Aestus Ajith

Three-parent babies will likely spark concerns over the creation of 'designer babies'. But Michael Rimington, a practising infertility specialist, explains that while there is DNA from three people in the child, the genetic characteristics of the baby are those of the natural mother and father. The news that Britain could become the first country in the world to create babies with the DNA of three people  is incredible. Professor Doug Turnbull and his colleagues at Newcastle University, who have been pioneering this technique, have done some brilliant work and should be congratulated. We knew there was a chance we could have 'three-parent babies' a few years back, but to see it actually come to fruition (if the proposals pass a public consultation) is stunning. What this means is that mothers who would otherwise be likely to have unhealthy babies with severe disabilities can instead give birth to healthy babies. What it does...

What if we could get our gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel from yeast instead of from oil wells? That's not as crazy as it sounds. In fact, it's already happening on a small scale. And there's a vigorous research effort to ramp this up on a massive scale. One of the more innovative approaches uses a new technology called "synthetic biology." Jay Keasling is one of the leaders in this hot field. With his supershort crew cut and friendly demeanor, Keasling would fit in nicely where he grew up — on a corn farm in Nebraska that's been in his family for generations. But these days you'll find him in a glistening building in Emeryville, Calif., home to several of his many endeavors. Among the many hats Keasling wears is that of associate laboratory director for biosciences at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. He's also CEO of the Joint BioEnergy Institute, director of the Synthetic Biolog...

By inserting a genetically modified virus into a guinea pig’s heart, researchers have come up a new kind of pacemaker. Of the billions of cells in the human heart, a mere 10,000 pacemaker cells—collectively called the sinoatrial node—are responsible for sending the electrical pulse through the remaining heart cells. Pacemaker cells are differentiated in the embryo, but with age and disease their beating can speed up, slow down, become irregular, or even stop. In these instances doctors would normally implant a pacemaker to jolt the heartbeat back into line when needed. But these electronic devices can break, run out of batteries, introduce infection or be outgrown. The ideal solution, then, would be a replacement pacemaker that is built and powered by the body. And researchers at the Cedars-Sinai Heart Institute are on their way to creating just such a thing. When pacemaker cells are developing in the embryo, a particular gene—Tbx18—is also activated. Researchers inserte...

Physicists can't exactly solve the set of equations that describes the behavior of fluids, from water to air to all other liquids and gases. In fact, it isn't known whether a general solution of the so-called Navier-Stokes equations even exists, or, if there is a solution, whether it describes fluids everywhere, or contains inherently unknowable points called singularities. As a consequence, the nature of chaos is not well understood. Physicists and mathematicians wonder, is the weather merely difficult to predict, or inherently unpredictable? Does turbulence transcend mathematical description, or does it all make sense when you tackle it with  the right math ?

When physicists assume all the elementary particles are actually one-dimensional loops, or "strings," each of which vibrates at a different frequency, physics gets much easier. String theory allows physicists to reconcile the laws governing particles, called quantum mechanics, with the laws governing space-time, called general relativity, and to unify the four fundamental forces of nature into a single framework. But the problem is, string theory can only work in a universe with 10 or 11 dimensions: three large spatial ones, six or seven compacted spatial ones, and a time dimension. The compacted spatial dimensions — as well as the vibrating strings themselves — are about a billionth of a trillionth of the size of an atomic nucleus. There's no conceivable way to detect anything that small, and so there's no known way to experimentally validate or invalidate string theory

In the strange realm of electrons, photons and the other fundamental particles, quantum mechanics is law. Particles don't behave like tiny balls, but rather like waves that are spread over a large area. Each particle is described by a "wavefunction," or probability distribution, which tells what its location, velocity, and other properties are more likely to be, but not what those properties are. The particle actually has a range of values for all the properties, until you experimentally measure one of them — its location, for example — at which point the particle's wavefunction "collapses" and it adopts just one location. [ Newborn Babies Understand Quantum Mechanics ] But how and why does measuring a particle make its wavefunction collapse, producing the concrete reality that we perceive to exist? The issue, known as the measurement problem, may seem esoteric, but our understanding of what reality is, or if it exists at all, hinges upon the answ...

The fate of the universe strongly depends on a factor of unknown value: Ω, a measure of the density of matter and energy throughout the cosmos. If Ω is greater than 1, then space-time would be "closed" like the surface of an enormous sphere. If there is no dark energy, such a universe would eventually stop expanding and would instead start contracting, eventually collapsing in on itself in an event dubbed the "Big Crunch." If the universe is closed but there  is  dark energy, the spherical universe would expand forever. Alternatively, if Ω is less than 1, then the geometry of space would be "open" like the surface of a saddle. In this case, its ultimate fate is the "Big Freeze" followed by the "Big Rip": first, the universe's outward acceleration would tear galaxies and stars apart, leaving all matter frigid and alone. Next, the acceleration would grow so strong that it would overwhelm the effects of the forces that hold at...

The question of why there is so much more matter than its oppositely-charged and oppositely-spinning twin, antimatter, is actually a question of why anything exists at all. One assumes the universe would treat matter and antimatter symmetrically, and thus that, at the moment of the Big Bang, equal amounts of matter and antimatter should have been produced. But if that had happened, there would have been a total annihilation of both: Protons would have canceled with antiprotons, electrons with anti-electrons (positrons), neutrons with antineutrons, and so on, leaving behind a dull sea of photons in a matterless expanse. For some reason, there was excess matter that didn't get annihilated, and here we are. For this, there is no accepted explanation.

Astrophysical data suggests space-time might be "flat," rather than curved, and thus that it goes on forever. If so, then the region we can see (which we think of as "the universe") is just one patch in an infinitely large "quilted multiverse." At the same time, the laws of quantum mechanics dictate that there are only a finite number of possible particle configurations within each cosmic patch (10^10^122 distinct possibilities). So, with an  infinite number  of cosmic patches, the particle arrangements within them are forced to repeat — infinitely many times over.  This means there are infinitely many parallel universes: cosmic patches exactly the same as ours (containing someone exactly like you), as well as patches that differ by just one particle's position, patches that differ by two particles' positions, and so on down to patches that are totally different from ours. Is there something wrong with that logic, or is its bizarre ou...

Time moves forward because a property of the universe called "entropy," roughly defined as the level of disorder, only increases, and so there is no way to reverse a rise in entropy after it has occurred. The fact that entropy increases is a matter of logic: There are more disordered arrangements of particles than there are ordered arrangements, and so as things change, they tend to fall into disarray. But the underlying question here is, why was entropy so low in the past? Put differently, why was the universe so ordered at its beginning, when a huge amount of energy was crammed together in a small amount of space?

Evidently, about 84 percent of the matter in the universe does not absorb or emit light. "Dark matter," as it is called, cannot be seen directly, and it hasn't yet been detected by indirect means, either. Instead, dark matter's existence and properties are inferred from its gravitational effects on visible matter, radiation and the structure of the universe. This shadowy substance is thought to pervade the outskirts of galaxies, and may be composed of "weakly interacting massive particles," or WIMPs. Worldwide, there are several detectors on the lookout for WIMPs, but so far, not one has been found.

No matter how astrophysicists crunch the numbers, the universe simply doesn't add up. Even though gravity is pulling inward on space-time — the "fabric" of the cosmos — it keeps expanding outward faster and faster. To account for this, astrophysicists have proposed an invisible agent that counteracts gravity by pushing space-time apart. They call it  dark energy . In the most widely accepted model of dark energy, it is a "cosmological constant": an inherent property of space itself, which has "negative pressure" driving space apart. As space expands, more space is created, and with it, more dark energy. Based on the observed rate of expansion, scientists know that the sum of all the dark energy must make up more than 70 percent of the total contents of the universe. But no one knows how to look for it.

Four snowboarders seemingly challenge gravity in the quarter finals of the men’s team snowboardcross at the LG Snowboard FIS World Cup on Dec. 17, 2011 in Telluride, Colo. (Doug Pensinger/Getty Images) Many people have heard the story of when Newton sat under an apple tree to think, and suddenly an apple fell on his head and he conceived the theory of gravity. But after a long time, physicists knew gravity was a very strange physical law. Compared to other basic interaction forces, gravity was very difficult to deal with. Now the reasons for this peculiarity may have been explained: gravity is not a fundamental interaction force, but instead may be the derivative of another more fundamental power. Professor Eric Verlinde, 48, a respected string theorist and a professor of physics at the Institute of Theoretical Physics at the University of Amsterdam, proposed a new theory of gravity as reported by the  New York Times  on July 12, 2010. He argued in a recent p...

Libyan Desert Glass, gem quality piece with very rare and interesting dark inclusions, 19.5 g (www.marmet-meteorites.com/id37.html) Unusual islands of chalk mark the outcrop with the morning light 02 September 2007 in the Egyptian White Desert, an estimated area of 1,800 square kilometers worldwide known for its unusual wind eroded rock formations in the Farafra Depression. (CRIS BOURONCLE/AFP/Getty Images) Libyan Desert Glass: Several pieces show these kind of marks. How did they form? (http://www.marmet-meteorites.com/id37.html) An acacia tree stands on a sand dune next to a mushroom-shaped chalk Inselberg glowing as the sun sets, 01 September 2007, over the Farafra Depression. (CRIS BOURONCLE/AFP/Getty Imag es) Sand dunes in the Egyptian desert. What phenomenon could be capable of raising the temperature of desert sand to at least 3,300 degrees Fahrenheit, casting it into great sheets of solid yellow-green glass? (Wael Abed/AF...

We've already  told  you that of the 800 planets that exist outside of our solar system, three of them -- known as "Super Earths" -- are likely habitable or "alien" planets. We also told you that Albert Einstein's hyper-confusing and yet oh-so-simple Theory of Relativity has passed some rather rigorous tests in the practical world as of  late . Now it seems both of these stories have been brought together in a randy display of the brand of nuclear fusion that Einstein himself wouldn't have been able to figure out: A  new  alien planet has been discovered, thanks to Einstein's Special Theory of Relativity. hat's right: Nearly six decades after his death, Einstein is still working it. This marks the first time in scientific history that an alien planet was discovered by use of the practical applications of the Special Theory of Relativity. Not surprisingly nicknamed "Einstein's planet" by the astronomers who found it, the new ...

Illustration of ultracold fermionic atoms in an optical lattice potential. The atoms tended to tunnel into wells with others that had opposite spins. After a while, a line of atoms spontaneously organized itself, with the spins in a non-random pattern, revealing a signature of quantum magnetism Using super-chilled atoms, physicists have for the first time observed a weird phenomenon called quantum magnetism, which describes the behavior of single atoms as they act like tiny bar magnets. Quantum magnetism is a bit different from  classical magnetism , the kind you see when you stick a magnet to a fridge, because individual atoms have a quality called spin, which is quantized, or in discrete states (usually called up or down). Seeing the behavior of individual atoms has been hard to do, though, because it required cooling atoms to extremely cold temperatures and finding a way to "trap" them. The new finding, detailed in the May 24 issue of the journal Scien...

In the early 1900s, divers looking for sponges in the Antikythera area between Crete and Greece came upon one of the most mysterious discoveries the world has ever seen—the Antikythera Mechanism. The device was being carried on a Roman ship that was wrecked between 80 and 60 B.C. The ship was believed to have been sailing to the Anatolian Peninsula (also called Asia Minor) to what is now Turkey and was carrying some of the finest works of art of its day. The divers found over 200 amphorae, or ceramic jars, which were still intact on the sea floor. After the device was found, it wasn’t until 50 years later that an Australian archaeologist using X-rays began to discover that there was a lot more to the mystery piece than was originally thought. However, due to limited technology at the time, the actual function of the Antikythera Mechanism wasn’t known until decades later. In 2005, using sophisticated software and technology, it was finally discovered that the A...

A Soyuz rocket lifts off on December 16, 2011 from Europe's space base in Sinnamary, 12km from Kourou, French Guiana. The first four of 12 satellites in a new constellation to provide affordable, high-speed Internet to people in nearly 180 "under-connected" countries, will be shot into space on Tuesday, the project's developers said. The first four of 12 satellites in a new constellation to provide affordable, high-speed Internet to people in nearly 180 "under-connected" countries, will be shot into space on Tuesday, the project's developers said. The orbiters, part of a project dubbed O3b for the "other 3 billion" people with restricted Internet access, will be lifted by a  Russian Soyuz rocket  from Kourou in  French Guiana  at 1854 GMT. "We are very close to launching a network that has the potential to change lives in very tangible ways and that is a tremendous feeling," O3b Networks chief technical officer Brian Holz sai...