Science
In Future Human. More on Medium.
The prehistoric animals could diffuse the Arctic’s ticking carbon bomb
On a warm afternoon in the northeastern Siberian region of Yakutia, farther north than most humans care to live, Sergey Zimov stood below an eroding mudbank along the Kolyma River. He reached down by his feet and drove a metal rod into the spongy ground that sucked at his boots, hitting what lies a few feet beneath the surface: a layer of frozen soil that’s as hard as rock — and arguably as dangerous as dynamite.
Arctic permafrost holds up to 1,600 gigatons of carbon, roughly twice what’s in the atmosphere. Temperatures across the region are warming more than twice…
Doing so may be the only chance of ending the pandemic
On one side are the leaders of 57 nations, the Pope, and a coalition of nursing unions all over the world. On the other are the executives of the world’s biggest pharmaceutical corporations. At issue is an idea that may be the only chance of ending the Covid-19 pandemic — and also takes aim at the drug industry’s core business model.
The dividing question: Should Covid-19 vaccines remain the intellectual property of drug companies?
In October 2020, India and South Africa submitted a petition asking that the World Trade Organization waive the intellectual property rules relating to Covid-19 that currently…
Reengineering Life
The resulting crop could be more sustainable than current varieties
Reengineering Life is a column from Future Human about the ways humans are using biology to reprogram our bodies and the world around us.
Thanks to selective breeding over the course of some 9,000 years, humans were able to transform an ancient wild grass with dinky cobs and a handful of kernels into the sweet, juicy corn we know today.
More recently, scientists have used genetic engineering to further transform the crop, resulting in pest-resistant corn. Now, researchers think gene editing — which is far more precise than traditional genetic engineering — could improve corn even more. …
Reengineering Life
The research reignites a debate over embryo research
Reengineering Life is a column from Future Human about the ways humans are using biology to reprogram our bodies and the world around us.
Under a microscope, the little balls of cells look like five-day-old human embryos, known as blastocysts. They’re similar in size, shape, and structure. They even have the three distinct cell types that exist in real blastocysts — the kind that forms the embryo itself, another that makes the placenta, and a third type that gives rise to the sac in which the embryo will develop.
But there’s one key difference between these embryo look-alikes and natural…
Researchers translating the papers uncovered accounts of extreme weather that struck the islands in the past
There were once more than 100 native language newspapers in circulation in Hawaii that chronicled daily life on the islands. As early as 1834, the newspapers supplied native Hawaiians with news, current affairs, opinion, and, importantly, information about extreme weather events.
In 1871, an intense hurricane struck the islands of Hawaii and Maui, causing catastrophic damage. The newspapers reported on the destruction, traced the likely path of the storm, and documented the impact on Hawaiians.
“The streaming of the wind was similar to 5,000 steam whistles set off at one time,” reported the paper Ke Au Okoa. “The rain continued…
It’s time to take steps to avoid the antibiotic apocalypse
Five years ago, researchers at Harvard Medical School released a video of an experiment, revealing how easy it is for bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics.
The team constructed a large petri dish for growing bacteria and separated it into distinct bands. Across the dish, the bands contained progressively higher concentrations of antibiotic, from 0 to 1,000 times the concentration that bacteria can normally tolerate. Then they grew bacteria, starting in the band with no antibiotics.
Reengineering Life
A gene therapy injection eliminated pain in mice
Reengineering Life is a column from Future Human about the ways humans are using biology to reprogram our bodies and the world around us.
In 2006, scientists described the curious case of a Pakistani boy who seemed immune to pain. The 10-year-old street performer amazed audiences by walking on burning coals and stabbing himself with knives without flinching.
His resistance to pain later led him to jump off a building to impress his friends. Tragically, he died from the resulting injuries. He had just turned 14.
Several of the boy’s relatives had never experienced pain either. When researchers collected samples…
Words of Warming
It’s receiving investment from some of the most powerful names in oil, gas, and technology
Words of Warming is a new series from Future Human defining the language of climate change and environmental and climate justice.
Definition of carbon capture and sequestration
1: a group of technologies aimed at removing carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and storing it in deep underground rock formations called saline aquifers. Earlier this month, Marketwatch reported on a partnership between oil and gas giant Chevron, Microsoft, and Schlumberger New Energy to build a carbon capture plant in Central California:
Chevron Corp. is partnering with Microsoft Corp., oilfield services firm Schlumberger New Energy and privately held Clean Energy Systems to…
Author Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD, argues that it’s time to decolonize science
We often see science as the pinnacle of objectivity — a disinterested, mechanical practice built on empirical observation and above more subjective ways of understanding our world and what lies beyond it.
Too often, we forget the social and cultural questions embedded in the history of science: Who gets to define science? What social issues get consumed by or pushed out the realm of science? How has science been used in ways that were both helpful and harmful? How has science intersected with issues of race, gender, class, and colonialism?
Chanda Prescod-Weinstein, PhD, tackles these questions in The Disordered Cosmos…
A solution to the uphill battle to meet the world’s energy needs
The world is facing a stored energy shortage. According to the International Energy Agency, the world needs to produce 10,000 gigawatt-hours of batteries and other forms of energy storage by 2040 — that’s a 50-fold increase on today’s current output — or risk being unable to capture much of the energy produced by renewable sources. Stored energy is critical during shortages, like those caused by natural disasters.
For over a hundred years, hydroelectric dams provided much of this stored energy — energy captured at one time and stored in the grid to be used at a later point. There are…
