Today you’ll learn about a robot with the ability to pick up a single drop of water, how scientists have created a computer algorithm that can predict Malaria hotspots, and what naked mole rats have to teach us about human fertility.
Today you’ll learn about a robot with the ability to pick up a single drop of water, how scientists have created a computer algorithm that can predict Malaria hotspots, and what naked mole rats have to teach us about human fertility.
One Drop Robot
Malaria Forecast
Naked Mole Rat Fertility
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/one-drop-robot-malaria-forecast-naked-mole-rat-fertility
[SFX: INTRO MUSIC/WHOOSH]
NATE: Hi! You’re about to get smarter in just a few minutes with Curiosity Daily from Discovery. Time flies when you’re learnin’ super cool stuff. I’m Nate.
CALLI: And I’m Calli. If you’re dropping in for the first time, welcome to Curiosity, where we aim to blow your mind by helping you to grow your mind. If you’re a loyal listener, welcome back!
NATE: Today you’ll learn about a robot with the ability to pick up a single drop of water, how scientists have created a computer algorithm that can predict Malaria hotspots, and what naked mole rats have to teach us about human fertility.
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: All right. There's a bunch of cool robots out there. There have been advancements made recently, but I think I might have a new favorite. And it's a robot that can pick up a single drop of liquid.
CALLI: Okay, We have got robots that can, like, crush cars and, you know, go, go, go into space like, you know, Curiosity. And you are talking about one that can pick up a single drop of water.
NATE: Yeah, well, not just water, Calli, any liquid. So think about it like this. If a robot can pick up any biological fluid, it can pick up blood or saliva. And if it can pick a blood or saliva, that would completely revolutionize laboratory work, where we need to analyze samples of everything from the flu to COVID 19 and all other contagious diseases in between. So this could be an extra protective shield between the scientists studying these samples and the samples themselves.
CALLI: Okay. So I guess there's like practical uses for it. So that makes sense. So tell me more.
NATE: All right. So to be clear, this new device is something that's known as a soft robot. So think of your stereotypical robot for a second. Bunch of boxes, tubes, wires, hard metal shells, linear movements. Soft robotics, on the other hand, are a newer kind of robotics that aims to create products that look act and feel more like biological humans, plants and animals. And this is done through the creation of intricate units made up of many parts that can move in a much more fluid way. So, for example, instead of that hard metal robot you imagined, a softer robot might have its surface made up of thousands of tiny metal parts that can move, bend and break like human skin. It doesn't necessarily need to look like human skin, but it can function similarly. And that's what a team from Colorado State University did when they created a soft robotic gripper that can successfully grab single drops of liquid.
CALLI: Okay. But now I'm curious, do these grippers actually look like human hands?
NATE: Then they could make them like that. But this is just a prototype. For now. These grippers look like a two pronged claw, like one you'd see in an arcade claw machine. But they're powered by an electrically activated artificial muscle. And one gripper is as big as a human finger. And the whole thing is surprisingly simple, actually. And it's made of cheaper materials like nylon fibers and adhesive tape. So the whole thing costs one or $2 just for the parts. But when combined, this thing can perform much more delicate work than a human hand because it's covered in a special coating that resists wetting from nearly all types of liquids. Even when the contact surface is tilted or moving, there's no trail of liquid absorbed by the gripper.
CALLI: Okay, so this is sort of like a meeting between two different sciences then, because what you just described, I wouldn't call soft robotics. That's actually material science. And then they created a gripper that's hydrophobic or water repellent. Am I getting this right?
NATE: Right. But what makes these claws extra cool are that most hydrophobic solutions don't repel alcohol or oil. But these do. And the new coating they invented didn't even have a name. So the team called it super omni-phobic. And omni means all things phobic means repellent, and super just means super.
CALLI: Okay. Is this the first time anybody's ever built a robot that can pick up liquid?
NATE: It will in the way that this team is? It probably is. The researchers have seen a number of other scientists use small and soft robots to move solids, but never liquids. And this project has actually been in the works for over six years and started with the part that makes the robot move, which is called the actuator. They twist it a nylon thread like a fishing line into a coil. And when they applied voltage to the coil, it expanded. So this emulated how a muscle contracts. So the next step was to sandwich the coil between two thin materials. One was rigid and bend resistant, and the other was ordinary double sided tape. But when a voltage was applied, the coil expanded and the tape bent, but the other material didn't. So to simplify, it looked kind of like a finger slowly bending. And right then they knew that they were onto something. And so when they created this super omni-phobic coating, they put it on the tape and they began their months of testing.
CALLI: I've got a question about this super omni-phobic stuff. So if it repels everything, shouldn't it be able to not stick to anything?
NATE: Yes. And that's why it took him so long to test. The researchers said figuring out how to make the material was kind of like figuring out the right paint to use on a wall. Like if a wall starts to bend, the paint will flake off. But whenever the actuate is deforming. They want their coating to not come off. So in the end, the tapes rough adhesive surface worked to keep the coating on. And the good news is that the team finished their design in 2017. But the bad news is that there was no obvious use for it at the time, so they shelved the project. However, in a twist involving a set of words I didn't really think I'd ever say. The COVID 19 pandemic happened and was actually a godsend for the creators.
CALLI: How in the world can you refer to COVID as a godsend? And why?
NATE: Well, because it was an easy to make inexpensive mover of liquid droplets. So it was perfect for COVID testing. This soft robot could be used to put liquid into a vial to do any kind of diagnostic test on samples tainted with COVID 19. So it was the right tech at the right time to help people safely handle toxic or infectious fluids. There are still a few kinks to work out until this technology can be used in a practical way. But the work was successful enough that the team is collaborating with microbiologists and virologists on new devices that might rely on the new grippers once they work everything out. It could lead to a new era in safety for lab workers everywhere.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
CALLI: I'm going to jump right into this next story because a new study might have found a way to accurately predict when and where malaria will strike, which could potentially save tens of millions of lives.
NATE: Okay, that sounds like a pretty big deal. But explain how big.
CALLI: Okay. To give you an idea. According to the World Health Organization, COVID 19 has caused around 6.8 million deaths since 2020. In comparison, malaria affects more people than that every year, as in 247 million people become sick with malaria annually. It's easily transmitted through mosquito bites and affects predominantly lower income or impoverished communities in Africa. 619,000 malaria patients died in 2021 alone, and they were mostly children under the age of five. So the problem, to put it very lightly, is massive. But there's hope from a new study out of Stanford that has found a relatively easy way to cut those numbers down exponentially.
NATE: Okay. What were they doing to stop this or track it or cure it or what's the goal?
CALLI: Well, right now, they've teamed up with the National Malaria Control Program in Madagascar, as well as a local health care organization called Pivot to look specifically into malaria data on a specific region in southeast Madagascar. They combine the data with some information they obtained from satellites on the climate, as well as land use maps and socioeconomic data from household surveys.
NATE: All right. That seems like they're getting some extra info in there. Why is that necessary?
CALLI: They are. And it's important. Health care agencies have a pretty good idea of what drives malaria across the globe. Warm weather and certain rain patterns can lead to more mosquitoes breeding. But there are a few big issues facing any malaria prevention program. The first is the presence of microclimates, which are the specific climates you experience in smaller parts of a bigger climate. A really good example of this is if you think about how there's a pretty dry desert north of Los Angeles, but it's only a few miles away at most from the Angeles National Forest. These kinds of climate discrepancies can make tracking mosquito activity really difficult, which is where land use maps come in handy. A land use map is exactly what it sounds like. Maps that show how a piece of land is used and why.
NATE: Okay, interesting. So when they combine all of this information, it's creating a bigger picture of where malaria is happening.
CALLI: Well, that's the thing. Not just where, but maybe even why. They fed all this data into a computer and created a model that can predict the monthly malaria cases across 195 villages in southeast Madagascar. And this model was pretty accurate. It correctly identified more than half of the hardest hit communities, most of which were poverty stricken communities with less health care access than more residential areas. And this is pretty big because if this model can accurately predict communities that are about to be hit by malaria. That means we can set these villages up for success by targeting them for expanded health care.
NATE: Okay. This is really interesting. I'm sure to some people this story might sound kind of stale since the hero of the story is a computer algorithm. But let's just say, for instance, that this algorithm is successful at predicting half of all malaria cases. That's over 100 million people a year who can receive better treatments or even just any treatment at all.
CALLI: Exactly. Now, to be fair, the algorithm is going to need a lot more work before it's used on a wider scale. For instance, this focused on one very specific region of Madagascar that faces its own unique malaria related problems. The algorithm identified that the highest incident rates of malaria happened in areas where rice fields were susceptible to flooding. This suggested that malaria predominantly hits rural areas in Madagascar, which isn't true in most other places. But that doesn't take away from how big of an achievement this is. After all, the algorithm still covered 195 villages. So the fact that hard data was able to identify half of the malaria in that huge amount of space is big. This means the algorithm is an important first step in creating a national and maybe even one day global model that can target malaria prediction accurately so that everybody in need of better health care can hopefully get it.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Calli, Have you ever heard the one about naked mole rats? Get this. They say that naked mole rats are the key to unlocking the human infertility crisis.
CALLI: Okay, I don't get that joke.
NATE: Joke? No. I was asking you if you'd heard the news out of the University of Pittsburgh. It turns out that female naked mole rats can develop new eggs throughout their entire lifespan. And that's pretty unusual for mammals. And now researchers say it could help us figure out issues relating to human infertility.
CALLI: Usually if you ask somebody if they've heard the one about something you're about to set up. Okay. Never mind. Sure. Tell me more about the naked mole rats.
NATE: All right. So check this out. Naked mole rats, which are native to East Africa, can live up to 37 years on average. And they live in huge underground colonies that scientists say are similar to bee colonies. Both even have a queen who gives birth for her entire life span. And all of this is a little weird for mammals, but especially since mammals stop giving birth at much younger ages than that. For instance, human women's reproductive abilities slow down in their thirties before becoming virtually impossible at the age of about 45. And mice live around four years, but their reproduction starts to slow down when they're nine months old, less than a fourth of the way into their lives.
CALLI: All right. When you put it that way, that is quite unusual. So why is that?
NATE: That's what the team at the University of Pittsburgh wanted to know. So they began a study by using a microscope to examine the ovaries of infant naked mole rats at the ages of one five, eight, 15, 29 and 90 days old. And then they used a number of staining and testing techniques to identify the different sorts of cells they saw. And they were hoping to find germ cells that divide and eventually mature into eggs, which are called oocytes. This process is called oogenesis, and in other mammals it only happens before birth and in rare instances right after birth, which leave newborn females with a limited lifetime supply of eggs that die over time. Now, what you might assume is that naked mole rats simply create more eggs during oogenesis than other mammals. But what the researchers found was that there were massive amounts of germ cells at every stage of life that they tested. In fact, the germ cells that create eggs actually increased steadily throughout the first week of life.
CALLI: Okay. When you say more like, how many more are we talking here?
NATE: Well, let me put it this way. An eight day old mouse has roughly 15,000 egg cells, according to the researchers on this study. But an eight day old naked mole rat, 1.5 million egg cells. That's almost a hundred times more than mice at the same stage of life. And after this observation, the researchers grew ovary sections of different young animals in a lab and watched ongoing oogenesis. They came to the conclusion fairly quickly that naked mole rats can likely replenish their egg supplies continuously.
CALLI: Holy crap. Okay. Does this only apply to, like, a particularly fertile naked mole rat? You mentioned that they've got like, queens, like bees do. So is this common?
NATE: Well, one of the most interesting things about the naked mole rat colony is that it functions on what we'll call ratatouille logic. You know, the thesis of that movie was anyone can cook. And in this case, it's more like anyone can be queen. And to put that to the test, the researchers removed a few three year old females from their colonies and placed them in individual cages with a male for four weeks. What ended up happening was that each female naked mole rat became fertile at the rate a queen would. But when they investigated the worker female's ovaries under a microscope, they discovered that the worker females couldn't actually begin continuously generating eggs unless they became queen, meaning they had the germ cells to create eggs, but they couldn't start the oogenesis process to divide them into eggs.
CALLI: Weird. Okay, so what does this mean?
NATE: Think about it like this. If you could transform this study into some kind of clinical application for humans, you could redefine the field of infertility practice. These germ cells could lead to the development of new techniques, new drugs and new treatments for infertility, because the cells performing this duty work the same in theory as they do in mice and humans. One of the things the researchers say could change with such a treatment is menopause, which would no longer need to be treated through something like hormone replacement therapy.
CALLI: Okay, How?
NATE: Well, we're in the Wild West when it comes to this discovery. No one knows how this will translate into human medicine yet. That being said, it's a very exciting opportunity to start researching ways to help with human infertility issues. Now, this isn't quite the end for infertility or even menopause, but it might be the first step toward conquering that mountain.
CALLI: I mean, let's not go making mountains out of naked mole rat hills yet.
NATE: But is that a joke? I'm not good at jokes.
CALLI: Don't. Never mind.
[SFX: WHOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. A robot so strong it can pick up… a single drop of water? New innovations in soft robotics have led to the creation of a robot gripper that can pick up and transfer a single drop of any liquid, from blood to oil to water, and drop it into vials wherever, leaving no residue. Scientists aren’t sure how practical their current model is, but believe that this will lead to brand new innovations in safety for lab workers everywhere!
CALLI: Malaria is a disease that affects more people every single year than there are people who have seen the most popular movie of all time. But thankfully, scientists out of Stanford have developed a computer model that can accurately predict nearly half of the incidents of where and when malaria is going to have an outbreak. Currently, the model only accounts for part of Madagascar, but it’s still an important first step in one day being able to provide quality healthcare to parts of the world that desperately need it.
NATE: Praise be unto the naked mole rat, for she may saveth us all. Human infertility is on the rise all over the world, but a new discovery out of Pittsburgh reveals that female naked mole rats are able to produce babies all the way up until the day they die, unlike most mammals. The implications of this find are huge and could affect everything from ending menopause - to maybe even reversing the infertility rates for good!