Posted at 6:00 a.m.
The return of the Tasmanian tiger
An American “de-extinction” firm, Colossal Biosciences, announced in mid-August that it was working on the thylacine, or Tasmanian tiger. It is a dog-sized marsupial that disappeared 2000 years ago from Australia, but survived in Tasmania. European settlers, believing it was attacking their chickens and sheep, exterminated it. The last individual died in 1936 in a zoo in Tasmania. Colossal Biosciences, founded by star Harvard biologist George Church, announced a mammoth revival project based on CRISPR technology last year.
Quiz
PHOTO FROM NASA WEBSITE
The Perseverance rover
What feat did the rover achieve Perseverance on Mars ?
It produced oxygen from the atmosphere. The Local Oxygen Resources Utilization Experiment (MOXIE) of Perseverance produced 50g of oxygen in 7 cycles, between February and December 2021. Production was as good at night as it was during the day, NASA claims in Science this week. MOXIE filters the Martian atmosphere, which is 95% CO2compresses it, heats it to 800°C, then subjects it to electrolysis to separate the carbon and oxygen from the CO2. MOXIE’s technology is efficient enough to be used in a human mission.
The number
PHOTO FROM THE CHINESE ACADEMY OF SCIENCES WEBSITE
Aerial view of a portion of the DSRT
3km
This is the circumference of a radio telescope being built in China, which aims to study flares and sunspots. Each of its 313 domes will have a diameter of 6 m. This solar radio telescope named Daochen (DSRT) is located in a plateau in the province of Sichuan. It is part of Meridian, a larger system for studying the space environment that will eventually include 300 instruments at 31 sites, the Chinese Academy of Sciences said in a statement in July. Another solar radio telescope, the Chinese Spectral Radioheliograph, which is under construction in Mongolia, is part of Meridian.
The exploits of the megalodon
IMAGE PROVIDED BY THE UNIVERSITY OF ZURICH
Artist’s rendering of a megalodon hunting an orca
Megalodon, a 15m giant shark that ruled the oceans millions of years ago, was even bigger than previously thought, according to a new study by a specialist in this species, who works at the University of Zürich. The megalodon could in particular swallow an orca in five mouthfuls. It was also three to four times faster than modern sharks, allowing it to migrate tens of thousands of miles to find areas rich in prey. The megalodon appeared 26 million years ago and disappeared 2.6 million years ago, probably due to climate change and the merger of the two Americas. The modeling study was published in Science Advances at the end of August.
Robots in convenience stores
PHOTO FROM THE TELEXISTENCE WEBSITE
The TX SCARA
The fridges of the Japanese convenience store chain FamilyMart have been filled by robots since this summer. A partnership announced by FamilyMart with robotics firm Telexistence is testing the TX SCARA (Selective Assembly and Compliance Robotic Arm) fine logistics robot in 300 Tokyo convenience stores. TX SCARA is expected to operate autonomously 98% of the time, alleviating the labor shortage. If the test works, the other 16,000 FamilyMart convenience stores will be equipped with TX SCARA, which Telexistence would like to implement in the United States.