Singularity shots is a roundup of beautifully curated notes about science, technology, and all the mesmerizing things indistinguishable from magic. Delivered as 2-minute shots, every 2 days, because we know you are busy. Read on and subscribe as we dissect the world, unfold ancient code and walk you towards wisdom. We read through hundreds of articles each day and find you these treasures and write about them as these small shots so that you always have something awesome to read when you are in the subway, getting comfy in the bed for lights-out, or riding in an Uber.
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I know that our brains are hardwired to listen to stories. So obviously, it is better to talk about the most important discoveries of our lifetime as stories; instead of boring seminars. This is what this newsletter intends to do; tell stories that inspire awe and attract more people towards that path of knowledge.
Did you know?
Last week, the Earth was under the attack of a mysterious Nebula.
Our story begins in 1054 AD, across the Mediterranean, when two churches started a violent confrontation across the European continent that would last almost 10 centuries. The Catholic Church and Eastern Orthodox churches excommunicated each other, creating what came to be known as the great schism. At the same time, in Europe, the Battle of Mortemer is being fought. Proper parallel to that, the Chinese, the Arabs in Baghdad, and possibly the native Americans in Arizona, observed a bright light, a new "guest star" that wasn't even there before, in their skies above the southern horn of the constellation Taurus - that would burn bright for 23 days, shining brighter than 400 Million suns at a far distance and would then fade, and then would completely disappear in 2 years.
In two separate accounts, Chinese astronomers described the star as having pointed rays in all four directions and a reddish-white color.
The native Americans in northern Arizona, however, may have been so inspired by the event that they drew pictures of it. Two pictographs have been found, one in a cave at White Mesa and the other on a wall of Navajo Canyon. Both show a crescent moon with a large star nearby. Scientists have calculated that on the morning of July 5, 1054, the Moon was located just 2 degrees north of the Crab Nebula's current position.
Little did they knew that what they were witnessing was a stellar explosion, known as "Supernova" - the death of a star- that occurred almost 5000 Years ago - that is almost 3000 years before the Birth of Jesus Christ, most probably in Mankind's bronze age. The light of the explosion traveled an average distance of 4200 light years, and during its journey, 4200 years passed. Christ was born, crucified and had risen and then a 1000 years had passed.
This light was noticed as the "bright Guest star" in 1054 AD.
After a few centuries, it was deduced that it was indeed a star that had exploded in the Perseus Arm of the Milky Way galaxy and a cloud of remnants was observed around 1942. It was later discovered that there was a neutron star hidden inside the gas cloud, and it was spinning rapidly, in orders of 30 rotations per second, throwing massive shock waves and electromagnetic waves all around.
Last week, on the scientific observatory atop the Tibetan plateau, one of the most isolated parts of the world, scientists detected a shower of high energy photons that originated from the Crab Nebula. The plateau is called the roof of the world; bordered by the highest mountain ranges to the south and arid desert lands to the North. in the 1990s, scientists built an observatory there to study showers of subatomic particles that rain down from the upper atmosphere whenever it is hit by a high-energy cosmic ray. The high-altitude observatory suited the experiment because, at such high altitudes, there is less atmosphere to absorb the particles.
Last week, for the first time in the history of astrophysics, scientists in the Tibet Air Shower Gamma Collaboration say they have observed photons with energies above 100 TeV for the first time, including a remarkable photon with an energy of almost 500 TeV. This single photon has about the same energy as a falling Ping-Pong ball and is the highest-energy photon ever recorded. Note that we are talking about a microscopic particle causing a macroscopic impact.
By comparison, the Large Hadron Collider, the world’s most powerful particle accelerator, has a collision energy of 14 TeV.
It is quite mind-blowing to know that these high energy photons were in transit towards the earth all these 6500 years, while hundreds of Abrahamic religions rose and fell, thousands of battles have been fought and the ancient world decomposed to give rise to a modern world capable of building scientific equipment that could convert the Miracle of 1054 AD into a scientific event from which detailed insights could be drawn about the birth of the Universe.
Series:
Editing the operating system of life : #3
Recap: Last week, we discussed how a few scientists of Osaka University in Japan found a mysterious palindromic genetic sequence in an E. coli bacteria and found them to be equipped with high precision molecular scissors. You can read the edition here:
So, the CRISPR sequence looked like the following.
{ I am sorry it doesn’t look appealing and is less detailed. Just before sending the newsletter this week, I re-read and thought I had to include some rudimentary images for the sake of understanding, so I had to draw it myself in MS paint. I hope you already have an idea how painful it is }
The Repeat sequences were all identical, made up of the same 29 bases, but the 32-base spacers in between were different from each other.
Almost three years later, a revelation came from three sets of scientists working independently on CRISPR. The CRISPR spacers had suddenly looked a lot like DNA of viruses; so the million Dollar question arose. Somehow, the spacers contained remnants of DNA from viruses. How the hell did a bacterium hold a piece of Viral DNA?
Then the whole thing clicked.
Suddenly the world was thrown into the midst of a biological warfare that has been going on for millenniums. The way between viruses and bacteria. As long as we know, before even human species was even born, a full-flung war has been happening between bacteria and Viruses. Over the ages, bacteria had developed several lines of defense against the invading viruses; but new and new kinds of viral attack vectors gradually evolved and the war seemed all but endless.
Strangely, nature found a way to bring balance into chaos. A brand new kind of defense mechanism was noticed by scientists that blew them away.
Bacteria were using CRISPR as a weapon against the invading viruses. The "how" will be explained in the next edition. Stay tuned!
With Love,
Ashif Shereef.