On the Cover

the illuStrAtion on the cover is my way of celebrating the scientific advancements that we have achieved in past decades. The illustration depicts the recent advancements in diverse fields of science, starting from genetics, and neurobiology to quantum computing, and their impact on society and the upbringing of human life. All these have been manifested in different abstract art forms.

Focusing on the center, I have used geometric abstraction to showcase how genome sequencing has progressed our understanding of the biology of humans, presented here by simple vector art of the Vitruvian man. This has been further extended in the illustration of the focus article. Onto the left, the asymmetric mandala-like art exhibit the origin of HeLa cells and how Henrietta Lacks has been immortalized to contribute to the scientific community immensely. On the right, I have made a simple illustration of how neuronal cells are cultured on a plastic disk to mimic the brain to study how it functions.

At the back, I have tried to mix abstract expressionism and geometric art styles to show how quantum computation works, where the overlapping concentric rings on two edges depict different quantum properties like superimposition and entanglement, which are being utilized in quantum computing to send qubits, shown here as solid circles and rings pointing to different directions. I have tried to assemble all of these in a comprehensive yet aesthetic manner on the cover of the magazine.

Access to Electricity : A growing issue in 2023 and Beyond

This year will be the first year in over two decades that there is a global increase in the number of people without access to electricity. Access to electricity is crucial as it directly affects the living standard of individuals as well as the economic development of nations. In the global quest to ensure a sustainable future for all, universal access to electricity must be achieved.

To do this, there needs to be a full understanding of what is meant by access to electricity. One might be tempted to assume that having electricity access means having a source of electricity to power basic appliances. However, the threshold for electricity access currently is having enough electricity to power a lightbulb, mobile phone and radio for four hours per day. This is considered as ‘Tier 1’ access according to the MultiTier Framework (MTF) approach to electrification specified by the World Bank. The framework specifies four higher tiers with increasing consumption levels. This classification could inform more strategic planning for access to electricity, especially in current times when resources are worryingly scarce. CI

Original article: https://www.iea.org/commentaries/for-the-firsttime-in-decades-the-number-of-people-without-access-to-electricityis-set-to-increase-in-2022

Uplifting Plants: Hebes in New Zealand’s Southern Alps

Mountains all over the worldare known as biodiversity hotspots. New Zealand’s largest group of endemic (native) plants, flowering shrubs called hebes (genus Veronica), has over 120 species. Most species live in mountain habitats in New Zealand’s Southern Alps. DNA evidence suggests the group is only around 6 million years old — relatively young on an evolutionary timescale — but hebes have surprisingly diverse forms. They range from small trees with long, narrow leaves, to dense shrubs, to cushion plants that only grow in the high alpine zone. Can their preferred mountain habitats explain how hebes evolved so much diversity in so little time?

Although the estimated origins of the hebes predate the uplifting of the Southern Alps (also quite young mountains), models simulating how species may have evolved and migrated over time suggest that once uplifting began, a few ancestral lowland species colonised the growing mountains. Once there, populations encountered barriers created by rocky cliffs and fluctuating glaciers, as well as opportunities to adapt to new alpine environments by taking on new forms. Forces like this may have encouraged the burst of diversification that gave rise to the species living there today. But without a time machine, we’ll never know for sure exactly what went on in the Southern Alps during those millions of years! AT

Rapidx: A Rapid Disease Testing Startup at Cambridge University Using Plasmonics

At least 1.4 billion people around the globe have been diagnosed with microbial infections such as urinary tract infections (UTIs), sexually transmitted diseases (STDs), and chronic respiratory diseases, among which millions die every year. In the two minutes that you spend reading this article, around fifty deaths have occurred due to late diagnosis. A Cambridge-based startup — Rapidx — is aiming to change this.

The venture was initiated by Nipun Sawhney, Cambridge PhD candidate in Physics with experience volunteering in Epidemiology in India during Covid, along with Dr. Shuler Xu, medical doctor trained at University College London. While Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) testing itself is by no means novel, the team adopts plasmonics — a photonics-inspired technology using lasers that allows the rapid heating and cooling of DNA — to detect diseases more accurately. This eliminates the need for external heating used in current technology, such as Peltier heating. Plasmonic heating also allows PCR tests to be performed with a much shorter window period, without compromising the sensitivity or specificity of the DNA or RNA. The project is currently in its prototyping stage, and is between a year and a half to three years away for testing with the public. YL

Original article: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s00345-021-03913-0?fbclid=IwAR0sxZvPOT6O7KxWofpUt0X5Z9spKkl81 axPgYdvVKsBqDj3adXDPxitWF8

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