Tag Archives: worlds

Science

The world’s largest telescope is edging closer to completion

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This week, the University of Arizona’s Steward Observatory Mirror Lab began work on the sixth of seven primary mirror segments for the Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT). On March 1st, the lab started heating its one-of-a-kind glass furnace to a temperature of 1,165 degrees Celsius. That in itself was a major milestone in a manufacturing process known as spin-casting. It took about four months to make the mold and another nine hours to cover it in nearly 90 tons of rare borosilicate glass.

On Friday, the furnace started to spin at about five revolutions per minute. The combination of heat and motion will force the glass up the mold’s sides as it melts, causing it to form a curved surface. Once the 8.4-meter mirror is cast over the weekend, it will enter a month-long “annealing” process that will see the furnace slowly come to a stop while the glass cools. That’s done so that the mirror cools uniformly, making the final product tough and free of as many imperfections as possible. It will take another month-and-a-half for it to cool to room temperature. It’s at that point that the lengthy process of polishing it can begin.

Manufacturing a single glass segment takes about four years to complete. In 2019, the university finished work on GMT’s second mirror. That one is now in storage, waiting to be transported to Chile. While the project broke ground in 2015, it won’t be complete until later in the decade. But once it is done, the GMT will be able to capture images that are 10 times clearer than those produced by the Hubble Space Telescope.

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Science

Alien ‘super-Earth’ may offer clues about atmospheres on distant worlds

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By Will Dunham

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Scientists have spotted a planet orbiting a star relatively near our solar system that may offer a prime opportunity to study the atmosphere of a rocky Earth-like alien world – the type of research that could aid the hunt for extraterrestrial life.

The researchers said on Thursday the planet, called Gliese 486 b and classified as a ‘super-Earth,’ is not itself a promising candidate as a refuge for life. It is thought to be inhospitable – hot and dry like Venus, with possible rivers of lava flowing on its surface.

But its proximity to Earth and its physical traits make it well suited for a study of its atmosphere with the next generation of space-borne and ground-based telescopes, starting with the James Webb Space Telescope that NASA has slated for an October launch. These could give scientists data to be able to decipher the atmospheres of other exoplanets – planets beyond our solar system – including ones that may host life.

“We say that Gliese 486 b will instantaneously become the Rosetta Stone of exoplanetology – at least for Earth-like planets,” said astrophysicist and study co-author José Caballero of Centro de Astrobiología in Spain, referring to the ancient stone slab that helped experts decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs.

Scientists have discovered more than 4,300 exoplanets. Some have been large gas planets akin to Jupiter. Others have been smaller, rocky Earth-like worlds, the kind considered candidates for harboring life, but currently available scientific instruments tell us little about their atmospheres.

“The exoplanet must have the right physical and orbital configuration to be suitable for atmospheric investigation,” said planetary scientist Trifon Trifonov of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Germany, lead author of the research published in the journal Science.

A ‘super-Earth’ is an exoplanet with a mass greater than our planet but considerably less than our solar system’s ice giants Uranus and Neptune. Gliese 486 b’s mass is 2.8 times Earth’s.

It is located in our celestial neighborhood about 26.3 light years – the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km) – from Earth, making it among the closest exoplanets. It orbits a ‘red dwarf’ star that is smaller, cooler and less luminous than our sun, with about a third the mass.

The planet orbits very close to its home star, leaving it heavily irradiated. Like Earth, it is a rocky planet and is thought to have a metallic core. Its surface temperature is about 800 degrees Fahrenheit (430 degrees Celsius) and its surface gravity may be 70% stronger than Earth’s.

“Gliese 486 b cannot be habitable, at least not the way we know it here on Earth,” Trifonov said. “The planet possibly only has a tenuous atmosphere, if any. Our models are consistent with both scenarios because stellar irradiation tends to evaporate atmospheres, whereas, at the same time, the planetary gravity is strong enough to retain it.”

Still, Gliese 486 b could prove ideal for studying the atmosphere of an Earth-like planet using instruments on the James Webb Space Telescope and the future Extremely Large Telescope, an astronomical observatory now under construction in Chile.

The chemical composition of an atmosphere can tell a lot about a planet and its habitability. Scientists are interested in looking at the combination of gases in the atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets, with a mix of oxygen, carbon dioxide and methane like that of our own planet a potential indication of life.

“All that we learn with the atmosphere of Gliese 486 b and other Earth-like planets will be applied, within a few decades, to the detection of biomarkers or biosignatures: spectral features on the atmospheres of exoplanets that can only be ascribed to extraterrestrial life,” Caballero added.

(Reporting by Will Dunham, Editing by Rosalba O’Brien)

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Science

World’s first space HOTEL to begin construction in low Earth orbit in 2025

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Work is due to start on the world’s first ‘space hotel’ in low Earth orbit in 2025 – and it will come equipped with restaurants, a cinema, spa and rooms for 400 people.

Developed by the Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC), the Voyager Station could be operational as early as 2027, with the infrastructure built in orbit around the Earth.

The space station will be a large circle and rotate to generate artificial gravity that will be set at a similar level to the gravity found on the surface of the Moon.  

Voyager Station’s hotel will include many of the features you might expect from a cruise ship, including themed restaurants, a health spa and a cinema.

It will feature a series of pods attached to the outside of the rotating ring and some of these pods could be sold to the likes of NASA and ESA for space research. 

No details of cost to build the space station, or the cost of spending a night in the hotel have been revealed, although OAC say build costs are getting cheaper thanks to reusable launch vehicles like the SpaceX Falcon 9 and the future Starship.   

Developed by the Orbital Assembly Corporation (OAC), the Voyager Station could be operational as early as 2027, with the infrastructure built in orbit around the Earth

The space station will be a large circle and rotate to generate artificial gravity that will be set at a similar level to the gravity found on the surface of the Moon

Voyager station’s hotel will include many of the features you might expect from a cruise ship, including themed restaurants, a health spa and a cinema

VOYAGER STATION: A SPACE HOTEL BUILT ON RINGS

The Voyager space station will be rotating to produce Moon-level artificial gravity.

There will be an inner ‘docking ring’ which is un-pressurised to allow ships to unload passengers and cargo.

There will then be a habitation ring which will include a number of modules along the outer edge. This includes a gym, kitchen, restaurant, bar and crew quarters.

Other modules will be privately or government owned, including villas, hotels or commercial activity zones. 

The Voyager Class space station will be made up of a series of rings, with a number of ‘modules’ attached to the outermost of the rings.

Some of these 24 modules will be run by the Gateway Foundation and will be for things like crew quarters, air, water and power.

They will also include a gym, kitchen, restaurant, bar and other essential facilities for people due to be on the station longer term.

The other modules will be leased or sold to private companies and governments.

For example, people could buy one of the 20×12 metre modules for a private villa or multiple modules to create a hotel with spa, cinema and more.

Government agencies could use the station to house their own science module or as a training centre for astronauts preparing to go to Mars. 

The idea of an orbiting space station build around a central, circular wheel goes back to the earliest days of space travel, in an idea by Wernher von Braun.

He was one of the architects of the NASA Apollo programme and in the 1950s proposed a wheel-shaped habitat spinning to create artificial gravity.

The concept for the Voyager station, which is a similar idea but on a much larger scale, first came about in 2012 with the launch of the Gateway Foundation.

OAC, the firm established by the foundation to realise the vision of an orbiting station, was established in 2018 with the goal of it being operational by 2027.

It will feature a series of pods attached to the outside of the rotating ring and some of these pods could be sold to the likes of NASA and ESA for space research

Some of these 24 modules will be run by the Gateway Foundation and will be for things like crew quarters, air, water and power

LUNAR GRAVITY

Lunar gravity is about 1/6th the level of gravity found on Earth, and this is the level being proposed for the station.

Due to the nature of the spinning disk this can be increased or decreased by spinning faster or slower.

Lunar gravity is 1.6 metres per second, on Earth it is 9.8 metres per second – due to relative size of stellar bodies.

While your mass won’t change on the space station, you will feel lighter. At lunar gravity a 140lb person would weigh just over 23lb.

The station can also be ramped up to Mars gravity – which is 40% of the Earth’s at 3.7 metres per second.

This means the same 140lb person on Earth would weigh 52lb.

Testing the rate of gravity our body can handle will help in future long-haul spaceflight.

Future versions of the space station could see different sections gravity changed at different rates to help with scientific research or to cater for different hospitality sectors. 

If fully realised it will be the largest human created object ever put into space.

While the cost of developing and building the space station haven’t been revealed, with the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and in future the SpaceX Starship, it has become more viable to put large objects into orbit.

The average cost of launching material to space has been about $8,000 per kg for a long time, but the reusable nature of the Falcon 9 saw this come down to $2,000/kg and SpaceX predicts Starship will bring it to a few hundred dollars. 

Starship and other future fully reusable spacecraft will make the station viable as it will allow for regular and rapid connections between Earth and Voyager. 

The team include NASA veterans, pilots, engineers and architects, building a system that includes multiple pods for different purposes and a high-speed ‘space train’.

Each of these 24 integrated habitation modules will be 20 metres long by 12 metres wide and will carry a different function – from hotel rooms to movie theatres.

The firm also expects their ring to include viewing lounges, concert venues, bars, libraries, gyms and a spa – all things you’d see on a cruise ship, but this one will cruise around the whole world every 90 minutes. 

First the team plan to test the concept with a much smaller scale prototype station and a free-flying microgravity facility similar to the International Space Station.

‘This will be the next industrial revolution,’ explained John Blincow, founder of the Gateway Foundation, adding it will create a new space industry. 

Rotation is ‘vital’ says Blincow, as it isn’t viable to have people on a space station without gravity for long periods of time – and people may want to be in space for months at a time, especially when working in a hotel.

‘People need gravity so their bodies won’t fall apart,’ said Blincow, adding that the station can help understand just how much gravity our bodies need as it will be able to increase or decrease the rate of rotation to have higher or lower gravity. 

While the cost of developing and building the space station haven’t been revealed, with the launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 and in future the SpaceX Starship, it has become more viable to put large objects into orbit

The firm also expects their ring to include viewing lounges, concert venues, bars, libraries, gyms and a spa – all things you’d see on a cruise ship, but this one will cruise around the whole world every 90 minutes

Rotation is ‘vital’ says Blincow, as it isn’t viable to have people on a space station without gravity for long periods of time – and people may want to be in space for months at a time, especially when working in a hotel

When the testing is complete a robot named STAR – Structure Truss Assembly Robot – will build the frame for Voyager in orbi.

The first space construction will be a prototype 61 metre gravity ring in low Earth orbit that can spin up to create gravity at Mars’ level – 40% of Earth’s gravity.

That will take about two years to construct and has been called a ‘near-term demonstrator’ – when in space putting it together will take three days. 

While the hotel is the initial goal of the artificial gravity space station, the company hope to lease pod space to agencies including NASA and ESA in future. 

EXPLAINED: THE $100 BILLION INTERNATIONAL SPACE STATION SITS 250 MILES ABOVE THE EARTH

The International Space Station (ISS) is a $100 billion (£80 billion) science and engineering laboratory that orbits 250 miles (400 km) above Earth.

It has been permanently staffed by rotating crews of astronauts and cosmonauts since November 2000. 

Research conducted aboard the ISS often requires one or more of the unusual conditions present in low Earth orbit, such as low-gravity or oxygen.

ISS studies have investigated human research, space medicine, life sciences, physical sciences, astronomy and meteorology.

The US space agency, Nasa, spends about $3 billion (£2.4 billion) a year on the space station program, a level of funding that is endorsed by the Trump administration and Congress.

A U.S. House of Representatives committee that oversees Nasa has begun looking at whether to extend the program beyond 2024.

Alternatively the money could be used to speed up planned human space initiatives to the moon and Mars.

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Entertainment

BREAKING: “The World’s Most Magical Celebration”, Walt Disney World’s 50th Anniversary Begins October 1st, 2021 and Will Last 18 Months

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On Oct. 1, 1971, Walt Disney World Resort officially opened to guests for the first time, the culmination of years spent imagining, planning and developing Walt Disney’s magical dream. In the five decades since, the vacation destination continued to expand with new stories and characters and adventures to cherish for a lifetime. And now with a major milestone approaching, guests can share in “The World’s Most Magical Celebration” beginning Oct. 1, 2021, in honor of the resort’s 50th anniversary.

Walt Disney World Resort will throw “The World’s Most Magical Celebration” in honor of their 50thanniversary, bringing new experiences to all four theme parks and beyond. This milestone is such a big deal, Disney even coined a new word – “EARidescence” – to describe what Guests will see when they visit. Disney teams are creating all sorts of new decorations that will shimmer and sparkle all day and into the night.

In this artist rendering, Cinderella Castle shines with new golden and EARidescent décor at Magic Kingdom Park as part of “The World’s Most Magical Celebration,” which begins Oct. 1, 2021, in honor of the 50th anniversary of Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. (Disney)

As part of the celebration, Cinderella Castle at Magic Kingdom Park will add to its royal makeover from last year. The castle will feature golden bunting and a 50th anniversary crest as part of its festive new look.

In this artist rendering, Cinderella Castle becomes a Beacon of Magic in Magic Kingdom Park at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. As part of “The World’s Most Magical Celebration” honoring Walt Disney World Resort’s 50th anniversary beginning Oct. 1, 2021, the castle and other icons at each Walt Disney World theme park will come to life at night with their own EARidescent glow. (Disney)

The castle will add even more magic at night, joined by icons at each of the other three theme parks as they transform into Beacons of Magic, including pixie dust on Cinderella Castle, magical fireflies inhabiting the Tree of Life at Disney’s Animal Kingdom Theme Park, and special new touches coming to life on the Hollywood Tower Hotel at Disney’s Hollywood Studios.

In this artist rendering, Spaceship Earth becomes a Beacon of Magic in EPCOT at Walt Disney World Resort in Lake Buena Vista, Fla. As part of “The World’s Most Magical Celebration” honoring Walt Disney World Resort’s 50th anniversary beginning Oct. 1, 2021, Spaceship Earth and other icons at each Walt Disney World theme park will come to life at night with their own EARidescent glow. (Disney)

And at EPCOT, new lights will shine across the reflective panels of Spaceship Earth, connecting to one another and resembling stars in a nighttime sky. This permanent new lighting will continue beyond “The World’s Most Magical Celebration” as a defining feature of the park.

Guests will also want to keep an eye out for Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, who will have sparkling new looks for the celebration. As hosts of the event, they’ll be dressed for the occasion in custom-made fashions of EARidescent fabric with gold highlights.

We’ll have more to share about the plans for this 18-month long “The World’s Most Magical Celebration” in the future as Disney ramps up to the big day on October 1st!

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Science

Mammoth DNA Breaks Record for World’s Oldest Sequence

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Researchers have sequenced the oldest known DNA in the world. Using material from the Early and Middle Pleistocene sub-epochs, the ancient DNA analysis shatters the record for the world’s oldest sequenced DNA. It comes from mammoth remains that were discovered in the Siberian permafrost and proves that under the right conditions ancient DNA can survive more than one million years.

But the analysis of that very ancient DNA depends upon researchers having the right technology too. Thankfully, an international team led by researchers at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm, Sweden had advanced sequencing technology and bioinformatics available to them. A Nature news report for the new paper says that the researchers pushed current technology almost to its limits to enable the extraction of ancient DNA strands from mammoth teeth that had been preserved in the Siberian permafrost . Senior author of the Nature study, Love Dalén, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the Centre for Palaeogenetics, notes that the scientific team has been lucky, saying:

“It’s not like everything found in the permafrost always works. The vast majority of samples have crap DNA.”

How the Ancient Mammoth DNA has Broken Records

The discovery is truly amazing because after an organism dies its chromosomes gradually become smaller and smaller, and in most cases extremely ancient DNA strands have become so tiny that they have lost all their informational content. But a new article published in the journal Nature shows that the team has managed to obtain 49 million base pairs of nuclear DNA from a 1.65-million-year-old tooth found near a village called Krestovka (the tooth has been dubbed Krestovka as well). They also extracted  884 million base pairs of ancient DNA from a 1.3-million-year-old tooth they refer to as Adycha and 3.7 billion base pairs of DNA from a 600,000-year-old woolly mammoth tooth they’ve called Chukochya. The three mammoth remains were discovered in the 1970s and are part of the collection of the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Love Dalén and co-lead author Patrícia Pečnerová with a mammoth tusk on Wrangel Island. (Credit: Gleb Danilov)

The Nature news report explains that the ancient mammoth DNA study hasn’t uncovered the oldest biomolecular information from the fossil record – that’s protein sequenced in 2016 from 3.8-million-year-old ostrich eggshells from Tanzania. In second place is a protein sequence from a 1.77-million-year-old rhinoceros tooth from Georgia, which was analyzed in 2019. However, while protein is hardier and can survive in extremely old fossils from places without permafrost, it isn’t as useful as DNA for researchers who want to study an organism’s ancestry.

That’s just one of the reasons why the new mammoth DNA study is so important – it contains genetic information which hasn’t been available in the older protein samples.

A second reason why the study is making headlines is that it has beaten ancient DNA from a genome from a 560,000 to 780,000-year-old horse leg bone found in the Yukon Territory of Canada for the oldest ancient DNA sequence. Putting the age of the mammoth samples into context, Dalén said:

“This DNA is incredibly old. The samples are a thousand times older than Viking remains, and even pre-date the existence of humans and Neanderthals.”

The First Example of Hybrid Speciation in Ancient DNA

The new study has also amplified the ability for researchers to track the evolutionary process of speciation – the formation of new and distinct species. A Nature press release states that this process generally occurs “over time periods that are thought to be beyond the limits of DNA research.”

A tusk from a woolly mammoth discovered in a creek bed on Wrangel Island in 2017. (Credit: Love Dalén)

Nonetheless, the scientists’ study of the mammoth DNA suggests that there was not one, but two different lineages of mammoth alive during the Early Pleistocene in the region of what is now eastern Siberia. Adycha and Chukochya are believed to be members of a species that spawned the woolly mammoth, but Krestovka appears to come from an unknown, and possibly entirely new, mammoth lineage. Tom van der Valk, the study’s lead author and a bioinformatician at the University of Uppsala in Sweden, explains the researchers’ shock at this discovery:

“This came as a complete surprise to us. All previous studies have indicated that there was only one species of mammoth in Siberia at that point in time, called the steppe mammoth. But our DNA analyses now show that there were two different genetic lineages, which we here refer to as the Adycha mammoth and the Krestovka mammoth. We can’t say for sure yet, but we think these may represent two different species.”

In their study, the researchers suggest that the Krestovka genome may have diverged from the other mammoths between 2.66 to 1.78 million years ago. They also believe that this mammoth lineage “was ancestral to the first mammoths to colonize North America.” It appears that the North American Columbian mammoths ( Mammuthus columbi ) can trace half of their ancestry to wooly mammoths and half to the previously unrecognized Krestovka mammoth lineage.

The Nature news report states that this means the new study has also provided the first evidence for ‘hybrid speciation’ – a new species forming through mixing – found in ancient DNA. Study co-lead author Patrícia Pečnerová, an evolutionary biologist at the Swedish Museum of Natural History, says that the team believes “that the Columbian mammoth, one of the most iconic Ice Age species of North America, evolved through a hybridisation that took place approximately 420 thousand years ago.”

How Far Back Can Researchers Go?

Finally, the ancient mammoth DNA study has inspired Dalén to analyze more permafrost animal samples that date back more than a million years. Next on his list? Musk oxen, moose, and lemmings. But the professor of evolutionary genetics knows that there is an age limit he won’t be able to cross when analyzing the ancient DNA – 2.6 million years – “That’s the limit of the permafrost. Before that, it was too warm,” he says.

Woolly mammoth tusk emerging from permafrost on central Wrangel Island, located in northeastern Siberia. (Credit: Love Dalén)

Top Image: The illustration represents a reconstruction of the steppe mammoths that preceded the woolly mammoth, based on the genetic knowledge we now have from the Adycha mammoth. Source: Beth Zaiken/Centre for Palaeogenetics

By Alicia McDermott

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Technology

The carbon-fiber Vaio Z is the world’s lightest laptop with an Intel H-series chip

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Vaio is known for making laptops that pack a surprising amount of power into unbelievably thin form factors. The Vaio Z may be the company’s most ambitious product yet. It contains up to Intel’s four-core Core i7-11357H — and at a starting weight of 2.11 pounds, it’ll be the lightest laptop ever to house an Intel H-series processor. (Though models you can buy in the US are 2.32 pounds.)

Part of the reason the Vaio Z is so light is that it’s the first laptop ever to be made of “contoured carbon fiber.” You’ll find carbon fiber in some of the nicest lightweight laptops on the market, including the Dell XPS line — it’s a sturdy and lightweight material. But those laptops utilize sheets of carbon fiber that are held together with metal or plastic parts. Vaio has actually contoured the material around the edges of the Z’s chassis, so it’s carbon fiber all around.

Vaio says the device has passed 26 “surface drop” tests, and will deliver up to 13 and a half hours of battery life. In terms of other specs, you can get up to 2TB of storage, 32GB of memory, Iris Xe integrated graphics, and either an FHD or a 4K 14-inch display. There’s a backlit keyboard, a webcam with a physical shutter, a full-size HDMI port, and two USB-C ports as well. The chassis is a clamshell, though you can fold the screen down to 180 degrees.

Of course, this all doesn’t come cheap. The Vaio Z starts at — I’m not joking — $3,579. So it won’t be a practical purchase for most people, but it’s still an impressive achievement and an interesting proof-of-concept. Keep an eye out for our full review in a few days, where we’ll dive into the performance you can expect for that price. You can preorder units now on Vaio’s website.

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Science

World’s oldest DNA sequenced from million-year-old mammoths | Environment News

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Teeth from mammoths buried in the Siberian permafrost for more than a million years have yielded the oldest DNA ever sequenced, according to a study published on Wednesday, shining a genetic spotlight into the deep past.

Researchers said the three specimens, one roughly 800,000 years old and two more than a million years old, provide important insights into the giant Ice Age mammals, including the ancient heritage of the woolly mammoth.

The genomes far exceed the oldest previously sequenced DNA – a horse dating to between 780,000 and 560,000 years ago.

“This DNA is incredibly old. The samples are a thousand times older than Viking remains, and even predate the existence of humans and Neanderthals,” said Love Dalen, a professor of evolutionary genetics at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm and the senior author of the study published in the journal, Nature.

The mammoths were originally discovered in the 1970s in Siberia and held at the Russian Academy of Sciences in Moscow.

Researchers first dated the specimens geologically, with comparisons to other species, like small rodents, known to be unique to particular time periods and found in the same sedimentary layers.

This suggested that two of the mammals were ancient steppe mammoths more than a million years old.

The youngest of the trio is one of the earliest woolly mammoths yet found.

 

DNA jigsaw

Researchers also extracted genetic data from tiny samples of powder from each mammoth tooth, “essentially like a pinch of salt you would put on your dinner plate,” Dalen told a press briefing.

A woolly mammoth tusk emerges from the permafrost on central Wrangel Island in northeastern Siberia. Analysis of teeth from the animals has yielded the oldest DNA ever sequenced [Love Dalén via AFP]

While it had degraded into very small fragments, scientists were able to sequence tens of millions of chemical base pairs, which make up the strands of DNA and conduct age estimates from the genetic information.

This suggested that the oldest mammoth, named Krestovka, is even older at approximately 1.65 million years old, while the second, Adycha, is about 1.34 million years old and the youngest Chukochya is 870,000 years old.

Dalen said the discrepancy for the oldest mammoth could be an underestimation in the DNA dating process, meaning the creature was likely around 1.2 million years old, as suggested by the geological evidence.

But he said it was possible the specimen was indeed older and had thawed out of the permafrost at one point and then become wedged in a younger layer of sediment.

The DNA fragments were like a puzzle with millions of tiny pieces, “way, way, way smaller than you would get from modern, high-quality DNA”, said lead author Tom van der Valk, of the Science for Life Laboratory, Uppsala University.

Using a genome from an African elephant, a modern relative of the mammoth, as a blueprint for their algorithm, researchers were able to reconstruct parts of the mammoth genomes.

The study found that the older Krestovka mammoth represents a previously unrecognised genetic lineage, which researchers estimated diverged from other mammoths around two million years ago and was ancestral to those that colonised North America.

The study also traced the lineage from the million-year-old Adycha steppe mammoth to Chukochya and other more recent woolly mammoths.

It found gene variants associated with life in the Arctic, like hairiness, thermoregulation, fat deposits and cold tolerance in the older specimen, suggesting mammoths were already hairy long before the woolly mammoth emerged.

 

Ice Age giants

Siberia has alternated between dry and cold Ice Age conditions and warm, wet periods.

Now climate change is melting the permafrost and revealing more specimens, Dalen said, although increased rainfall could mean remains are washed away.

He said new technologies mean it may be possible to sequence even older DNA from remains found in the permafrost, which dates back 2.6 million years.

Researchers are keen to look at creatures such as the ancestors of moose, muskox, wolves and lemmings, to shine a light on the evolution of modern species.

“Genomics has been pushed into deep time by the giants of the Ice Age,” said Alfred Roca, a professor in the Department of Animal Sciences at the University of Illinois, in a comment piece published in Nature.

“The wee mammals that surrounded them might soon also have their day.”



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Health

World’s first coronavirus human challenge study gets green light in UK – POLITICO

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The U.K. is set to begin the world’s first trial of healthy volunteers being intentionally infected with coronavirus, after the study received ethics approval. 

The so-called human challenge study will begin within a month, said the U.K. Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy in a statement Wednesday, with up to 90 people being exposed to a very small amount of coronavirus in a safe and controlled environment. These kinds of trials are controversial as they expose healthy volunteers to diseases that may be deadly. 

The next stage of the study, which has not yet been approved, will involve giving a coronavirus vaccine to different volunteers and then exposing them to coronavirus. Only vaccines that “have proven to be safe in clinical trials” will be used. However, researchers are still a “long way” from this stage of the study, according to Terence Stephenson, chair of the Health Research Authority, which gave ethics approval.

Proponents say these studies provide the fastest way to evaluate new vaccines, especially when the world emerges from an active pandemic, said Robert Read, head of clinical and experimental sciences within medicine at the University of Southampton, who belongs to this camp and is part of the team involved in the study.

This initial part of the study will help doctors understand how the immune system reacts to the virus and identify what affects transmission. The drug Remdesivir will be used as soon as volunteers start developing symptoms.

The volunteers, who are being encouraged to come forward for the study, will be between 18 and 30 and will be exposed to the variant circulating in the U.K. since March 2020.

This article is part of POLITICO’s premium policy service: Pro Health Care. From drug pricing, EMA, vaccines, pharma and more, our specialized journalists keep you on top of the topics driving the health care policy agenda. Email [email protected] for a complimentary trial.

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Business

Jeff Bezos reclaims spot as world’s richest person from Elon Musk

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Saul Loeb | AFP | Getty Images

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos reclaimed his title as the world’s richest person after he leapfrogged Tesla CEO Elon Musk, according to real-time data from Forbes.

Musk saw his net worth slide by $3.9 billion on Tuesday as Tesla shares closed at $796.22, down more than 2.4%. The 49-year-old entrepreneur surpassed Bezos in January to become the richest person in the world, on the back of Tesla’s surging share price and his generous pay package.

Musk gave back the title of world’s richest person to Bezos just as quickly as he rose in the rankings. Until last month, Bezos had been the richest man since 2017.

The Amazon founder’s personal wealth, which is mostly in Amazon stock, has skyrocketed in recent years along with the company’s share price. Bezos has continued to notch new wealth milestones. Last August, he became the first person to see their net worth surge above $200 billion and in 2018 he became the world’s richest man in recent history when his personal wealth climbed above $150 billion.

Bezos once again became the world’s richest person as he prepares to leave his post later this year. Earlier this month, Bezos announced he would turn the helm over to Amazon’s top cloud boss Andy Jassy. Bezos is expected to still keep an eye on the company he founded, but he will have more time to focus on other projects, including his Blue Origin rocket company and The Washington Post, as well as philanthropic ventures the Bezos Earth Fund and the Amazon Day 1 Fund.

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World

World’s second-oldest person survives COVID-19 at age 116

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PARIS (AP) — A 116-year-old French nun who is believed to be the world’s second-oldest person has survived COVID-19 and is looking forward to celebrating her 117th birthday on Thursday.

The Gerontology Research Group, which validates details of people thought to be 110 or older, lists Frenchwoman Lucile Randon — Sister André’s birth name – as the second-oldest known living person in the world.

French media report that Sister André tested positive for the virus in mid-January in the southern French city of Toulon. But just three weeks later, the nun is considered recovered.

“I didn’t even realize I had it,” she told French newspaper Var-Matin.

Sister André, who is blind and uses a wheelchair, did not even worry when she received her diagnosis.

“She didn’t ask me about her health, but about her habits,” David Tavella, the communications manager for the care home where the nun, told the newspaper. “For example, she wanted to know if meal or bedtime schedules would change. She showed no fear of the disease. On the other hand, she was very concerned about the other residents.”

Not all of the home’s residents shared Sister André’s luck. In January, 81 of the 88 residents tested positive for the virus, and about 10 of them died, according to Var-Matin.

Once doctors declared the nun no longer infected, she was allowed to attend Mass.

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