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At UN meeting, there’s a new climate watchdog
As a part of COP28, the 28th annual United Nations climate conference, wealthy countries are wrapping up the first “global stocktake”—a bookkeeping exercise to show the reality of their greenhouse gas emissions compared to where they need to be to meet the terms of the Paris Agreement. However, the countries serve as their own accountants, and many of the largest emitters, including China, aren’t yet required to submit inventories.

An independent accounting of emissions is desperately needed—a role Climate Trace aims to fill. The coalition of nonprofits and academics backed by former Vice President Al Gore calculates greenhouse gas emissions by starting with many of the same statistics used for national inventories. However, it also uses visual satellite imagery, often interpreted through AI, to spot the activity that creates emissions—such as cooling-tower plumes, cattle ranches, and illicit landfills. Since 2020, it has grown increasingly comprehensive; its new version, released yesterday, covers 352 million sources.

The new release has a bevy of insights: Russia systematically underestimates its pollution from oil and gas operations, for example, and the United Arab Emirates—which is hosting this week’s conference—also seems to have large gaps in its accounting. But more broadly, Gore hopes Climate Trace can step in to help many developing countries get an accurate accounting of their emissions at a low cost to them, information which can then inform how they manage and reduce their pollution.

MESOSCOPIC PHYSICS

A double edge
Jelena Stajic
Quasiparticles that reside in two-dimensional solids can display exotic quantum statistics—they do not behave as either fermions or bosons. Additionally, they carry a charge that is a fraction of an electron’s charge. Recently, these fractional quantum statistics were seen experimentally in interferometric and quasiparticle collider measurements in fractional quantum Hall (FQH) systems. Such experiments become more complex if more than one FQH edge state is present. Nakamura et al. studied a state formed at filling factor 2/5, which is predicted to have two edge states. The researchers’ conductance measurements in a Fabry-Pérot interferometer confirmed that the outer edge of this state is similar to that of the simpler 1/3 filling state; the inner edge state was found to have a fifth of the electron’s charge and to obey fractional statistics of the kind predicted by theory.

Phys. Rev. X (2023) 10.1103/PhysRevX.13.041012

For most humans, technology, biology, and society are hopelessly entangled. Are the sciences prepared to tackle the contemporary human experience?
Courtesy: Science Adviser, 20th November, 2023

https://www.science.org/content/article/deeply-troubling-indian-scientists-slam-teaching-materials-moon-mission?utm_source=sfmc&utm_medium=email&utm_content=alert&utm_campaign=WeeklyLatestNews&et_rid=298688510&et_cid=4979400

‘Deeply troubling.’ Indian scientists slam teaching materials on Moon mission School guides on Chandrayaan-3 mission promote pseudoscientific claims rooted in religion, critics say

THE LARGEST PERIODIC TABLE

On 23 July 2021, a ceremonial opening of the panel “Mendeleev’s Periodic Table” was held within the program of events dedicated to the 65th JINR. ! It is 284 square metres large making it the biggest in Europe.

The Table is placed on the wall of the Archimedes Swimming Pool on the Volga River embankment and is clearly visible to citizens and guests, as well as passengers of numerous cruise ships sailing along the river.

The table reflects an outstanding contribution made by scientists from Dubna, Moscow region, to the discovery of new chemical elements and is intended to raise public interest in the achievements of modern science.
Under the guidance of Yuri Tsolakovich, , a specialist in experimental nuclear physics, RAS Academician and FLNR JINR Scientific Leader, about the idea for the panel, all currently known superheavy elements from 113 to 118 were obtained in Dubna, the last of which was named after him – oganesson



Under the leadership of Yuri Tsolakovich, a significant event took place on the birthday of the science city, the opening of the world’s largest Mendeleev Table in Dubna on the facade of the Archimedes Swimming Pool.

This panel is now a new landmark in our city. Dubna has a glorious history: when the canal was made, a monument to Lenin was built here by the great sculptor S.D. Merkurov, then the film “Volga-Volga” with Lyubov Orlova was made – part of the shooting was on the Moscow-Volga Canal and the Moscow Sea, and now the embankment will have such a significant object – the panel ” Mendeleev’s Periodic Table”.

– The panel is not just a decoration, it is primarily a popularization of science, a kind of story about the achievements of JINR to Dubna residents and visitors of the city.

Here in Dubna, Mendeleev’s great discovery was continued when JINR scientists synthesized new chemical elements. The Table, which passengers will see on all ships sailing down the Volga, reflects the outstanding contribution of our city’s researchers to science and will hopefully increase interest, particularly among young people, in new scientific achievements.

The panel may be considered from an architectural, documentary, educational, and deeply scientific points of view. We will see how the Table will change, what elements will emerge, and so on.

– It was presumed that there will there be a time when Mendeleev’s Periodic Table is full and closed?

In fact, nuclear physics is a little over a hundred years old. Speaking of the elements, it should be recalled that when Mendeleev went to press in March 1869, it was believed that the elements, no matter how many there were, were the building blocks of the universe, and the world was built from these elements. And they, these blocks, are inseparable. They were called atoms by Democritus 400 years before Christ, which was a purely philosophical concept at that time.

And with the great scientist Dalton in 1808, when only 36 elements were known, the blocks merged into molecules, then into more complex forms – crystals. Only 36 elements in total, just like the letters of the alphabet. And you can describe anything with these letters.

But when Mendeleev started to investigate the properties of these elements, there were already 63 of them, he noticed that the properties of these elements were periodically repeated. However, this pattern was clearly inconsistent with the notion of ” the building blocks of the universe”. Alphabet letters must not resemble each other! And if they are similar, following some kind of pattern, it means that they have a complicated structure themselves, which actually gives this periodicity…

Mendeleev realized that the set of elements under consideration were not the building blocks of the universe. He began to seek for the essence which gave birth to the elements, and was completely absorbed by the search for these origins of the material world. But the table remained. And now, 150 years later, oddly enough, we have started to ask the same questions: what is the Table and how is periodicity interpreted, what will happen next, can some elements be heavier, can elements that are artificially created be considered genuine?

If we go further, the law itself will change because, according to the theory of relativity, if electrons move around the nucleus at a speed close to the speed of light, their mass will increase, and this must be taken into account. For this reason, the orbits will condense and then the very last orbit, where the exact electron responsible for the chemical properties rotates, will change its characteristics.

Through these discoveries, the entire scientific world was once again convinced that it was possible to do something that had previously seemed impossible. Big progress will happen when they start building quantum computers, that’s the machinery we’re talking about, but what it will look like… There are different scenarios; they depend on the specified interactions and the effects of the theory of relativity. This is what we will do, it’s a long way, now we have realized that the means we used to discover new elements are not good enough to go on. Things are developing very fast now: what is considered to be the cutting edge of science at the moment will be commonplace in 10 years’ time.

Now the question is : the process of finding new elements is endless…?

The Table is unlimited itself. It continues to exist in the scientific world, elements will be added, new forms of it will be discovered and new laboratories will be built to find the elements.

— Yuri Tsolakovich opines, I am curious to know under what circumstances the idea emerged? How was the choice of space for the panel made?

There are tables of this kind around the world already, in Spain, for example, it covers 150 square metres. Ours will be bigger! I showed this table to Victor Anatolievich Matveev in 2017, then we discussed the possibility of it being placed on the back facade of the Cultural Centre Mir. Sometimes I stroll in this park and sit on a bench just opposite it. And one day Andrei Vladimirovich Tamonov came up to me and we discussed what could be done on this wall, something monumental. And I introduced him to my idea. And when I shared my thoughts with Grigory Vladimirovich Trubnikov, he already had it in his plans, only having the facade of the swimming pool in mind, so that it would be visible from the Volga.

— If we talk about the details of creating the panel – how was the design developed, why is it like this? Is the cognitive aspect above the rest and predominant in this project?

— If you search the Mendeleev’s Table on the internet, there is a huge number of them, I believe there are 1500 kinds. The table has various forms, and of all of them Sergey Nikolaevich Dmitriev and I chose the one with the scientific content. The panel “Mendeleev’s Periodic Table” Is made not just decoratively, but also scientifically meaningful.

Our Table will look great at night with a illuminated. Moreover, there is a free field on the left of the Table where we can broadcast lectures, speak about the history of the elements’ discoveries, about their chemical properties. On the right side of the panel, we may demonstrate various elements of the Table.

— Yuri Tsolakovich, the range of your scientific interests is described in more than one article. And what helps you to distract yourself from your work process, from science. Maybe theatre, music?

— Everything you just said is all spiritual: both thinking and art are connected to a person’s spirituality. You know, I often get asked a question that is difficult to answer. I am asked about the benefits of discovering elements. It is an intangible understanding that cannot be bought or sold, it comes as a discovery, you suddenly see the world in a new way.

— How interconnected do you think science and culture are?

— One is very poor without the other, and they are certainly interconnected. That’s why I tell my students to put their books aside, forget about them for a while, go to the theatre, listen to music, see what’s going on around. This is so important, it broadens horizons.

— After encountering with art, do scientists go back to work as different people?

— Exactly: I tell them I can forgive everything, but I can’t forgive them if they don’t know anything but their field. Then they will also learn and discover little in the future.

If we look at scientists of the past, they were versatile. The very same Mendeleev, he was not a member of the Academy of Sciences, he was a member of the Academy of Arts! He lived in a flat allocated by the University of St. Petersburg and hosted guests there on Saturdays, setting the table with a white tablecloth. And then, when they were about to leave, Dmitry Ivanovich asked them to sign on this tablecloth. And then his wife embroidered these signatures – Repin, Mussorgsky, whoever was there! It’s amazing. He organized seminars in Solovki once a month. And one of them was dedicated to colour. He invited physicists, chemists, artists, painters, theatrical performers, and each of them spoke at this seminar, telling what they understood by the word ‘colour’.

The physicist says it’s radiation, the chemist says it’s a mixture of such-and-such components, the painter reasoned how the red colour reminds him of blood and he can’t look at red cloths calmly. All of this was interesting to people In this respect, the fact that Dubna will have such a landmark – the ” Mendeleev’s Periodic Table” panel – is great, of course. Different people will look at it from their own point of view, perceive it differently – that’s very encouraging!

Small and mighty: The hypothalamus

By MATTIA MAROSO AND PETER STERN

If you pause for a second and think about the activities that occupy most of your day, presumably sleeping, eating, and engaging in social interactions are among the first that come to your mind. Perhaps surprisingly, a small area buried deep inside the brain, called the hypothalamus, is responsible for coordinating neuronal signals related to these activities. By controlling the homeostasis of the neuroendocrine, limbic, and autonomic nervous systems, the hypothalamus is a key brain region for many physiological and pathological processes. Despite its small size, the hypothalamus has a complex cellular organization and circuitry that determine its structural and functional organization. It is composed of 11 nuclei grouped by their location and has vast, mostly bidirectional connections with many neuronal and endocrine systems.
In this special issue, we highlight the main role that the hypothalamus plays in integrating the many body functions required for the maintenance of homeostasis. If that wasn’t enough, it also modulates social interactions, including affective, sexual, and aggressive behaviors. Yet another still not completely understood function of the hypothalamus is the way it controls sleep. Finally, to avoid missing the forest for the trees, we have to take a broader view of the neural circuits that mediate motivated behaviors and their interactions with the dopaminergic system to reinforce ongoing or planned actions to fulfill motivational demands.
The hypothalamus may be small, but it has a colossal impact on a wide range of behaviors. Once again, the power of David over Goliath resides in organization and action, not size.

Courtesy: Science Vol. 382 No.6669, 2023

Wonder Molecule - Pseudouridine

In recent years, pseudouridine proved to be a key molecule in the development of mRNA-based COVID-19 vaccines. Pseudouridine is a ribonucleoside and an isomer of the more frequently encountered uridine. The two differ by the location of the bond that connects their uracil and ribofuranose rings. Both are common components of RNA, but not DNA.

In 2005, Katalin Karikó at the University of Szeged (Hungary), Drew Weissman at the University of Pennsylvania (Philadelphia), and colleagues, in their attempts to use RNA to produce vaccines that could quickly be adapted to specific diseases, found that converting uridine to pseudouridine reduced the inflammatory response of mRNA while maintaining the immune response. Karikó, Weissman, et al. later showed that the switch to pseudouridine produced more stable RNA constructs and better protein yields.

Karikó and Weissman’s findings paid off big time when the necessity arose to produce COVID-19 vaccines in a hurry. For their groundbreaking work, they were awarded the 2023 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine.