1 Week, 7 Stories #76
From big numbers to nothing.
The universe is going to die much faster than previously thought, and on that cheery note, this week’s newsletter is ready to give you some pause for thought.
We only have 1,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 years left according to new research. (To save you from counting, there are 78 zeroes there) That is considerably sooner than previously thought. According to a media release from Radboud University in the Netherlands, about 10 to the power of 1100 (that’s a 1 with 1,100 zeros) sooner.
The researchers also concluded that the Moon and the Earth will evaporate in about 1 followed by 90 zeros years.
Those are mind boggling numbers but suffice to say it is a long time either way and no one reading this needs to fret about the end.
But it does beg the question, what happens then?
There are a lot of theories, and they will remain theories because no one will have their smartphone out to record the end and post it to TikTok.
Most of the theories lean into it not being an end as much as it is a transition into another state.
The one we might be most familiar with is the Big Bang (the science, not the TV series) where the universe started from a single point, but there is also a Big Bounce theory. That speculates that the universe expands until it reaches a maximum limit, then collapses back into a single point, then bounces back. Over and over again. This essentially replaces the Big Bang, which theorizes that the universe continues to expand forever but is so spread out that it becomes a cold, lifeless place lost in absolute zero temperatures. Then there is the Big Crunch. In that scenario, the universe continues to expand until it reaches a Big Freeze and then starts to collapse upon itself, perhaps resulting in another Big Bang.
Looking at it more philosophically, there is no mainstream theory which wraps itself around a state of absolutely nothing. Every ending still has something in it.
Enjoy your morning coffee while you consider that even the vacuum of space has, and always will have, structure!
While we are playing with numbers, lets go with 350 followed by 6 zeroes or 350 million years. That is the latest estimate of when reptiles first started to roam the Earth which makes it a full 40 million years earlier than previously thought.
Again, big numbers that are not easy to wrap your head around, but numbers that qualify as a significant change.
The new evidence comes from a site in Australia where clawed fossilized tracks are “most probably” those of a reptile according to a media release from Flinders University in South Australia. This was not a giant menacing creature, but more along the lines of a Komodo Dragon about 80cm (31in) long. The prints themselves are small, but were found by two non-professionals which the paper in Nature says is “a demonstration of the value of citizen science”. The two are included as authors in the paper as “independent researchers”. The full fossil track suggests that one reptile ran across the ground and two more ran in the opposite direction just before it rained. The ground later hardened and was covered in sediment, leaving the imprints intact. The new discovery makes these the oldest reptile tracks found – a claim to fame previously held by 318 million year old prints found in New Brunswick’s Bay of Fundy.
To give you some context, the oldest known human or Homo sapiens footprint is about 153,000 years old and the oldest fossil ever found and dated is a 3.5 billion year old cyanobacteria found in Australia. UC Berkely points out that the oldest dated rock is only slightly older at 3.8 billion years.
And that I promise it the last story in this newsletter edition to tax your sense of time and space!
The idea of personalized medicine and the technology behind gene editing and gene therapy have been around for a couple of decades now, but last week the two came together in a giant step in the treatment of rare diseases.
A baby boy in the United States has been treated with a custom gene-editing therapy designed just for him and for his severe genetic disorder known as Carbamoyl Phosphate Synthetase 1 Deficiency. According to the National Organization for Rare Disorders, CPS1 is an inherited disorder where one of the five enzymes which play a part in the breakdown and removal of nitrogen from the body is either completely or partially absent. It requires a complex treatment to prevent the build up of ammonia in the body and half of all babies with the disorder die in the first weeks of life. Those that survive are faced with severe mental and developmental delays.
Unfortunately this is also where the economics of supply and demand come into play because what may keep goods and services moving, becomes a different equation in matters of life and death. Costs for gene therapies can be millions of dollars per patient.
CPS1 affects just one in 1.3 million babies, meaning that pharmaceutical companies are not investing large amounts of research and development money for a limited market and even at the pure research level, such rare diseases do not always receive enough grant money to find causes and develop cures.
In this case, baby KJ found a doctor and medical team willing to go out on a limb and the result may set the stage for treatment of other rare diseases. CPS1 is caused by a mutation in a single gene. Researchers used CRISPR, a precise gene editing tool, to correct that one gene in the baby’s liver cells. To borrow from the New York Times explanation it used a molecular GPS to crawl along the baby’s DNA until it found that one DNA letter among the possible three billion choices, and made the fix.
1 DNA letter among 3 billion in this 1 baby with a disease that only a handful of babies share.
Highly specialized CRISPR is readily available, the procedure for infusing an organism with gene-edited material is well established, and research is ongoing for many rare diseases. If a qualified team can put this all together like they did for baby KJ, the need to wait for drug companies to create, patent, and sell a one size fits all treatment becomes less of a factor. Medical and research teams can create their own bespoke genetic repair tools.
Gene-editing and personalized medicine has been criticized as hype and hope over practice and cost. However, as a former official with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said about this new development, we could finally view this as a breakthrough and transformational step.
A Bloomberg headline this week is another reminder of the obstacles facing efforts to reach net zero.
(If you have a problem accessing that link try a similar ABC News story)
The story goes on to talk about India as the biggest steelmaker at 350 million tonnes per year, produced mostly in furnaces fed by coal, making it a major source of harmful green house gases. Meanwhile in the UK former Prime Minister Tony Blair said net zero policies are losing support, and since the start of the year Shell has cut back on its emissions goals and BP has said it is refocusing on its oil and gas priorities. Canada Pension Plan Investments said this week it is dropping its net zero by 2050 targets, but says it will still incorporate sustainability into its portfolio. In the United States the new megabill which squeaked through Congress this week will “cripple the domestic green energy economy” according to Earthjustice. Oxford Economics tracked the impact that the Trump administration has had on US climate policy so far through executive orders and its “drill, baby, drill” attitude to energy production.
All this adds up to a lonely road to net zero.
As Tony Blair and others have noted, while the polls show public support for the goals of net zero, when it starts to take a chunk out of their income or cause personal pain, voters run for the nearest candidate promising to go slow or go nowhere at all.
None of this looks good for the planet but giving up is not an option because climate change affects “every person, in every household, in every town and every city, in every province and every country in the world”.
With warmer weather in most of Canada (Alberta as always not falling in line), ‘tis the season for mosquitoes. In fact from May until as late as October, we can expect the bloodsuckers to torture us wherever there is warm temperatures and standing water – even a small puddle will do according to a CBC story.
Mosquitoes can be found on every continent except Antarctica and apart from being a pest can carry diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, dengue, and West Nile fever.
But if you are in France, you may have noticed 40,000 extra Tiger mosquito males which were released recently, and there are plans to release millions more. There is a good reason however for the plan in the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. First off, these males are all sterile, and secondly, the black and white striped mosquito is an invasive species and in just a couple of decades has successfully become part of the French landscape. Climate change is contributing to the spread of disease carrying mosquitoes, so we can expect any of the 3,500 species of mosquitoes on the planet to keep spreading. Female mosquitoes only mate once in their short life and because these released males are sterile (done via x-rays), it will start reducing the overall mosquito numbers. A single female can lay as many as 300 eggs so the impact of the biotech approach to control the population is significant.
The “sterile insect technique” has been tried elsewhere in the world and this particular batch of sterile males are produced on the insect farm of Terratis, a start-up spun out of Université de Montpellier. The technique has been shown to reduce the overall birth rate up to 80% according to a Nature report this month.
At a cost of about 52,000 Euros (81,500 Cdn) the biotech approach is viable and less harmful than large scale chemical spraying.
In case you are wondering about an extra few million mosquitoes biting there way around the countryside, no need to worry. Only female mosquitoes bite.
It may have escaped your notice, but Tuesday was World Bee Day as designated by the United Nations. As Associated Press noted, it probably slipped past the bees as well, but it should be a day where we all pause and think about pollinators.
While the day is set aside to pay attention to the state of bees around the world, they are just one of many pollinators which include butterflies, wasps, bats, and hummingbirds. Insects of all kinds are in danger around the world, but pollinators are of the most concern, and the “plight of the bumble bee” is of particular interest. Too much pavement, too many pesticides, and too many extreme weather events are harming a pollinator that is responsible for one of every three bites of food you eat. Even our lawns are close to being a “dead zone for pollinators”.
Pollinator Partnership Canada says that pollinators drive $233 billion into the global economy, and honeybees are a significant part of agricultural productivity. According to Alberta Farm Express, the agricultural value of pollinators in Canada is in the three-to-seven-billion-dollar range. You may immediately start thinking about honey production but that accounts for only about $300 million in Canada. The rest of the value comes from crop production that relies on pollination.
There are about 20,000 species of bees in the world and 3,600 of those call Canada and the U.S. home. 28% of bumble bees, 50% of leave cutter bees, and 27% of mason bees are threatened. If you want to help preserve bee populations, Nature Alberta has posted Native Bees 101 on YouTube full of information and tips.
As political and cultural sentiment in Canada swings against the country below the 49th parallel, Kicking Horse Coffee asked coffee shops to change the name of an Americano to a Canadiano. The Kicking Horse Café says it has been using that name for many years now and wanted to show some Canadian pride by getting others to join in renaming the mix of espresso with hot water. The Daily Coffee News says that “Tariffs May Come and Go but the Canadiano Seems Here to Stay”. According to the story, the idea has gone over well across the country and some coffee shops say that Canadiano orders have doubled since the name change.
The history of the Americano seems to go back to WWII when American soldiers in Italy couldn’t handle the strong Italian espresso. They were used to drip coffee and had to cut the stronger brew with hot water to more closely match their preferences. Depending on how strong you want it, you can vary the amount of water. I used to stop for a double Americano when I was commuting in the morning which I suppose defeats the purpose of the Americano. Occasionally I went in the complete opposite direction and got a Red Eye, a high-test mix of espresso AND black coffee.
According to Forbes magazine the renaming of food for politics goes back to WWI. Sauerkraut was renamed “Liberty Cabbage” to distance itself from its German origins and when France opposed the Iraq War, some American restaurants turned their French fries into Freedom Fries but it never caught on in the same way as the Canadiano has.
What goes into the mug first when making a Canadiano? If you want to keep the espresso crema on top, the water goes in first. For a smoother drink, the espresso goes in first, but otherwise it doesn’t matter too much.
Whatever your preference, join the “quiet rebellion” and order a Canadiano!