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Deep Space Signal

The question of whether alien life exists or not has been debated, pondered and experimented upon for decades. People have been trying to find a sign or a signal that will indicate life beyond our planet. Now, a Harvard professor believes we might be receiving a signal that may prove that aliens do exist.

In Canada, researchers discovered a very powerful radio signal that they believe could be coming from another distant galaxy. This signal seems to repeat itself every 16 days. A Harvard professor, who is the chair of the Harvard Astronomy Department, believes that this signal could be a sign of an alien civilization. However, he does acknowledge that signals could also be generated through young neutron stars or another phenomenon that is not familiar to us yet. The signal is called a fast radio bust or FBR.

He believes that a possibility could be that alien life could be using a beam of energy to transport something within space. The signal that is being received by the Canadian researchers is the energy or radiation that is being leaked from that. However, the amount of energy needed for such a beam would be equivalent to the energy needed to sustain Earth, which seems unlikely.

The Canadian researchers do not seem to have the same point of view as the Harvard researchers and have said that non-professionals claim it as extraterrestrial life when they do not believe so. However, the Harvard professor is insistent that it is a possibility that needs to be considered and should be looked into with detail, with regards to possible natural causes and phenomena.

If we think about how our lives will change if alien contact is made, the thought itself is staggering. When the news of this signal spread, some people began to express their worry and fear while others wanted to know more. Scientists believe that actual contact with such life are close to impossible, because traveling in space is too difficult for them to come to Earth, or for humans to meet them where they are situated.

At times, such news may show some signs of extraterrestrial life and may have researchers excited for what they may discover; however, there has never been any substantial proof of whether life exists beyond Earth.

Cyborg Jellyfish

When we consider jellyfish, we never think of them as cyborgs. They are fish in the sea that are usually transparent and sting when you get near their tentacles, sometimes powerful enough to kill a human. However, scientists have created cyborg jellyfish to explore the ocean in a more efficient way.

A team of scientists and researchers from world-class universities such as Caltech and Stanford decided to attach microelectronics that are low powered onto Jellyfish. These electronics will enable the jellyfish to swim three times as fast as the original, creating a bio-hybrid jellyfish.

The reason that researchers have done this is to enable themselves to look within area of the ocean where humans have been unable to explore. If we consider submarines, they are able to cover certain depths, however there is a limit to which they can go down. The jellyfish will be installed with sensors that will enable scientists to look and explore the depths of the oceans.

In the trials that were conducted by the scientists, the researchers were able to shock the jellyfish with the electronic device they had installed and it led to the jellyfish swimming faster and more efficiently. Hence proving to the researchers that exploring the oceans through jellyfish may actually be a very real possibility.

They claim that they have shown that jellyfish can move much faster with the help of the technology the scientists have installed without any effect to their metabolism. Normally jellyfish do not have the need to swim fast, but do hold the capability to swim much faster than their usual speed.

The simplicity of the electronics that have been designed by the researchers is such that the electronics use very little power, even less than aquatic robots, which is what makes them so efficient and well suited.

This discovery could revolutionize the way oceans are explored. Scientists believe they can take this electronic device a step further by making modifications to the design to allow measuring of temperature and depth, as well as directing and controlling the jellyfish.

This would change the way we see oceans. We will be able to see creatures that live far deeper than we’ve ever explored before and better understand life beneath the waves.

Time Machine

Inspired from many stories and movies like “Back to the Future”, everyone dreams of traveling back in time for many different reasons. Scientists and Astrophysicists are also keen to pursue this subject and after an immense struggle, they have been able to say that they know how to turn this fictional idea into a reality.

One such astrophysicist named Ron Mallett was confident that he had theoretically found a way to travel to the past. In an interview with CNN, he said that he has written a scientific equation that can be used as the basis for the actual time machine. He further said that using this equation, he had made a preliminary version of the time machine to demonstrate the main components of his theory to the world.

Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity performed an exceptional role in the making of Mallett’s time machine. Einstein’s theory of relativity states that time accelerates or decelerates depending upon the speed at which an object is moving. Based on this theory Mallett thought that if a person is traveling at the speed of light in a spaceship, time will pass slowly compared to the time passed by someone on Earth. Basically, this means that an astronaut can go around space in less than a week, but a decade would pass by the time of his return to earth.

Many physicists do agree that while going forward in time is possible, traveling back in time is not. This raised another issue, but Mallett proposed that by using lasers he can make that possible too.

For traveling back in time, the astrophysicist again used Einstein’s theory that states that space-time is bent by gigantic objects subject to gravity. The stronger the gravity is, the slower time passes and vice versa. Mallett told CNN that in Einstein’s theory when we talk of space, we involve time in it too and that’s why it is called space time, whatever you do to space also happens with time. He further said that if you can bend space, the possibility exists that you can twist it too.

Mallett argued that it is possible to bend time into a hoop or a loop, doing this will allow time to travel to the past. Using lasers, he even built a prototype and argued that by carefully studying the type of gravitational field that was produced by a ring laser, a new way of looking at the possibility of a time machine could be found based on a circulating ray of light.

Mallet is extremely positive about the success of his work, but his colleagues are doubtful whether he is on the right path to a working time machine or not. Astrophysicist Paul Sutter expressed his reservations on Mallett’s work as he identified some mathematical errors and mistakes in his theory.

Magnetic North Pole Movement

Like all the other known planets that neighbor earth in our spiral galaxy, our planet also has a magnetic field around it of its own. This field has two known poles – the north magnetic pole and the south magnetic pole. The north magnetic pole has recently caught the attention and interest of scientists because of an interesting shift they observed in its movement over the past few years.

The North Pole Movement in Past

Generally, the north magnetic pole has been observed to constantly wander around the northern hemisphere. First discovered in 1831, scientists kept on observing the same trend in the North Pole’s movement for years until a deviation was noticed a few years ago.

The northern pole’s magnetic movements slowly changed position over time due to the changes that occurred in the magnetic core of the Earth. It was found that the North Pole was moving in loops that made it travel around 50 miles in 24 hours. The actual location of these loops, however, varies at a pace of around 25 miles in 365 days. Constant observation during the last one and a half century has seen the north magnetic pole travel a total distance of around 685 miles or 1102Kms. The movement of the south magnetic pole, has also been observed and it is no different than that of its northern counterpart.

An unexpected change has been observed in the North Pole’s movement

The north magnetic pole was previously moving nearer to Russian with a speed of around 35 miles per year. The expected movement pattern for the north magnetic pole was for it to move in a steady speed around Canada. However, now this pole is frantically moving from Canadian Arctic towards Siberia since it has drifted away from its previous place of stay – the Canadian Arctic. Over the past 20 years, scientists have observed the pole moving towards Siberia, even crossing the prime meridian, something that was not expected. The prime meridian is an imaginary divide that is accepted as the standard time zone of the world. The crossing of the meridian by the north magnetic pole has happened for the first time after its discovery and this has led scientists to try and predict the future.

What will happen next?

Now the pace of the north magnetic field is making it difficult to track its path since it has been rapidly increasing over the past few years. This rapid increase in speed of the north pole’s movement is expected to void our conventional compass systems. It is also being feared that the nature of the north pole’s movement will affect the famous aurora borealis.

Extending Lifespans

Aging is a subject that effects everyone and almost everyone in the modern world is busy finding effective and harmless ways to slow it down. Scientists have recently made an incredible step forward in their experiments by extending the life span of worms. According to a study published in July in the journal Cell Reports, a team of international researchers have made it possible for a worm, that lives typically for three or four weeks only, to live five times longer than his expected life-time. This is similar to a human being living 400 years. Scientists are confident that some additional research can turn this study into reality in near future.

How will this be done?

Molecules in a cell act as the pathway to carry various cellular functions. One molecule receives a signal to do something then transfers that signal to another molecule. The other molecule transfers the message to the next one and so on until the signal or message is acted upon. As the field of biology is very wide, researchers found a link between the insulin signalling pathway and the aging signalling pathway.

All the experimenting was done on a worm. When scientists changed the first pathway, the life span of the worm doubled, but by altering the second pathway the life span increased by about thirty percent. So, logically it was concluded that by changing both the pathways the average life span can be increased by about 130 percent.

However, the scientists argued that doing this should actually increase the life span by about 500 percent. To support this statement Jarod Rollins of the MDI Biological Laboratory said in a press release “…the synergistic extension is really wild, the effect is not one plus one equals two, it is one plus one equals five. Our findings demonstrate that nothing in nature exists in a vacuum; in order to develop the most effective anti-aging treatments we have to look at the longevity networks rather than individual pathways…”

These findings showed that aging is not simply the result of one specific gene or pathway acting on its own, but rather a union of networks all working together for the long term. This will certainly help explain why no single gene or pathway has been found that can provide longer life for worms, humans, or any other animal.

Although worms are not like humans, they do share many similar cellular pathways with us. So, scientists have now agreed that the process used to extend the lifespan of worms could also be applied to human beings.

Despite all efforts, the manner of interaction between pathways has not been found yet. The president of MDI Biological Laboratory Hermann Haller in a press release said “… by helping to characterize these interactions, our scientists are paving the way for much needed therapies to increase a healthy lifespan for a rapidly aging population…”

Iranian Cyber-attack

A cyber-attack is a type of aggressive operation, which targets computer systems, infrastructures, computerized networks, or personal computer devices. The cyber attackers aim to access data, functions, or other important areas of the hacked system illegally. A cyber-attack can be carried out by an individual person, group of people, a country or some terrorist organizations as well.

Editorial credit: saeediex / Shutterstock.com

Before discussing the Iranian Cyber-attack, it is important to know the event that shaped the probabilities of Iranian cyber-attack to a serious extent. On 3rd January 2020, The United States killed Iran’s military general Qassim Suleimani. Shocked by the death of their beloved General, the Middle East declared payback for the murder.

Although the internet broke the news that world war-III was about to take place, but soon it started to speculate that the matter would not turn into a physical battle, rather would turn into a cyber-one which too is as serious as a physical attack. Jon Bateman, a fellow of cyber security for International peace said that a cyber-attack is expected in vengeance for Suleimani’s murder.

The next day, the United States’ department of homeland security in a bulletin warned Iran that the nation is capable of carrying out its own attack supported by a robust cyber program. When experts came to know about these warnings, they seemed to believe that the Iranian cyber-attack was impending.

Sergio Caltagirone, Vice President of Threat Intelligence said that when countries use cyber-attacks, a lot of the time the attacks are against civilian targets rather than military targets. He also said that, it looks like civilians and innocent people all around the world, including Iranians, Americans, and Saudis, will have to bear the effect of these attacks. Similarly, if Iran initiates a cyber-attack against the United States, the local residents of both the countries would suffer.

Iran and the United States have already been engaged in a cyber war for many years. The U.S has been blamed for using computers and computer viruses to disturb nuclear facilities and infrastructure in Iran. Iran was also held responsible for the 2018 cyber-attack that badly affected the government and residents of Atlanta. Chances are that this time Iran might hack the American Water system and power networks.

The one and only benefit of a cyber-attack over a physical battle is that it is generally anonymous. This means that a country can attack their enemies without letting them know who is responsible for all the damage.

To conclude, it can be said that the news of the assassination of Suleimani shocked many people, and will result in retaliations. The daughter of General Qassim Suleimani, Zeinab Suleimani, directly threatened the U.S. military by saying that “…the families of the American soldiers in western Asia… the west will spend their days waiting for the death of their children…”