This week has been full of new discoveries and interesting research in the world of science. With the declaration of the winners for the 2022 Nobel Prizes in physical and life sciences, novel research and scientific endeavors have come to the forefront. Here is a look at some of the latest science news.
On October 3, Swedish scientist Santa Pablo has won the 2022 Nobel Prize for Physiology “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominids and human evolution.”
Dr Pablo, through his research, has been able to successfully sequence the genome of the Neanderthal, an extinct relative of present-day humans. He also established a new scientific discipline called paleo genomics.
Physicists Alain Aspect, John F Clause and Anton Bollinger have been jointly awarded the 2022 Nobel Prize for Physics for their work on quantum mechanics.
Their research included “experiments with entangled photons, establishing the violation of Bell inequalities, and pioneering quantum information science.” Intense research and development are underway to utilize the special properties of individual particle systems to construct quantum computers, improve measurements, build quantum networks and establish secure quantum encrypted communication.
Another trio, Carolyn R. Bartosz, Morten Medal and K. Barry Sharpness, cinched the Nobel Prize for Chemistry for “an ingenious tool for building molecules.”
The laureates were awarded for the development of click chemistry and biorthogonal chemistry. Carolyn Bartosz of Stanford University has taken click chemistry to a new dimension and started utilizing it in living organisms. Her biorthogonal reactions take place without disrupting the normal chemistry of the cell.
Barry Sharpness and Morten Medal laid the foundation for a functional form of chemistry – click chemistry – in which molecular building blocks snap together quickly and efficiently.
A group of scientists has analyzed the clouds surrounding a distant quasar and found that the distinctive blend of heavy elements present therein could have come from the supernova of a first-generation star, according to a new study.
Scientists have theorized that these blasts might have seeded ancient interstellar space with the heavy elements needed for the formation of rocky worlds like our own — thus enabling life.
An international team of researchers has found new evidence for the possible existence of liquid water beneath the south polar ice cap of Mars.
The results of the study provide the first independent line of evidence, using data other than radar, that there is liquid water beneath Mars South Pole.
The Dimorphism asteroid that got smashed by NASA’s Dart spacecraft has been leaving behind a trail of debris from the impact. Astronomers captured the scene millions of miles away with a telescope in Chile.
The image shows an expanding, comet-like tail more than 6,000 miles (10,000 kilometers) long, consisting of dust and other material spewed from the impact crater.
On 3 October, ISRO confirmed that the Mars Orbiter craft has lost communication with the ground station, thus putting the Mongolian Mission to an end.
Despite being designed for a life-span of six months as a technology demonstrator, the MOM has lived for about eight years in the Martian orbit, collecting a gamut of significant scientific data on Mars as well as on the Solar corona.
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