Learn about the legacy of the trailblazing NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson; how scientists recently built xenobots, the world’s first living robots; and why zinc probably isn’t as good for colds as you think.
Learn about the legacy of the trailblazing NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson; how scientists recently built xenobots, the world’s first living robots; and why zinc probably isn’t as good for colds as you think.
Katherine Johnson Is the Human 'Computer' Who Helped Us Go to Space by Ashley Hamer
Xenobots: the World’s First Assembled Organisms by Cameron Duke
Zinc Probably Isn't as Good for Colds as You Think by Grant Currin
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Find episode transcript here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/katherine-johnsons-legacy-the-worlds-first-living-robots-and-zinc-doesnt-cure-colds
CODY: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from curiosity-dot-com. I’m Cody Gough.
ASHLEY: And I’m Ashley Hamer. Today, you’ll learn about the legacy of the trailblazing NASA mathematician Katherine Johnson. Then, you’ll learn about how scientists recently built the world’s first living robots; and why zinc probably isn’t as good for colds as you think.
CODY: Let’s satisfy some curiosity.
Yesterday, the world mourned the passing of Katherine Johnson, the trailblazing NASA mathematician who helped us go to space. You may know her as one of the real-life women who inspired the 2016 film “Hidden Figures.” She lived to be 101 years old, but her legacy of excellence that broke down racial and social barriers will be felt for years to come. So today we’re going to celebrate her life by sharing some of her extraordinary achievements.
First, think about what it would take to become a mathematician in NASA's space program. Now consider what it would take to become a mathematician in NASA's space program as a woman in the 1950s. THEN, consider what it would take to become a mathematician in NASA's space program as an African-American woman in the 1950s. And that was just the beginning of her career.
Katherine Johnson was born in West Virginia, and her father knew there was something very special about her. That’s why even though he was a farmer, he moved his family 120 miles away from his work so Katherine could get a good education. She graduated high school when she was 14 years old and graduated from West Virginia State College with highest honors at 18. Then, after spending some time as a teacher, she applied to NASA's Langley Research Center, which was looking for black "computers” — that was the term for women who performed mathematical calculations by hand, since electronic computers didn't yet exist. She was hired in 1953 and quickly proved to NASA that was a wise decision. Her first achievement was calculating the trajectory for Alan Shepard, the first American in space, in 1961. Again: BY HAND!
Even when electronic computers began to take over, many people still went to Johnson to double-check the most important calculations. Famously, one of those people was John Glenn, for the mission that made him the first American to orbit the Earth. In "Hidden Figures," Glen utters the now-famous line: "Get the girl to check the numbers." In reality, that request happened weeks before the mission and took Johnson several days to calculate. But it still shows how much NASA trusted Johnson's brilliance.
She worked at NASA until 1986, and her contributions were integral to the success of the Apollo Moon Landing program and the beginnings of the Space Shuttle program. Johnson was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2015. As NASA Administrator James Bridenstine said in a statement yesterday, quote, "She was an American hero and her pioneering legacy will never be forgotten,” unquote. I couldn’t have said it better myself.
Researchers from the University of Vermont have created living robots. They’re called xenobots, and they’re the first completely artificial living organisms ever made. [ad lib]
Here’s the idea behind this new living machines. Artificial materials like steel and plastic have a lot of benefits. They can be strong or flexible, and they last a long time. But once they break, it’s hard to fix them, and as they degrade, they pollute the environment. Living tissues, on the other hand, aren’t all that strong. But they have the ability to heal, and when they eventually die, their byproducts are usually harmless.
So what if you could make a programmable, self-healing robot out of living tissues? That’s what the researchers set out to do. And they created their own version of evolution to do it.
First, they collected their raw materials: in this case, stem cells from frog embryos. They turned some into heart cells, which move, and skin cells, which provide structure. They used information about how that combination of cells behaves to create a bunch of robot designs for various tasks — like, say, moving in one direction. A computer program took those designs and built off of them, simulating thousands of generations of evolution. It killed off the bad designs and improved the ones that worked. Finally, the researchers sent the best designs to a lab at Tufts University for assembly.
The result is a bunch of squishy, blob-like things that look less like robots and more like misshapen ottomans or chubby, headless tardigrades. Some herd particles into little piles. Others join together in pairs. Xenobots shaped like donuts can pick things up and carry them around. They’re small enough to sit on a pinhead, they’re capable of self-healing, and they’ll die when they run out of food. And while they might look unimpressive, the science they represent is astounding.
Any animal or plant is the result of cells coming together and cooperating to form a body. The creation of the xenobot shows us that cells can be reassembled into new and novel forms. While the first xenobots don’t do much, this technology could potentially be used to develop living robots that can do things like break down radioactive material for environmental cleanup, or serve as vessels for drug delivery to help the immune system. The research has a long way to go, but the first xenobots are an optimistic evolutionary step toward a fascinating future.
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A new study shows that one supposed remedy for the common cold probably isn’t as effective as you think. And obviously, nobody likes being sick — which is probably why drug stores have shelves and shelves of products that claim they’ll help you recover faster. Whether they actually work is another story, though. And this new study took aim at a pretty popular cold remedy: zinc.
Historically, the claim has been that zinc can shorten colds by keeping viruses from reproducing in the warm, wet depths of your nasal passages and throat. It’s typically sold as a syrup or slow-release lozenge to maximize the time it spends in your throat helping your body fight the illness. At least, that’s the idea. Researchers have spent nearly 40 years trying to figure out if it’s actually true.
The newest evidence comes from Finland. Researchers gave lozenges to more than 250 people in Helsinki and told them to start taking them as soon as they felt a cold coming on. Half of the participants got lozenges containing zinc, and half got a placebo.
Almost 90 of the participants caught a cold during the study. They started taking their lozenges at the first sniffle or sneeze and kept on sucking, six times a day, for five days. What happened? Well, zinc didn’t do much good at all. During the five days they took the lozenges, all the participants reported feeling the same, whether they’d taken zinc or the placebo. On days six and seven, the subjects taking the placebo reported feeling better than those who had the real thing. By day 10, everyone was feeling about the same.
Do these new results mean you should skip the zinc next time you feel a cold coming on? Not necessarily. Past studies on zinc have gone both ways, and it’s never a good idea to change your behavior based on the findings of ONE study. On the other hand, these findings are from a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial. That’s the gold standard in science, so there’s reason to believe this information is better than what most other studies have turned up.
Whatever you do, avoid zinc nasal sprays. They can cause you to permanently lose your sense of smell. In the end, the best way to get over a cold is what you’ve always heard: get plenty of rest, drink lots of fluids, and follow your doctor’s orders. Get well soon!
Let’s recap the main things we learned today
[ad lib optional]
CODY: Today’s stories were written by Ashley Hamer, Cameron Duke, and Grant Currin, and edited by Ashley Hamer, who’s the managing editor for Curiosity Daily.
Scriptwriting was by Cody Gough and Sonja Hodgen.
ASHLEY: Today’s episode was produced and edited by Cody Gough.
CODY: Join us again tomorrow to learn something new in just a few minutes.
ASHLEY: And until then, stay curious!