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Researchers have developed a means to realize cold-atom integrated nanophotonic circuits.

Researchers have developed a means to realize cold-atom integrated nanophotonic circuits.

One of the hazards astronauts must contend with is muscle loss. The more time they spend in a microgravity environment, the more muscle loss they suffer. Astronauts use exercise to counter the effects of muscle atrophy, but it’s not a perfect solution. Researchers want to develop drugs to help, and understanding the muscle-loss process in space is a critical first step.

In the early days of space travel, researchers weren’t certain what effects microgravity had on astronauts. As the length of space missions grew and scientific monitoring became more prevalent, researchers gained a better understanding of the problem. After the Skylab missions in 1973 and 1974, researchers acquired better data and began to reach some conclusions. It was clear that microgravity contributed to a host of health problems, and muscle atrophy was among them.

Many of the problems astronauts suffer mimic the same problems stemming from aging.

“Space is a really unique environment that accelerates qualities associated with aging and also impairs many healthy processes,” said Ngan Huang, an associate professor at Stanford University. “Astronauts come back with muscle atrophy, or a reduction of muscle function, because the muscle isn’t being actively used in the absence of gravity. As space travel becomes more common and available to civilians, it’s important to understand what happens to our muscle in microgravity.”

Huang is the co-author of new research published in the journal Stem Cell Reports. The study is “Skeletal muscle-on-a-chip in microgravity as a platform for regeneration modeling and drug screening.”

Age-related muscle loss is called sarcopenia. Many factors, including immobility, hormonal changes, and even nutrition, contribute to sarcopenia. Currently, there aren’t any FDA-approved drugs to treat the condition, so exercise, lifestyle, and nutrition are the only ways to treat it. Exercise is critical for astronauts in their struggle against muscle loss. However, space for exercise equipment is limited on the ISS. An effective medication to treat astronaut sarcopenia would be a huge boon.

In this new research, the researchers grew live muscle cells on scaffolds on tiny chips and then sent them for study in microgravity aboard the ISS. The cells grew for seven days under the watchful eyes of astronauts and were exposed to a pair of used to counteract sarcopenia and enhance muscle regeneration. Then, they compared the microgravity muscle cells to ones grown under normal gravity in a lab here on Earth.

This figure from the research gives an outline of the study. (A) shows human muscle cells were seeded onto collagen scaffolds, then placed into a bioreactor with media to become muscles on a chip. (B) shows an overview of the experiment, including travelling to the ISS, being exposed to different drugs, and later extracted and analyzed. Image Credit: Kim et al. 2024.

The results showed that the microgravity muscle cells had impaired muscle fibre formation, differences in gene activity, and differences in their protein profiles.

Muscle tubes, or myotubes, are precursors to muscle fibres. The study results showed reduced myotube length and width, as well as a reduced fusion index. The fusion index basically tells researchers how many muscle cell nuclei are present.

The mitochondria generate most of a cell’s energy, and the results showed that genes affecting their function were compromised. Since muscles have such high metabolic function, any impairment to mitochondria will play out in reduced muscle regeneration. Results also showed that genes associated with forming fat were bolstered. The researchers say the combined effect takes a large toll on muscle regeneration in microgravity.

Protein profiles are like snapshots of what cellular machinery is doing at a particular time. They reveal critical information about the cell’s function and health. In this research, the team examined 200 different proteins.

The results showed that five proteins were produced in greater abundance. Two of those are associated with chronic inflammation, and one is “a biomarker for mitochondrial dysfunction and cellular senescence.” Four of the proteins showed reduced abundance. One of those is “an important player in the maintenance of muscle and myogenesis,” the researchers write in their paper.

This image shows the “muscles-on-a-chip” experiment. Image Credit: Kim et al. 2024.

Overall, the changes the muscle cells underwent shared similarities with changes induced by aging.

“We think our research on muscle chips in microgravity may have broader implications on sarcopenia,” says Huang. “Sarcopenia usually takes decades to develop on Earth, and we think that microgravity may have some ability to accelerate the disease process in orders of days.”

The research also helped understand the role drugs could play. “We next used the muscle-on-a-chip platform to perform proof-of-concept drug screening studies,” the researchers write. They exposed the cells to drugs used to counteract sarcopenia and enhance muscle regeneration.

Geneticists use the terms down-regulation and up-regulation to describe negative and positive effects on gene expression. They found that 286 genes were down-regulated in microgravity. Of those, 200 showed a positive response to drug treatment and similar expression levels to cells in normal gravity.

These Venn diagrams from the research show upregulated genes (left) and downregulated genes (right) in microgravity. The two drugs tested in the research are IGF-1 and 15-PDGH-i. The study showed that 286 genes in muscle tissue are downregulated in microgravity and that 200 of them responded positively to drugs. Image Credit: Kim et al. 2024.

“In conclusion, we show that engineered muscle-on-a-chip bioconstructs exposed to microgravity induced prominent changes to their transcriptome that mimic aspects of impaired myogenesis,” the authors write.

Space research is difficult and resource-intensive, so the researchers intend to continue their work using equipment that mimics microgravity to dig deeper into the issue here on Earth. In 2025, the muscles-on-a-chip are scheduled for another space flight. That experiment will help to identify more drugs that can combat muscle loss.

The benefits of this research extend beyond just muscle loss. “This concept of engineered tissue chip platform in microgravity is a potentially transformative tool that could allow us to study a variety of diseases and do drug screening without animal or human subjects,” says Huang.

The authors conclude in their paper, “This work further highlights the utility of microgravity as a unique environment for drug discovery.”

The post Being in Space Mimics Age-Related Muscle Loss appeared first on Universe Today.

What does it take to have life at another world? Astrobiologists say you need water, warmth, and something for life to eat. If it’s there, it’ll leave signs of itself in the form of organic molecules called amino acids. Now, NASA scientists think that those “signatures” of life—or potential life—could exist just under the icy surfaces of Europa and Enceladus.

If future explorations find those signatures, it’ll make a major step in the search for life elsewhere in the Solar System—and beyond. That’s one reason why robotic missions will someday land on those moons—to look for the signs of life. The next mission to Europa, called Europa Clipper, will orbit that tiny moon, but won’t land. However, it will look for environments suitable for life. So, that’s a start. There’s also a proposed mission called Enceladus Orbilander. It could launch in 2038 and spend a year checking out that moon.

The Search for Life Signs

Scientists strongly suspect there’s a warmish salty ocean beneath the ices of both Europa and Enceladus. Moreover, they are probably heated by tidal stresses. So, those are two of the ingredients for life right there. Given what we know about these worlds, there could be something to feed that life, too.

If life does exist, it could “imprint” its existence in the form of amino acids, nucleic acids, and other organic molecules in the surface ice. Life probably wouldn’t exist right on the surface, mostly due to radiation and the lack of atmosphere at those worlds. That makes the near sub-surface ice a good place to look for evidence of that life. That will require a little digging to find the evidence. How deep? According to Alexander Pavlov of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, it wouldn’t be far.

“Based on our experiments, the ‘safe’ sampling depth for amino acids on Europa is almost 8 inches (around 20 centimeters) at high latitudes of the trailing hemisphere (hemisphere opposite to the direction of Europa’s motion around Jupiter) in the area where the surface hasn’t been disturbed much by meteorite impacts,” Pavlov said. “Subsurface sampling is not required for the detection of amino acids on Enceladus – these molecules will survive radiolysis (breakdown by radiation) at any location on the Enceladus surface less than a tenth of an inch (under a few millimeters) from the surface.”

Testing that Hypothesis

Of course, scientists don’t have any samples of ice on hand to study from either Europa or Enceladus. So, Pavlov’s team simulated the conditions to see if rovers and landers could find evidence of organic materials and life on those worlds. They used amino acids in ice and those from dead microorganisms in radiolysis experiments as possible representatives of biomolecules on icy moons. Radiolysis uses ionizing radiation to bombard molecules and break them apart.

Experimental samples of amino acids (as fingerprints of life) were loaded into a dewar and bombarded by gamma radiation. Credit: Candace Davison.

The team mixed samples of amino acids with ice chilled to about -196 Celsius and bombarded them with gamma rays. Since the oceans might host microscopic life, they also tested the survival of amino acids in dead bacteria in ice. Finally, they tested samples of amino acids in ice mixed with silicate dust. That tested the potential mixing of material from meteorites or the interior with surface ice.

Amino acids are interesting because life can create them. Other non-biological chemistry processes also make them. Scientists studied specific kinds of amino acids that could exist on Europa or Enceladus, particularly those amino acids from the microorganisms they tested (called A. woodii). If other microorganisms similar to that one existed at Europa or Enceladus, they could be a potential sign of life. That’s because they are used by terrestrial life as a component to build proteins. Those make enzymes that speed up or regulate chemical reactions and make structures.

Moving Evidence of Life to the Icy Surface

If such life did exist on either world’s subsurface oceans, the next question is how its “fingerprint” amino acids get to the ice so close to the top layers of ice. There’s evidence of resurfacing at both worlds by ocean water from below. On Europa, there are surface units much younger than others, which indicates that water makes its way to the surface and freezes. On Enceladus, geysers shoot material out to space from below the surface. Amino acids and other compounds from subsurface oceans could be brought to the surface by geyser activity or the slow churning motion of the ice crust.

Europa’s bizarre surface features suggest an actively churning ice shell above a salty liquid water ocean. That liquid could carry amino acids and signs of life to the surface. Credit: JPL

So, it looks like the team’s experiment shows that amino acids could survive on both worlds, under certain conditions, but they also degrade at different rates. That’s important news for future missions, according to Pavlov.

“Slow rates of amino acid destruction in biological samples under Europa and Enceladus-like surface conditions bolster the case for future life-detection measurements by Europa and Enceladus lander missions,” he said. “Our results indicate that the rates of potential organic biomolecules’ degradation in silica-rich regions on both Europa and Enceladus are higher than in pure ice and, thus, possible future missions to Europa and Enceladus should be cautious in sampling silica-rich locations on both icy moons.”

For More Information

NASA: Life signs Could Survive Near Surfaces of Enceladus and Europa

Radiolytic Effects on Biological and Abiotic Amino Acids in Shallow Subsurface Ices on Europa and Enceladus

The post We Might Find Life Just Under the Surface on Europa appeared first on Universe Today.

With coral reefs around the world struggling in the face of warming oceans, should we swap out native species with heat-tolerant ones from elsewhere?

The first generation of stars changed the course of cosmic history. Now, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope, we have a real chance of spotting them

An analysis of 20,000 metal objects from Bronze Age Europe suggests human economic behavior may not have changed much over the past 3500 years

Hair follicle infections are often difficult to treat because bacteria settle in the gap between hair and skin, where it is difficult for active substances to reach them. In order to investigate this scenario more closely in the laboratory, researchers have now developed a model with human hair follicles embedded in a matrix produced using 3D printing. In the future, this model can be used to test the effectiveness of new drug candidates against corresponding pathogens directly on human follicles.

Researchers uncover a rapid, efficient and environmentally friendly method for selective lithium recovery using microwave radiation and a readily biodegradable solvent.

Like several people I know, I’m caught up in a temporary fit of the downs because the world seems to be going off kilter. I worry about politics, I worry about Israel, I worry about Ukraine, I worry about Iran and its forthcoming nukes, I worry about fulminating wokeness and its effect on science, and, well, the list goes on.  But something is keeping me awake at night. Although I don’t lie abed racked with conscious worries, my theory (which is mine) is that the worry has become internalized. Further, it’s hard, for me at least, to avoid converting the worry into anger, as it’s made me short-tempered, so I have to exert more control over my behavior.

So much for the personal stuff. But since all the stuff I have to write about is depressing (in the wings are articles about the ideological capture of chemistry, Wikipedia’s “Jewish problem”, the school curriculum in New Zealand—in other words, the kind of thing you see her regularly), there’s no light at the end of the tunnel. I’m thinking of writing about more personal stuff, just to improve my writing and go off on a different tangent. But there will always be the Hili dialogues with their daily five news items.

Do recall that on Saturday I leave for a month in South Africa, and posting will be very sparse for that month and somewhat sparse from now until Saturday.

So let’s have a couple of polls—about politics, of course. Please vote if you’re reading this and, more important, explain your feelings below if you wish.

First poll:

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Second poll (remember, all answers are anonymous and I don’t know who votes which way):

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

Weigh in below.  You needn’t tell me that this is not a scientific poll. It’s simply a survey of the readers.

Researchers have synthesized a bio-inspired polymer for water purification. The polymer was designed to mimic phytochelatin, a plant protein that selectively captures and neutralizes harmful heavy metal ions. The hyperconfinement of the polymer enabled a flow-through system and effectively removed cadmium ions from contaminated water, making it safe to drink. The system was selective for heavy metals and provides a new way to remove specific contaminants from water.

A new generation of specialty optical fibers has been developed by physicists to cope with the challenges of data transfer expected to arise in the future age of quantum computing.

A new generation of specialty optical fibers has been developed by physicists to cope with the challenges of data transfer expected to arise in the future age of quantum computing.

Sometimes, brainstorming does work. In 2019, America’s National Science Foundation (NSF) held the CubeSat Ideas Lab, a shindig that brought together some of the world’s best CubeSat designers. One outcome of that shindig is the Virtual Super-Resolution Optics with Reconfigurable Swarms, or VISORS, mission. Expected to launch in October, this mission will be a proof of concept for many swarming technologies in CubeSats. Hopefully, It will also capture a pretty impressive picture of the Sun’s corona.

VISORS was formally defined in a paper in 2022, with input from experts at nine different academic institutions, one NASA lab, and one private lab. The concept of operations (or ConOps in the paper) is easy enough – fly two separate 6U CubeSats in formation and take an extreme ultraviolet picture of the Sun. 

The obvious question is—why do you need two CubeSats to do that? A single spacecraft could do the job, but the science goal of the VISORS missions is to take an image at a very high resolution in a very specific extreme ultraviolet wavelength. To do that, the mission would need an optical mirror diameter of around 40m.

Fraser discusses how swarms could change how we explore the solar system.

That is beyond humanity’s current capability to fit onto a rocket fairing and blast into space. So, VISORS will actually consist of two spacecraft. One, known as the Detector Spacecraft (DSC), will house an ultraviolet detector, and one, known as the Optics Spacecraft (OSC), will act as an optical system that mimics the characteristics of a 40m diameter mirror.

However, the secret sauce of the VISORS mission lies in the coordination between the DSC and the OSC. They will fly in formation with each other, about 40 m apart, with the OSC placed between the Sun and the DSC. The light from a specific region of the Sun’s corona will pass through a photon sieve on the OSC and be directed into the detector of the DSC 40 m away, effectively creating the effect of a 40m wide mirror without the need for a continuous surface.

The only problem is that this type of coordinated alignment between CubeSats has never been done before. So, really, the VISORS mission could be looked at as a technology demonstration mission for CubeSat swarm formation rather than a heliophysics one. The mission statement in the ConOps paper states that the mission will be considered successful if it captures one ten-second image over the course of a six-month primary mission duration.

YouTube video from the Space REndezvous Laboratory describing VISORS formation.
Credit – Space Rendevzous Laboratory YouTube Channel

Ten seconds out of almost 16 million may not seem like much, but it shows the difficulty of getting CubeSats to align properly at the right time. To do so, researchers at the Space Rendezvous Laboratory at Stanford have created novel Guidance, Navigation, and Control (GNC) software based on a concept familiar to any controls engineer—a state machine.

In software, a state machine is defined by various variables that will change the software’s behavior based on the values of those variables. In the case of VISORS, there will be five different states. Standby is pretty self-explanatory – wait in your current orbit for further instructions. Transfer is an attempt to move into formation to allow the system to capture an image. Science is when the mission will attempt to capture that ten-second image. But if something goes wrong, it also has two recovery states – Safe mode is pretty standard for all spacecraft, but Escape mode is unique for VISORS. This would move either spacecraft out of the way of the other, and collision between the two is one of the primary risks of the mission architecture and one of the things the GNC algorithm is designed to avoid.

Development of that software appears to be ongoing, though the planned launch date for the mission is only three months away. If all goes well and VISORS is successfully deployed and takes at least one picture, that proof of concept will shortly enable plenty more CubeSat swarm missions. It might even inspire more successful brainstorming Idea Labs.

Learn More:
Lightsey et al – CONCEPT OF OPERATIONS FOR THE VISORS MISSION: A TWO SATELLITE CUBESAT FORMATION FLYING TELESCOPE
UT – What a Swarm of Probes Can Teach Us About Proxima Centauri B
UT – Tiny Swarming Spacecraft Could Establish Communications with Proxima Centauri
UT – A Pair of CubeSats Using Ground Penetrating Radar Could Map The Interior of Near Earth Asteroids

Lead Image:
Artist’s depiction of the VISOR spacecraft flying in formation.
Credit – Simone D’Amico

The post Taking a High-Resolution Ultraviolet Image of the Sun’s Corona Will Require VISORS appeared first on Universe Today.

A subatomic particle called the muon caused waves when its experimental behaviour didn't align with a prediction based on the standard model. A new calculation might resolve the discrepancy – but some particle physicists are sceptical

A mathematical model suggests there is an unusual region of space where objects can get pulled into the sun’s orbit – meaning we may have to redraw the boundary of the solar system

On Friday, JAMA Health Forum published a study that is just more evidence that public health interventions against COVID-19 saved lives.

The post As imperfect as they are, public health interventions save lives first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

What would the economy of a future Mars society look like, and how could it be self-sustaining while being completely sovereign from Earth and its own economy? This is what a recent study submitted to Space Policy hopes to address as a sole researcher discusses a model that could be used for establishing economic freedom on Mars, enabling both monetary and political stability across all Red Planets settlements. This study holds the potential to help scientists, economists, and world leaders better understand plausible governmental systems used by human settlers on other worlds while maintaining sovereignty from Earth and its own governmental law and order.

Here, Universe Today discusses this incredible study with Dr. Jacob Haqq-Misra, who is the Director and a Senior Research Investigator of Blue Marble Space Institute of Science (BMSIS) and sole author of the study, regarding the motivation behind the study, significant ideas presented in the study, the importance of establishing a sovereign economic system on Mars, eliminating capital exchange between Mars and Earth, how Mars can become a sovereign entity from Earth after humans settle there, and how an economic system can be established on a sovereign Mars. Therefore, what was the motivation behind the study?

“My motivation was to build on the idealistic framework for an independent Mars that I developed in my book Sovereign Mars,” Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today. “In my book, I describe five conditions for enabling Mars to be an independent planetary state, a juridical peer to Earth. In this new study, I develop a possible economic model that would be consistent with these five conditions.”

These five conditions outlined in Sovereign Mars include all permanent settlers on Mars completely acquiescing Earth citizenship and interests; Earthlings being unable to interfere with the Mars affairs, including financial, political, and social aspects; Earthlings requiring permission from Mars to conduct scientific investigations on the Red Planet; only Mars citizens can own land; and all resources brought from Earth, including technological or other items, will remain on Mars permanently.

For the study, Dr. Haqq-Misra dives deeper into the economic facets of a future sovereign Mars government while embodying these five conditions, specifically focusing on the financial aspects of such an economic system, including banking, currencies, capital ownership, and Earthling tourism. He emphasizes how such a system builds off the mistakes from Earth’s present-day economic systems that could potentially lead to both financial and political stability on Mars. He notes this is an “idealistic but feasible model” with the goal of establishing full economic freedom for future Mars citizens from Earth. So, what were the most significant ideas presented in this study?

“The first idea is ‘full reserve banking’,” Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today. “Our banking system today allows banks to loan out more money than they hold as cash in reserves, which is known as a ‘fractional reserve’ system. This can lead to problems such as a ‘run on the bank,” where too many people try to take out their deposits all at once, only to find that the bank does not have their money.”

Dr. Haqq-Misra continues, “The second idea is the diffusion of capital ownership. Many visions of space settlement imagine something like a world space agency or other centralized authority that could ensure justice and perhaps even serve as a way to redistribute wealth. But the centralization of sovereign power also carries significant risks for the abuse of such power. Some arguments even suggest a somewhat Marxists approach toward the centralized or government ownership of wealth-producing capital, which is then redistributed equitably, but this again carries significant risk of abuse and corruption. An alternative idea is to widely diffuse the ownership of capital, instead of wealth. This means that ownership of companies, equipment, and anything else that can generate wealth would be held in a wider range of hands than today—ideally, by everyone.”

Along with the five conditions of a sovereign Mars noted above, requirements will also be established by the full reserve banking system on Mars, including all transactions staying on Mars, no currency exchange with Earth, and currency issuance will be based on changes in population. All tourism on Mars will follow three conditions that coincide with the conditions of both a sovereign Mars and the Mars full reserve banking system, including tourists being unable to own capital on Mars, the prohibition of Mars currency from being returned to Earth, and no currency transactions from tourists while services would only be provided from the exchange of goods.

On present-day Earth, currency exchange is the primary method for purchasing goods and services, with a total of 180 currencies being recognized across 195 countries around the world. While the value of each currency across the globe varies daily, this system allows individuals from separate countries to own capital in other countries with minimal government interference. But what is the importance behind the complete lack of capital exchange between Earth and Mars?

“This is part of the idealistic framework in Sovereign Mars,” Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today. “Preventing exchange between the two planets would enable Mars to retain its maximum potential to develop new ideas in civilization, such as this economic model. In practice, these ideas could still be attempted on Mars even if there is some exchange between the two planets, although this may lead to different results.”

The prospect of sending humans to Mars has been the purview of science fiction and countless scientific discussions for over 100 years. this began with the Danish silent film A Trip to Mars and other films continuing throughout the 20th century while incorporating current Mars inhabitants or remnants of past Mars civilizations. While films of the last few decades of the 20th century and into the 21st century conveyed the first human trips to Mars, most recently with the film The Martian, little has been discussed regarding permanent human settlements on the Red Planet.

The closest this notion came was in the television series The Expanse, which depicted the Martian Congressional Republic on Mars being a sovereign entity from Earth, complete with its own military and political hierarchy. However, the economic system within this government wasn’t discussed in detail. But what steps need to be taken for Mars to become a sovereign entity after humans settle there?

“The biggest challenge is having sufficient infrastructure and resources to become self-sustaining on Mars,” Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today. “Some resources could be used on Mars, but not right away, and actually enabling an independent Mars may require benefactors with long-term visions for humanity or even Earth, without the need for an immediate or near-future financial return. I call this ‘deep altruism’ in Sovereign Mars.”

Additionally, regarding the importance of establishing a sovereign economic system on Mars and the steps required for this economic system to take hold, Dr. Haqq-Misra tells Universe Today, “We have many examples even in recent history of economic recessions and collapses. If space settlement is really to be a long-duration venture, then we need economic ideas that can remain sustainable over long timescales.”

Dr. Haqq-Misra continues, “The best way to establish this economic system would be for any initial settlers to agree on a method for implementing such a system prior to actually arriving on Mars. Part of the value in thinking about martian governance today is to anticipate such possibilities prior to the actual landing of humans on Mars. And thinking about governance on Mars can also help us gain better insight into our governance and economic systems on Earth.”

Sending humans to Mars could happen within the next decade, but sending humans to live there could be decades away, and establishing a sovereign Mars could be at least 100 years away, along with establishing and maintaining a sustainable economy separate from Earth. However, establishing protocols well in advance could lead to a smooth transition into an economic system on a sovereign Mars that is completely separate and free from the Earth’s systems.

Dr. Haqq-Misra concludes by telling Universe Today, “I am working with a talented group of students this summer through the BMSIS Young Scientist Program to examine historical analogues for sovereignty on Mars. We hope to have some new studies finished in the coming year.”

Will a future sovereign Mars successfully establish an economic system that is separate from Earth some time in the distant future? Only time will tell, and this is why we science!

As always, keep doing science & keep looking up!

The post What could a future sovereign Mars economy look like? appeared first on Universe Today.

Last October I posted a critique of a new National Science Foundation (NSF) initiative designed to combine indigenous knowledge with modern science—in the U.S. this time, and  to the tune of $30 million. The NSF was very optimistic, as you can see from the article below in Science (click to read; see also a similar report in Nature):

My main beef with that study is that it conflated a fusion of indigenous and modern knowledge with an attempt to create equity among researchers themselves. As I wrote at the time:

Thus, if you’re going to use money to improve science, and help indigenous people at the same time, virtually all of that money should be earmarked for training indigenous youngsters to learn science, and ensure that there’s no bigotry against them. That is, indigenous people should have equal opportunity from the outset to learn STEM. Then, those with talent and desire can become scientists using modern science.  To my mind, this is better than simply scouring indigenous cultures for bits of knowledge that can be further investigated, or giving money to indigenous people without fixed projects to fund, simply as a form of reparations.  To fund education rather than cultures themselves is preferable because the results are permanent and self-sustaining (once the pipeline is open, it tends to stay open).

But I was unaware that another “braiding” project—yes, they both use that word—attempting to fuse two “ways of knowing” had been undertaken by a different funding group: the U.S. National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM). This project had a mere $2 million in funding, with the dosh provided by the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and NASA.

I don’t know the fate of the NSF project, but the NASEM one didn’t last long, with the joint effort collapsing after a short period of time, and for two reasons.

Click the Science article below to read about the failure of the new endeavor:

The purpose of this endeavor, which involved a panel whose lucubrations were then to be published by NASEM, was this:

. . . to explore how best to pursue coproduction, the process by which scientists, Indigenous community members, and other scientific stakeholders jointly create and share knowledge in a way that values diverse perspectives.

. . . Gregory Symmes, NASEM’s chief program officer, confirmed the panel’s job was “to summarize what’s known about … coproduction,” and that he was aware of the committee’s desire to use the concept in its study early on. But, he says, “The study itself was not intended to be coproduced.” Instead, “We thought we could work through those differences” by, for example, including a discussion in the final report of the obstacles the committee faced.

Note that “coproduction” links back to the first NSF-funded study, involving “two-eyed seeing,” the notion that you can increase our knowledge of the world most efficiently if you combine vision from one “eye” (modern science) with vision from the other eye (indigenous “ways of knowing”). The original NSF project, which largely involved trying to fix climate change, reported this:

The center will explore how climate change threatens food security and the preservation of cultural heritages through eight research hubs in the United States, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand. (Ranco co-leads the U.S. Northeast hub.) Each hub will also serve as a model for how to braid together different knowledge traditions, or what its senior investigators call “two-eyed seeing” through both Indigenous and Western lenses.

The new NASEM study, which involved a committee of 11 members including three Native scholars, began well, with a harmonious initial meeting. But then things fell apart, and for two reasons (my headings below; quotes are indented):

1.)  The committee was not tasked with producing the final report. Normally, National Academies reports are written by a National Academies-designated committee that includes both Academies members and selected experts who are not Academies members.   In addition, every study has many other ‘participants’ who are not members of the committee, but interviewees or presenters who bring information into the discussion, while not participating in the committee’s internal deliberations or report writing. Also excluded from writing the report are people who could conceivably profit from what that report says, and this may have involved people excluded below.

Committee members knew the approach ran counter to NASEM’s rules for what it calls a consensus study. “The traditional way in which a National Academies report works is that you go and meet with people, and they can inform you, but they can’t participate in the [committee’s] deliberations or help shape the report,” says committee member ecologist F. Stuart “Terry” Chapin, emeritus professor at the University of Alaska Fairbanks.

But in this case some of the members of the committee, realizing that they wouldn’t be writing the final report, were upset. The deliberations about “coproduction of knowledge” apparently didn’t involve the coproduction of the report.  The indigenous members also felt that they were marginalized in the deliberations:

Many committee members who spoke to Science say they believed their assignment—to explore the “challenges, needs, and opportunities associated with coproduction of environmental knowledge between scientists and local and Indigenous experts”—would require them to take a different approach given the subject matter. “At our first meeting [in August 2023], several people raised concerns that here was a project talking about coproduction of knowledge, but we weren’t allowed to use those processes to carry out the study,” says Gordon, who runs a company that advises scientists and government agencies on coproduction.

In the following, Kyle White is an “environmental justice expert at the University of Michigan and a member of the Citizen Potawatomi Nation.”

. . . Whyte also vented his frustration that the committee’s statement of task did not require that the study be coproduced. However, he told participants at the February workshop he “was willing to keep working on the project” to “figure out a way to do this right.” But in late March, he and three other committee members wrote to their colleagues and NASEM staff calling for the study to be “paused.” The four proposed instead writing an interim report on how to “allow equitable participation by Indigenous partners” that could be the basis for a new study on coproduction.

. . . Another participant who was not a committee member, Philomena Kebec, says comments she and other Native people made about coproduction during discussions at breakout sessions weren’t brought back up during plenary sessions and felt like sidestepping. Kebec, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and its head of economic development, says Native representatives were hoping for a dialogue about traditional knowledge across a range of scientific topics as well as “about the power dynamics affecting the ability to share information effectively.”

The issue of “power dynamics” will come up in a second.

2.) The second workshop was to be held in an indigenously-owned casino, and the NASEM didn’t want that. 

But that high didn’t last long. Before a second workshop in February, tensions arose over the choice of its venue, which was the Kewadin casino owned by the Sault Ste. Marie tribe of Chippewa Indians in Michigan. Tribal casinos hold important meaning to Native nations as places of gathering and bastions of tribal sovereignty. Yet several sources told Science NASEM leaders saw the venue as inappropriate for a meeting the institution was sponsoring.

The tension made four members of the committee write to the NASEM asking that the deliberations be “paused” and that they be allowed to write an interim report. But that didn’t fly. Shortly thereafter, Whyte was told that he was dropped from the committee, and then the committee (and the whole study) were dropped and removed from the NASEM’s website.

The whole thing was a big failure.  Yes, the casino fracas looks a bit trivial, but there are really two issues, not emphasized in the report, that doomed this project to failure, as it will doom others like it.

First, while there is indeed indigenous knowledge, and some of it can indeed be “braided” with knowledge coming from modern science, the latter is far more broad and important than the former.  Indigenous knowledge, as far as I can see from reading about it, involves conclusions, based on trial and error, that help local people lives their lives in their environment. It involves things like when to plant and harvest crops, where and when to hunt and fish, how to navigate (in the case of Polynesians) and so on. It’s practical knowledge, which still makes it knowledge, but does not involve empirical studies of the wider world like the ambits of modern chemistry, physics, and biology.

Even if we think about the knowledge that we “colonists” use to live our lives in our environment, that depends heavily on modern science: we take antibiotics, use cellphones, fly in planes, rely on scientifically-generated weather predictions, and so on.  When you think of how indigenous knowledge not derived from modern science can be braided with it, almost all of the braid will consist of knowledge coming from modern science.  There is simply no way to make indigenous knowledge coequal in breadth or social importance to modern science. It sounds patronizing and colonialist to say that, but that’s really the way it is. (Note that Science buys into the erroneous “Western knowledge” trope in the title above; this trope is insulting to the many people around the world who do science.)

This lack of coequality is exacerbated by the second observation: these discussions are as much about power as about science. It’s an attempt of “minoritized” groups to wield as much scientific power as do majority (“Western) groups—a way, I suppose to compensate for historical bigotry against indigenous people. The power trope is most obvious—and successful—in New Zealand, where the attempt to equalize science with local “ways of knowing” has already infiltrated science, secondary schools, and colleges.  Here are two expressions of it in the article:

“There’s a dearth of knowledge on how to apply other ways of knowing,” said Chad English of the Packard foundation, speaking at the panel’s kickoff meeting. “And it’s not just scholarship,” English noted about the scope of the study. “It’s also about addressing the power dynamic—who is at the table, and whose voices are being heard.”

and from the quote above:

 Kebec, a member of the Bad River Band of Lake Superior Chippewa and its head of economic development, says Native representatives were hoping for a dialogue about traditional knowledge across a range of scientific topics as well as “about the power dynamics affecting the ability to share information effectively.”

It is of course churlish to mistreat indigenous people or make them feel inferior, especially when they’re invited to participate with others on an equal basis on a panel like this. But perhaps the “power imbalance” ultimately reflects the “knowledge imbalance” that I describe above. If your group isn’t really coequal in scientific knowledge to another, you can hardly expect to have as much influence in the conclusions as does the group espousing the more effective and important “way of knowing.”

That, of course, is no excuse to ignore people or talk over them. But perhaps it’s time to have a hard look at the “indigenous science versus modern science” issue and lay out which “way of knowing” is most important in doing things like fixing anthropogenic climate change or ameliorating epidemics of infectious disease.  People avoid this discussion because it’s uncomfortable—indeed, the University of Auckland, after promising such a discussion, has avoided it for three years. But eventually it’s a discussion that must be had, and it helps nobody to pretend in the interim that all “ways of knowing” are equal.

h/t Jon

Mars exploration vehicles typically have wheels, allowing them to traverse some challenging terrain on the Red Planet. However, eventually, their systems start to wear down, and one of their wheels gets stuck. The “Free Spirit” campaign in 2009 was the most widely known case. Unfortunately, that campaign wasn’t successful, and now, 15 years later, Spirit remains stuck in its final resting place. Things might have been different if NASA had adopted a new robot paradigm developed by Guangming Chen and his colleagues at the Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics Lab of Locomotion Bioinspiration and Intelligent Robots. They devised a robot based on a desert lizard, with adaptable feet and a flexible “spine” that, according to their calculations, would be well suited to traversing over Martian regolith.

Planning for traversing tough terrain isn’t limited to rovers that are stuck. Curiosity and Perseverance, perhaps the two best-known operating rovers on Mars, currently spend a lot of their time trying to avoid areas where they might become entangled. This limits their ability to capture any data from those areas, potentially missing out on some cool rocks, like the pure sulfur that Curiosity recently found for the first time on Mars. 

A lizard-inspired robot, on the other hand, would have no trouble traversing such terrain. It also has some advantages over traversing different types of terrain, such as rocks. Most rovers don’t have enough leg lift to get over medium-sized rocks, whereas a legged robot would, especially one with adjustable “toes” that would allow it to grip a rock tighter than would otherwise be possible with typical legged robots.

Lizard-inspired robots aren’t only useful for walking – they can also jump like their biological cousins, as demonstrated in this video from UC Berkeley’s robotics lab.
Credit – UC Berkeley YouTube Channel

The design for the robot itself is relatively simple – it has four “feet” that are offset from each other by a chassis that essentially looks like a desert lizard. It even has a tail for counterbalancing. Each foot has a series of three “toes” powered by springs. They also have a servo for ankle articulation and a bearing for rotational control. This combination allows the lizard robot to walk on all fours effectively and adjust each leg to best adapt to the surface it is “walking” over.

The authors performed a series of kinematic calculations for different types of terrain to help understand how the robot would interact with each of those surfaces. Kinematic calculations are typically used in robotics when designers attempt to find the best way to move a specific robot part. The calculations are relatively detailed in this case, given the number of variable parts. However, a control algorithm is possible using just on-board computation, allowing for some basic autonomous terrain navigation if architecture is ever adopted for use in space.

Building an actual prototype would be a great way to work on that navigation algorithm, and that’s precisely what the researchers did. They 3D printed many of the parts for the chassis and foot, embedded some batteries and controllers in the head and tail sections, and started testing the prototype on simulated Martian test terrain.

Mars isn’t the only place that could benefit from legged robots – they could work on the Moon as well, as Fraser discusses.

They tested everything from grasping loose regolith to climbing over small rocks, and their algorithm seemed to work effectively for handling the relatively simple terrain in the test bed. However, the robot’s actual speed of movement was slower than originally simulated, mainly due to technical difficulties in balancing the motions of the springs and the spine. 

Despite any problems that arose during physical testing, this new robot iteration is a step in the right direction, as this lab has been designing similar systems for years. They also plan to continue to another version, including mounting a continuous power supply and fully implementing an autonomous navigation algorithm. Their research is funded by both Jiangsu Province and the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology, so it seems it will continue to gain support, at least for the foreseeable future.

Learn More:
Chen et al. – Development of a Lizard-Inspired Robot for Mars Surface Exploration
UT – Spirit Extrication, Day 1: Drive Stopped After 1 Second
UT – Bio-Mimicry and Space Exploration
UT – Robots Might Jump Around to Explore the Moon

Lead Image:
Image of the prototyped lizard biomimetic robot.
Credit – Chen et al.

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