Science Day 2020 for K-12 Students by Govinda Bhisetti

Science Day 2020
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
9:45 AM Zoom session starts / Nobel Ceremony recast
10:00 - 10:15 AM Introductions - all students
10:15 - 12:00 PM Nobel Prizes 2020
12:00 - 1:00 PM Lunch & Chitchat on 2020 happenings
1:00 - 2:00 PM Science of COVID-19 pandemic and vaccines
2:00 - 3:30 PM Breakthroughs in Science 2020
3:30 - 4:00 PM Q&A
Govinda Rao Bhisetti, Ph. D.
Zoom Link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86112215751?pwd=NzFLbjY0K0NaUzVmSzcvYUJUWi9QZz09
Meeting ID: 86112215751 and Password: 637828
Science Day 2020 - Govinda Bhisetti 1

Science Day 2020
Wednesday, December 30, 2020
Meeting guidelines
(1) Please type in your name, grade and town in the chat box. Add the
details of other students who are with you
(2) Participate in the polls
(3) Please mute your audio and video when presentation starts
(4) Questions may be typed in during the presentations
(5) There will be a Quiz on Nobel prizes
(6) At the end of each presentation, a volunteer will read the questions one
by one, and the speaker will answer
(7) If there is more time, students may come on audio/video and ask
questions
(8) Contact Mallikarjuna Rao or Mallareddy Karra for technical support
Govinda Rao Bhisetti, Ph. D.

Nobel Award Ceremony 2020
10 December 2020
https://youtu.be/PgekkKn7zmU

This year's monetary award is 10 million Swedish krona (SEK) - US$1.14 million
Nobel Prize
"…The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: The
capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the
interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the
preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind ... ; one part to the person
who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or
medicine; ... The prizes for ... shall be awarded by ... that for physiology or medicine by the
Carolinska Institute in Stockholm; ... "
Alfred Nobel's will was signed in Paris on 27 November 1895. The statutes of the Nobel
Foundation, which were officially approved by the Swedish Government on 29 June 1900.
https://youtu.be/ykUXN0gkt7M

Prize Announcement Schedule
• Monday, October 5, 2020 PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE
• Tuesday, October 6, 2020 PHYSICS
• Wednesday, October 7, 2020 CHEMISTRY
• Thursday, October 8, 2020 LITERATURE
• Friday, October 9, 2020 PEACE
• Monday, October 12, 2020 ECONOMICS
December 10, 2020:
Nobel Prize Award Ceremony held virtually and the Nobel Banquet was cancelled

EconomicsMedicine
Literature
ChemistryPhysics Peace

2020 LITERATURE PRIZE
Louise Glück
the sixteenth female literature laureate
Born: April 22, 1943, NYC, NY.
Professor (Adjunct) of English, Rosenkranz Writer-in-Residence
Yale University
- Author of 12 books of poetry
- Faithful and Virtuous Night (2014), winner of the National Book Award
- Poems 1962-2012 (2012) won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize
- American Originality (2017), an essay collection
- first book of poetry, Firstborn (1968), recognized for its technical control
as well as its collection of disaffected, isolated narratives.
You want to know how I spend my time?
I walk the front lawn, pretending
to be weeding. You ought to know
I’mnever weeding, on my knees, pulling
clumps of clover fromthe flower beds: in fact
I’mlooking for courage, for some evidence
my life will change, though
it takes forever, checking
each clump for the symbolic
leaf, and soon the summer is ending, already
the leaves turning, always the sick trees
going first, the dying turning
brilliant yellow, while a few dark birds perform
their curfew of music. You want to see my hands?
As empty now as at the first note.
Or was the point always
to continue without a sign?
“for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal…"

PEACE
“for its efforts to combat hunger, for its contribution to bettering conditions for peace
in conflict-affected areas and for acting as a driving force in efforts to prevent the
use of hunger as a weapon of war and conflict”
• In 2019, the WFP provided assistance to close to 100 million people in 88 countries
who are victims of acute food insecurity and hunger.
• The coronavirus pandemic has contributed to a strong upsurge in the number of
victims of hunger in the world.
• Providing assistance to increase food security not only prevents hunger, but can also
help to improve prospects for stability and peace.

The Sveriges Riksbank Prize in
Economic Sciences
“for improvements to auction theory and inventions of new auction formats ”
Paul R. Milgrom
Stanford University, USA.
Robert B. Wilson
Stanford University, USA.
• The practice of selling valuable items to the highest bidder, or procuring valuable services from the
lowest bidder, goes as far back in history as we have written records.
• Paul and Robert have explored how different auction designs can yield different outcomes, and
specifically, the role information – or lack thereof – can play in shaping a buyer’s bidding strategy.
• If designed correctly, auctions can distribute resources fairly.
“Their discoveries have benefitted sellers,
buyers and taxpayers around the world,”

Auction Theory
Auction Types: (1) English auction, (2)
Dutch auction, (3) Sealed bids … etc.
The winner’s curse: The most
optimistic bidder often overestimates
the common value of an auctioned
object, so that ‘winning’ the auction
turns out to cause a loss.
When the different bidders have
values that are entirely independent of
each other, we call these “private
values”.
“Common values” are when the
value of what is being sold is equal to
all the bidders.
How to avoid Winner’s Curse
Simultaneous Multiple Round Auctions (SMRA)

PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE
“for the discovery of Hepatitis C virus”
71 million people are infected with hepatitis C, and 399,000 die worldwide each year.
Harvey J. Alter (1935)
National Institutes of Health
Bethesda, MD, USA
Michael Houghton
University of Alberta,
Canada
(Chiron Corporation,
Emeryville, California)
Charles M. Rice (1952)
Rockefeller University,
New York, USA
Washington University School
of Medicine, St Louis, MO
Hepatitis is an inflammation of the liver.
How is the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine
decided? (3:22 min)
https://youtu.be/Ce1xDMSZJeE
Medicine prize importance (3:43 min)
https://youtu.be/zfpFt2rYSuY

Chronic viral hepatitis C is a global health concern

Discovery of Hepatitis C (non A/B) Virus
The methodical studies of transfusion-associated hepatitis by Harvey J. Alter demonstrated that an
unknown virus (not Hepatitis A or B) was a common cause of chronic hepatitis. (studies in mid
1970s and confirmed in 1988)
Michael Houghton used an untested strategy to isolate the genome of the new virus that was
named Hepatitis C virus. (1989)
Charles M. Rice provided the final evidence showing that Hepatitis C virus alone could cause
hepatitis. Rice cultured the first infectious clone of the hepatitis C virus for use in studies on
chimpanzees (1997)

Discovery of Hepatitis C (non A/B) Virus
Telaprevir: 1994 - 2011

PHYSICS
"for the discovery that black hole formation is a robust prediction of the general theory of relativity”
& "for the discovery of a supermassive compact object at the center of our galaxy”
Roger Penrose
University of Oxford
UK
Reinhard Genzel
Max Plank Institute,
Garching, Germany
Andrea Ghez
University of California
Los Angeles, USA
4th woman to receive
Physics Nobel Prize

Previous women who won Physizes Nobel prize
Marie Curie (left) in 1903
Donna Strickland (middle) in 2018
Maria Goeppert Mayer (right) in 1963

Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity
Predictions of Einstein's theory of general relativity:
The space-time around Earth would be not only warped
but also twisted by the planet's rotation.
The most fundamental prediction is that black holes are
theoretically possible. But Einstein was doubtful.
https://youtu.be/5jo9Yx7eJC0 (1:00 - 4:30)
space-tim e curvature stress from stuff in Space-tim e

Our place in the universe
What is singularity?
https://youtu.be/24T58gXCUW8
Roger Penrose in1965 used
mathematical methods to
demonstrate that the theory leads
to the formation of black holes.
Science’s 2019 Breakthrough of the Year
M assive, ubiquitous, and in som e cases as big as our
Solar System , black holes hide in plain sight. The effect of
their gravity on objects around them and, lately, the
gravitational waves em itted when they collide reveal their
presence. But no one had ever seen one directly—
until April 2019. That’s when an international team of
radio astronom ers released a startling close-up im age of
a black hole’s “shadow,” showing a dark heart surrounded
by a ring of light created by photons zipping around it.

Black hole at the center of Milky Way
Sagittarius A* is the location of a superm assive black hole, sim ilar to
those at the centers of m ost, if not all, spiral and elliptical galaxies.
https://youtu.be/6B3P7o8QMz8
The star, S2, follows an elliptical 16-year orbit. If Isaac Newton’s classic
description of gravity holds true, S2 should continue along exactly the same path
as on its previous orbit. Instead, it followed a slightly diverging path … traced out
a spirograph-like flower pattern in space as general relativity predicts.

CHEMISTRY
“for the development of a method for genome editing”
Emmanuelle Charpentier (1968)
Institut Pasteur, Paris, France
Jennifer A. Doudna (1964)
University of California,
Berkeley, CA, USA
CRISPR/Cas9 - Breakthrough of the Year 2013

CRISPR/Cas9 - Genetic Scisoors
CRISPR gene editing uses a synthetic guide RNA,
which is complementary to a target DNA sequence,
to direct Cas9 to a specific location for cutting.
https://youtu.be/2pp17E4E-O8
https://youtu.be/4YKFw2KZA5o
Thanks to the genetic scissors, researchers have developed varieties of rice
that do not absorb poisonous heavy m etals from the soil.
W e will see in the afternoon session on Scientific Breakthroughs a
therapeutic application of this m ethod to treat sickle cell disease and beta-
thalassem ia
CRISPR - Clustered Regularly Interspaced Short Palindromic Repeats

Q & A
Nobel Quiz
Select an answer from the poll question
Answer will be revealed at the end of each poll
Keep Score and post your score at the end
Come Back at 1:00 PM

12/30/2020 Science Day Govinda Bhisetti 23
2020: A year like no other
December 30, 2020, 10:07 GMT
Coronavirus Cases
82,421,447
Deaths
1,799,076
Recovered
58,486,373

2020: A year like no other
Body of scientific work on COVID-19 virus published in 2020 is enormous!
Level of misinformation on COVID-19 is humongous!
This presentation will focus on basic science,
not on clinical manifestations and treatments
Dec 31, 2019
COVID-19 reported
By Dec 30, 2020
3 vaccines approved
Science progressed at break-neck speed

Generation Pandemic
May 21, 2020May 1, 2020

Recent outbreaks of viral infections
Birthplaces of cosmic rays traced to remnants of supernovae
Sep 26, 2005 Aug 24, 2009
Nov 8, 1985
May 26, 2016
May 5, 2003
4 millions infections in
Americas
Major risk: microcephaly
October 13, 2014

Virus?
• A microscopic (< 0.2 uM) infectious agent
• “Non-living” entity – “metabolically inert”
• Typically contain DNA or RNA
• Can only replicate (propagate) inside the
living cells of organisms
• Can adapt to immune response as it
mutates rapidly
• Highly diverse, limited host range
• Survival dilemma?
• Difficult to treat viral infections
• Viruses are responsible for about 60% of
all infectious diseases
• Viral infections cause or contribute to 20%
of all human cancers
Virus has smallest genome

Viral transmission of COVID19
A hypothesized origin of the virus and a generalized route of transmission of the epidemic zoonotic coronavirus
• SARS-CoV2 is a novel coronavirus identified as the cause of coronavirus disease 2019 (CO VID-19) that began in W uhan, China in late 2019
and spread worldwide.
• There are several known coronaviruses that infect only anim als. Seven coronaviruses cause disease in hum ans also. Four of them cause
sym ptom s of the com m on cold m ost frequently.
• Three of them cause m uch m ore severe, and som etim es fatal, respiratory infections in hum ans, and have caused m ajor outbreaks of deadly
pneum onia in the 21st century: SARS-CoV (2002), M ERS-CoV (2012) and SARS-CoV2 (2019).

Person-to-person transmission (going viral …)
SARS-CoV-2 causes COVID-19, an acute respiratory distress
syndrome (ARDS) characterized by pulmonary edema, viral
pneumonia, multiorgan dysfunction, coagulopathy, and inflammation.
SARS-CoV-2 uses angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2)
receptors to infect and damage ciliated epithelial cells in the upper
respiratory tract.
Particles (yellow) of SARS-CoV-2 swarm a human cell (purple)
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-00502-w

Misinformation going viral also …
THE BLIND M EN AND THE ELEPHANT
A HINDO O FABLE
John G odfrey Saxe
I.
IT was six m en of Indostan
To learning m uch inclined,
W ho went to see the Elephant
(Though all of them were blind),
That each by observation
M ight satisfy his m ind.
VIII.
And so these m en of Indostan
Disputed loud and long,
Each in his own opinion
Exceeding stiff and strong,
Though each was partly in the right,
And all were in the wrong!
M O RAL.
So, oft in theologic wars
The disputants, I ween,
Rail on in utter ignorance
O f what each other m ean,
And prate about an Elephant
Not one of them has seen!
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/The_poem s_of_John_G odfrey_Saxe/The_Blind_M en_and_the_Elephant
With a limited touch of truth, we tend to turn that into the one and only
version of all reality!

SARS-CoV2 (COVID19) virus replication

Structures of SARS-CoV2 proteins
General structure of a SARS-CoV-2 virion, the pre- and post-fusion
states of the SARS-CoV-2 S glycoprotein, and some effective inhibitors
targeting different proteins to impair SARS-CoV-2 infection.
After receptor binding of the S1 subunit to support membrane fusion and
viral infection, the S2 subunit is exposed and undergoes a
conformational change from a pre-fusion to a post-fusion state (PDB ID:
6LXT). The inhibitor EK1C4 targets the S2 to inhibit viral infection. Feb
2020
SARS-CoV-2 enters host cells mainly through the trimeric S glycoprotein
(PDB ID: 6VSB, 6VYB/6VXX) containing RBD which binds to the human
receptor ACE2 (PDB ID: 6M17). March 2020
A previously characterized SARS-CoV monoclonal antibody CR3022
could bind to the SARS-CoV-2 RBD (PDB ID: 6W41); the epitope can
potentially confer in vivo protection. March 2020
The recombinant soluble human ACE2 can bind to RBD of the S protein
to block the pre-fusion stage of SARS-CoV-2 infection. The TMPRSS2
for S protein priming can be inhibited by camostat mesylate, which in turn
would block SARS-CoV-2 infection.
In cells, SARS-CoV-2 RNA translates to different proteins, such as
NSP12 (PDB ID: 7BV1), N protein (PDB ID: 6M3M & 6WZO) and Mpro
(PDB ID: 6Y2G). Several compounds (N3, α-ketoamide,11a and 11b)
have been identified to exhibit high inhibitory activity against SARS-CoV-
2 Mpro activity and viral infection. April 2020
The RNA-dependent RNA polymerase (NSP12) of the novel coronavirus
is a complex that includes the small proteins nsp7 and nsp8.
Remdesivir (originally developed to target Ebola virus) inhibits this
enzyme. Approved Nov 2020.

We know almost everything now about
SARS-CoV-2 virus at atomic details!
Why are we not able to eradicate it?
We don’t know how the virus is
disabling our Immune System
and
causing over-reaction in some people
more than others

Science Day Govinda Bhisetti 34
Immune System
policing and garbage disposal
Coronavirus evades type I interferons, signaling proteins
that promote antiviral activity in nearby cells and prime the
innate immune system.
“Cytokine storm”

Pandemic preparedness
Simulations and real-world events have helped to influence pandemic-preparedness policy over the years.
Feb 23, 1998
•2001: A sim ulation of a sm allpox bioterror attack, called Dark W inter,
precedes a series of US anthrax attacks by several m onths.
•2003: Severe acute respiratory syndrom e (SARS) is reported in Asia. Caused
by a coronavirus, it spreads to m ore than two dozen countries.
•2005: The W orld Health O rganization revises its International Health
Regulations, including an agreem ent by countries to im prove disease
surveillance and reporting.
•2009: H1N1 influenza (‘swine flu’) em erges in the United States.
•2014: An outbreak of the Ebola virus is reported in W est Africa.
•2015: A Zika virus outbreak is confirm ed in Brazil.
•2017: A pandem ic sim ulation takes place at the W orld Econom ic Forum
m eeting in Davos, Switzerland.
•2018: Two separate Ebola outbreaks begin in the Dem ocratic Republic of the
Congo.
•2019: Event 201, a sim ulation of a novel coronavirus pandem ic, is held in
New York City.
•2020: The SARS-CoV-2 pandem ic kills m ore than 670,000 people in the first
half of the year.
Public-health specialist Margaret Hamburg at the Clade X pandemic
simulation in 2018.Credit: Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-02277-6
The scenarios foresaw leaky travel bans, a scramble for vaccines and disputes
between state and federal leaders, but none could anticipate the current levels of
dysfunction in the United States.

SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development
• Vaccine development is an arduous process, taking about 10-15 years on
average to accomplish.
• The fastest a vaccine has ever been developed, the mumps vaccine in 1967,
took 4 years.
• On March 30th, the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services started a
program they coined “Operation Warp Speed,” (OWS) in an attempt to
expedite a COVID-19 vaccine.
• 3. vaccines approved within 1 year!

Vaccines - key to our health and well-being

Vaccine Pioneers
Several accounts from the 1500s describe smallpox
inoculation as practiced in China and India
Edward Jenner (1749-1823)
English Physician and Scientist
- Smallpox vaccine
- father of vaccination
Louis Pasteur (1822 – 1895)
French chemist , biologist, microbiologist
- Anthrax
- Rabies
Maurice Hilleman (1919 – 2005)
American microbiologist
– developed over 40 vaccines

Jonas Salk
29 March 1954

mRNA vaccine pioneers
Katalin Karikó, the Hungarian-born scientist
who doggedly pursued the idea behind this kind
of medication for decades at the University of
Pennsylvania before joining BioNTech.
Drew Weissman,
Professor of Medicine
University of Pennsylvania
By subtle m odification of one of the four bases in RNA (replacing uridine w ith pseudouridine), these two m ade a version that was not
rejected by hum an im m une system . Further refinem ents produced a recipe that worked reliably when delivered to cells inside a tiny oily
bubble. The first two CO VID vaccines, BioNTech’s and M oderna’s, rely on their approach.

Vaccine platforms used for SARS-CoV-2 vaccine development
Florian Kram m er , Nature, 586, 516–527(2020)

Traditional and accelerated vaccine-development pipelines
Florian Kram m er , Nature, 586, 516–527(2020)

How RNA vaccine works

Safety and Efficacy of the BNT162b2 mRNA Covid-19 Vaccine
F.P. Polack, et al. DO I: 10.1056/NEJM oa2034577
Decem ber 10, 2020

Oxford U – AstraZeneca vaccine approved today in UK
The Oxford vaccine was approved on 30 December
following trials that it stops 70% of people developing
Covid symptoms.
The data also shows a strong immune response in
older people.
• There is also intriguing data that suggests perfecting
the dose could increase protection up to 90%
• The UK has ordered 100 million doses
• It is given in two doses
• Trials with more than 20,000 volunteers are still
continuing
• This may be one of the easiest vaccines to
distribute, because it does not need to be stored
at very cold temperatures.
It is made from a weakened version of a common cold
virus from chimpanzees, that has been modified to not
grow in humans.

Other COVID-19 vaccines in developmemt
04 SEPTEMBER 2020
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41573-020-00151-8

3-phase plan for vaccination in Massachusetts

Q & A

1. Vaccines against COVID-19,
developed and tested at record speed
2. AI disentangles protein folding
3. First CRISPR cures?
4. Global warming forecasts sharpen
5. Found: Elusive source of fast radio
bursts
6. World's oldest hunting scene revealed
7. Scientists speak up for diversity
8. How elite controllers keep HIV at bay
9. Room temperature superconductivity
finally achieved
10. Birds are smarter than you think
Breakthrough of the Year 2020
23 December 2011
https://vis.sciencemag.org/breakthrough2020/

10. Birds are smarter than you think
“sensory consciousness” in birds
• A study reveals that part of the avian brain resembles the human
neocortex, the source of human intelligence. The other shows that
carrion crows are even more aware than researchers had thought—
and may be capable of some conscious thought.
• By using a technique called 3D polarized light imaging,
neuroanatomists took a closer look at the forebrain of homing pigeons
and owls and found that nerves there connect both horizontally—like
the layers in the neocortex—and vertically, echoing the columns seen
in human brains.
• The researchers first trained lab-raised crows to turn their heads when
they saw certain sequences of lights flashing on a computer monitor.
Electrodes in the crows' brains detected nerve activity between the
moment the birds saw the signal and when they moved their heads.
The activity developed even when the lights were barely detectable,
suggesting it was not simply a response to sensory input, and it was
present regardless of whether the birds reacted. The scientists think
the neural chatter represents a kind of awareness—a mental
representation of what the birds saw.
• Such “sensory consciousness” is a rudimentary form of the self-
awareness that humans experience. Its presence in both birds and
mammals suggests to the researchers that some form of
consciousness may date back 320 million years, to our last common
ancestor.
This hom ing pigeon m ay have the necessary
neural anatom y for consciousness.

9. Room temperature superconductivity
finally achieved, but at high pressures
• Scientists have spent decades searching for materials that
conduct electricity without resistance at room temperature.
• Superconductivity got its start in 1911 when physicist Heike
Onnes found that a mercury wire chilled to 4.2 K, conducted
electrons without the usual heat-producing friction.
• In 1986, copper oxide ceramics were shown to be
superconductors above 77 K—the temperature of liquid
nitrogen—they spawned a new generation of MRI machines
and particle accelerator magnets.
• Researchers in Germany in 2019 compressed a mix of
lanthanum and hydrogen to 170 gigapascals (GPa), yielding
superconductivity at temperatures up to 250 K, just under the
freezing point of water. This year, researchers in the United
States topped that result with a hydrogen, carbon, and sulfur
compound compressed to 267 Gpa with superconductivity at
287 K, the temperature of a chilly room.
• So far, the new superconductors fall apart when the pressure
is released. But the same isn't true of all high-pressure
materials: Diamonds born in the crushing depths of Earth, for
example, survive after rising to the surface. Now,
researchers hope to find a similarly long-lasting gem for their
own field.
Crushed between two diamonds, a compound
of hydrogen, sulfur, and carbon superconducts
at room temperature.

8. How elite controllers keep HIV at bay
0.5% of the 38 million HIV-infected people live healthy without treatment
• HIV, like all retroviruses integrates its genetic material
into human chromosomes, creating “reservoirs” where it
can hide, undetected by the immune system and
invulnerable to antiretroviral drugs.
• This year, a study of 64 HIV-infected people who have
been healthy for years without antiretroviral drugs
reveals a link between their unusual success and where
the virus has hunkered down in their genomes.
• The study found that in the elite controllers, 45% of
functioning proviruses resided in gene deserts, and
cleared proviruses from the more dangerous spots.
• That new insight suggests long-standing, frustrating
attempts to cure people by eliminating HIV reservoirs
may be too ambitious an approach. Instead, success
may depend on shrinking these reservoirs.
HIV (dark blue) inserts itself into host DNA.

7. Scientists speak up for diversity
Black Lives Matter movement, and discussions within science about the need to create a
more equitable, welcoming environment for people of color.
• Within days of a racially charged confrontation between a white dog owner and a
Black birdwatcher in New York City’s Central Park in late May, scientists flocked to
Twitter to celebrate—and support— Black nature enthusiasts.
• “I definitely feel like our voices are being heard, and in a different way [than before],”
Williams says. “But it’s not going to be a quick fix ... we have a long road.”
#BlackBirdersWeek
#BlackInNeuroWeek
#BlackBotanistsWeek

6. World's oldest hunting scene revealed
World’s oldest hunting scene shows half-human, half-animal figures — and a sophisticated imagination
• More than 44,000 years ago on the Indonesian island
of Sulawesi, a prehistoric Pablo Picasso ventured into
the depths of a cave and sketched a series of fantastic
animal-headed hunters cornering wild hogs and
buffaloes. The age of the paintings, pinned down just 1
year ago, makes them the earliest known figurative art
made by modern humans.
• The animals in the paintings appear to be Sulawesi
warty pigs and dwarf buffaloes, both of which still live
on the island. But it was the animal-like features of the
eight hunters, armed with spears or ropes, that
captivated archaeologists.
• If the figures do depict mythical human-animal hunters,
their creators may have already passed an important
cognitive milestone: the ability to imagine beings that
do not exist. That, the researchers say, forms the roots
of most modern— and ancient—religions

5. Elusive source of fast radio bursts
magnetars -- neutron stars
• Fast radio bursts (FRBs) are short, powerful flashes of radio
waves from distant galaxies. For 13 years, they tantalized
astronomers keen to understand their origins.
• A likely culprit: magnetars, neutron stars that fizzle and pop
with powerful magnetic fields.
• In April, an FRB went off in the Milky Way. The Canadian
Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment in British Columbia
responsible for the discovery of many FRBs, narrowed the
source to a small area of sky, which was soon confirmed by
the U.S. radio array STARE2.
• Orbiting observatories sensitive to higher frequencies
quickly found that a known magnetar in that part of the sky,
called SGR 1935+2154, was acting up at the same time,
spewing out bursts of x-rays and gamma rays.
• Although astronomers studying FRBs believe they have
finally found their perpetrator, they still don't know exactly
how magnetars produce the radio bursts.
A m agnetar is a type of neutron star
believed to have an extrem ely powerful
m agnetic field (∼109 to 1011 T, ∼1013 to
1015 G ).

4. Global warming forecasts sharpen
Scientists identified two drugs that reduce death rates from the disease
• How hot would Earth get if humans kept emitting
greenhouse gases? 40 year ago, their answer was: If
atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) doubled from
preindustrial levels, the planet would eventually warm
between 1.5 C and 4.5 C, a climate sensitivity range
encompassing the merely troubling and the catastrophic.
• This year, these advances enabled 25 scientists affiliated
with the World Climate Research Programme to narrow
climate sensitivity to a range between 2.6 C and 3.9 C.
The study rules out some of the worst-case scenarios—but
it all but guarantees warming that will flood coastal cities,
escalate extreme heat waves, and displace millions of
people.
• Now, high-resolution cloud models, supported by satellite
evidence, have shown that global warming thins low, light-
blocking clouds: Hotter air dries themout and subdues the
turbulence that drives their information.
• If we're lucky, such clarity might galvanize action.
Atmospheric CO2 is already at 420 parts per million—
halfway to the doubling point of 560 ppm. Barring more
aggressive action on climate change, humanity could reach
that threshold by 2060—and lock in the foreseen warming.
Clouds are no longer expected to significantly dam pen global warm ing

3. First CRISPR cures?
What happened after a giant asteroid hit Earth 66 million years ago?
• CRISPR burst on the scene in 2012,
Science’s Breakthrough of the Year in 2015
and Nobel Prize in 2020.
• Beta-thalassemia causes low levels of the
oxygen-carrying hemoglobin protein, leading
to weakness and exhaustion
• sickle cell disease make a defective form of
the protein, resulting in sickle-shaped red
blood cells that block blood vessels and often
cause severe pain, organ damage, and
strokes.
• CRISPR is used to disable an “off” switch
that stops production of the fetal form of
hemoglobin in adults. After the patients
received chemotherapy to wipe out their
diseased blood stem cells, the CRISPR-
treated cells were infused back into their
bodies.
Sickled blood cells (foreground) have been fixed— at least tem porarily— by the gene-
editing tool CRISPR
The patients, treated up to 17 months ago, are now making plentiful
fetal hemoglobin, and have not experienced the painful attacks that
used to strike every few months (CRISPR Therapeutics and Vertex
Pharmaceuticals reported in December). The companies also gave the
treatment to seven patients who normally receive blood transfusions for
beta-thalassemia. The patients are doing well without blood
transfusions.

2. AI disentangles protein folding
Structures of a protein correctly predicted by artificial intelligence
• For 5 decades, scientists have struggled to
solve one of biology's biggest challenges:
predicting the precise 3D shape a string of
amino acids will fold into as it becomes a
working protein.
• Researchers traditionally decipher structures
using laborious techniques such as x-ray
crystallography and cryo–electron microscopy.
But detailed molecular maps only exist for about
170,000 of the 200 million
• known proteins.
• In 1994, structural biologists launched a biennial
competition called the Critical Assessment of
Protein Structure Prediction (CASP). Entrants
are given amino acid sequences for about 100
proteins with as-yet-unknown structures.
• AI program created by researchers at U.K.-
based DeepMind tallied a median score of 92.4
on a 100-point scale, where anything above 90
is considered as accurate as an experimentally
derived structure.
Predicted structure (blue) and experim entally determ ined (green)
m atch alm ost perfectly.

Science Breakthrough of the Year 2020:
Shots of Hope
Desperately needed vaccines against COVID-19, developed and tested at record speed

Science Day 2020 for K-12 Students by Govinda Bhisetti

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to Science Day 2020 for K-12 Students by Govinda Bhisetti

Similar to Science Day 2020 for K-12 Students by Govinda Bhisetti (20)

Recently uploaded

Recently uploaded (20)

Science Day 2020 for K-12 Students by Govinda Bhisetti