On Saturday, January 28th, the European Space Agency launched its new small telecom platform from its spaceport in Kourou, French Guiana. Based on the SmallGEO model, the Hispasat 36W satellite successfully reached lower earth orbit on a Soyuz rocket just 29 minutes after launch.

After demand for more flexibility with broadband internet, the satellite will provide modular telecommunications services to Europe, the Canary Islands, and South America.

SmallGEO and the OHB System in a Nutshell

The German satellite manufacturer OHB System AG built the three-tonne device, and it will be operated by a Spanish company.

After being released from the rocket, the satellite is now using its own thrusters to maneuver itself into a ‘geostationary orbit’ where it will stay to perform its functions. The orbit is 36,000 km above the equator. At this height, it will circle the earth at the same speed at which the planet rotates. As a result, it will appear to remain fixed in the sky from observers on the surface.

Once it reaches this orbit, OHB System will test the functionality of the satellite’s programs and determine whether or not its performance was damaged during its launch. When everything is ready to go, Hispasat will assume control over the satellite and begin offering broadband through it.

SmallGEO—shorthand for small geostationary satellite—has been an ongoing project of a partnership between the ESA and the Canadian government. The launch of this satellite will function as a test for future projects. If it works, the ESA will soon be sending several similar satellites into space.

Hispasat CEO Carlos Espinos Gomez praised the launch, saying

Hispasat 36W-1 is not only the first mission of the new SmallGEO platform, but also incorporates an advanced regenerative payload that will provide the satellite with greater flexibility and signal quality … thus improving the telecommunications services it will provide to our clients.

Andreas Lindenthal, a board member of OHB System AG, has said he hopes to cut production time on the SmallGEO to under three years. This reduced time of production could enable different missions and different types of missions, with time.

“Commonality is something which we have been able to demonstrate,” said Lindenthal. “We are able to introduce that across the disciplines into the various programs. This is for sure the future.”

Where the Project Gets Its Funding

Use of ESA funds for this project have come under fire for this type of project since its announcement. Magali Vaissiere, the ESA’s director of telecommunications and integrated applications, spoke out against these criticisms, saying,

The European public sector has a vested interest in supported partnerships between the private sector and ESA as it enables industry to take more risks and invest in new products and solutions, and in a way, accelerate their introduction on the market. Without the equivalent of say, the U.S. Department of Defense injecting vast funding resources into R&D, the European public and private sectors must work together to keep us at the forefront of advanced satellite technology and all the spin-off advantages that come with it.

Twelve different member states of the EU invested in SmallGEO, according to Gerd Gruppe, director of space administration at the DLR, including Spain, Sweden, Germany, and Luxembourg, with Spain and Germany having the largest investments in the project.

Marco Fuchs, CEO of OHB, admitted feeling proud that due to this new collaboration and the SmallGeo platform, the German satellites will be active again after a staggering 20 years of hiatus.

Image source: pexels.com/photo/discovery-earth-nasa-research-23789/

Over the past few decades, commercial tomatoes have slowly lost their delicious taste. They are more bland now. With genetic sequencing, scientists think they can restore some of the taste. A recent study published in January 2017 revealed chemical compounds that scientists can restore in commercial tomatoes, in order to improve their flavor.

Scientists Find a Way to Improve the Taste of Commercial Tomatoes

According to a study published in the Science journal on January 26, 2017 that was conducted by researchers at University of Florida, genetic sequencing can be used to partially restore the sweet taste of commercial tomatoes. Genetic sequencing is determining the order of DNA nucleotides, which are bases of the DNA.

Researchers compared the genetics and flavor profiles of ancestral and heirloom tomatoes with commercial tomatoes. A heirloom tomato has been passed down through several generations for its valued characteristics. Through the comparison, they found several chemical compounds that are responsible for giving tomatoes a good taste.

The full taste cannot be recovered because the market demands large, sturdy tomatoes. And lost taste is one of the sacrifices to grow larger, sturdier fruit.

They found the missing chemical compounds by sequencing 400 varieties of tomatoes. The researchers conducted taste tests on 101 of these varieties to discover which types people liked most. Upon examination of the favored tomatoes, they detected 25 chemical compounds that enhance taste. 13 of the chemical compounds they identified were significantly reduced in commercial varieties.

More Background on Commercial Tomatoes and How This Research Will Affect Produce

Scientists are now working on restoring the lost chemical compounds in commercial tomatoes by crossbreeding them with heirloom varieties. They estimate that it will take three years before the tomatoes are improved and sold in grocery stores. According to plant geneticist Esther van der Knaap,

If those tomatoes can be even slightly improved it will be a big gain for consumers, and this study certainly shows a road map of how that can be done.

Bigger tomatoes don’t taste as good because the limited amount of sugar in them is distributed across a larger area. And there wasn’t much the researchers could do to change that fact. Thus, they decided to explore a tomato’s scent. Smell plays an important role in how humans taste and experience food. As research assistant Denise Tieman explained,

The real excitement of food is what you smell. When you chew, these aroma compounds get into your olfactory systems and that’s what really makes things taste good.

A likely consequence of breeding commercial tomatoes with heirloom varieties is a shorter shelf-life. The plants may only be 90% as productive as well. These factors could cause the price of tomatoes to rise. However, as horticultural scientist and study co-author Harry Klee said, consumers will probably be willing to pay a higher price for a better tasting fruit.

The genetic sequencing technique used in this study can be utilized to improve the taste of other commercial produce as well. In fact, a commercial strawberry breeder has already hired some of Klee’s former students to run genetic sequencing on strawberries to help him improve his fruit.

Conclusion

This genetic sequencing study on the taste of tomatoes will lead to the flavor improvement of not only commercial tomatoes but other fruits and vegetables as well. Commercial tomatoes lose their flavor because sugar must be spread across a larger area and certain chemical compounds disappear during breeding. The researchers of this study found 25 chemical compounds that were severely diminished in commercial tomatoes.

By restoring these chemical compounds, they can partially restore the tomato’s delicious taste. It will take around three years for the project to be complete, but other producers have already shown an interest in applying the same techniques to improve their fruits and vegetables too.

Image source: pexels.com/photo/food-tomatoes-vegetable-8390/

Because life has existed for so long, there are countless species of creatures that no longer exist. We only know about these creatures through fossil records that they have left behind, but it s very rare to find completely intact fossils. Researchers recently found a fossilized insect in Myanmar that is surprisingly well preserved. The most shocking aspect of this find is the bizarre, alien-like shape of the insect.

Discovery of Fossilized Insect Shocks Scientific Community

There are over 1 million species of insects known on planet earth, but this vast variety of insects can all be categorized in just 31 orders. Most new insects or fossils that are discovered can easily be added into one of the basic 31 orders of insects, but a new find in Myanmar defies expectations.

The insect fossil was discovered in Myanmar, and it is preserved within amber, a fossilized form of tree sap. The body looks almost like a normal ant, but entomologists quickly realized it was something different. Dr George Poinar and professor Alex Brown recently published a report in the Cretaceous Research journal that proves the insect is a new order.

The clear, hard amber has preserved the insect so clearly that the researchers could see every detail. They could instantly tell that it looked like nothing ever seen before. Its most unusual feature is a triangular head with a neck at one point and a giant bulging eye at each of the two other points.

This has been completely unseen in the insect world because all other insects with a triangular head have a neck situated between two of the points on the triangle. The oblong, triangular head with the narrow neck is not found in any other type of insect.

Therefore, the researchers created a new scientific order, named Aethiocarenodea, just for this insect. Its individual name is Aethiocarenus burmanicus, so it is named after the Burmese mines where it was discovered.

Entire New Order of Insects Discovered

Most orders of insects, such as the Coleoptera order of beetles, contain hundreds of thousands of species. The Aethiocarenus burmanicus insect is the only species within the Aethiocarenodea order. So far, only one other specimen of the burmanicus insect has been found, and it was also trapped in Burmese amber.

The triangular, sideways head is the most unusual feature about the bug. Poinar says,

With its long neck, big eyes and strange oblong head, I thought it resembled E.T. I even made a Halloween mask that resembled the head of this insect.

The unusual head and neck arrangement would have allowed the burmanicus insect to see almost 180 degrees and turn its head sideways. It could easily have seen everything behind it, and the massive bulging eyes seem to be quite powerful.

A triangular head with a neck at the vertice is not the only hallmark of the new order. The insect also has neck glands that were capable of secreting a chemical to repel predators. Its body is unusually flat, and its legs are extremely long.

The Search for More Specimens Grows

Aethiocarenus burmanicus looks like no other insect due to its triangular head shape. The uniqueness of this fossilized insect has caused scientists to admit the existence of a 32nd order of insects.

Though new species are discovered all the time through fossil finds, it is very rare for researchers to discover a new order of insects. They now hope to find more examples of this unique insect shape as either fossilized specimens or living insects.

Photo by George Poinar, courtesy of Oregon State University, available under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 Generic license.

Scientists have successfully used rats as hosts to grow new pancreases for mice, a procedure that may have enormous implications for the future of human organ transplant capability. Researchers took stem cells from mice and put them into rats where a new pancreas was generated. The new organ was then transplanted from the rats back into mice. The hybrid pancreas organ then began to produce insulin in the mice, effectively curing them of diabetes.

The research was carried out at the Stanford University School of Medicine in California. Leading the effort was stem cell biologist Hiromitsu Nakauchi who published the results in the Jan. 26 issue of Nature.

The success of the rat-to-mice organ generation method suggests that the same procedure might eventually be developed for human subjects. That would require transplanting human stem cells into another species large enough to grow human-sized organs. Rats and mice are simply not large enough for human interaction, and are incompatible in other biological ways. One of the host animals most often suggested is a pig.

Why Pigs?

Use of pigs in conjunction with human medical applications actually has a long history. For example, pig valves are still commonly used today in heart transplants. Artificial insulin for diabetics was for years generated in pigs. The process has since been replaced by recombinant DNA technology, but pig or bovine-based insulin was once the only source.

Still another human-use product derived from pigs are tissues that are processed for wound closure applications. The fact is, using pig tissues to treat human subjects is well-established territory in medicine.

Ethical Medicine or Frankenstein Monsters

The rapidly developing science of inter-species growth of organs, hormones, various tissues and other products remains an area fraught with thorny ethical questions. From a common-sense point of view, many people feel that growing a body part in one animal for use in an entirely different species seems a fundamental violation of what Mother Nature intended. For many, on the other hand, it’s a deeply religious issue.

But there are also many legitimate concerns from a strictly scientific point of view. There are worries that interchanging biological components between species opens the door to dangerous contamination between human and animal species. For example, some fear that deeply embedded viruses or genetic diseases that can infect only pigs may somehow find itself into the human biology pool, potentially creating a catastrophic disease that could spread across the globe.

Another major ethical sticking point relates to the process in which mice pancreases were created with rat stem cells. Such stem cells are called pluripotent cells. To create a human organ using a pig, for example, researchers would have to inject large numbers of pluripotent cells into the animal. This theoretically could result in the generation of a large proportion of human cells throughout the animal body — but that might include brain cells — or the cells that lead to the development of human sperm and ovum.

Avoiding The Dangers

One does not have to be a professional medical biologist to understand the frightening implications of accidentally growing human brain cells or reproductive cells in animals – but those involved in such research today insist that extremely rigorous protocols are in place to prevent such a situation from ever arising.

Proponents of using human stem cells to grow hybrid organs in animals point to the dire shortage of human organs needed for life-saving transplants today. There are currently 121,678 people waiting for organ transplants in the U.S. Of these, 100,791 are kidney transplants. The average wait time for a kidney is 3.6 years, and 13 people die every day waiting for a donor.

Image source: https://www.pexels.com/photo/black-mouse-177719/

The famous 5,300-year-old mummy named Ötzi is making headlines yet again. Researchers have recently taken a deep look at this male mummy’s tummy and revealed that he most likely ate a cured meat before he was killed in the Ötztal Alps. Interestingly, scientists now claim that Ötzi probably ate a prehistoric brand of goat bacon as a part of his last meal.

Research Into Ötzi’s Stomach

Researchers started looking at Ötzi’s stomach way back in 2011. Dr. Albert Zink, a mummy specialist at the European Academy of Bolzano, led this particular study. As researchers began their studies, they found that the Stone Age man ate both goat and grains before his death. It wasn’t until Professor Zink took a deeper look at the nanostructure of the food’s fibers that he discovered this goat meat was dry-cured.

Previously, most scientists just assumed the meat must have been grilled or cooked. Since this goat grub was dry-cured, Dr. Zink proposed that the Stone Age Man probably brought the food with him from his home village. In a statement to the press, Professor Zink said Ötzi’s last meal was a “very fatty, dried meat—perhaps a type of Stone Age Speck or bacon.”

More thorough analysis of Ötzi’s stomach revealed that he ate no cheese or dairy products with the meat. Scientists also believe that Ötzi most likely had serious health issues with his stomach. Using genomic sequencing and non-invasive diagnostics, scientists revealed Ötzi had the Helicobacter pylori bacterium in his stomach. This bacterium is connected with both gastric cancer and stomach ulcers.

Brief History Of Ötzi the Stone Age Man

Ötzi was first brought to the world’s attention in 1991. That’s the year two German hikers discovered him encased in a glacier while hiking the Ötztal Alps, which are located between Italy and Austria. This mummy was found approximately 3,210 meters above sea level.

Researchers were stunned at how well preserved this Copper Age mummy was. They all decided to name him “Ötzi the Iceman” both in honor of the Ötztal Alps where he was found, and to highlight the fact that he was so well maintained within the ice.

Scientists are still in awe of Ötzi, mainly because his DNA is extremely stable and they can run numerous tests on him. Geneticists have already scanned a full code of Ötzi’s genome, and new data about his life is coming out almost every single year.

It was discovered over the years that Ötzi was most likely a man between the ages of 40 and 50. Ötzi was discovered without a bow or arrow, which indicates that he wasn’t out hunting at the time of his death. Scientists believe Ötzi was deliberately murdered.

Some scientists believe they can even give us a good sense of how Ötzi’s voice sounded and what clothes he wore when he was alive. A few pictures of what researchers believe Ötzi would have looked like are floating around the Internet.

How This Information Helps Researchers

Besides providing the modern world with a fascinating tidbit about prehistoric bacon, this study actually helps both scientists and historians get a better sense of the time in which Ötzi was alive. For example, the discovery of Helicobacter pyloriis helping researchers discover the migration patterns around Europe some 5,300-years ago. The H. pylori strain in Ötzi’s stomach was actually shared with Asians, not North Africans.

This indicates tribes from Europe didn’t interbreed with Africans at this point in history. Yoshan Moodley, a biology professor at University of Venda in South Africa, said that we can now be sure the migrations which brought the African strain of Helicobacter pylori into Europe “had not occurred…by the time the iceman was around.”

These and other discoveries from Ötzi’s stomach are giving researchers around the world a clearer picture of Europe during the Copper Age.

Photo by Paul Hudson, available under a Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.