn’t have clouds that hide them – and part exceptional proof of technology and theory. As the editorial*<\/a> puts it: “Searching for water-vapour absorption in the atmosphere of an exoplanet passing in front if its host star is akin to looking for a tiny insect passing in front of a bright coastal lighthouse lamp.”<\/p>\n

    Interesting?<\/strong> I’m using this instance of progress in the exoplanet field to substantiate my view that life on Earth may not be as unique or unprecedented as traditional belief instructs us.<\/p>\n

    3.\u00a0Enhanced photosynthesis in crops<\/strong><\/h3>\n

    Food production needs to double by 2050 (says the UN). There is a group of bacteria that are at least 3x as efficient at absorbing carbon (which is the basis for all plant growth). This is an entire process, so it would not be enough\u00a0to just\u00a0copy\u00a0a gene from the bacteria and into crops. A\u00a0group at\u00a0Cornell University have been making headway against\u00a0this challenge, and recently published a method for transferring some of the main proteins\u00a0– incl. the ones that catalyze the conversion of CO2<\/sub> – and leading them into the correct conformation and structures.<\/p>\n

    Interesting?<\/strong> My angle here is one of\u00a0futurism<\/em>, viz. given this, now, what might the future look like. The ability to create transgenic crop organisms beyond the limited scope of (e.g. Monstanto) herb-resistance is suggestive of an incredible range of possibilities. By implication, this scope (i.e. a cross between genetic modification and synthetic biology) includes, e.g. crops that produce extra specific nutrients, energy materials like hydrogen or oil, medical drugs, etc.<\/p>\n

    \n

    \nMeta-notes and such<\/strong><\/h5>\n

    This is something of an exploratory mission. (This whole blog is). I’ve recently been posting about my readings in philosophy, but\u00a0want to also incorporate my interest in science. Hence this, a filtered news feature. It’s still just an experiment, and a draft, and a journey.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Three headlines selected from this week’s Science\/Nature journals: (1) Memory in the innate immune system, (2) water in extrasolar atmospheres, and (3) enhancing photosynthesis in crops. Herein I summarize these, highlighting what makes them interesting to this person.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[159,90,279,39,281,16,17],"tags":[7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15],"metadata":[],"class_list":["post-40","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-all-posts","category-blog-posts","category-journal-review","category-meanwhileiii","category-reviews","category-science","category-science-news","tag-astronomy","tag-botany","tag-exoplanets","tag-futurism","tag-genetic-modification","tag-immunology","tag-nature","tag-news","tag-photosynthesis"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2523,"url":"https:\/\/thetravellerslastjourney.com\/shai\/2013\/10\/10\/science-review-cancer-immunoscore-and-neurochronoarchitecture\/","url_meta":{"origin":40,"position":0},"title":"Science Review: Cancer immunoscore and Neurochronoarchitecture","author":"Pala","date":"October 10, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Concept: Cancer immunoscore. 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