Science

Water fluoridation: a Comprehensive View of the Debate

Medicine / By

Introduction:

The debate over water fluoridation (adding extra fluoride to community water) started in the 1960s, about ten years after the National Fluoridation Program was launched. Now, about 2/3rds of communities in the United States have fluoridated water to help prevent cavities. This is often referred to as one of the best achievements in public health in the last century. However, the United States is one of the few countries that does this, and, with Health Secretary RFK Jr. planning to tell the CDC to stop recommending water fluoridation, debates over water fluoridation have intensified. With there being a lot of debates over the Health Secretary himself, this debate in America has become increasingly political with both sides of the debate ignoring facts and ethical concerns that do not align with their political beliefs. So, this will be a comprehensive analysis of information on both sides to allow you to better understand this issu

Concerns:

There are a lot of studies about the ethical problems with water fluoridation and the medical issues it could potentially cause. The most major concern that people have is with having too much fluoride. The Department of Health and Human Services suggests having .7 milligrams of fluoride in every liter of water you drink, while the World Health Organization says that 1.5 milligrams per liter is needed to risk negative health effects. After the fluoridation process though, there is no possible way to control how much fluoride each person intakes. This is because some people, such as athletes and diabetics, have to drink more water than other people do. How much water people drink also depends on where they live because people in warmer climates usually drink more water than people who live in cooler areas. 

Some people might say that fluoride is completely safe because it is in toothpaste. However, when the fluoride is in the water, you ingest it and then about 50% of that ingested fluoride accumulates in places such as your tissues and bones. Having too much of this fluoride can cause skeletal fluorosis, which is a bone disease that causes bone/joint pain because the bones can become hardened and then be less elastic. This makes fractures more likely and can cause less joint mobility. Among other things, too much fluoride can also hurt a person’s parathyroid gland, which can cause hyperparathyroidism. This causes there to be less calcium in your bones and more calcium in your blood.

There are also concerns about the effects excess fluoride can have on children. For young kids, it could cause mild dental fluorosis where there are noticeable, yet harmless, white specks or streaks in their teeth’s enamel. Ingesting extra fluoride also has no benefits and only risks for infants younger than one years old. 

Finally, there is the ethical concern about forcing people to take medicine. This concern is actually why most European countries do not fluoridate their own water. Every person legally has the right to choose if they take a medication or not, and a lot of people question if water fluoridation violates this right. All of these combines issues make people wonder if community-wide water fluoridation is actually a good solution.

Benefits:

No matter the concerns, water fluoridation has been going on for decades in America for a reason. First of all, fluoride promotes teeth’s remineralization, meaning that it makes people’s enamel stronger so their teeth are better at fighting bacteria off. This reduces how quickly your teeth decay by 20-40%. By providing this fluoride to communities automatically, it saves people money on the dentist. This helps vulnerable communities more than you might think. When water is fluoridated, it diminishes oral health disparities where the economically disadvantaged have less access to dental care than others. The true impact of this is that when analyzing economics, it was found that if a person has less cavities, they are more likely to earn higher wages as an adult. 

To find out if water fluoridation really does have meaningful effects or not, a 2018 study was done about the city of Juneau, Alaska. In 2007, Juneau had stopped the fluoridation of water in their community. The team that performed this study went through youth’s dental records between 2003 and 2012. They found that in 2003, before the decision to stop water fluoridation, there were only 853 teens and young kids who needed dental care. In 2015, that number rose to 1,052. The study’s authors also found that “The odds of a child or adolescent undergoing a dental caries procedure in 2003 was 25.2 [percent] less than that of a child or adolescent in [2012].” Overall, this study shows how much of a positive impact fluoridation has while also exposing the dangers of stopping this practice. 

Conclusion:

While water fluoridation remains a hotly contested topic, some of the impacts can not be ignored. One on hand, cavities dropped by 60% in kids after the practice started. On the other hand, it is widely considered medicating without permission and could have adverse effects on people if not done properly. Debates over ethics and medicine have persisted for centuries, and this one is no different. Health Secretary RFK Jr. can not stop water fluoridation though. He can only stop the CDC from recommending it, and, if that happens, the choice to fluoridate water or not will be left to individual communities. So, no matter the politics, the debates over water fluoridation will last long past his decision and it is likely that a lot of communities will continue with this practice. 

References:

Brazier, Y. (2018, February 21). Why do we have fluoride in our water? Medical News Today. Retrieved May 12, 2025, from https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/fluoride-toothpaste#toothpaste-ingredients

Public Health on Call. (2024, November 26). Why Is Fluoride in Our Water? | Johns Hopkins | Bloomberg School of Public Health. Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Retrieved May 12, 2025, from https://publichealth.jhu.edu/2024/why-is-fluoride-in-our-water

Unde, M. P., Patil, R. U., & Dastoor, P. P. (2018). The Untold Story of Fluoridation: Revisiting the Changing Perspectives. National Library of Medicine. Retrieved May 12, 2025, from https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6309358/

Dire Wolves: Have we brought them back from extinction and at what cost?

Biology, Science / By

Introduction:

For the past week, the world has been going wild about an announcement by Texas-based company Colossal Biosciences. On April 8th, they announced that by using gene-editing and cloning, they have created three new dire wolves. The thing is though, dire wolves went extinct between 10,000 and 13,000 years ago. According to Colossal, they currently have three pups. Two of these pups, named Romulus and Remus, are six months old. There is also a female pup named Khaleesi who is just two months old. 

This could be a huge step in genetics, helping endangered species, and much more. However, it does raise ethical questions, questions about the future, and, with such a fantastical headline, one has to wonder just how faithful it is to reality. 

How is this possible?

Ben Lamm, the CEO of Colossal, refers to what they did as “indistinguishable from magic.” Of course, they didn’t wave magical wands and just create once-extinct wolves out of thin air. In order to achieve this “magical” task, they extracted DNA from ancient dire wolf fossils: a skull that is 72,000 years old and a tooth that is 13,000 years old.

One of the main things they used was cloning technology. Cloning has been happening for the past 29 years, starting with the cloning of sheep and moving on to the cloning of gray wolves, horses, and more. To do this, scientists use a tissue sample from the animal they want to clone to obtain just one cell. 

The next step is one that many animal rights groups question because it is very invasive. In this step, a single cell’s nucleus is taken out and put into an ovum of an animal of the same species. This animal also has had its nucleus removed. This ovum then grows into an embryo. After this, the embryo is moved into a surrogate’s womb. Finally, from this womb, a duplicate of the original animal the cell was extracted from is born. 

This is just the typical cloning technique though. For the dire wolves, they had to change it up a bit. To start their process, scientists studied the dire wolves’ genome in the skull and tooth. Then, they looked at the genetics of their closest living relative, the gray wolf, and compared the two. They claimed to have found 20 differences located in 14 genes. These few differences were the causes of dire wolves’ most prominent characteristics, such as how large they are and their different vocalizations. After the scientists identified these differences, they took some of the cells that line gray wolves’ blood vessels (endothelial progenitor cells, also called EPCs), and changed the fourteen genes. 

This editing had its issues because each gene usually does several things. For example, dire wolves have three different genes that serve the purpose of giving them their well-known light coat. However, in gray wolves, these genes can cause blindness and deafness. To solve this problem, the scientists had to make two new genes that stopped red and black pigmentation. This was able to give the wolves their signature light coat without hurting them. 

After they had done all of this, they took the edited nuclei from the cells and put them in a gray wolf’s ova that had already had its nucleus taken out. In total, this made 45 embryos that were moved into two domesticated hounds’ wombs. 65 days later, they gave birth to Remus and Romulus.

Ethical Conundrums and a Potential Hoax for Fame

Despite the fact that Colossal says that no animals were injured in this whole process, there are a lot of debates about the ethics of this development. There are also fierce debates about if the dire wolf actually has been brought back from extinction or not. 

For the ethics debate, there are a lot of factors. For example, there is the question of location. All humans know is that before dire wolves went extinct, they lived somewhere in the plains and mountains of North and South America. Currently, the pups are living on a 2,000-acre preserve that is secure and in a secret location. While this may sound like a lot of land, usually wolves live in much larger areas which lets them migrate to follow their food. It is also unknown where the wolves will live for the rest of their lives. While a lot of people are against them becoming a tourist attraction, it could be harmful to ecosystems if they were put into the wild since the environment is very different from when the wolves had gone extinct. In addition to all of this, the newly created wolves had no clue how to survive on their own and, because they went extinct so long ago, scientists don’t know much about their behaviors or even their past diets. 

Another side of the ethics debate has to do with human behavior. People are scared because this technology gives humans a chance to think that we can let any animal go extinct because we assume we can just bring them back in the future. These concerns have been furthered because, after Colossal’s announcement, the Trump administration suggested taking away endangered species’ legal protections. This whole situation has created a fear that this could give people the feeling that we can “play God” in a way. This all leads into the question of if humans actually have the ability now to de-extinct animals. 

In this debate, a lot of professors say that, while impressive, these pups are not truly dire wolves. Duke University professor Stuart Pimm called them a “designer dog” and said that the “dire wolf is not really closely related to a regular wolf.” While some people agree with him that they aren’t related, others claim that, even though they’re related, they are not closely related enough that changing 20 genes would create dire wolves. To that end, paleontologist Ric Rawlence says, “the gray wolf genome is 2,447,000,000 individual bases (DNA letters) long. Colossal has said that the gray wolf and dire wolf genomes are 99.5% identical, but that is still 12,235,000 individual differences.” He goes on to say that only making 20 edits still makes this species “very much a gray wolf.” With this, people are wondering if this is just a wild headline to make money or if it is a legitimate thing done to improve science. 

O, T. (2008, January 19). Woolly Mammoth like the one Colossal could create in the next few years. Flickr. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Wooly_Mammoth-RBC.jpg

The Future of Colossal Gene-Editing

A lot of experts also question why scientists are spending so much time bringing animals back to life when they could be focusing on saving endangered species instead. According to Vox, the reasoning behind Colossal’s decision could be because de-extinction is a very difficult challenge and beating this challenge could lead to developments in technologies that could help future breakthroughs, like creating an artificial womb. Now that they have cloned the dire wolves, they have been working more on conservation. 

Colossal works to save endangered species from extinction by editing genes to maximize the genetic diversity of the remaining population. They have partnered with a lot of conservation organizations to make these breakthroughs possible. These organizations include the American Wolf Foundation, Save the Elephants, the Mauritian Wildlife Foundation, and more. They are also working with the native MHA Nation tribes, which are the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara. These tribes have said that they want the dire wolves to be moved to their lands in North Dakota, where they will live in the wild. Colossal also says that it could be possible for them to use their cloning techniques to put species’ blood samples into a biobank to prevent any species in the future from becoming endangered.

While they do plan to do this conservation work, they also plan on using their cloning technology to bring back even more animals from extinction. In March, they announced their most recent development in bringing woolly mammoths back. They showed that they created woolly mice, which are mice that they modified to have woolly mammoths’ traits. After this achievement, they say that they plan to edit Asian elephants’ nuclei to create baby woolly mammoths in 2028. In addition to this, Colossal also wants to bring back Tasmanian tigers and dodo birds.

Conclusion

Whether or not those 20 edits brought back dire wolves from extinction may be up for debate, but this announcement most assuredly could change the future of conservation and gene-editing. Even if they’re mostly gray wolves, this technologically impressive feat is a milestone in history. We now get the chance to shape history and try to navigate this challenge ethically.

As it currently stands, it is putting endangered species at risk of having their protection taken away. Maybe, in this new Jurassic Park-esque world, it’s not the new animals that kill us, but us that kill them and take down whole species because we feel like we can play God. We could do this, or we could use this technology to protect species while respecting animals’ rights by doing our part to protect their ecosystems and help them thrive. 

Figuring out the path forward will be complicated, but, with these dire wolves, we have accepted this responsibility. There may be no truly correct answer on what to do next. We just have to go step by step, always keeping our eyes on doing the next right thing. Then, instead of a sign of a potentially scary future, these unmistakably adorable wolf pups could be a sign that humans can reverse a few of our environmental wrong-doings. 

There is one question that only time and people’s decisions will answer: will we use this technology to redeem or to destroy?

References

Bolotnikova, M. (2025, April 10). The new dire wolves explain everything wrong with “de-extinction”. Vox. Retrieved April 16, 2025, from https://www.vox.com/future-perfect/407781/dire-wolves-deextinction-colossal-biosciences

Kekatos, M. (2025, April 11). Should we be bringing back extinct species? Ethical concerns raised after dire wolf allegedly resurrected. ABC News. Retrieved April 16, 2025, from https://abcnews.go.com/US/bringing-back-extinct-species-ethical-concerns-raised-after/story?id=120674068

Kluger, J. (2025, April 7). The Science Behind the Return of the Dire Wolf. Time. Retrieved April 16, 2025, from https://time.com/7275439/science-behind-dire-wolf-return/

Tardigrades: microscopic animals that can survive space, and now can they help treat cancer?

Biology, Editors Pick, Science / By

What are Tardigrades?

Tardigrades, also known as water bears, are microscopic, aquatic animals that are only about .5 mm long. They thrive in mosses and lichens, but they can survive in any environment, from temperatures near absolute zero to being near volcanic ocean vents. 

They were discovered in 1773 by Johann August Ephraim Goeze, a German zoologist, who called them “little water bears” due to their appearance. Shortly after that, Lazzaro Spallanzani, an Italian scientist, named them “tardigrada,” or “slow steppers.”

These little creatures may look cute and squishy, but they have a hard cuticle around them, like grasshoppers do, that they have to shed in order to grow. Additionally, they’re something between an arthropod and a nematode, so their classification is often debated amongst scientists.

One thing is for sure though, and that is that these creatures are very strange, between having a hydrostatic skeleton instead of bones and ventral nervous system instead of a spinal cord. Another thing we know is that they will probably outlast humans, as they’ve been around since about 400 million years before the dinosaurs and the species has also been able to survive every one of the five mass extinction events that have happened. 

Scientists have only just started researching these little creatures to see what makes them so tough, and they’re making surprising discoveries about this almost unkillable creature and how it could have life-saving impacts. 

Their “Superpowers”

Scientists have really been putting tardigrades to the test over the last few decades. For example, they have had them survive at .05 Kelvin and at temperatures as high as 150 degrees Celsius. Also, they’ve survived 40,000 kilopascals of pressure. That’s as much pressure as 80 elephants! When scientists shot them out of a high speed gun, they also survived speeds of about 3,000 feet per second. 

Despite their ability to survive these environments, they don’t thrive there. In fact they are far from immortal and only live for a few months while they are in their active state. However, they usually have long periods where they “die.” This is called their “tun” state and it happens when they are away from water. In this state, they stop metabolizing and shrink. Whenever they are exposed to water again, they then go back to their metabolizing state.

This process where they suspend their metabolism for only a period of time is called cryptobiosis. Tardigrades can stay in their “half-dead” state for over 30 years. There is also a debate over if this “half-dead” state is actually them being dead because in their “tun” state, they are no different from dead matter.

In another experiment, they sent tardigrades to space and put them into space’s vacuum for ten days. Once they returned to Earth, they only had to be rehydrated to become reanimated again. Through experiments like this, researchers have found that tardigrades can survive 2,000 to 3,000 times more radiation than humans.

Applications

These “superpowers” that tardigrades have can be applied to people’s everyday lives, although a lot of ideas are still under development. First of all, because they can survive very low temperatures, scientists are looking to use their hardy proteins for vaccines because, as many people learned during the pandemic, a lot of vaccines have to be stored at low temperatures, which makes distribution difficult. 

Researchers also think that they can use tardigrades that have been mashed into a paste to make a kind of sunscreen. They were inspired to do this in 2020 when they found that tardigrades can survive a lot of ultraviolet radiation because they emit the longer wavelengths of light while absorbing the shorter ones. So, scientists made tardigrades into a paste which they put on worms. This paste made the worms able to survive a lot more ultraviolet radiation than normal.

Some other applications span from creating more drought resistant crops to protecting astronauts from radiation damage. However, the focus of recent tardigrade research has been treating cancer. 

In all, about 60% of cancer patients in America use radiation therapy as a means to help them beat their cancer. However, this radiation can harm the DNA inside the cancer cells and inside healthy cells too. This can hurt patients’ quality of life by making basic tasks such as eating difficult due to swelling. Because of these damaging side effects, a lot of patients either stop or delay treatment.

A team supported by the National Institutes of Health was inspired by tardigrades’ hardiness, especially their protein that suppresses damage called Dsup. Dsup is able to keep DNA strands from breaking, so researchers made nanoparticles with mRNA that carry instructions to make the Dsup protein. They used mRNA instead of DNA because it only expresses the Dsup protein temporarily instead of incorporating it into the genome of a cell. 

In February of 2025, this team published what they found, which was that with this mRNA, Dsup was brought to healthy tissues to minimize the damage of radiation treatment. To test this method, scientists used mice. In these mice, they found that the production of Dsup peaked six hours after it was injected and this peak was followed by a decline that ended about four days after injection, leaving no Dsup behind in the mouse. In mice where they injected the Dsup into them before radiation therapy, there was significantly less DNA breakage. 

In the mice, the amount of DNA that was broken by radiation was reduced by 50%. Thankfully, these effects were contained to the place that was injected, which means that these particles are not likely to accidentally protect tumor cells. The problem that scientists will have to solve now is how to not cause an immune response in humans because using tardigrade’s original protein could do that. Despite this problem, it shows promise as a way to protect patients while they are getting treated for cancer.

Conclusion

Tardigrades are an example of how even the smallest creatures can be the toughest and have the greatest impact. So, next time you are looking at moss on a log, think about how there could be thousands of lifesaving creatures right there. Overall, tardigrades really are wonders of the microscopic world, and hopefully, someday, they will make space travel more possible and cancer more treatable. 

References:

National Institutes of Health. (2025, March 25). Tiny tardigrades may hold clues to cancer care. National Institutes of Health. Retrieved March 30, 2025, from https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/tiny-tardigrades-may-hold-clues-cancer-care#:~:text=Researchers%20found%20that%20a%20protein,radiation%20therapy%20to%20treat%20cancer

Robertson, L. (2022, October 18). Everything you need (and want) to know about tardigrades. Front Line Genomics. Retrieved March 30, 2025, from https://frontlinegenomics.com/everything-you-need-and-want-to-know-about-tardigrades/

Trafton, A. (2025, February 26). A protein from tiny tardigrades may help cancer patients tolerate radiation therapy. MIT News. Retrieved March 30, 2025, from https://news.mit.edu/2025/tiny-tardigrades-protein-may-help-cancer-patients-tolerate-radiation-therapy-0226

Proton-Coupled Energy Transfer Deciphered: High-Pressure Research Reveals Key Mechanisms

Science, Technology / By

In a groundbreaking study, a team of researchers have discovered new mechanisms of proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), a fundamental process that is the base for life-sustaining reactions such as cellular respiration and photosynthesis. Using an innovative high-pressure technique, the team has successfully distinguished between two key reaction mechanisms, paving the way for advancements in energy conversion and storage technologies.

The Balancing Act of Electrons and Protons

Redox reactions, which involve the transfer of electrons between molecules, are critical to both natural and industrial processes. However, electron transfer alone can create energetically unfavorable charge imbalances. Nature’s solution? Coupling electron transfer with the movement of positively charged protons. As the researchers explain, “This proton-coupled electron transfer (PCET), as it is known, does not produce any change in charge—the most efficient way for a redox reaction to occur.”

But how exactly do these transfers occur? There are two possibilities: either electrons and protons move simultaneously in a “concerted” mechanism, or they transfer separately in a stepwise fashion. “To be able to optimize these processes, we need to know the exact mechanisms,” says Professor Ivana Ivanović-Burmazović. “Before now, however, there has been no direct method for differentiating the two alternatives with certainty. Our work set out to remedy this.”

Pressure Yields the Answer

The research team, led by Professor Ivana Ivanović-Burmazović of LMU Munich and Professor Dirk Guldi from FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg, investigated the influence of pressure on a light-induced reaction in a photosensitive molecule. By applying pressures of up to 1,200 atmospheres (atm), they observed how the reaction rate changed or was unaffected under extreme conditions. “If high pressure—in the experiment, up to 1,200 atmospheres—is applied and the reaction rate remains unchanged, it is a concerted reaction,” explains Ivanović-Burmazović. “When electrons and protons are transferred simultaneously, charge of reacting species does not change and neither does the associated solvation sphere—that is, the cluster of solvent molecules surrounding the molecules. Therefore, pressure has no influence on reaction rate—a clear sign of a concerted mechanism.” Conversely, if the rate changes, this points to changes in the charge and to a change in the volume of the solvation sphere—indicating a stepwise process.

Original diagram explaining (pressure-based) Concerted vs Stepwise mechanisms

Surprising Control Over Reaction Pathways

The team’s findings went beyond mere observation. “By increasing the pressure, we managed to steer the reaction from a stepwise mechanism toward a concerted mechanism,” says Ivanović-Burmazović. This level of control opens up new possibilities for designing and optimizing chemical processes.

Implications for Energy and Beyond

The study’s results have potential for practical applications. As the authors emphasize, “The new findings are highly significant for numerous research areas that deal with the motion of electrons and protons. They not only offer new insights into fundamental chemical processes, but could also help advance new technologies concerned with the conversion and storage of chemical energy—such as redox catalysis for the generation of solar fuels or for hydrogen production.”

Example of high-pressure reactors (Optimus Instruments)

Looking Ahead

The team’s innovative use of high-pressure techniques sets a new standard for studying complex reaction mechanisms. As researchers continue to explore the intricacies of PCET, the findings could lead to breakthroughs in fields as diverse as biochemistry, materials science, and renewable energy.

For now, one thing is clear: the connection between high-pressure science and molecular chemistry has furthered our understanding of the building blocks of life and energy to a new level.

Citations:

Langford, D., Rohr, R., Bauroth, S. et al. High-pressure pump–probe experiments reveal the mechanism of excited-state proton-coupled electron transfer and a shift from stepwise to concerted pathways. Nat. Chem. (2025). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41557-025-01772-5

Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München. “Proton-coupled electron transfer: Deciphered with high pressure.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 21 March 2025. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/03/250321121450.htm>.

High pressure reactors – optimus instruments. (2024, June 27). Optimus Instruments. https://optimus.be/subject/high-pressure-reactors/

Chel Snakehead Fish Rediscovered After 85 Years

Biology / By

In the proceedings of rather remarkable events, the Chel snakehead fish (Channa amphibeus), previously deemed extinct, has lately been rediscovered in India following a period longer than eighty years. This surprising discovery not only brings about hope to conservationists but also shows the need for more exploration to preserve the earth’s biodiversity.

The Chel snakehead is a freshwater fish that is known for its bright green scales and unique yellow stripes. It has a large size, being the largest known snakehead species. Historically, it was collected between 1918 and 1933 in the Himalayas, after which the species “disappeared,” leading to scientists assuming its extinction.

It was in 2024 that scientists and researchers began an expedition across the banks of Chel River in West Bengal. They began this expedition after they heard about the species being spotted through contact with a local indigenous tribe in the region. The expedition led to the collection of three specimens of the species and photographs that proved that the species was not extinct.

Indigenous groups made important contributions to a re-discovery of species based on their understanding of freshwater species found locally. Their knowledge helped scientists make the identification of the Chel Snakehead.

The rediscovery of Chel snakehead fish species after over eight decades shows how much has been unexplored on the earth. This shows the importance of exploration to discover new species to help conserve the biodiversity of our planet. 

References:

https://www.facebook.com/peoplemag. (2024). One of the “World’s Rarest” Fish, Thought to Be Extinct, Rediscovered After 85 Years. People.com. https://people.com/one-the-world-rarest-and-presumed-extinct-fish-rediscovered-after-85-years-11684608/

Jacobo, J. (2025, February 17). Fish species thought to be extinct for 85 years rediscovered. ABC News. https://abcnews.go.com/International/researchers-rediscovered-elusive-fish-species-thought-extinct-85/story?id=118895751/

Magazine Desk. (2025, February 22). Long Lost Fish Species Resurfaces After 85 Years Shocking Scientists. Tribune.com.pk; The Express Tribune. https://tribune.com.pk/story/2530213/long-lost-fish-species-resurfaces-after-85-years-shocking-scientists

McCormack, C. (2025, February 19). Chel snakehead, fish species believed to be extinct, spotted in India after 85 years. New York Post. https://nypost.com/2025/02/18/world-news/chel-snakehead-fish-species-believed-to-be-extinct-spotted-in-india-after-85-years/

Italian Scientists “Freeze” Light to Make a Supersolid for the First Time

Must Read, Science, Technology / By

Introduction:

When most people think of light, they may think of things like rays of sunlight or what they see when they flip on a light switch, but they definitely don’t think of it as a solid, and they shouldn’t have, until now.

On March 5, 2025, Italian researchers published a paper in the Nature Journal about how they “froze” laser light into a supersolid that has extraordinary properties. 

A supersolid is a state of matter where particles condense to make crystalline solids but they move as if they are a liquid without viscosity (internal friction). In order to be formed, it has to be cooled to almost absolute zero. According to Bob Yirka, “a supersolid is a seemingly contradictory material- it is defined as rigid, but also has superfluidity, in which a liquid flows without friction.”

History of Research in Supersolids:

In the 1960s, supersolids were first predicted and they were first observed in 2017, but only in special gases. 

They were also observed in 2024 by physicists in China. In order to form this supersolid, scientists had a compound of atoms which were positioned in triangular lattices which, when in a magnetic field, spin the same way. However, when they are not in a magnetic field, the atoms try to have a spin that opposes the spin of neighboring atoms. That’s where the triangle shaping comes in because it limits how many ways the atoms can orient themselves. With this shaping, researchers predicted that a supersolid with this material was possible, but only under the proper conditions. So, they put the material in an apparatus that allowed them to see the spin states and transitions of the atoms. After comparing several results to different theoretical calculations, they came to the conclusion that it was a supersolid. 

How Light was Turned into a Supersolid:

At CNR Nanotec, Institute of Nanotechnology, in Lecce, Italy, Antonia Gianfate and Davide Nigro led a team of scientists with the goal of “freezing” light. However, the researchers didn’t simply lower the temperature to “freeze” light. Instead, they used quantum techniques such as using a photonic semiconductor platform that conducted photons similarly to how electrons are usually conducted.

To make a supersolid, the scientists fired their laser at gallium arsenide that had special ridges. When the light hit the ridges, it interacted with it and made polaritons (hybrid particles) that the ridges constrained, forcing the polaritons to become a supersolid.

The amount of photons (particles of light) increased and satellite condensates formed, which indicated that it was a supersolid. Since these condensates had opposite wavenumbers while having the same energy and having a specific spatial structure, it was confirmed that it was in a supersolid state.

Conclusion:

This recent breakthrough is a big step forward in the research into supersolids and the quantum world. In the future, supersolids could be crucial to doing things such as making more stable quantum computers and improving energy storage and materials.

The ability to “freeze” particles of light may seem to be something out of a science fiction book, but in 2025 it is the reality and this revolutionizing experiment will make supersolids easier to study so scientists can continue unlocking the secrets of the quantum realm. 

References:

ET Online. (2025, March 12). Scientists freeze light: Researchers discover a rare state of matter where it flows like liquid but holds shape like a solid. Economic Times. Retrieved March 15, 2025, from https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/new-updates/scientists-freeze-light-researchers-discover-a-rare-state-of-matter-where-it-flows-like-liquid-but-holds-shape-like-a-solid/articleshow/118928851.cms

HT News Desk. (2025, March 14). Scientists manage to freeze light, convert it into a solid: Here’s how they did it. Hindustan Times. Retrieved March 15, 2025, from https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/us-news/scientists-manage-to-freeze-light-convert-it-into-a-solid-heres-how-they-did-it-101741943981846.html

Pine, D. (2025, March 13). Scientists turn light into a ‘supersolid’ for the 1st time ever: What that means, and why it matters. Live Science. Retrieved March 15, 2025, from https://www.livescience.com/physics-mathematics/scientists-turn-light-into-a-supersolid-for-the-1st-time-ever-what-that-means-and-why-it-matters

Yirka, B. (2024, January 29). The first observation of a material exhibiting a super solid phase of matter. Phys.org. Retrieved March 15, 2025, from https://phys.org/news/2024-01-material-supersolid-phase.html#google_vignette

Yirka, B. (2025, March 6). Laser light made into a supersolid for the first time. Phys.org. Retrieved March 15, 2025, from https://phys.org/news/2025-03-laser-supersolid.html#google_vignette

Breaking the Mold: the Slime Mold That is Forcing Researchers to Rethink What it Means to Think

Biology, Medicine / By

Meet the Blob:

In 1958, the horror movie classic The Blob took the world by storm, depicting a large blob that had intelligence and had a hunger for people. What if that blob exists, intelligence and all, and its favorite food is oatmeal? This blob is called slime mold, and it is changing scientist’s very idea of intelligence. Not only can this unicellular organism make decisions, but it can learn from its mistakes. With new revolutionary discoveries being made with it, the possibilities of what we can do with it are endless, from having it solve problems it took humans decades to figure out, to computing, and even to medicine. 

Despite the name, slime mold is not mold at all. Instead, it is a protist. Protists are kind of the junk drawer of classifications since it is what something is classified if scientists have no clue what else to call it.  

There are more than 900 types of slime mold and over 720 sexes. Its scientific name, Physarum polycephalum, means “many headed slime,” which is fitting given how the slime mold branches out to traverse its environment. It’s also fitting because it is made up of thousands of individual nuclei who come together to make a super-cell that makes decisions to benefit the whole group. They are also extremely versatile creatures and can live in almost any environment, from jungles to the arctic and even to outer space on the International Space Station.

Slime Mold in Technology and Engineering:

At Hokkaido University in Japan, a team put slime mold in a maze and put food at two points. The slime mold made a connection between these two points and retracted itself from areas where there was no food. Even though there were several ways to get through the maze, the smile mold always found the shortest route.

To expand this experiment, they put oats at every major city on a map of Japan. They then put slime mold on this map, and within two days the slime mold had created a route that was nearly identical to the transportation network it had taken engineers more than 100 years to figure out. Now, civil engineers can use slime mold to figure out the most efficient routes faster than any human could. 

In the UK, scientists created Plasmobot, a computer that runs on oak flakes and slime mold. This computer can do math problems and pull or push objects all by the power of slime mold. 

Another application to technology is using slime mold to create accessible biosensors that enable citizen scientists and students to be able to gain access to and use sensors affordably. In Europe, the project PHYSENSE made a prototype biosensor that does exactly that. The prototype uses slime mold’s response to stimuli to control the sensor. In the future, these sensors could be applied to security, the discovery of drugs, food safety, and monitoring the environment. 

Slime Mold in Physics and Medicine:

Even NASA has “hired” slime mold to help it tackle the challenging physics problems. They found that there could be a cosmic web throughout the universe that is mainly made of dark matter, a mysterious substance that can’t be seen. When observing this cosmic web and slime mold, NASA claimed that “there is an uncanny resemblance between the two networks: one crafted by biological evolution, and the other by the primordial force of gravity.”

So, NASA made a slime-mold inspired computer algorithm that they applied to data about nearby galaxies. This created a 3-D map of dark matter filaments in the surrounding universe.

For medicine, biophysicists in Singapore and Germany looked at slime mold’s patterns and found that the way it grows is remarkably similar to a tumor, allowing them to study how tumors supply themselves with blood. This lets them create new solutions that will cut off a tumor’s blood supply, stopping it from growing and eventually killing it. 

Source: Murugan, N., Levin Lab, Tufts University, & Wyss Institute at Harvard University. (2021). Slime mold sample exploring a petri dish. Harvard Magazine.

Rethinking Intelligence:

When you think about the word intelligence, what comes to mind? Is it the ability to make decisions? To remember? To problem solve? Maybe you think that the most inherent part of intelligence is the ability to think, most likely with a brain. Before slime mold, almost everyone, including scientists, believed that to be intelligent something had to have a way to think. Now, slime mold is sparking debates because it can do everything listed above without a brain or even neurons.

For example, slime mold was once exposed to the cold every half an hour. When it encountered the cold, it would slow its growth to conserve energy. Then, scientists stopped exposing the slime mold to the cold, but it had remembered the timing and anticipated it, showing that it has some sort of memory.

Harvard also found that slime mold can sense objects before even coming into contact with them. To discover this, they put three glass disks on one side of a petri dish and one glass disk on the other. The majority of the time, the slime mold strongly favored the side with three glass disks, but only when the disks were put side by side. When stacked, the slime mold showed no preference, leading the scientist to determine that slime mold decided where to go in this instance based on the amount of the horizon the glass disks took up. This begs the questions: how does the sightless slime mold make these decisions and why?

In the end, there is a lot more research to be done about this confusing protist. Whether you think that it is intelligent or not though, one thing is for certain, and that is that this unicellular organism is changing society for the better.

References:

Barnett, H. (2014, July 17). What humans can learn from semi-intelligent slime. TED Talks. Retrieved March 11, 2025, from https://www.ted.com/talks/heather_barnett_what_humans_can_learn_from_semi_intelligent_slime/transcript

Bland, E. (2009, September 8). Plasmobot computer runs on slime mold. NBC News. Retrieved March 11, 2025, from https://www.nbcnews.com/id/wbna32736017

Shrourou, A. (2019, April 16). Using slime mold to produce accessible biosensors. News Medical. Retrieved March 11, 2025, from https://www.news-medical.net/news/20190415/Using-slime-mold-to-produce-accessible-biosensors.aspx

Slime Molds Help Show How Cancer Grows. (2012, August 24). WIRED. Retrieved March 11, 2025, from https://www.wired.com/2012/08/slime-molds-cancer-growth/

Slime Mold Simulations Used to Map Dark Matter Holding Universe Together. (2020, March 10). NASA Science. Retrieved March 11, 2025, from https://science.nasa.gov/missions/hubble/slime-mold-simulations-used-to-map-dark-matter-holding-universe-together/Walecki, N. (2021). Can Slime Molds Think? Harvard Magazine. Retrieved March 11, 2025, from https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2021/10/right-now-can-slime-molds-think

Could the New State of Matter be the Future of Quantum Computing?

Science, Technology / By

Definitions

  • Fermions- particles that have a mass and are one of matter’s two main building blocks.
    • Composite fermions- combinations of these fermions.
  • Superconductors- according to Cade Metz of the New York Times, “are materials that conduct electricity without losing the energy they are transmitting.”
  • Majorana- a particle that is its own antiparticle
    • Antiparticles- subatomic particles that have the same masses as corresponding particles, but they have opposite charges

We’re all told growing up that the states of matter are solid, liquid, and gas. As we grow up, plasma and Bose-Einstein Condensates are added to that list, but what if I were to tell you that a new state of matter was just created, and it’s being used to advance quantum computing. 

On February 19, Microsoft published a research paper in the science journal Nature, announcing that they created the Majorana-1 chip. The Majorana-1 chip is a microprocessor that uses a topological superconductor that yields particles that aren’t solid, liquid, or gas. Could this new state of matter be the key to the future of quantum computers?

History:

Thirty years ago, Jainendra Jain, a physicist at Penn State, pioneered a theory about a new state of matter. They called this theory the fractional quantum Hall effect and said that it was a liquid of composite fermions. These fermions can create a superconductor under the right conditions. Theorists then predicted that under the right conditions, these composite fermions could make a superconductor that encloses a Majorana. 

Image Source: Hu, C. (2022, September 7). IBM’s quantum computer. Popular Science.

Standard Versus Quantum Computing

Normal computers use “bits.” These are the 0’s and 1’s that make up data. On the other hand, quantum bits, or qubits, can be a 0, a 1, or a superposition, such as being a 0 and a 1 simultaneously. Together, these qubits drastically increase how quickly calculations can be made. In fact, if every computer in the world worked together, it would take decades to do what a quantum computer can do in just one day. 

One of the main challenges in the world of quantum computers is interference either from the environment or from within the system itself. If there is interference, qubits can collapse and cause errors by going into a definite state, meaning they would turn into only a 1 or a 0. That’s where theorists bring in these strange Majorana particles.

Theorists believed that these Majorana particles could be applied to quantum computing to make them more fault-tolerant. This happens because when there are two Majorana particles together, they either make a whole fermion or nothing, acting as the 0’s and 1’s of a standard bit. However, unlike most other qubits, Jainendra Jan says “the information here can be stored non-locally in a topological fashion.” What this means is that the two Majorana particles making up a qubit can have distance between them. Since neither of them have all the information, local interference can’t turn them on or off. So, the qubits won’t lose their data because it can correct errors as it calculates, allowing quantum computing to be used by industries in the future.

The New Quantum Computer

In 1997, Alexei Kitaev, a Russian American physicist, first came up with the idea of combining superconductors and semiconductors. Microsoft has worked toward this idea in what has been its longest-running research project by combining the superconductors most quantum computers use with the classical computer’s semiconductor’s strengths.

Experimentalists have found that in the right conditions, such as being cooled to about four hundred degrees below zero, composite fermions can pair up to form a topological superconductor that contains the highly sought-after Majorana particles. 

This topological superconductor, also called a topoconductor, is the new state of matter they created. A topoconductor is formed when a superconductor and a semiconductor are cooled to extremely low temperatures and then tuned with a magnetic field.

Far from the future?

Even with this exciting news involving a new state of matter that could revolutionize quantum computing, people shouldn’t get too excited yet. In fact, Microsoft’s Majorana-1 chip doesn’t actually show that composite fermions work as qubits because Jainendra Jain says it “focuses on Majorana particles in superconductor-semiconductor hybrid nanowires, not on Majorana particles in a composite-fermion superconductor.” However, it shows that the needed measurements for a Majorana particle-based computer are possible, showing a pathway to the future. 

Also, the Majorana-1 chip is still in development. It is designed to have up to one million qubits, but right now it only contains eight. Microsoft claims that it has to put one hundred qubits into the chip to make it commercially viable. They are predicting that this will come in the near future, and based on their predictions this technology may be possible by 2030. 

This technology could be used to advance research, improve energy efficiency, develop medicine, and much more. Some are still skeptical about it though because these computers are extremely powerful, so in the wrong hands the technology could pose a threat to national security.

Conclusion

While some scientists try to figure out if they should be developing this technology or not, others are off to the races, with Mirosoft, Google, Intel, IBM, and several foreign governments all trying to be the first to crack the code of quantum computing. 

If Microsoft’s data is verified, it could revolutionize technology and make the future of science come much sooner than originally predicted. Whether one believes we should develop this technology or not, everyone can agree that these incredible leaps in technology showcase how much we have furthered our understanding of the quantum world. Now, we just have to wait and see what the future has in store for this exciting new technology. 

References:

Fiveable. (n.d.). Antiparticle. Fiveable. Retrieved March 4, 2025, from https://fiveable.me/key-terms/principles-physics-iii-thermal-physics-waves/antiparticle

Klebanov, S. (2025, February 21). New state of matter just dropped? Morning Brew. Retrieved March 4, 2025, from https://www.morningbrew.com/stories/2025/02/21/new-state-of-matter-just-dropped

Metz, C. (2025, February 19). Microsoft Says It Has Created a New State of Matter to Power Quantum Computers. The New York Times. Retrieved March 4, 2025, from https://www.nytimes.com/2025/02/19/technology/microsoft-quantum-computing-topological-qubit.html

Porschke, T. (2025, February 26). Solid, Liquid, Gas, Plasma… Topoconductor? The Log. Retrieved March 4, 2025, from https://www.thelogcchs.com/post/solid-liquid-gas-plasma-topoconductor

Unacademy. (n.d.). Fermions and Bosons. Unacademy. Retrieved March 4, 2025, from https://unacademy.com/content/upsc/study-material/physics/fermions-and-bosons/

WennersHerron, A., & Berard, A. (2025, February 26). Q&A: Will Microsoft’s quantum ‘breakthrough’ revolutionize computing? Penn State. Retrieved March 4, 2025, from https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/qa-will-microsofts-quantum-breakthrough-revolutionize-computing

The Secret to Clustering? Unveiling the Mystery Behind Spinal Cancer Clusters

Biotech, Medicine, Science, Technology / By

According to the CDC, over 600,000 people passed away from this leading cause of death, making it the second greatest claimant of casualties. Upon being diagnosed, one experiences a lifetime of stress and a load of rigorous treatment in the form of chemotherapy in an attempt to kill all the cells before the illness could spread to the remainder of the body. It doesn’t always stop at this point though, many go on to have progressing stages that may either require more treatment, a verdict of ‘X months to live,’ or the first followed by the second. This illness is cancer. 

There are over a hundred and fifty types of cancer, ranging from the head to the toe and everything in between. Some cancers are heavily influenced by gender (such as breast cancer), others by age (such as prostate cancer), and so on and so forth. The specific one that ought to be highlighted though for its increased presence (clustering) of cancerous cells relative to the body is spinal cancer. Although most (if not all) cancers have the ability to cluster its cells in a couple of specific areas, this one can cause cancer cells to become three to five times more apparent in the spine relative to other limbs.

Without the assistance of modern medicine and technology necessary to probe deeper, scientists just considered this specific clustering of cells a medical mystery.

But we have access to that technology now. At least, researchers from Weill Cornell Medicine and the Hospital for Special Surgery in New York do. With these resources, they were available to figure out what exactly causes these clusters to emerge: vertebral skeletal stem cells in the spine. What makes these stem cells unique relative to other ones is their production of a protein that attracts these tumor (cancerous) cells to come to them.

So what can be done with this? Excellent question. 

Through identifying what may exactly cause this clustering, researchers can work on targeting these vertebral skeletal stem cells to disrupt their function (i.e., attracting cancerous tumor cells to them). 

That seems like the perfect plan, no? However, when an experiment on mice where these cells are targeted took place, it didn’t completely eliminate the amount of bone (and, by extension, the number of cancerous cells) in that area. This then begs the question: is there a second stem cell type that we aren’t accounting for? Or is it something else?

Sources

  • https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/leading-causes-of-death.htm
  • https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2023/11/28/new-stem-cell-spine-cancer/
  • https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37704733/

Exploring the Science Behind Allergies

Bio Chemistry, Biomedical, Biotech, Engineering, Immunology, Science, Technology / By

As alarming as it sounds, even a lick of peanut butter could be life-threatening. Allergies. What is it? Let’s see. Had the peanut in peanut butter been harmful to everyone it wouldn’t be called an allergy. Only if something reacts in an unprecedented way to a select few is then called an allergy.

So the question arises, How do I know if I’m allergic and what I am allergic to?

Allergies come in forms, ranging from water to even nickel coins. One can’t possibly predict what substances react weirdly with your body without ever being exposed to it. This is why allergy tests are done.

Well, Only a medical professional could let you know your allergies unless something you had eaten or been exposed to previously didn’t sit right with you. Symptoms of an allergy range from a runny nose to breathlessness and of course, the scary and itchy hives. 

Let’s take a look at what the doctor is doing behind the scenes, shall we?

An immunologist or allergist usually does the test which involves a skin prick or a patch test. The image above, from Westhillsaaa, illustrates a medical personnel checking for unusual reactions in a patient’s skin through various triggers.

The tests could range from injecting the allergens into your skin from an injection to taking out a blood sample. The choice of tests varies according to the patient’s data including their medical history, their condition, and suspected triggers.

Something to note about allergies is that a person can outgrow them with time. This is commonly seen in children getting rid of food allergies but some allergies like that of pollen and medications persist for a long time or even all your life.

Although you can’t possibly get rid of an allergy that still persists in adulthood, you can take certain medications and tests described accordingly to reduce complications.

A common medication is desensitization which is basically building tolerance for your allergen by exposing your body to it periodically under small concentrations. 

A personal suggestion is that you should have an emergency action plan including an EpiPen ready just in case things go south after eating/reacting to something new.

In the near future, who’s to deny that at the rate medical technology is growing, maybe we could even have a permanent remedy for allergies? That’s a topic up for discussion.