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So you're into sci fi? But what about sci fact? Sometimes fact is stranger than fiction...

Each month our very own Voyager Science Queen* will bring you interesting, quirky and downright bizarre tasty morsels from the world of science. And its all completely, totally, 100% true!

Science Page October 2011

Exciting Times!

This past month has been one of the most exciting for many fields of science. Rather than just focus on one discovery, I am going to share three announcements made in September. All three are monumentally important in different ways, and I didn’t want to put off discussing these discoveries for fear that would imply one was more important than the others.

The George Lucas Moment

Scientists are often fans of the Science Fiction genre; I know that my own love of Science Fiction was what led to my curiosity about science, and finally influenced my selection of Zoology for my first degree. So it should be no surprise that astronomers were thrilled to find a planet circling twin suns just 200 light years away from Earth.

Leaping shades of Star Wars and Tatooine, Luke!

The newly-discovered planet has been named Kepler-16b, since it was found using NASA’s Kepler space telescope. The Kepler telescope is named for Johannes Kepler, who described planetary motion and formulated Kelper’s Laws; how fitting it is that the telescope is finding extra-Solar planets! The National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s Kepler mission has found more than 1200 planets since commencing its search for planets.

Kepler-16b isn’t anything like the fictional Tatooine, as it is about the size and mass of Saturn, and terribly coldsince its orbit is over 100 million kilometers (65 million miles) from its twin suns. However, it is the first planet to be discovered in a double star system. Alan Boss, a theoretical astrophysicist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, believes it won’t be the last.

I am excited by this discovery for two reasons. Firstly, I am a Star Wars fan and so just enjoy the thrill of discovering a real-life analogue to Tatooine. Secondly, every new planet discovered improves the probability of extra-terrestrial life; as a zoologist, the concept of alien life is thrilling. This leads very nicely into the second discovery:

The Terminator 2 Moment

In Terminator 2: Judgement Day, the T-1000 was a robot made of liquid metal that could shape-shift into a multiple of different forms. It was as if he was constructed of living metal. My friends and I often discussed how just a creation would be managed, and we came up with the idea of cell-like analogues made of metal. We thought such a thing impossible – and now we have been proven wrong.

Professor Leroy (Lee) Cronin, of the University of Glasgow, and his research team have managed to produce cell-like metal bubbles, which he has named iCHELLs.

Cronin starts by using large ‘polyoxometalates’, which are made of a range of metal atoms linked to oxygen and phosphorus. His process involves mixing differently charged salt solutions of the polyoxometalateswith large, positively-charged organic ions bound to smaller negative ions. This forms the metal bubbles, or membrane-analogues. This is a simplified overview of a complicated process.

Professor Cronin has also managed to produces bubbles within bubbles, mimicking the organelles with cells. He has some evidence that protons are able to cross the membranes if a proton gradient exists. However, he has no nucleus analogue, and until the cells can reproduce without human assistance, consume energy in some form, and excrete wastes, they cannot be considered living cells.

However, these results do support the idea that there may be metal-based life forms somewhere in the universe. As Professor Cronin explained, “There is every possibility that there are life forms out there which aren't based on carbon.”

The War Games Moment

Gaming has been around long enough that two generations can claim gaming fanatics – and we can’t be too far from a third generation of gamers. However, gaming has crossed over from entertainment into the realm of scientific research, thanks to the use of a team of gamers and the game ‘Foldit’.
For a quick overview, ‘Foldit’ is a game that allows gamers to twist and fold virtual proteins. Understanding the structure of certain proteins gives researchers the ability to create medical procedures and drugs to combat diseases, because they can focus on targeting that specific protein that cause a disease, like the HIV that causes AIDS.
Scientists have been struggling with the structure of the Mason-Pfizer monkey virus (M-PMV) for nearly a decade; it is a retrovirus with a structure related to HIV. Then, somebody decided to think outside the box! By turning the structural problem into a puzzle in an online game, the team working on the problem was increased enormously.

It didn’t matter that the gamers had no background in biochemistry. In fact, it may have allowed the gamers to attempt solutions that biochemists may have dismissed.The Foldit players were given ten different, incorrect models as a starting point and the gamersredesigned the models, coming up with thousands and thousands of variations.Over the course of sixteen days, three very good solutions where achieved, and from there it took the researchers only a few more days to get the complete solution.

Now, this result was amazing. However, and more importantly, now a whole new methodology is available to research. And this is a methodology involves not just a few highly-trained scientists struggling with few resources and under-funding, but a section of the public who are not only thrilled to play games, but rejoice at the opportunity to show off their problem-solving skills to their peers.

This is Science at its best, where the general public can work towards a goal that benefits everyone, and have fun at the same time. It breaks down the perception that Science is an elitist concern and is something too difficult to understand – and what you don’t understand is often scary. And I believe this is a very good thing, as I would hope that the demystifying of Science will stop making it the target of those fundamentalist groups that see all scientific progress as a threat.

*The Voyager Science Queen is also known as Lynne Lumsden Green

So, who is this woman who attempts to entertain us with Science?

Lynne Lumsden Green lives on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland, and attends the University of the Sunshine Coast. Ever the perpetual student, she is adding a B.A. in Creative Writing to her B.SC. in Zoology (Jennifer Fallon is her role model). As one of the founding members of Scriber Space, the site for USC creative writers, she hopes to create a writing community as lively and as close as the Voyager writing community. She spends her non-study hours volunteering for writing-related events, writing, reading, and – oh yes – looking after her family. She is still passionately interested in anything and everything, and enjoys the opportunity to share this passion via the Science Page. Terry Pratchett, Isaac Asimov, Neil Gaiman, and all the Voyager authors are her favourite people on the planet...and one of her goals is to meet all of those authors, well, at least those authors still in the land of the living. Recently, her own writing efforts have been meeting with better success. She is putting this down to her excellent lecturers and persistence, and to the fact that you can eat chocolate while typing.

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Looking for more scientific oddities? Have you checked out Dr Steven Juan's website? He is, quite literally, the wizard of odds!