I've also been reading slush for Cosmic Roots and Liminal Stories, which if you're unfamiliar, means I first-read new science fiction and fantasy submissions to these magazines. It's been an incredible learning process for my writing and I'm getting a chance to read some great short fiction. I've picked up a few nuggets of wisdom along the way about submitting short stories and I'll try and summarize them in another post later this summer after I collect my thoughts.
But enough about that, it's time for some science! Researchers have made some major breakthroughs in April and May. I'll highlight just a few of them.
There has been a controversial addition to the working theory of when humans and/or human-like species first arrived to the American continents. In January, it was reported that humans had a presence in North America as far back as 24,000 years (10,000 years earlier than previously believed) when bone fragments were discovered in the Yukon Territory. In April, a study in Nature revised these estimates by at least 100,000 years to over 130,000 years ago! Archaeologists examined an ancient site in California where mastodons were butchered and prepared for food with tools, including stone hammers and anvils, used to break open the bones for the marrow. More studies will be needed to confirm the findings in California, but if this can be validated this may cause us to re-think human migration into the Americas entirely.
Update: Even more interesting, a study published earlier today (June 7th, 2017) in Nature has potentially pushed back the date of when the first humans ever appeared on Earth. Until recently, the oldest known human fossil was from about 200,000 years ago. But a discovery in Morocco has challenged this and pushed the date back potentially as far as 300,000 years ago. Wow. If that doesn't cause shockwaves in our understanding of our species, I don't know what will.
Okay, next on the list of breakthroughs: vampires! Not really, but close enough.
For the last decade, researchers studying the process of aging have examined the effects of using young blood as an anti-aging therapy. Blood isolated from young mice and administered systemically to older mice rejuvenated muscle and liver tissue in older mice. Since then, there has been a race to identify the specific factors associated with this renewal process. Back in April, researchers from Stanford published a study showing that continual administration of human cord blood (blood isolated from umbilical cords) into older mice could rejuvenate the hippocampus and improve cognitive function and neuronal activity. A protein found in human cord blood, called tissue inhibitor of metalloproteinases 2 (TIMP2), is believed to be actively contributing to this process.
This is pretty incredible. A specific factor has been identified that drives this change and could potentially lead to anti-aging therapies by administering TIMP2 into the bloodstream to protect against age-related cognitive decline. And while this may be as simplistic approach to anti-aging therapies, we're on the cusp of finding additional factors that also contribute. Obviously there are a lot of ethical concerns using this approach in humans and these studies need independent validation, but I can't help but think of the medical benefits. Perhaps there will be a True Blood-like cocktail for humans in the coming years and we can all live to be 200? I'm sure vampire enthusiasts will love that.
-A new report on the 3-D structure of all genomic DNA in a single nucleus from a single cell in mice: this could help identify important DNA domains and regulatory regions that control gene expression, cell functionality, and ultimately provide insight into what happens to a cell as it ages or turns cancerous. Below is a picture of how Chromosome 10 in mice is individually folded, and how that fits with the other chromosomes in the nucleus. Really awesome stuff!
-No surprises here but low-income Americans experience the most disparity in expected life-span and have the poorest health outcomes in the US: the gap in health disparities widened between low-income and middle-income Americans during the last 40 years. This paper is part of a series on healthcare in America. If you hit a paywall on this, let me know and I can point out other resources for you of you're interested in reading more about income and health disparity in America. It's sad.
-CRISPR strikes again: a tweak to the CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing system, this time replacing the Cas9 protein with Cas13a/C2c2 (a related protein), can help clinicians accurately identify Zika or Dengue fever infection using CRISPR technology as a diagnostic tool. This is really awesome and once it's perfected, it could be incredibly useful combating diseases across the world...particularly in those countries with fewer resources to tackle health-related issues. This new technique still has much to address with respect to cost and feasibility, but it's a great idea, and may even prove possible for use in the field during an outbreak.
-Important work was published in May that addresses climate research inconsistencies, particulary with respect to the 'global warming hiatus' that is often cited by climate change deniers: these data identify factors that influenced the idea of a long-term hiatus in global warming, including analysis of dataset usage and the use of differing definitions of the word hiatus. The authors argue that the presence of a hiatus is over-exaggerated for politically-motivated benefit.
-Cephalopods, including cuttlefish and octopi, have evolved a unique way to edit their own genomes: this branch of the animal kingdom predominantly increases protein diversity using RNA editing, as opposed to evolutionary selection of mutations arising in their DNA. This means that these animals evolve very slowly on a generational level, but are able to adapt individually to their unique environment much more rapidly...even perhaps using real-time RNA editing to respond to short-term problems or needs. That's really fascinating, and highly unusual, and I hope more research studies this mechanism.
And to wrap up:
In May, I was able to attend the Nebula Awards convention and the week after I went to Balticon, Baltimore's Science Fiction and Fantasy convention. I had an amazing time meeting many new people, including fantastic writers and editors and general fans of SF&F. At Balticon, I presented two seminars on my own research on aging and health disparities and it was a real treat. I wanted to say thank you to all the organizers of these events and for the invitation to speak at Balticon.
As well, a big Congratulations! to all the winners and nominees at the Nebula Awards this year. All of the nominated works were very deserving and the literary talent in the room was so energizing. One person I'd like to mention is Dr. Kjell Lindgren, pictured with me below, who is a NASA astronaut and physician.
Dr. Lindgren was the guest of honor and toastmaster at the Nebula convention. During the awards ceremony, he gave a wonderful speech about space flight and what it's like living aboard the International Space Station. He also sat on panels throughout the weekend and shared his insight about space travel and its impacts on the human body.
It was so inspiring to see someone so clearly passionate about science and so supportive about the benefits of science research. I look forward to reading more about his travels in space in the years to come, including all the research he does with NASA. He's doing great work on how the human body responds to long-term spaceflight and how we might be able to protect the body as we send astronauts back to the Moon and to Mars. AWESOME!
Well, that's it for now. Cheerio folks and thanks for reading! Drop me a line, anytime.
