Researchers announce a new state of matter: swirlons
Starling flocks, schools of fish, and clouds of insects all agree.
01 March, 2021
Credit: Fraser Morrison/Flickr
- Scientists discover that active particles take a pass on Newton's Second Law.
- Active particles exist in a "swirlonic" state of matter.
- Swirlonic behavior explains some of the more dazzling natural phenomena such as starling swarms and shape-shifting schools of fish.
<p>It's likely you've seen some of the fascinating videos of <a href="https://youtu.be/uV54oa0SyMc" target="_blank">starling murmurations</a>, great swarms of birds mysteriously flying as if with a single mind. These gigantic shapes swoop and swirl, shapeshifting their way through the skies while maintaining miraculous integrity. Maybe you've seen schools of fish <a href="https://youtu.be/LJC9BlPhdT0" target="_blank">shifting together</a> into new shapes in likewise dazzling displays of synchrony.</p><p>How do these things happen? Consider them super-sized examples of a newly described state of matter that scientists at the University of Leicester in the U.K. are calling "swirlons." And swirlons <em>are</em> something new: They stand in some ways outside Newtonian law.</p><p>Swirlons are described in a paper recently published in <a href="https://go.redirectingat.com/?id=92X1590019&xcust=livescience_us_6015351860837703000&xs=1&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.nature.com%2Farticles%2Fs41598-020-73824-4&sref=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.livescience.com%2Fswirlonic-matter-unusual-behavor.html" target="_blank">Scientific Reports</a>.</p>
Lawbreakers
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcwMzc5NS9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3NTExNzM4Nn0.HI6HiDo4WitAWTCUr1KPULnvRHCGoZcxvaI9viBM2v4/img.jpg?width=980" id="4f3ec" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1a5d7f236b8371c99d7a4414160ff74d" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1000" data-height="967" />Credit: Wikimedia Commons/Big Think
<p>According to <a href="https://www.physicsclassroom.com/class/newtlaws/Lesson-3/Newton-s-Second-Law" target="_blank">Newton's Second Law</a>, the acceleration of an object depends on both the force acting upon it and the object's mass. Its acceleration increases in accordance with the force being exerted, and as its mass increases, the object's acceleration decreases. These things don't happen with swirlons.</p><p>It appears that the Second Law relates only to passive, non-living objects at small and large scales. Swirlons, however, are comprised of active, living matter that moves courtesy of its own internal force. In this context, individual starlings are analogous to self-propelled particles within the larger swirlonic object, their flock.</p>Spotting swirlonic motion
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTcwMzgyMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY3MDM2MDgzMX0.KrEacUm8yaSsZciDVItiO_UTqzbDYd_y0Gj2qXxNbFg/img.jpg?width=980" id="ce03e" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="b9f876eede09e4952b8d32a80c44f80a" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1440" data-height="960" />Credit: Johnny Chen/Unsplash
<p>The scientists at Leicester, led by mathematician <a href="https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/mathematics/extranet/staff-material/staff-profiles/nb144" target="_blank">Nikolai Brilliantov</a>, came upon swirlonic matter as they developed computer models of self-propelled particles similar to simple bacteria or nanoparticles. They were interested in better understanding the movement of human crowds evacuating a crowded space, and these particles served as human stand-ins.</p><p>The word "swirlonic" comes from the circular direction in which the scientists witnessed their particles milling about in clusters that operated together as larger quasi-particles.</p><p>"We were completely baffled," <a href="https://le.ac.uk/news/2021/february/swirlonic" target="_blank">says</a> Brilliantov, "to witness how these quasi-particles swirl within active matter, behaving like individual super-particles with surprising properties including not moving with acceleration when force is applied, and coalescing upon collision to form swirlons of a larger mass."</p><p>Brilliantov tells <a href="https://www.livescience.com/swirlonic-matter-unusual-behavor.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Live Science</a>, "[They] just move with a constant velocity, which is absolutely surprising."</p><p>It's not the first time such behavior has been seen, but the first time it's been identified as a distinct state of matter. Says Brilliantov, "These patterns have previously been observed for animals at different evolution stages, ranging from plant-animal worms and insects to fish, but rather as singular structures, not as a phase which borders other phases, resembling gaseous and liquid phases of 'normal' matter."</p><p>The researchers also saw that swirlonic particles operate on a sort of "one for all, all for one" basis. With passive particles such as water, different individual particles can exist in different states: some may evaporate into gas as others remain as liquid. The models of active particles, on the other hand, stuck together in the same state as either a liquid, solid, or gas.</p>Moving forward, and back, or up, or down together
<p>Brilliantov and his colleagues hope to explore swirlons further, moving beyond their simulation into real-world investigations and experiments.</p><p>The researchers are also developing more sophisticated models that mimic the behavior of swirlonic animals such as starlings, fish, and insects. In these models, the active particles will have information-processing capabilities that allow them to make movement decisions as living creatures presumably do. They hope these models will reveal some of the secrets behind flocking, schooling, and swarming.</p><p>Another future possibility is creating man-made active particles that can self-assemble. Other Leicester experts agree that this is reason alone to continue researching swirlons.</p><p>In any event, says study co-author <a href="https://www2.le.ac.uk/departments/mathematics/extranet/staff-material/staff-profiles/it37" target="_blank">Ivan Tyukin</a>, "It is always exciting to consider deepening our understanding of novel phenomena and their guiding physical principles. What we know to date is so much less than what there is to know. The phenomenon of the 'swirlon' is part of the tip of the iceberg of hidden knowledge. It leaves us with the eternal question: 'what else don't we know'?"</p>
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Lab-grown brain organoids mature like real infant brains
After 20 months, scientists find lab-dish brain cells matured at a similar rate to those of an actual infant.
24 February, 2021
Credit: Girl with the red hat/Unsplash/jolygon/Adobe Stock/Big Think
- Scientists have found that cultures of embryonic brain cells mature at the same rate as a 20-month-old infant's.
- Researchers have looked to such cell structures, called "organoids," as potential models for understanding the human body's biological mechanisms.
- Their study validates the use of lab-dish organoids for research.
<p>Scientists have been growing cell cultures that resemble natural human cells in dishes for a while now, but their usefulness for research has been inhibited by concerns that they never mature enough to provide insights into human development beyond the womb. Now, scientists from UCLA and Stanford have genetically analyzed dish-grown brain organoids that matured over 20 months pretty close to the same timetable that an infant's brain cells would.</p><p>"This will be an important boost for the field. We've shown that these organoids can mature and replicate many aspects of normal human development — making them a good model for studying human disease in a dish," <a href="https://stemcell.ucla.edu/news/brain-organoids-grown-lab-mature-much-infant-brains" target="_blank">says</a> senior author <a href="https://geschwindlab.dgsom.ucla.edu/pages/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Daniel Geschwind</a> of UCLA.</p><p>The research is published in a study in the journal <a href="https://www.nature.com/articles/s41593-021-00802-y" target="_blank">Nature Neuroscience</a>.</p>
What organoids really are and aren't
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY4MzgzOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1OTEzMjc5Mn0.R1KWf66xU7CYlT3CPthA2J-xJKjZP0h0W4vx2Quxiq8/img.jpg?width=980" id="60c18" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="a496d5eb7684457c09d0139882876a8f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1440" data-height="1080" />A brain organoid
Credit: NIH Image Gallery/Wikimedia
<p>Organoids are tissue cultures comprised of human embryonic stem cells. They start off as induced pluripotent stem cells (IPS) drawn from skin cells or blood cells before being reprogrammed to revert to an embryonic stem-cell-like state. From there, they can be exposed to chemicals that cause them to behave like a specific type of human cell.</p><p>In the case of this study, the chemicals caused them to become cerebral organoids, self-organized 3D cell structures that behave similarly to natural human brain cells. They don't grow to become full mini-brains.</p>The promise of organoids
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY4Mzg0MC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYzMDEzODg0Nn0.AmSwbhi7wxpv1vKOX4jqOhB-pEqJNyFQzu2mhzHWTvc/img.jpg?width=980" id="92a7b" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="3746da47064a9d07ca33ddf44c5c1880" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1440" data-height="960" />Credit: David Matos/Unsplash
<p>The hope for organoids has been that they would provide researchers a way of observing human biological process in a benign, non-invasive way. Insights regarding the manner in which human cells and organs develop a disease, progress through its stages, and respond, or not, to medication, without involving actual human subjects or animal analogues could revolutionize research.</p><p>In the case of brain organoids, researchers have been hoping they can somehow be used to reveal the secrets of neurological and neurodevelopmental disorders, including epilepsy, autism and schizophrenia.</p><p>That organoids <em>could</em> be useful—though that doesn't mean that they <em>would</em> be—as a result of their permanently remaining embryonic cells. This study is a first indicator that organoids' larger promise can actually be fulfilled. </p>An answer scientists have been hoping for
<p>"This is novel," says Geschwind. "Until now, nobody has grown and characterized these organoids for this amount of time, nor shown they will recapitulate human brain development in a laboratory environment for the most part."</p><p>Now, says first author <a href="https://geschwindlab.dgsom.ucla.edu/pages/aaron-gordon" target="_blank">Aaron Gordon</a>, "We show that these 3D brain organoids follow an internal clock, which progresses in a laboratory environment in parallel to what occurs inside a living organism. This is a remarkable finding — we show that they reach post-natal maturity around 280 days in culture, and after that begin to model aspects of the infant brain, including known physiological changes in neurotransmitter signaling."</p><p>With the study verifying a 20-month maturation process, it remains to be seen how long, or how far, maturation in organoids goes. Can their cells continue to mature for years? Decades?</p><p>Even without an answer to that question, the study, says Geschwind, "represents an important milestone by showing which aspects of human brain development are modeled with the highest fidelity and which specific genes are behaving well in vitro and when best to model them. Equally important, we provide a framework based on unbiased genomic analyses for assessing how well in vitro models model in vivo development and function."</p><p>With IPS cells able to take on the roles of so many types of cells in the human body, and the new knowledge that they do in fact mature beyond their embryonic stage, researchers can feel more confident of insights into biological mechanisms organoids seem to reveal. And researchers can now better equipped to solve some of the human body's vexing mysteries.</p>
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Drinking coffee while pregnant alters the fetal brain
A large new study puts caffeine-drinking moms on alert.
23 February, 2021
Credit: Suhyeon Choi/Unsplash
- A study finds that the brains of children born to mothers who consumed coffee during pregnancy are different.
- Neuroregulating caffeine easily crosses the placental barrier.
- The observed differences may be associated with behavioral issues.
<p>As one human body gives birth to another, so many things have to, and usually do, go right. It's known that substances a mother ingests can influence the success of fetal development. Modern mothers are careful regarding the consumption of alcohol, associated with a <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/fasd/alcohol-use.html" target="_blank">wide array of problems</a> during fetal development and later in life.</p><p>Researchers have also investigated the impact of coffee consumption during pregnancy. It's known that caffeine easily traverses the placenta and that a fetus lacks the enzymes necessary to break down this known neuroregulatory compound. Studies have found that the coffee's caffeine can result in <a href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/11/081103102125.htm" target="_blank">lower birth weights</a> when too much of the beverage is consumed.</p><p>Now a <a href="https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/del-monte-neuroscience/news/announcements.aspx?start=01-01-2021&end=12-31-2021#newsItem5099" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">substantive study</a> from researchers at the Del Monte Institute for Neuroscience at the University of Rochester states definitively that coffee during pregnancy can change important fetal brain pathways that may lead to behavioral issues later in life.</p><p>What's too much coffee? First author <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Zachary-Christensen-2" target="_blank">Zachary Christensen</a> says, "Current clinical guidelines already suggest limiting caffeine intake during pregnancy—no more than two normal cups of coffee a day. In the long term, we hope to develop better guidance for mothers, but in the meantime, they should ask their doctor as concerns arise."</p><p>This guidance may change as a result of this study, notes principal investigator <a href="https://www.urmc.rochester.edu/people/29722174-john-j-foxe" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">John Foxe</a>, who says, "I suppose the outcome of this study will be a recommendation that any caffeine during pregnancy is probably not such a good idea."</p><p>The study is published in the journal <a href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0028390821000332?via%3Dihub" target="_blank">Neuropharmacology</a>.</p>
A large study of nine- and ten-year-old brains
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY3NzIyOC9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY1MDk5MjQ0N30.UCu1Ygfi_rmO-xLpW-KOgCX-MJ3bfqjzfIVg4Kmcr9w/img.jpg?width=980" id="d2e15" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="c96aa86f8dbe08aa8536502ac1769497" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1440" data-height="960" />Credit: myboys.me/Adobe Stock
<p>For the study, researchers analyzed brain scans of 9,000 nine and ten-year-olds. Based on their mothers' recollections of their coffee consumption during pregnancy, the researchers found that children of coffee drinkers had clear changes in the manner in which white brain matter tracks were organized. These are the pathways that interconnect brain regions.</p><p>According to Foxe, "These are sort of small effects, and it's not causing horrendous psychiatric conditions, but it is causing minimal but noticeable behavioral issues that should make us consider long-term effects of caffeine intake during pregnancy."</p><p>Christensen says that what makes this finding noteworthy is that "we have a biological pathway that looks different when you consume caffeine through pregnancy."</p><p>Of children with such pathway differences, Christensen says, "Previous studies have shown that children perform differently on IQ tests, or they have different psychopathology, but that could also be related to demographics, so it's hard to parse that out until you have something like a biomarker. This gives us a place to start future research to try to learn exactly when the change is occurring in the brain."</p><p>The study doesn't claim to have determined exactly <em>when</em> during development these changes occur, or if caffeine has more of an effect during one trimester or another.</p><p>Foxe cautions, "It is important to point out this is a retrospective study. We are relying on mothers to remember how much caffeine they took in while they were pregnant."</p><p>So as if being pregnant wasn't difficult enough, it sounds like the most conservative and safe course of action for expectant mothers is to forgo those revitalizing cups of Joe and switch to decaf or some other un-caffeinated form of liquid comfort. We apologize on behalf of science.</p>
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Grapes are 'edible sunscreen' according to a new study
A study says nature's candy can be a valuable supplement to sunblock.
18 February, 2021
Credit: Rajesh Rajput/Unsplash
- The skin of study participants who consumed lots of grapes developed an increased resistance to UV light.
- Grapes contain polyphenols, good stuff for repairing skin and fighting inflammation.
- After their grape adventure, biopsies revealed less skin-cell damage from UV light.
<p>The sun's ultraviolet rays can be punishing to human skin. Sunblock can mitigate the potential damage, but when it comes to protecting our body's largest organ, more help is always appreciated. A new study from researchers at the University of Alabama, Birmingham (UAB) may have just the thing: They've just discovered that the consumption of grapes can significantly increase the skin's resistance to UV rays.</p><p>Grape consumption may act as an 'edible sunscreen,'" lead author of the study <a href="https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Allen_Oak" target="_blank">Allen Oak</a> of the UAB School of Medicine says. "This does not mean that grapes should be used in lieu of sunscreen, but they may offer additional protection which we are eager to continue learning more about. This research is exciting because our current findings provide building blocks for additional studies that may eventuate in an oral photo-protective product from a natural source."</p>
The study
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTY2MTgyMy9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTYyNDMxNjEwNX0.ZN4iBw442Ivwcdy3aw1GqOO2NTLUhukEhtDKfv3p4OU/img.jpg?width=980" id="702c7" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="1f388f9531613b90c49e8de5e6411e9f" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="1440" data-height="954" />Credit: Maciej Serafinowicz/Unsplash/Big Think
<p>For the study, published in the <a href="https://www.jaad.org/article/S0190-9622(21)00183-3/pdf" target="_blank">Journal of the American Academy of Dermatology</a>, the researchers fed 19 healthy volunteers a powder of freeze-dried grapes for 14 days. This is the equivalent of 2.25 cups of grapes per day.</p><p>The participants' sensitivity to UV light was assessed before the trial period, and again afterward. Each individual's skin was assigned a Minimal Erythema Dose (MED) value — the threshold beyond which UVC radiation causes visible reddening to skin after 24 hours. After the test period, the amount of UV light required to redden each participant's skin was 74.8 percent greater than it had been before. This is the first study demonstrating this effect.</p><p>Biopsies also revealed fewer skin-cell deaths and fewer inflammatory markers. These slow down healing and may be linked to skin cancer.</p><p>The enhanced resistance to UV light came courtesy of an increase of <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polyphenol" target="_blank">polyphenols</a> in their skin. Polyphenols are a naturally occurring family of compounds found in grapes, berries, and other fruits. They're also in products derived from them, such as wine, chocolate, tea, and legumes.</p><p>"Study results indicate that oral consumption of grapes has systemic beneficial effects in healthy adults," says Oak, citing prior research showing that polyphenols repair UV-ray damage, and that they can also reduce <a href="https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5055983/" target="_blank">inflammation</a>.</p><p>The researchers also found that a topical application of a grapeseed extract containing the polyphenol proanthocyanidins inhibited the formation of sunburn cells.</p>Avoiding skin cancer?
<p>An estimated one in five Americans develops skin cancer by age 70, with most cases being linked to sun exposure, including 90 percent of nonmelanoma skin cancers and 86 percent of melanomas.</p><p>The study finds early indications that grape consumption may also help a person avoid skin cancer, though these findings are just preliminary, cautions Oak, and require further investigation before a definitive conclusion may be drawn.</p><p>Principle investigator Craig Elmets, also of UAB, <a href="https://www.grapesfromcalifornia.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/02/20210204-nr-grape-consumption-may-protect-against-uv-damage-to-skin.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">tells</a> the California Table Grape Commission, "We saw a significant photoprotective effect with grape consumption and we were able to identify molecular pathways by which that benefit occurs — through repair of DNA damage and downregulation of proinflammatory pathways. Grapes may act as an edible sunscreen, offering an additional layer of protection in addition to topical sunscreen products."</p>
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NASA will pay $500,000 for your innovative ideas about food production in space
Introducing the Deep Space Food Challenge.
04 February, 2021
<ul class="ee-ul"></ul>
<p>NASA has big plans for the coming decades. The agency's <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/specials/artemis/" target="_blank">Artemis program</a> has set its sights on returning to the Moon after an absence of nearly 50 years. Once there, the first woman and next man to walk the lunar surface will begin <a href="https://bigthink.com/technology-innovation/nasa-artemis-program?rebelltitem=1#rebelltitem1" target="_self">establishing a base camp</a>, laying the foundation for the sustained exploration and economization of <a href="https://www.space.com/19275-moon-formation.html#:~:text=The%20prevailing%20theory%20supported%20by,object%20smashed%20into%20early%20Earth.&text=Known%20as%20Theia%2C%20the%20Mars,young%20planet's%20crust%20into%20space." target="_blank">Earth's solar sibling</a>. Then it's off to <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/topics/moon-to-mars/overview" target="_blank">Mars</a>.</p><p>But a journey to the ruddy planet, a distance of roughly 114 million miles, will require NASA to solve a myriad of logistical and engineering problems. Chief among them is the problem of food.</p><p>Although humans have maintained a <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/feature/nasa-counts-down-to-twenty-years-of-continuous-human-presence-on-international-space-station" target="_blank">continuous presence in space for 20 years</a> aboard the International Space Station (ISS), food hasn't proven an issue as the station orbits a mere 220 miles above our terrestrial home. NASA and other space agencies can easily send astronauts care packages containing fresh fruit and veggies alongside shelf staples.</p><p>Mars-faring astronauts, however, will not have it so easy. The time and distance required for the expedition will make regular resupply infeasible. Astronauts will need to bring all their food with them, alongside the means of producing that food, and keep those supplies within the volume constraints of the spacecraft.</p><p>It's a problem with no obvious solution. That's why NASA is challenging entrepreneurs, college students, hobbyist investors, and you, if you're up for it, to help them devise one.</p>
The way to an astronaut's heart
<img type="lazy-image" data-runner-src="https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yNTU5Mjg4My9vcmlnaW4uanBnIiwiZXhwaXJlc19hdCI6MTY0MTkwODAwOH0.5z68HGX5Zup_y_PZfTfTnlibo3B2jKha-gjAT6jF9-w/img.jpg?width=980" id="7a63a" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="98e1e8efc2a98052faa9678a62d5f0fe" data-rm-shortcode-name="rebelmouse-image" data-width="520" data-height="402" />An image showing the different challenges a viable space-food system solution must overcome.
<p>In a paper written for <a href="https://academic.oup.com/jn/article/150/9/2242/5870322" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">The Journal of Nutrition</a>, Grace Douglas, NASA's lead scientist for advanced food technology at Johnson Space Center in Houston, outlined the necessities for food technologies in long-term space exploration. The most critical being, of course, survival.</p><p>"In the history of humankind, explorers set off to see what was over the horizon, and literally millions did not return because of food and nutrition failures," Douglas and her co-authors wrote.</p><p>The difficulty is that the processes we rely on to cook meals on Earth—such as boiling water, hot surfaces, and food preparation—work as they do because they are bound to an environment with gravity, atmosphere, atmospheric pressure, and even certain microbes. Spaceflight replaces that environment with one of microgravity, scarce resources, cabin pressure fluctuation, and unmitigated radiation, each adding their own variable to the cooking calculus.</p><p>To date, <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/audience/foreducators/stem-on-station/ditl_eating" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">space food</a> preparation has been limited to adding water or heating pre-packaged foods. When supplemented with fresh produce from Earth, the system works fine. But as mentioned, such a system would be infeasible for the more than two-year roundtrip to Mars and back.</p><p>Douglas and her coauthors conclude that any viable solution must provide safe, stable, palatable, and reliable food, while also overcoming environmental constraints, using minimal resources, and producing minimal waste. It would also need to provide all the micro- and macronutrients a spacefaring astronaut needs.</p><p>That alone is a tall order, but there is another wrinkle engineers must consider: the astronauts' mental wellbeing. Douglas and her co-authors note that it's a "common misperception" that astronauts will eat anything to complete the mission. While astronauts are high-performing individuals, they still require moments to revitalize their wellbeing against the stress, workload, and isolation inherent in such a mission. </p><p>Delicious, nutritious meals can provide such moments of mental reprieve, but they also must have variety. Even the tastiest meal in the finest of restaurants would become a mental chore if eaten day-in, day-out for two whole years. Substitute that with a tasteless, yet nutrient-dense food paste in the vacuum of space, and even the highest performers will develop a case of cosmic cabin fever.</p>One tough space nut to crack
<span style="display:block;position:relative;padding-top:56.25%;" class="rm-shortcode" data-rm-shortcode-id="52d1849f3d676f8f2781e077fbf33978"><iframe type="lazy-iframe" data-runner-src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/pVDnGdlIMmA?rel=0" width="100%" height="auto" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" style="position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;"></iframe></span><p>To meet these challenges, NASA is crowdsourcing solutions through its <a href="https://www.deepspacefoodchallenge.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">Deep Space Food Challenge</a>. In collaboration with the Canadian Space Agency, NASA is offering a $500,000 prize purse for solutions that add some flavor to extended spaceflight.</p><p>"NASA has knowledge and capabilities in this area, but we know that technologies and ideas exist outside of the agency," Douglas told <a href="https://www.upi.com/Science_News/2021/02/01/NASA-will-pay-500000-for-good-ideas-on-food-production-in-space/8681611859130/" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">UPI in an interview</a>. "Raising awareness will help us reach people in a variety of disciplines that may hold the key to developing these new technologies."</p><p>The agency hopes the winning technologies will also bolster food production on Earth. If a system can offer tasty meals with minimal resources in space, the reasoning goes, then it may be modified for deployment to disaster areas and food-insecure regions, as well. The challenge is open to all U.S. citizens and closes on July 30, 2021. Information on the Canadian Space Agency's challenge is <a href="https://www.asc-csa.gc.ca/eng/sciences/food-production/deep-space-food-challenge.asp" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">available on its website</a>.</p><p>If food isn't your forte but you've got engineering chops, you can still help NASA solve the many other engineering and logistical problems facing the future of space exploration. Through the <a href="https://www.nasa.gov/solve/index.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">NASA Solve</a> initiative, the agency is seeking ideas for breaking lunar ice, shrinking payload sizes, and developing new means of energy distribution. </p><p>And even if engineering isn't for you, you can still <a href="https://www.planetary.org/advocacy/call-congress" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">call your Congressional representative</a> to request they support NASA and <a href="https://www.planetary.org/advocacy" target="_blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">restore funding from budget cuts</a>. We can all play a small, yet important, role in the future of space exploration and the advancing of scientific knowledge.</p>
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