science day 2012

12/28/2012 Science Day Govinda Bhisetti 1

Science Day 2012 Friday, December 28, 2012

9:30 AM Arrival 10:00 – 10:15 AM Introduction 10:15 – 10:30 PM Tribute to Dr. Yellapragada SubbaRow 10:30 – 12:30 PM 2012 Nobel Prizes 12:30 – 1:30 PM Lunch 2:00 – 3:30 PM Breakthroughs in Science 2012 3:30 – 5:30 PM Movie

Govinda Bhisetti, Ph. D. Lexington, MA 02421 [email protected]


Dr. Yellapragada SubbaRow Science Day is dedicated to Dr. SubbaRow

Who arrived in Boston 90 years ago and went on to make breakthrough discoveries in Biochemistry and Medicine.

He discovered ATP, phosphocreatin, methotrexate (anti-folate), hetrazan and led the discovery of the first antibiotic. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellapragada_Subbarao A short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbdiut6JujA


This year's monetary award will be 8 million Swedish kronor (SEK) - about $1.2 million. This represents a drop of 20%, compared with last year, from 10 million SEK, and is due to the turbulence that has hit financial markets.

Nobel Prize

"…The whole of my remaining realizable estate shall be dealt with in the following way: The capital shall be invested by my executors in safe securities and shall constitute a fund, the interest on which shall be annually distributed in the form of prizes to those who, during the preceding year, shall have conferred the greatest benefit on mankind ... ; one part to the person who shall have made the most important discovery within the domain of physiology or medicine; ... The prizes for ... shall be awarded by ... that for physiology or medicine by the Carolinska Institute in Stockholm; ... " Alfred Nobel's will, signed in Paris on 27 November 1895. The statutes of the Nobel Foundation, which were officially approved by the Swedish Government on 29 June 1900.


How are the Nobel Laureates Selected?


Prize Announcement Schedule

•  Monday, October 8, 2012 PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE •  Tuesday, October 9, 2012 PHYSICS

•  Wednesday, October 10, 2011 CHEMISTRY

•  Thursday, October 11, 2011 LITERATURE •  Friday, October 12, 2010 PEACE •  •  Monday, October 15, 2010 ECONOMICS

Prizes were awarded on December 10, 2012


2012 Nobel Prize winners


Mo Yan "who with hallucinatory realism merges folk tales, history

and the contemporary”

Has written 11 novels, including The Garlic Ballads, Red Sorghum Clan, The Republic of Wine, Big Breasts and Wide Hips; Life and Death are Wearing Me Out; Frog Produced more than 30 long stories, including Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh Has also written more than 80 short stories


Peace Nobel Prize

European Union (EU) "for over six decades contributed to the advancement of peace and reconciliation, democracy and human rights in Europe”


Economic Sciences Alvin E. Roth and Lloyd S. Shapley

"for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design"

Shapley used game theory to study matching models, and Roth built on them to make real-world changes to existing markets, including school choice and organ transplants, the academy said.


PHYSIOLOGY or MEDICINE Sir John Gurdon and Shinya Yamanaka

"for revealing that mature cells can be reverted into primitive cells"

Ralph M. Steinman Rockefeller University, NY

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/health/july-dec12/nobel_10-08.html


Science Report on Sir Gurdon

Nobel Physics interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2lU4uiOPUQ


Stem Cells and its Potential Uses

Nobel Physics interview: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2lU4uiOPUQ


Adult Cells and induced iPSC

Rewind,Reprogram and Replace First one converts the somatic cell into pluripotent cell, the second one corrects the genetic defect and the third one turns the cells into a new cell type that can replace the diseased cell type in the patient.


CHEMISTRY

Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka "for studies of G-protein-coupled receptors"

Fight or Flight: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2GywoS77qc Epinephrene : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejq99wLEMTw

There are around 800 known human GPCRs. But before Lefkowitz identified them and, together with Kobilka, determined how they work, nobody even knew they existed. GPCRs help us to sense light, flavour and odour. They are also responsible for the body’s reactions to chemicals such as adrenaline, histamine, dopamine and serotonin.


G-Protein Coupled Receptors

G-protein coupled receptors sit in cell membranes. It’s their job to tell the inside of the cell what is going on outside. Thanks to the work of Lefkowitz and Kobilka, we know about what they are, how they are built and how they work. A new molecular portrait shows how the activation of a hormone receptor (green) by a small signalling molecule (top) causes a dramatic structural shift in its associated G protein (yellow, blue and mauve) GPCRs in one Minute http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=696maX-V5AE http://www.periodicvideos.com/videos/feature_nobel_prize_2012.htm


PHYSICS

Sege Haroche and David Wineland

"for ground-breaking experimental methods that enable measuring and manipulation of individual quantum systems”

Sege Harioche David Wineland


Ervin Schrodinger’s Cat (1935)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CrxqTtiWxs4


Fundamental quantum particles

How do we see Light? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2dRr-fnPCwM

Schrödinger (1952): “We never experiment with just one electron or atom or (small) molecule. In thought experiments, we sometimes assume that we do; this invariably entails ridiculous consequences…” 2012 laureates made it possible to enter this world! * precise control + isolation from environment * simple small systems


Quantum Optics

“This year’s Nobel Prize in physics is about the interaction between light and matter.” The Nobel Laureates have opened the door to a new era of experimentation with quantum physics by demonstrating the direct observation of individual quantum particles without destroying them. The new methods allow them to examine, control and count the particles, which were previously thought inaccessible for direct observation. . David Wineland traps electrically charged atoms, or ions, controlling and measuring them with light, or photons. Serge Haroche takes the opposite approach: he controls and measures trapped photons, or particles of light, by sending atoms through a trap. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmxpUFxHlGg


Break


Exotic particles made headlines again and again in 2012, making it no surprise that the breakthrough of the year is a big physics finding: confirmation of the existence of the Higgs Boson. Hypothesized more than 40 years ago, the elusive particle completes the standard model of physics, and is arguably the key to the explanation of how other fundamental particles obtain mass.

Breakthrough of the Year 2012

23 December 2011


2012 Science Breakthroughs 1. The Higgs Boson detected 2. A Home Run for Ancient DNA 3. Genomic Cruise Missiles 4. Crash Project Opens a Door in Neutrino Physics 5. Genomics Beyond Genes 6. Scary Engineering Tames Martian Terror 7. First Protein Structure From an X-ray Laser 8. Brain-Machine Interfaces Start to Get a Grip 9. Majorana Fermions, Quasi-Here at Last 10. Making Eggs from Stem Cells


10. Making Eggs from Stem Cells Fertilized lab-derived egg cells yielded embryos—and live mice

Japanese scientists created viable egg cells using embryonic stem cells from adult mice. The breakthrough raises the possibility that women who are unable to produce eggs naturally could have them created in a test tube from their own cells and then implanted in their body.


9. Majorana Fermions

Scientists confirmed the existence of Majorana fermions, particles that can act as their own antimatter and destroy themselves. Scientists believe that “qubits” made of Majorana fermions could be used to more efficiently store and process data than the bits currently used in digital computers.


8. Brain-Machine Interfaces Get a Grip

A brain-machine interface that allows paralysed humans to move a mechanical arm with their minds and perform movements in three dimensions. The experimental technology is promising for patients paralyzed by strokes and spinal injuries.


7. First Protein Structure from X-ray Laser Use of an X-ray laser, which shines one billion times brighter than traditional synchroton sources, allowed scientists to determine the structure of a protein involved in the transmission of African sleeping sickness. The advance demonstrated the potential of X-ray lasers to decipher proteins that conventional X-ray sources cannot.


6. Scary Engineering Tames Martian Terror: Landing Curiosity

NASA engineers landed the 3.3 ton Mars Curiosity rover on the Red Planet by using an innovative “sky crane” landing system that dangled the vehicle, with its wheels out, at the end of three cables. The flawless landing reassured planners that NASA could someday land a second mission near an earlier rover to pick up samples the rover collected and return them to Earth.


5. Genomics Beyond Genes A decade long, $288 million study reported this year in more than 30 papers showed the human genome to be quite a bustling place, biochemically speaking. The work—called the Encyclopedia of DNA Elements (ENCODE)—builds on the Human Genome Project, which deciphered the order of the bases that are our DNA’s building blocks and found that less than 2% of those bases defined genes. The ENCODE Project, which showed that 80 percent of the human genome is active and helps turn genes on and off. The new information could help scientists understand genetic risk factors for diseases. ENCODE gives labels and functions to much of the DNA between genes, emphasizing the non-coding and regulatory regions of our genomes.


4. Crash Project Opens a Door in Neutriono Physics

That was fast! Construction of China’s Daya Bay Reactor Neutrino Experiment began in 2007. With 2 months’ worth of data, it scooped competitors in Japan, France, Korea, and the United States. Researchers discovered the final unknown parameter of a model describing how sub-atomic particles. neutrinos change as they travel at near-light speed. The results suggest that neutrino physics may someday help researchers explain why the universe contains so much matter and so little antimatter.


3. Genetic Cruise Missile (TALENS)

Transcription Activator-Like Effector Nucleases (TALENs) are engineered restriction enzymes generated by fusing the TAL effector DNA binding domain to a DNA cleavage domain. The typical restriction endonuclease used is FokI, which has to dimerize in order to cut DNA. For TALENs, two engineered TAL effectors are designed that bind the targeted DNA sequence on either side of the chosen cut site in the genome. Errors in DNA repair at the site of cleavage lead to deletions and insertions, and permanent alteration of the targeted locus.

Genome engineers got their hands on powerful new tools that put the modification of DNA within easy reach of biologists studying a variety of organisms, including yeast and humans. The new tool could be as effective, and even cheaper, than current gene-targeting techniques and could let researchers focus on specific roles for genes and mutations in healthy and sick people.


2. A Home Run for Ancient DNA Postdoc Matthias Meyer at the

Max Planck Institute fused a new technique to sequence the complete genome of an enigmatic group of humans called the Denisovans, based on a tiny sample teased from a finger bone about 80,000 years old found in a cave in Siberia. Nothing was known about the Denisovans other than that they were contemporaries of the Neanderthals, another “cousin” species of modern humans.

Using a novel technique for sequencing degraded DNA, researchers sequenced the Denisovan genome, shedding light on early human history.


1. Breakthrough of the Year: Higgs Boson

In this particle collision, a Higgs boson decays into two electrons and two positrons (red). http://podcasts.aaas.org/science_podcast/SciencePodcast_111223.mp3 Higgs Boson: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RIg1Vh7uPyw http://www.sciencemag.org/content/338/6114/1524.full

That feat marks an intellectual, technological, and organizational triumph. To produce the Higgs, researchers at the European particle physics laboratory, CERN, near Geneva, built the $5.5 billion, 27-kilometer-long LHC. To spot the Higgs, they built gargantuan particle detectors—ATLAS, which is 25 meters tall and 45 meters long, and CMS, which weighs 12,500 tonnes. The ATLAS and CMS teams boast 3000 members each. More than 100 nations have a hand in the LHC.


Exotic particles made headlines again and again in 2012, making it no surprise that the breakthrough of the year is a big physics finding: confirmation of the existence of the Higgs Boson. Hypothesized more than 40 years ago, the elusive particle completes the standard model of physics, and is arguably the key to the explanation of how other fundamental particles obtain mass. In this video, Science News Writer Adrian Cho talks about this momentous finding and what physicists will do next. http://video.sciencemag.org/SciOriginals/2047901580001/1/@btoy2012

Breakthrough of the Year 2012

23 December 2011

science day 2012

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