Science year 2021 MISSION TO DEFEND PLANET EARTH NOVEMBER: NASA launches its DART spacecraft, designed to divert potentially hazardous asteroids heading for planet Earth. The Double Asteroid Redirection Test mission will end in September 2022. The 560kg craft will slam into the moonlet, Dimorphos, as it orbits the asteroid, Didymos, altering the moonlet’s course. Changing its orbit will demonstrate it is possible to deflect an asteroid heading toward Earth Original orbit New orbit after impact Didymos Moonlet Dimorphos Dimorphos: 160m wide Empire State Building to scale COVID TEST AS EASY AS BREATHING MAY: Singapore-based Breathonix develops a breath test system that can accurately detect and identify Covid-19 within sixty seconds. The system identifies volatile organic compounds – biomarkers for respiratory diseases – in an individual’s exhaled breath User: Blows into disposable one-way valve mouthpiece Sample: Is fed into mass spectrometer. Algorithm analyses biomarkers WORLD’S OLDEST GENOME SEQUENCED FEBRUARY: Scientists at the Centre for Palaeogenetics in Stockholm extract DNA from mammoth remains thought to be 1.2 million years old, yielding the oldest full genome known to date 10cm 4 inches Minute amounts of DNA extracted from molars of three mammoths buried in Siberian permafrost TOUCHY-FEELY PROTEIN SENSORS OCTOBER: David Julius and Ardem Patapoutian are awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of receptors that detect temperature and touch at a molecular level Receptor TRPV1 Responds to temperatures above 40°C – close to pain threshold Stimulus Skin Epidermis Dermis Merkel cell Receptors Ion channel Protein connects Merkel cell to nerve fibre Ion channel Protein connects Merkel cell to nerve fibre Nerve fibre Receptor TRPM8 Protein activated by temperatures below 28°C – cold threshold PROTEIN FROM THIN AIR JANUARY: Finnish food tech Solar Foods scales up a concept for producing healthy protein from air. The protein is made by chemosynthesis. An edible bacterium uses energy in hydrogen gas to assimilate or “fix” carbon, nitrogen and sulphur. These three elements are incorporated into microbial biomass as carbohydrates, protein and fats Chemosynthesis: Analogous to photosynthesis, but relies on chemical energy instead of sunlight to power carbon dioxide fixation Bioreactor Hydrogen gas – generated by electrolysis of water – CO2 and trace elements are bubbled through liquid containing hydrogen-oxidizing bacteria Bacteria Eat nutrients and multiply, thickening liquid. Liquid is dried. Powder contains 50% protein, 20-25% carbohydrates and 5-10% fats Water H2O H2 O2 Sources: NASA / Johns Hopkins / APL, Biomimicry Institute, The Index Project, World Economic Forum, Breathonix, Nature, Stockholm Centre for Palaeogenetics, Stockholm University, Science Direct, Reuters Illustrations: Beth Zaiken, Steve Gribben © GRAPHIC NEWS