Light is at the core of much of what astronomers do — light scattered, absorbed and re-emitted in clouds of gas and dust. And Dr Charlie Jeynes knows that light is also at the core of a diverse range of medical advances, like measuring “blood oxygenation in premature babies, or treating port-wine stains with lasers”. Regardless of the vast differences in scale, the processes that light undergoes as it travels through the human body are very similar to those seen in space! When things go wrong, as in the case of breast cancer, that change should show up — somehow, somewhere. Cancer causes tiny deposits of calcium in breasts. Specialists detect it as a shift in the wavelength of light as it passes through the body tissue. It was a jubilant moment in medical science when Dr Jeynes and his team realised that the computer codes developed to study the formation of stars and planets could be applied to find the atypical deposits in breasts! The take away from Dr Jeynes is that advances in fundamental science should never be seen in isolation, and astronomy is no exception.

SNEAK PEEK

1. How plants breathe

The more tiny pores a leaf has, the more air channels it forms inside. These channels act like the tiny passages that carry air to the exchange surfaces of human and animal lungs. Who discovered that the movement of air through leaves shapes their internal workings?

1. Andrew Fleming (University of Sheffield)

2. Quite a situation!

Some students use mobiles/tablets in classrooms and say instructors need to be more entertaining to keep them engaged. Well, teachers aren’t employed in the entertainment industry. They might need to teach students to focus even if the class is ‘boring’. Who said it?

2. Elena Neiterman (University of Waterloo)

3. DMT inside you

People who drink Ayahuasca (a brew made from plants) experience short-term psychedelic visions. These visions are the result of a molecule called dimethyltryptamine (DMT). Who discovered the widespread presence of naturally-occurring DMT in the mammalian brain?

3. Dr Jimo Borjigin (University of Michigan)

4. The team chemistry

In sports, top individuals on a team make a difference, but there is this chemistry at work — how people get along. “Teams are not just an aggregation of individuals and their attributes, but also the relationships that exist previously among them.” Who proposed this idea?

4. Noshir Contractor, a Northwestern University engineer

5. Awareness of death

Awareness of death includes an animate/inanimate distinction, or living/dead distinction. We acquire the concept of death between ages 3 to 10 and only humans conceptualise it at a higher order. But non-human primates have some aspects of the concept. Who found it?

5. André Gonçalves, Susana Carvalho (Kyoto University)

6. A personal cloud

When ozone and skin oils meet, the resulting reaction may help remove ozone from an indoor environment. But it can also produce a “personal cloud” of pollutants that can affect the indoor air quality and irritate the skin and lungs. Who documented it, and what did he call it?

6. Donghyun Rim (Penn State University) / “Pig-pen effect”

7. Inductive charging

Forget the cables and plugs, and just place the mobile phone on a charging surface. This is the new inductive charging. It is highly convenient but it runs the risk of depleting the life of mobile phones using typical LIBs (Lithium-ion batteries). Who reported the finding?

7. Melanie. J. Loveridge (WMG, University of Warwick)

8. It’s not a bell curve

Biodiversity has gone through ebbs and flows all along on Earth — periods of rapid evolution and of dramatic extinctions. The fossil record shows a fat-tailed distribution, with extreme and outlier events occurring with higher-than-expected probability. Who found the pattern?

8. Paleobiologist Andy J. Rominger (Santa Fe Institute)

9. Trading & Hormones

The majority of US stock market traders are young males. This could explain bubbles and crashes. High levels of testosterone (a male sex hormone) can cause young traders to overestimate future stock values and change their trading behaviour. Who figured this out?

9. Amos Nadler (Ivey Business School, WU)

QUIZ No. 910

1. The arms of an octopus can take intelligent actions without the brain’s aid. Who found it?

– Dominic Sivitilli
– Miguel Rolando Covian
– Walter Rudolf Hess

1. Dominic Sivitilli

2. Drinking a cup of coffee can stimulate “good” brown fat. Who noticed it right in the neck?

– Cornelia Bargmann
– John Terrence Cacioppo
– Michael Symonds

2. Michael Symonds

3. Who discovered that frogs can see colour even when it is too dark for us to see anything?

– Almut Kelber
– Gregor “Gore” Verbinski
– Marilyn Nielson

3. Almut Kelber

4. Which probe was into suspicious links between Trump associates and Russian officials?

– Brookings Report
– Estimate of the Situation
– Mueller investigation

4. Mueller investigation

5. Who was concerned that civil liberties guaranteeing religious freedom were at stake?

– David G. Bromley
– Craig Jackson Calhoun
– Scott Archer Boorman

5. David G. Bromley