Science Saturday 01/20

Hello again, and welcome to another Science Saturday. Let’s begin:

NewScientist: #TenYearChallenge

The Ten Year Challenge has been trending on social media this week. It involves posting side-by-side pictures of yourself, taken ten years apart. NewScientist made a science edition of the challenge, featuring a few scientific photos taken ten years apart. My favorite is the comparison of pluto’s photos, shown below

ScienceAlert: A Step in the Right Direction

Using a novel approach, researchers transformed human breast cancer cells in mice into fat cells–a promising approach to fighting the lethal disease. The researchers examined the two paths that cancer takes in the body to spread and metastasize. Then, the scientists treated the lab mice with a diabetic drug called rosiglitazone and a cancer treatment called trametinib. The combination of these drugs prompted cancer cells to transform into fat cells (a process known as adipogenesis) instead of spreading through the body.

 

CNET: World’s Oldest Periodic Table Found

Just in time for the 150th anniversary of the Periodic Table of Elements, the University of St. Andrews in Scotland announced the discovery of the world’s oldest-known classroom chart of the periodic table. The chart was first discovered in 2014 in a storage area in the university’s chemistry department. The chart is similar to a second version of the original table produced by Dmitri Mendeleev in 1871. Experts agree that the chart came out between 1879 and 1886. (Germanium was discovered in 1886, and is not on the chart.)

Futurism: Increasing Efficiency of Fusion Energy

There seems to have been plenty of fusion news lately, which is a good thing. This article explains a recent development in fusion control software that could help engineers predict the bursts of energy generated by fusion reactors, which push particles out of containment, resulting in a loss of efficiency. This is an important step in solving the problem.

 

CNET: Hubble Back Online

Just in case anybody was anxious after I included Hubble’s breakdown in last week’s Science Saturday, Hubble is now back online. A measured voltage spike caused NASA to suspend operations, but the investigation concluded that there is no serious hardware issue, and the telemetry circuits were incorrect. A reset of those circuits has solved the issue.

 

That’s all for this week. Enjoy the holiday weekend.