Millennium discoveries
Every year, thousands of scientific discoveries are made. While some of them may not change much, others alter the course of history, reiterating how humans are the smartest species on Earth. Anirban Biswas, AIS Gur 46, XII discusses.
New prime number
Mathematics. Often considered the closest one can go to the writing of God. The subject never ceases to amaze anybody, especially when mathematicians discover a new prime number. The number is 2^74,207,281 – 1, was found through an internet project Great Internet Mersenne Prime Search. So what is its use? Actually a very ‘spyful’ one! Modern code writing and breaking requires the use of Mersenne Prime numbers (prime number that is one less than a power of two and can be written as Mn = 2n − 1) and other complex numbers to encode data. Talk about numbers meeting James Bond.
The evolutionary link
Until recently in 2015, scientists had been looking for the missing link between apes and humans. But now they think there is reason to believe their search has ended. In March 2015, scientists discovered a 2.8 million year old jaw bone in Ethiopiathus, extending timeline of the Genus Homo by 400,000 years. Again later, scientists found a set of bones in a cave. They were so different that scientist have classified them as a completely different species now known as ‘Homo Naledi’. They stood just five foot tall and weighed 100 pounds. Their skulls are like early humans, but their brains are tiny, just the size of an orange. There is an ongoing debate whether the bodies were deliberately left in the cave, for the behaviour reflected the burying rituals of our own ancestors Homo sapiens.
The futuristic vision
We are on the next frontier of human-technology amalgamation. A recent example is the Ocumetics Bionic Lens developed by Dr. Garth Webb, an optometrist in British Columbia. These lens will give patients a perfect vision and removes the chance of cataracts because the new lens replaces the natural one. The surgery would take merely eight minutes and would completely correct the patient’s vision. The lens is first folded like a taco and then inserted into our eye with the help of a saline filled syringe. Once inserted, it unfolds within 10 minutes. Depending upon trials, this product could very well be available in the markets very soon.
Fight with bacteria
Everyone knows about antibiotics. Ask a sixth grader, s/he will tell you that it is used to fight bacterial infections. But what many people don’t know is that the same antibiotics made by scientists decades back are still being used. No new antibiotic had been created or discovered. In the meantime, bacteria developed strains resistant to many antibiotics. Early in 2015, a team from Northeastern University in Massachusetts put a notch in the win column for medicine when it discovered Teixobactin, the first new antibiotic in 30 years. If those human trials go well, Teixobactin could be instrumental in dealing with tuberculosis, septicemia and various other diseases which are currently difficult to treat.
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