Science day2009

Science Day 2009 December 30, 2009 Govinda Rao Bhisetti, Ph. D. Lexington, MA 02421 USA govindab@gmail.com 10:00 AM Arrival 10:15 – 11:45 AM 2009 Nobel Prizes 12:00 – 12:30 PM Trivia 12:30 – 1:30 PM Lunch 2:00 – 3:30 PM Breakthroughs in Science 2009 4:00 – 4:30 PM Virus of the Year: H1N1 4:30 – 5:00 PM Charles Darwin: Bicentenary 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 1

12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 2

2009 Nobel Prize winners 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 3

• Monday, October 5, 2008 PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE Elizabeth H. Blaxkburn, Carol W. Greider and Jack W. Szostak "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase” • Tuesday, October 6, 2008 PHYSICS Charles K. Kao "for ground breaking achievments concerning the transmission of light in the ﬁbers for optical communication’ William S. Boyle and George E. Smith "for the inventon of an imaging semiconductor circuiy - the CCD sensor” • Wednesday, October 7, 2008 CHEMISTRY Venkatraman Ramakrishnan, Thomas Steitz and Ada E. Yonath "for the studies of the structure and function of the ribosome” • Monday, October 13, 2008 ECONOMICS Elinor Ostrom and Oliver E. Williamson "for the analysis of economic governance”. • Thursday, October 9, 2008 LITERATURE Herta Müller ‘with concentration of poetry and the frankness of prose, depicts the landscae of the dispossessed” • Friday, October 12, 2008 PEACE Barack H. Obama “for his extraordinary efforts, to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between people” 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 4

PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE Elizabeth Blackburn, Carol Greider and Jack Szostak "for the discovery of how chromosomes are protected by telomeres and the enzyme telomerase" Elizabeth H. Blackburn, 61 Carol W. Greider, 48 Jack W. Szostak, 57 University of California, Johns Hopkins University Harvard Medical School, MGH San Francisco, CA Baltimore, MD Boston, MA 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 5

Tolemeres key to aging and cancer? Inside the center or nucleus of a cell, genes are located on twisted, double- stranded molecules of DNA called chromosomes. At the ends of the chromosomes are stretches of DNA called telomeres, which protect our genetic data, make it possible for cells to divide and hold some secrets to how we age and get cancer. Telomeres have been compared with the plastic tips on shoelaces because they prevent chromosome ends from fraying and sticking to each other, which would scramble an organism's genetic information to cause cancer, other diseases or death. Yet, each time a cell divides, the telomeres get shorter. When they get too short, the cell no longer can divide and becomes inactive or "senescent" or dies. This process is associated with aging, cancer and a higher risk of death. So telomeres also have been compared with a bomb fuse. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 6

What are tolemers? 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 7

CHEMISTRY Venki Ramakrishnan, Tom Steitz, Ada Yonath "for studies of the structure and function of the ribosome” Venkatraman Ramakrishnan 57, Thomas A. Steitz 69, Ada E. Yonath, 70, MRC Lab of Molecular Biology Yale University, Weizmann Inst. Science Cambridge, UK New Haven, CT Rehovot, Israel 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 8

Ribosome translates genetic code into proteins 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 9

Two subunits of Ribosome They are built of two subunits that associate upon initiation of protein synthesis. Typical eubacterial ribosomes (70S) consist of 57 different molecules (3 rRNAs and 54 proteins) and can dissociate into a small (30S) and a large subunit (50S). The small subunit is responsible for the formation of the initiation complex, performs the decoding of the genetic information, and controls the fidelity of codon-anticodon interactions. The large subunit catalyzes the peptide bond formation and provides the path for the nascent polypeptide chain. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 10

Ribosome is a complex machinary The large subunit is in blue and the small subunit is yellow. The newly synthesized peptide (green) is pushed through the canal. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 11

Antibiotics Block Translation 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 12

Chemistry Nobel Videos • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l_DyylT LG2k&NR=1 • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q_n0Ij3 K_Ho&feature=related • http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fZTQPV C7V1Q&feature=related 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 13

PHYSICS Charles Kao, Willard Boyle and George Smith - "for groundbreaking achievements concerning the transmission of light in fibers for optical communication” - "for the invention of an imaging semiconductor circuit – the CCD sensor" Charles K. Kao, 76 Willard S. Boyle, 85 George E. Smith, 79 Standard Telecomm Labs Bell Laboratories, Bell Laboratories, Harlow, UK Murray Hills, NJ Murray Hills, NJ 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 14

Kao’s fiber optics In 1965, Kao concluded that the fundamental limitation for glass light attenuation is below 20 dB/km, which is a key threshold value for optical communications. At the time, optical fibers commonly exhibited light loss as high as 1,000 db/km and more. With precise measurements of the attenuation of light with different wavelengths in glasses and other materials, Kao pointed out that the high purity of fused silica (SiO2) made it an ideal candidate for optical communication. Kao also stated that the impurity of glass material is the main cause for the dramatic decay of light transmission inside glass fiber, rather than fundamental physical effects such as scattering as many physicists thought at that time, and such impurity could be removed. This led to a worldwide study and production of high-purity glass fibers. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 15

CCDs: modern digital photography In 1969 Willard S. Boyle and George E. Smith invented the first successful imaging technology using a digital sensor, a CCD (Charge- Coupled Device). The CCD technology makes use of the photoelectric effect (Albert Einstein). By this effect, light is transformed into electric signals. The challenge when designing an image sensor was to gather and read out the signals in a large number of image points, pixels, in a short time. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 16

Breakthroughs of the Year 2009 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 17

2009 Science Breakthroughs 10. First X-ray Laser Shines. In April, a new type of light flashed into existence. Physicists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, turned on the world's first x-ray laser, a 130-meter beast called the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) that is powered by the lab's 3-kilometer, straight-shot particle accelerator. 9. Hubble Reborn. It was an aging workhorse that almost got put out to pasture. But this fall, the Hubble Space Telescope began snapping the best images of its 19-year career, thanks to a successful servicing mission in May that has extended the instrument's life by another 5 years. 8. Graphene Takes Off. Since 2004, when researchers discovered a simple way to peel the single-atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms off chunks of graphite, researchers have scrambled to study this ultimate membrane. This year they took it to a new level, with a string of discoveries that include new fundamental insights and ways to make large graphene sheets and turn them into novel devices. 7. Gene Therapy Returns. Since the first human study of gene therapy began in 1990, the field has struggled with technical challenges and setbacks such as the death of a volunteer in a trial. But this year, gene therapy turned a corner, as researchers reported success in treating several devastating diseases: 6. An Icy Moon Revealed. Planetary scientists finally proved this year that a barren, often boiling-hot body like the moon can harbor water ice. The finding renewed prospects for reading an eons-long environmental record and for literally fueling the exploration of the solar system. 5. Live Long and Prosper. It's not Ponce de León's vision of the fountain of youth: the secretion of a dirt-dwelling bacterium from Easter Island. But this year researchers showed that the compound, called rapamycin, boosts longevity in mice, the first time any drug has stretched a mammal's life span. 4. Mock Monopoles Spotted. Physicists' pursuit of a long-sought particle called a magnetic monopole created ripples, or "quasiparticles," inside magnetic crystals that act like monopoles. 3. ABA Receptors. Although "Fight or Flight" is not in their behavioral repertoire, plants have their equivalent of an adrenaline rush: a chemical called abscisic acid (ABA). High concentrations of ABA keep seeds dormant and help curtail water loss and inhibit root and other vegetative growth when times are tough. 2. Opening Up the Gamma Ray Sky. The advance, part of a torrent of recent gamma ray observations, is giving researchers an improved understanding of how pulsars work, along with a rich haul of new pulsars that could help in the quest to detect gravitational waves. 1. Breakthrough of the Year: Ardipithecus ramidus. Fifteen years after its discovery, Ardipithecus ramidus, the oldest known skeleton of a putative human ancestor, was finally unveiled in 11 papers in print and online in October. The discoverers of the 4.4-million- year-old fossil proposed that she was a new kind of hominin, the family that includes humans and our ancestors but not the ancestors of other living apes. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 18

The pulsars created by neutron stars that are many thousand light-years distant (about 1021 meter )… the production of a new single-atom-thick material such as graphene (about 10-9 meter)… Thus, the two breakthroughs of the year represent a difference of 1030 in scale .. --- a breathtaking illustration of the tremendous reach of science. Bruce Alberts is Editor-in-Chief of Science 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 19

10. First X-ray Laser Shines a new type of light ﬂashed into existence • In April, physicists at SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory in Menlo Park, California, turned on the world's first x-ray laser, a 130-meter beast called the Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) that is powered by the lab's 3-kilometer, straight- shot particle accelerator. • The machine is the heart of a $420 million user facility, and after 3 years of construction, researchers needed less than 2 hours to fire it up. • For decades, scientists have used x-rays to probe the atomic-scale structure of materials. Shining a billion times brighter than any previous source, the LCLS produces pulses of x-rays as brief as 2 Electrons zipping through the LCLS's millionths of a nanosecond, short enough to magnets (above) generate copious x- snap stop-action images of chemical rays. reactions in progress. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 20

9. Hubble Reborn an aging workhorse began snapping the best images of its 19-year career • In May, a seven-member crew on board the shuttle Atlantis traveled 500 kilometers above Earth, making five spacewalks over 11 days to carry out a set of complex and risky maneuvers. • Replaced the Wide Field Camera 2 with the new (10X) Wide Field Camera 3; installed the Cosmic Origins Spectrograph to take ultraviolet spectra; and making fixes to the Advanced Camera for Surveys and the Space Telescope Imaging Spectrograph. • In September, NASA released the results of the effort: spectacular images of the Butterfly Nebula, the Omega Centauri globular cluster, and other stellar wonders. • In recent months, the instrument has delivered the most detailed pictures yet of the nearby spiral galaxy, M83, which should help researchers learn more about star birth in its core. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 21

8. Graphene takes off progress in materials science • Grapheneʼs near-perfect atomic order -a chicken wire-like lattice of carbon atoms to flow through it at ultrafast speeds. • In 2004, scientists discovered a simple way to peel the single-atom-thick sheets of carbon atoms off chunks of graphite. • Grapheneʼs electors exhibit the fractional quantum Hall Effect - electrons act collectively as if they are particles with only a fraction of the charge of an electron. • Scientists reported graphene films upto a sq. cm on thin copper films (also on silicon wafers) opening the door for making graphene based electronic devices such as faster transistors, frequency multipliers for electronic signals, molecular scales and photo- detectors. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 22

7. Gene Therapy Returns success in treating several devastating diseases • Gene therapy—repairing malfunctioning cells by mending their DNA—offers an elegant solution to diseases caused by a single flawed gene. The first human studies began in 1990 but without any success. This year, several successful trials are reported: • Leber's congenital amaurosis (LCA), a rare form of inherited blindness that strikes in infancy. Researchers injected one eye of LCA patients with a harmless virus carrying a gene coding for an enzyme needed to make a light-sensing pigment. The light sensitivity of all 12 partially blind patients improved. • X-linked adrenoleukodystrophy (ADL), a brain disorder that usually kills boys before they're teenagers. The disease involves a flaw in a gene that makes a protein that helps maintain the myelin sheath around nerves. A French team inserted a corrective gene into the blood cells of two 7-year-old boys with ADL. Two years later, the progressive brain damage has stopped. • "Bubble boy" disease: severe combined immunodeficiency (SCID) due to a lack of an enzyme called adenosine deaminase. Eight of 10 patients no longer need enzyme-replacement therapy and are living normal lives, 8 years after the therapy began. • Gene therapy for a related disease, X-linked SCID, restored the immune systems of 19 infants but caused leukemia in five of them, one of whom died. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 23

6. An Icy Moon Revealed Moon can harbor water ice • Slamming a 2-ton spent rocket stage into a permanently dark, frigid crater called Cabeus at 7200 kilometers per hour coaxed a few liters of water into sight. • The $80-million Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite (LCROSS) mission returned clear spectroscopic signatures of water vapor, ice, and water-derived hydroxyl in the impact plume. • Icy stores of lunar water might hold records of lunar impacts over billions of years. Astronauts might drink the water, grow food with it, or even split its molecules into hydrogen and oxygen for rocket fuel. • One problem: Someone would have to figure The LCROSS spacecraft (foreground) out how to conduct coring and mining glimpsed water thrown up when the operations on the moon at just 40° above spent rocket (background) hit the moon absolute zero (-419 °F) . 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 24

5. Live Longer and Prosper Rapamycin boosts longevity in mice, the ﬁrst time any drug has stretched a mammal’s life • Rapamycin is prescribed to ﬁght kidney cancer or to stymie rejection of transplanted organs. • Feeding rapamycin to mice when they were 600 days old (comparable to 60- year-old people) increased the mice’s life span by 9-14%. • This is a puzzling result. • It might or might not be working the same way as the Calorie Restriction.. • Rapamycin undermines the immune system and is not likely to be a practical life extender. Longevity soared as much as 14% in rodents fed the drug rapamycin. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 25

4. Mock Monopoles Spotted “If I can’t find a reindeer, I will make one .. ” In 1931, Paul Dirac argued for the existence of a particle with only one pole to explain quantization of electric charge. Monopoles are also predicted by “grand uniﬁed theories” that treat the electromagnetic, the weak and the strong forces as different aspects of one thing. The monopoles reported in September exist only in materials such as holmium titanate and dysprosium titanate, which are known as spin ices/glass. Within them, the gyrating and magnetic holium or dysprosium ions sit at the corners of four-sided pyramids, or tetrahedra. At low temperatures, two ions in each tetrahedron point their north poles inward toward the tetrahedron's center and two point their north poles outward. Flipping one ion then creates one imbalanced tetrahedron with three ions pointing in and another In a spin glass, monopoles are tetrahedrons tetrahedron with only one ion pointing in. Flip more with either one (blue ball) or three (red ball) spins and the imbalances can shuffle about independently, acting like monopoles. magnetic ions pointing inward. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 26

3. ABA receptors Plant’s harmone that gives it “adrenaline rush”: abcisic acid (ABA) • High concentrations of ABA keep seeds dormant and help curtail water loss and inhibit root and other vegetative growth when times are tough. • Receptors for ABA was identified in May 2009 as PYR/PYL/PCAR proteins (after many years of research). • Several have obtained crystal structures of ABA bound to its receptor or ABA and the receptor interacting with the PP2C phosphatases that must be shut down to allow ABA to function. • The structures show that PYR/PYL/RCAR proteins pair off, making a gated pocket that ABA nestles into. ABA changes the shape of the pair of molecules so that the "gate" closes and creates a binding surface for a PP2C. • The ABA receptor filed finally has a “success” Blue stain shows the whereabouts of ABA receptor in a seedling. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 27

2. Opening up the gamma-ray sky discovery of gamma-ray pulsars with the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope Like a lighthouse blinking in the night, a pulsar appears to flash periodically as it spins in space, sweeping a double cone of electromagnetic radiation across the sky. Fermi telescope's astounding capability to scan the entire sky in less than 3 hours, with orders of magnitude better sensitivity, superior angular resolution and energy coverage, and time coverage ranging from milliseconds to months. It opened a new channel of discovery—the highly energetic gamma ray spectrum—to find pulsars that radio observations could not detect. The advance is giving researchers an improved understanding of how pulsars Pulsar CTA 1 is one of many discoveries by the work, and helping the quest to detect gravitational waves. Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope (launched by NASA in June 2008). Pulsars are fast-spinning neutron stars with powerful magnetic fields 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 28

1. Ardipithecus ramidus A rare 4.4-million-year-old skeleton reveals the surprising body plan and ecology of our earliest ancestors . This work changes the way we think about early human evolution, and it represents the culmination of 15 years of highly collaborative research. Remarkably, 47 scientists of diverse expertise from nine nations joined in a painstaking analysis of the 150,000 specimens of fossilized animals and plants. Ardi may have moved upright on branches and on the ground, a key step in the evolution of upright walking. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 29

Breakthrough of the year . http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/326/5960/1598-b By hand or by foot? Ardi's foot (right) has Ardi (left) joined Lucy as one of the rare an opposable toe for grasping branches fossil hominin skeletons that shape our understanding of human evolution. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 30

Charles Darwin Bicentenary 1809-2009 Darwin's conclusion of The Origin: There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 31

Charles Darwin’s voyage 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 32

Virus of the year: H1N1 Since the first reports on 21st April 2009 of human infection by a novel influenza A (H1N1) virus, genetically related to swine influenza viruses, the infection has spread across the world. "I have decided to raise the current level of influenza pandemic alert from Phase 4 to Phase 5 [which means that a global outbreak is imminent]. … It really is all of humanity that is under threat during a pandemic." — Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization, Apr.29, 2009 "While the precise impact of the fall resurgence of 2009-H1N1 influenza is impossible to predict, a plausible scenario is that the epidemic could: produce infection of 30-50% of the U.S. population this fall and winter, ... lead to as many as 1.8 million U.S. hospital admissions during the epidemic, ... [and] cause between 30,000 and 90,000 deaths in the United States." — Report to the President on U.S. Preparations for the 2009-H1N1 Influenza, President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, Aug. 7, 2009 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 33

H1N1 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 34

H1N1 structure 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 35

Barack H. Obama shows his Nobel Peace Prize Medal and Diploma at the Award Ceremony in Oslo, Norway, 10 December 2009. To his left stands Thorbjørn Jagland, Chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 36

At the table of honour at the Nobel Banquet are: Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Thomas A. Steitz, Crown Princess Victoria and Nobel Laureate in Chemistry Venkatraman Ramakrishnan. 12/12/2009 Govinda Bhisetti Science Day 37

Science day2009

by Govinda Bhisetti on Jul 26, 2010

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