Do you want to know about a new environmentally friendly way to make TV Screens, what future space warfare might look like, and how we have finally completely unraveled the human genome?
Do you want to know about a new environmentally friendly way to make TV Screens, what future space warfare might look like, and how we have finally completely unraveled the human genome?
Rice is more than food. It’s TV.
Space weapons.
100% Genome.
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Find episode transcripts here: https://curiosity-daily-4e53644e.simplecast.com/episodes/rice-tv-screen-satellite-warfare-unraveled-dna
[SFX: MUSIC IN/WOOSH]
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 new environmentally friendly way to make TV Screens, what future space warfare might look like, and how we have finally completely unraveled the human genome!
CALLI: Without further ado, let’s satisfy some curiosity!
[SFX: WOOSH]
CALLI: Nate, I’ve got an awesome story today about using something that is often thrown away to make more environmentally friendly screens and monitors.
NATE: We’re getting environmental improvements from the trash heap?
CALLI: More like the compost heap. A team of researchers recently created a system of silicon-based quantum dots, that can be used to light LED screens, from synthesizing otherwise discarded rice husks.
NATE: Screens from rice! That’s incredible. But how does this all work? What is a quantum dot?
CALLI: Quantum dots are human-made nanoparticles that emit color when hit with light. The color of the light they emit depends on the size of the particle. Larger quantum dots emit red light while smaller ones emit green and blue. The tiny particles are actually crystal semiconductors and are often put in screens as a layer to enhance and widen the range of colors an LCD screen can create. It helps make vivid super high-definition displays.
NATE: Oh that's fascinating technology, it's like when atoms emit light when excited electrons return to lower energy levels. But rather than the light color being dependent on what element the atom is, the light color is dependent on how large the quantum dot is.
CALLI: Exactly. It's super clever tech, but it does have a downside - most quantum dots are made with non-renewable materials that are not only damaging to the environment, but may be dangerously toxic for humans. We might have just found a fix in rice of all things, though.
NATE: What in rice could possibly be used in a TV or computer screen?
CALLI: Porous silicon. The same stuff used as an anode in lithium-ion batteries, and in biomedical sensors and drug delivery systems. But most importantly for this study, porous silicon is photo luminescent.
NATE: Wait, rice can glow?
CALLI: Rice won’t but porous silicon can! But it doesn’t actually come from the rice, it comes from rice husks. During the milling process, husks are usually separated from rice grains and discarded. Around the world we actually throw out about a hundred million tons of rice husk waste each year. But even after they’re separated they’re still chock full of porous silicon.
NATE: So our most cutting edge TV technology is just rotting outside rice processing facilities? How’d they figure this out?
CALLI: The process requires heat and chemical treatments to process the silicon out of the husks. Once extracted, researchers were able to use it as the base material for those quantum dots for LED screens.
NATE: That’s insanely cool.
CALLI: And the best part - using rice husks makes the process non-toxic, environmentally friendly, and potentially much cheaper.
NATE: So when can I watch Shark Week through a rice TV?
CALLI: We’re still a good few years away from that. The team’s plan is to try and develop more efficient and expansive light colors using this system, as the quantum dots they can make from the rice husks all currently emit a reddish-orange color. The future of this technology isn’t just rice, though, there’s hope that the same process could be applied to other plants like sugar cane, bamboo, wheat, barley, and even some grasses that contain porous silicon.
NATE: Screens are complicated technology, will this make its way into other, simple devices?
CALLI: The discoveries from this study could be applied to essentially any light that operates with an LED system. Flashlights, light bulbs, Christmas lights. All of them could potentially be switched over to the eco-friendly materials.
NATE: Guilt-free light, and raw materials that can be diverted from landfills. This would be a huge win.
CALLI: Without a doubt. That’s why I’m rooting for them to get the colors right, and these dots out into the screens and lights we use everyday!
NATE: I can’t wait. Though, I do now want a rice crispy treat.
[SFX: WOOSH]
NATE: Calli, researchers recently released some pretty concerning info about peace, and war, in space
CALLI: Like Star Wars or Star Trek?
NATE: Unfortunately, it's a bit more non-fiction than sci-fi. Researchers warn that international conflict on Earth is making its way to space. Nations around the world are developing the ability to disable their enemy’s satellites, either physically or technologically and navigating these new capabilities has the potential to lead into, or avoid, new global conflicts.
CALLI: Disabling satellites? Wait, didn’t President Reagan do something like this in the 80s? Star…Trek?
NATE: Star Wars, at least that was the nickname most people knew the Strategic Defense Initiative as… That was the US plan to create a sort of space-shield around the US to shoot down incoming inter-continental ballistic missiles in space…The idea never really got off the ground though, our tech wasn’t advanced enough, and with the collapse of the Soviet Union, we didn’t see the need to develop it further.
CALLI: Even still, I don’t like the idea of war in space. I want it to stay a place for science, exploration, and cooperation like on the International Space Station.
NATE: I agree, but explosions are making their way into the mix. Last November, the Russians launched a missile at a defunct Soviet satellite, Cosmos 1408. Rather than crashing it to Earth they blew it up in space. In the aftermath, astronauts and cosmonauts in the ISS had to take shelter as more than 1,400 bits of debris from the satellite whizzed dangerously close to the Space Station.
CALLI: I remember hearing about that! But are the Russians the only ones with the ability to shoot things out of space?
NATE: It's safe to say that the Chinese and Americans have similar missile capabilities… But these offensive maneuvers aren’t just limited to missiles…Researchers are worried about new Chinese satellites with robotic arms that can dock to other orbiting objects. Sure, it might be a peacetime tool for servicing satellites… but researchers worry the Chinese might use it to attack adversaries' satellites.
CALLI: Satellite arm wrestling? Sounds like something from Battle Bots.
NATE: With way larger consequences. All of this satellite destruction, and testing how to better destroy them, have left hundreds if not thousands of pieces of space junk in orbit around Earth. All of this space junk puts other, peaceful, spacecraft and satellites in danger of being hit, and possibly damaged or destroyed.
CALLI: It's still amazing to me that even though we’ve advanced so far, we still wage war by sending our machine to fight theirs, or by shooting missiles at each other.
NATE: Well warfare in space is changing. Blowing up satellites can disrupt GPS systems, interfere with radio communications, and slow down earth-based military options, but you don’t need to blow up a satellite to do that.
CALLI: Are we talking cyber warfare?
NATE: Right. The Center for Strategic and International Studies says that electronic weapons aimed at satellites and their infrastructure are becoming more common around the world…even allowing nations that don’t have much of a presence in space to fight in space. These technologies can jam uplinks or downlinks from satellites, send fake signals, intercept data, and even hack and take control of satellites.
CALLI: But how do you confuse or take over a satellite? It's not like you can plug in a USB or send a satellite a phishing email.
NATE: One thought is that you could shoot lasers or microwave beams at a satellite to confuse its sensors… kind of like shining a bright flashlight in someone's face to disorient them. At low power it could disrupt the satellite, at high power it might be able to disable circuitry. Of course, if you could hack into a satellite's control system, you might be able to take it over.
CALLI: But why are so many new countries interested in developing these technologies?
NATE: From a military perspective, these attacks make a lot of sense. They’re cheap, you don’t have to launch a missile, they’re incredibly hard to track, and they don’t create space junk that could accidentally damage your own satellite. It could be possible to cheaply, effectively, and secretly destroy an adversary’s satellite, crippling major parts of their war effort.
CALLI: I mean this stuff is interesting, but it also still makes me sad. Hard to hope for aliens that come in peace when we can’t even get a few miles off our planet in peace.
NATE: Thankfully there are efforts to limit these actions. Increasingly, the international space community is pushing to ban explosions that create space debris, and last November the United Kingdom proposed a new group in the United Nations for developing new norms for behavior in space. Effective communication could help us avoid conflict, and keep space peaceful.
CALLI: I hope it all works. No matter where we go in space, we should go with peace, cooperation, and science.
[SFX: WOOSH]
CALLI: Nate, I’ve got some big news. For the first time ever, scientists have mapped an entire, unbroken human genome, finally completing the mission started in the 90s by the Human Genome Project.
NATE: Oh that's unbelievable. Isn’t that like our source code?
CALLI: Exactly. All living organisms have DNA, and wrapped up in the famous twisting double helix are the instructions to develop, and control, all activities of an organism.
NATE: I thought the Human Genome Project already did this, though? I remember former President Bill Clinton’s speech announcing the project, and then didn’t they succeed some time in the 2000s?
CALLI: Scientists from all over the world worked on the Human Genome Project from 1990-2003. In 2001 researchers published the first draft of a genome, with 90% of the 3 billion base pairs matched.
NATE: Well if they got 90% then that last ten percent should have gone pretty quickly, right?
CALLI: That last 10% took about twice as long as the first 90%. That’s what researchers just completed. But first let's cover how DNA works. Each strand of DNA is made of a combination of four nucleotide bases A, T, C, and G. They’re like the genetic alphabet that spells out instructions for your body. The nucleotide bases on one side of the helix always pair with their partner on the other side of the helix; A always pairs with T, and C always pairs with G. The order of these bases is what is important when we “read” DNA.
NATE: So then what made it so hard to read the DNA in that last 10%?
CALLI: The genome is the complete set of DNA, all 3 billion or so nucleotide base pairs that make us, us. Much of the 2001 genome was from a section of DNA where our genes are really active with protein instructions, it's called the euchromatin. All that action made it easier to “read.” But the rest of the DNA was more confusing to scientists. It's less active, more repetitive, and way harder to untangle. So much so that many scientists called it “junk DNA”, though a more scientific name is heterochromatin.
NATE: So that's what this big development is? We finally unraveled that last small quagmire?
CALLI: Yes! A team of scientists untangled the heterochromatic bases. The researchers had to develop a slew of new techniques, tools, and computational analysis methods to get through these last puzzles. But the work was rewarding, they found this section of the genome is crucial for cell division.
NATE: How much better is it to have 100% of the sequence rather than just 90%?
CALLI: Within the genome, specific sections of DNA can be referred to as genes. These have instructions for making specific proteins. In total, the genome has more than 20,000 of these gene sections. But things don’t always go as planned. If the DNA is mutated, it can create abnormal proteins that can lead to diseases like cancer. That’s why it's really important to understand what is going on in our DNA, all of it.
NATE: So mapping the whole genome will allow us to better understand any health issues or diseases that develop genetically?
CALLI: Right, the better we understand our genome the better prepared we are to deal with issues that develop.
NATE: So, what’s next?
CALLI: Well researchers worked with one genome, which simplified the process, but also only gives us one view, and leaves us blind to different ancestral heritages. Thankfully, other teams are working to map genomes across global populations.
NATE: That will be an amazing view into how our bodies work and how we are all related.
CALLI: Absolutely. The more we know, the more we can analyze, and help the global population with emerging and persistent health issues.
[SFX: WOOSH]
NATE: Let’s recap what we learned today to wrap up. Scientists have discovered a way to process otherwise discarded rice husks to create the cutting-edge technology to improve the performance, and color, of LED monitors. The new method is cheaper and more importantly, much more environmentally friendly, and could soon find its way to our screens, as well as other LED devices like flashlights and Christmas lights.
CALLI: Warfare might soon make its way to space, unless the international community can step in to find a solution. Experts warn that nations around the world are developing capabilities to disable adversaries’ satellites either physically or with cyber-attacks. The resulting debris poses a real threat to future work and exploration in space.
NATE: For the first time ever, scientists have succeeded in mapping a complete unbroken human genome. The success finally finishes the goal of the Human Genome Project and opens the door for even deeper understanding of who we are.