The Story of Slavery: How it All Started?

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
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The Story of Slavery: How it All Started?

At the beginning of the 15th century, the whole world was known as Asia, Europe, the explored shores of Africa and India. For the Europeans who never left their soil and satisfied their every need from China, there was nothing across the Atlantic. Whoever wanted to sail towards that direction were believed to enter boiling waters or swallowed by the ocean. For the cartographers of the era, the best thing to do is to draw the earth with imagination, labelling the other side of the ocean as “unreachable” and fill that area on the map with imaginary islands.

Christians appeared as successful traders and farmers who were obsessed with wars and feasts. The enjoyed living the life at it is and never looked for an adventure. As long as there were enough wars and food for them, exploring the rest of the world and finding out how it looked and it hid was pointless. During the 1,500 years exploited by ignorance and harsh authority of the church, Crusaders represented a huge obstacle in the way of scientific developments of Europe. In the year 391, they encountered the famous library which was built by Alexander The Great and contained thousands of papyrus gathered from the four corners of the world. They burned it to the ground along with the city, thus destroying knowledge of thousands of years. One of the masterpieces among the thousands which could help humanity to open the doors of a golden age was Ptolemy’s world map, belonging to 1st and 2nd ages.

Fleet of Cheng Ho.

Again, in the 15h century, China has succeeded in collapsing the Turkish states by inside jobs and managed to get rid of them at last. With a population exceeding 100 million and owning an enormous naval power, China quickly became the strongest trading country in the known world. By the order of the then emperor, a sailor going by the name Cheng Ho mustered a 37.000 strong fleet consisting of 317 ships and started to explore the world. Cheng Ho, managed to explore the whole shores of China, along with the Persian Gulf and the Red Sea, thus expanding China’s trade routes even more. Ho even had the chance to go further and reach Europe by going around Africa.

The admiral ship of Cheng Ho’s fleet was 135 metres long. Santa Maria, which carried Christof Colombus to the shores of San Salvador in 1492, was only 27 metres long. By 1405, China controlled almost all of the known routes and didn’t feel the desire to explore the rest of the world, believing they had all they already wanted. Thus, the Chinese stayed in their lands too. On the other hand, by the best struck of luck, a copy of Ptolemy’s book, “Geography” was found and immediately translated into Latin.

Christians, who burned the whole knowledge of the world in 391, found out that it is round in the year 1406…

World map of Ptolemy.

The Smell of Spice Disrupted the Sleep of Europeans

The deliberately corrupted holy book of the Crusaders placed Jerusalem at the centre of the world. That is why, between the years 1095 and 1271, in total 12 Crusades took place. In the era of the Crusades, Christians finally manage to broke free of the authority of the church and realized the riches the world has to offer. Yet, trading was still a huge challenge.

Europeans adored eating meat. The meat was enjoyed the most with wine and spices. The only source of the spice of Europe in the middle ages was Egypt and other Muslim countries. The spice trade, on the other hand, was in the hands of two Italian cities, Venetia and Genova. But the price they asked for spice was so high, in some parts of Europe the flavouring was even used as a form of money. One who couldn’t afford those prices had to wait the caravans coming from the Silk and Spice Roads, through İstanbul (Constantinople).

Venetia by Ottoman cartographer Piri Reis.

There must have been a way to reach spice and other goods more easily! This way was sitting on a route travelling around the known shores of Africa and reaching Europe. But, how was it to be explored?

Pessimism is one thing. But for an ultimate change of history, only one person with a different perspective was enough. This person was the Portuguese King Henry (who is also known in history as sailor Henry). Henry was interested in mathematics and astronomy, was not filling the voids in reality by completing the missing information in the Bible but prying on them with curiosity. According to him, a solution must be reached step by step, with utter care. Henry was going to use this approach to go beyond the known shores of Africa and explore the mysteries waiting there.

King Henry, capturing Ceuta.

Europe Wakes Up

In the middle ages, Christianity aimed to declare the whole (known) world as Christian. Therefore, kings leading the Crusader armies had to wear elegant clothes and looked charismatic. Henry, who started the invasion of Africa at the age of 21 by capturing the modern-day Moroccan city Ceuta sitting across Gibraltar, looked like a truly Christian king with his colourful clothes made of the highest quality of silk.

The last emperor of Byzantine, Constantine too, was wearing elegant clothes when he fell to the swords of Janissaries, at the walls of Constantinople. It was not until the next day, he was recognized among the pile of the dead by his fancy eagle sewn royal purple shoes…

After capturing Ceuta, Henry’s eyes were dazzled with the riches of the East. The city was full of marvellous riches of the world. Among the trophies, there were gold, silver, Indian silk, sacs full of cinnamon, pepper, gillyflower and ginger. After the fall of the city, Muslims immediately ceased trade with Ceuta. But for Henry, who was trying to find the route to the source of all these riches, reaching the Red Sea was a must. This route was going down along the unexplored shores of Africa and no one knew where it led to. The area which was called “The Green Sea of Darkness” by Muslims, was the place where the Christians believed to have boiling waters.

Caravel.

The Key of Breakthrough: The Caravel

While Henry was busy with his thoughts, two young sailors names John Gonçalves and Tristan Vaz, asked for a job. Henry sent the two adventurers to explore the shores of Africa. Gonçalves and Vaz, along with their friend Bartholomew Perestrelo, passed Canarian Islands and found the island of Porto Santo. But due to the pregnant rabbit Perestrelo brought along with him, the island came under the control of not humans but rabbits.

Leaving the island to the rabbits for good, Gonçalves and Vaz started a new journey under the order of Henry. This time, they explored the Madeira Islands. After these successes, Henry called the most famous geographer of the time, Master Jaime to his court. The king wanted a ship, which would explore the unknown shores in a few voyages. With taking advantage of the works of Jaime, Henry designed the ship which would be a breakthrough in the history of exploration: Caravel. Only 21 metres long, Caravel carried just 21 crew. To have good manoeuvrability and travel long distances, it had three triangular sails.

In the years between 1421-33, Caravel led the Portuguese sailors to reach the tipping point called Cape Bojador, to the west of Sahara Desert but could not go further. When the storms struck the sailors at that point, beliefs of encountering demons, yellow hurricanes and boiling waters were pushing the caravels back. But Henry had another virtue: Patience. He encouraged his sailors to go further. In 1434, the most expected thing happened and a young sailor by the name of Gil Eanes managed to turn around Cape Bojador. On the opposite of what was expected, none of the ships caught fire or sunk to the bottom of the ocean amid boiling waters. In the following years, Eanes managed to go 240 kilometres further. On the other hand, the Portuguese public was observing these futile attempts to explore Africa pointless while Henry was not spending any effort in bringing spices and silk to the country.

Henry helped his sailors to overcome their fears.

A New Invention: Slave Trade

In 1441, the brother of John Gonçalves, Antam was ordered by Henry to bring “whatever he finds” from Africa. So he came back with gold powder, ox skin, oyster eggs and 10 Africans. Henry, becoming the first known European to taste oyster eggs, said it was delicious. But, the main interest of the people was not the oyster eggs but the African slaves. To diminish the gap in the Portuguese working force, they started to force these half-naked “inferior” people, whose tongue was unknown to work.

Routes taken by Portuguese sailors.

In the other voyage came back 165 slaves, followed by 235 in the following one. After years of struggle for explorations, Portuguese sailors didn’t even manage to reach the tip of the continent but found the most interesting thing the looked for Slaves. In a short time, slaves were in such high demand, that a new form of trading emerged. Ships bound to Africa started to return with not goods but full of African women, children and men. The obsession of comfort and greed would soon turn slavery a routine of life in Europe.

In 1453, the course of history has changed dramatically. 23-year-old Sultan Mehmet captured Constantinople and not only changed the trade routes leading to Europe but the future of the world. It took only 54 days for the young Sultan to breach the strongest walls of the known world and capture the city. Europe was in total shock. Fatih closed the gates of the Silk and Spice roads and ended the routes lasted for centuries. Now, it was inevitable for the Europeans to explore the routes leading to India.

Old trading routes.

The Beginning of the Sad Demise of The Red Skins

Following the 7 years of the fall of the Constantinople, Henry added 3,218 kilometres to the world map with his never-ending intelligence, courage and patience. The desire explorations fueled by him emerged again after it was unavoidable to find a way to end the bottleneck in trade routes. Bartholomew Diaz, who was assigned by King Alfonso, the successor of Henry, was to reach to the tip of Africa. But the man to follow him, Christof Colombus, let alone India was to achieve the most feared voyage and cross the Atlantic, and to reach Cuba.

Santa Maria.

Confused, Colobus called the native people “Indians” because he thought he was in India. From the first moment, the luck of these people took a wrong turn. In the years to come, Red Skins were to be butchered by the greed of Europeans, lost all of their treasures and lands.

Hail Greed!

With the start of the 16th century, Silk and Spice Roads start to lose their fame even more, while unlimited riches poured to Europe from the Americas. It was this moment, that Europeans finally started to move out of their continent and migrated to the new colonies established in the new world. They didn’t forget to take the African slaves among with them. After Fatih sealed the doors of the old world, the greed of the old continent unleashed itself in the new world as invasions, sackings and never-ending lust for treasures.

After the American Independence War, the US states divided into two as industrial and farming cultures. In the south, 4 out of the 9 million population were black slaves. Black people finally gained their freedom after the devastating war between the Rebels and the Yankees. Or did they? On the opposite, their suffering continued for decades as thew were constantly insulted and forced to work in the years of capitalisms awakening.

Today, in many African countries children start to work at the age of 4. Leading companies of the world employ thousands of children workers. Foxconn, which acts as the assembly line of worlds most valuable company Apple, is a good example. Today, we only serve to consumption where humanity has almost lost all of its ambition to explore new things like Henry did centuries ago.

The routes of Colombus.

This article was originally published on DijitalX TR by Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen.

Is There A Storage Limit For Our Brain?

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
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Is There A Storage Limit For Our Brain?

What is the memory limit for the human brain? Is there a physical limit to the information we can hold inside our heads?

Professor of Psychology Paul Reber from Northwestern University provides the answer: Even though there should be a physical limit to the number of memories we can have, the overall capacity of the brain is quite high. It’s so large that you really don’t need to worry about reaching the storage limit one day.

The human brain consists of almost one billion neurons. Each of the neurons connects to around other 1.000 neurons, resulting in more than 1 trillion connections. If every neuron was responsible for only one memory than storage usage would become a problem. Physically, you may have a few Gigabyte’s of space like an iPod or a USB flash drive. But the neurons converge and simultaneously help to create many memories. Gathering of neurons also increases the memory storage capacity significantly as it reaches almost 2,5 petabyte (2,5 million gigabytes). As a comparison, if you consider your brain as a digital recording device of a TV, it could hold up to 3 millions of hours of a TV show. To store this amount of TV show, the television had to be turned on for 300 years.

It is still not so easy to accurately calculate the eventual storage capacity for memories. The first obstacle in the way is not knowing how to measure the scale of memory. Second, some memories contain more detail than others and use more space. Therefore the brain pushes aside the insignificant ones and opens up more space for the important ones. Additionally, our brain doesn’t even bother to remember some memories in the first place.

This mechanism helps our brain to keep pace with the new experiences. So, here comes the question: If human life span expands significantly one day, will our brains able to hold centuries of memories?

For Reber, it is not possible to come up with an answer to this question now as he says, “Ask me a 100 years later.”

This article originally published on DijitalX TR page by Ezgi Atayay.

The Key To Solving The Increasing Food Problem: Fertilizer Industry

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
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The Key To Solving The Increasing Food Problem: Fertilizer Industry

The human population is increasing without losing haste even during the times of the coronavirus pandemic. As the land for farming is shrinking and the population needed to feed is rising, humanity must provide an innovative solution to its critical problem. Fertilizer industry appears to be the key as it will be the main ingredient used to increase the production of existing farming lands.

The fertilizer industry saw a growth of %1,3. in 2017-18 and then experienced a drop in 2018-19 period as global supplies went down to 190 million tons. This slight decline is explained by factors as low international prices for crops; unfavourable weather in important agricultural countries like the US and Australia; currency depreciation in fertilizer importing countries including Turkey and Pakistan; the impact of political tensions on global trade and more efficient use of fertilizers, especially in developed countries.

According to the IFA Executive Summary Fertilizer Outlook 2019-2023 report, demand forecast for years following 2020/21 is %1,2. By the end of 2023, the demand is expected to reach 204 million tons.

The undernourished population reached 925 million in 2010 and people suffering from health problems due to malnutrition will continue to rise if innovative solutions won’t be supported globally to increase food output. To provide food security biotechnological developments and better crop management must be put in place to boost food production (Stewart&Roberts, 2011). In the years to come the importance of inorganic fertilizer will become more significant as the farming lands in South Asia, Latin America, Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America will be forced to increase their output.

Not only the developing world is concerned about the rising global population. Among the vast plans to counter global warming by focusing on renewable energy and meeting the increasing energy demand, another major issue for the European Union (EU) is amplify crop production. In 2018, the European fertilizer industry set a vision for 2030, announcing that “the industry will be at the crossroads between nutrition and energy.” To further distance itself from the carbon-based practices, the EU is aiming to create a green industrial base which would provide a continuous agricultural production, according to Jacob Hansen, Director General of Fertilisers Europe.

closeup photography of brown wheats
Unsplash.

Make Way for Precision Farming

The trend seen in the transformation of farms in Europe can be observed in Belgium. According to the government statistics bureau, Statbel, the number of farms in Belgium decreased %70 in the last 40 years. On the other hand, the land used for farming and agricultural operations increased three times.

While an average farm in Flanders occupied 8,4 hectares of land in 1980 on average, it reached 26,7 hectares in 2019. In Vallonia, these numbers went from 20,7 hectares to 57,6 hectares during the same period. As the farms got smaller, they became mainly family businesses as the employment rate decreased due to the new technologies introduced over the years. Increased farmland bolstered the number of cattle and therefore dairy product and meat production.

The United Nations (UN) expects the world population to reach 9,2 billion in 2050. While it will take decades to set proper colonies on the Moon and Mars and start transferring some of the world’s population to these new worlds, we will need fertilizer more than ever. Today, commercial fertilizer is responsible for 40 to 60 percent of global food production. Developing countries are changing their diets towards more meat while cereal consumption is increasing. New food solutions like artificial meat, offshore algae and seafood farms are offering options to consumers in developed countries who are distancing themselves from traditional food. Developing countries meanwhile are trying to close the gap between developed countries in crop production. This inevitably requires these countries to seek biotechnology advances, better food management and improved infrastructures.

Smart fertilizer and precision farming will be the emerging technologies in the 2020s as the world will seek a precise solution to solve the food demand problem. With slow-release fertilizers technology, the distribution of ammonia, urea and other necessary substances to generate nitrogen will become more efficient. Next step will aim at decreasing the number of greenhouse gases produced during fertilizers. This issue has been greatly eliminated with the environment-friendly production facilities.

Eventual step for the coming years will be integrating the new biotechnologies with smart farming, which represent the sustainable production of agricultural products with the help of AI. Increased efficiency in fertilizer production is an essential step towards a secure food industry. With the help of new technologies and continuous investment in research and development, our world will not trouble feeding itself in the coming decades.

References:

Stewart, W.M. & Roberts, T.L.. (2012). Food Security and the Role of Fertilizer in Supporting it. Procedia Engineering. 46. 76–82. 10.1016/j.proeng.2012.09.448.

https://ec.europa.eu/international-partnerships/events/state-food-security-and-nutrition-world-2020-report_en

The role of fertilizer in growing the world’s food
The future of fertilisers in Europe

Will Poor Countries Have To Chance To Grab Covid-19 Vaccines?

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
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Will Poor Countries Have To Chance To Grab Covid-19 Vaccines?

Last week, pharmaceutical companies Pfizer and BioNTech announced that their Covid-19 vaccine proves to be %90 efficient in clinical tests, which immediately boosted the confidence against the global fight against Covid-19. After the announcement, even the aviation industry gained some hope for the coming months as the bookings jumped in the following days. Further, shares of Air France-KLM jumped %27 after the announcement of Pfizer.

More good news followed with the beginning of this week when biotech company Moderna announced yet even a higher efficiency rate for its Covid-19 vaccine, at %94,5. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), there are more than three dozens of vaccines currently being developed against the novel coronavirus. Vaccines of Pfizer and Moderna are currently at phase 3 of the clinical test, the last step before the official confirmation. According to Pfizer, the vaccine has been tested on 43.500 people so far, and Moderna’ on 30.000.

After a hellish 2020, where more than a million people died and tens of millions forced to live under strict rules to prevent more deaths, 2021 surely looks more promising. But there comes a crucial question: Who will get his hands on the Covid-19 vaccines?

Billions of Doses for Developed Countries

Months before the pivotal announcement of Pfizer, many developed countries and the European Union (EU) acted fast to be the first to get their hands on the Covid-19 vaccines. European Commission continues negotiations with several biotech and pharmaceutical companies including AstraZeneca of Britain and Sanofi of France. After the critical developments of the last week, now most of the eyes turned towards Pfizer.

Pfizer and BioNTech are planning to produce 1,3 billion doses of their vaccine until the end of 2021. The treatment costs 40 dollars and requires two injections per person. Many rich countries have already requested millions of doses of the vaccine, even though it has not been officially accepted as a treatment. It is likely that sooner or later some vaccines will be pushed into mass production under “the urgent need of treatment” against coronavirus. So, rich countries will have acquired billions of these vaccines. What will the poor countries do?

Trudie Lang, director of the Global Health Network at Oxford University thinks that an ethical dilemma may arise in the coming months. Because “all the world needs the two doses of treatment produced by Pfizer.”

WHO has realized the demand problem months ago and came up with the establishment of Covax, an initiative which will be responsible for assuring fair distribution among countries. Covax is made up of governments, scientific organizations, private companies and public organizations. Pfizer is not among Covax but already expressed its intention to supply the required amounts the world needs.

Is Fair Distribution Possible?

According to Rachel Silverman, who is in charge od Center for Global Development, most of the doses of the Covid-19 vaccines won’t end up in the hands of poor countries. As she told AFP, more than 1,1 billion doses of the promising vaccines have already been bought by rich countries. She thinks that through certain members of Covax, including Great Britain and Japan, some of the vaccine supplies may be sent to poorer countries, regarding the agreements made by these countries.

On the other hand, the United States, which is not a member of Covax, secured more than 600 million doses of Covid-19 vaccines. It is not known if the policy of using the vaccines will change with the Biden government.

“We must prevent rich countries from getting all the vaccines”, says Benjamin Schreiber, who is coordinating the funds of United Nations (UN) for children in Unicef. He thinks that the distribution must be set according to the epidemiological status of countries if ethics will stand during this process.

How Many Will Die If Ethics Won’t Rule?

Northeastern University in the US has made simulations regarding a fair or unfair distribution. In their research, two scenarios were put forward. First, 50 rich countries grab 2 billion doses of the vaccines. In the second, the vaccines are distributed to the countries regarding their population, not their richness.

In the first scenario, the global death rate is decreased by only %33. In second, however, it is possible to lower the death rate by %61.

Comes The Issue of Trust

The challenge of distribution is not the only problem laying between the life-saving vaccine (hopefully) and the poor countries. One other major issue will be logistics.

Developed with the state of art technology, Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine is highly sensitive: It needs to be stored in -70 Celcius. Unfortunately, most of the refrigerators in hospitals globally can store up to -20 degrees.
Rachel Silverman puts down another important note: Pfizer and certain governments are preparing a protocol regarding the vaccine for months. But it doesn’t include low or middle-income countries…

“It is hard but not impossible,” she says when talking about distributing the vaccine to the globe. But, important investments must take place to secure the successful logistics of the vaccines.

Eventually, several Covid-19 vaccines may appear in the pharmaceuticals industry in the coming months. Yet again, another issue will arise according to WHO: The trust of the people towards the vaccine.

Belgium government, for instance, declared that it will distribute the vaccine for free and it won’t be mandatory. Nevertheless, Belgium hopes to vaccinate more than 8 million of its citizens (%70 of the total population).

Not surprisingly, social media will be showered with countless conspiracy theories and misinformed faked news. It will be critical to distribute accurate information locally and internationally, the WHO says. So, it won’t only be a matter of distributing vaccines but also the facts come with it.

Referances

1- https://www.dhnet.be/actu/monde/les-pays-pauvres-auront-ils-acces-a-un-vaccin-contre-le-covid-19-5faf90317b50a6525b4478a7

2- https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/article/2020/11/17/air-france-klm-recherche-6-milliards-d-euros-supplementaires-pour-assurer-son-avenir_6059984_3234.html

3- https://www.lalibre.be/planete/sante/coronavirus-pfizer-annonce-que-son-vaccin-est-efficace-a-90-selon-des-resultats-preliminaires-de-la-phase-3-5fa92ef19978e20e7059d068

4- https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2020/11/16/corona-vaccine-will-be-free-not-mandatory/

5- https://www.euronews.com/2020/11/16/pharmaceutical-company-moderna-says-early-data-shows-its-coronavirus-vaccine-is-94-5-effec

What are bacteria? How are bacteria used in life?

Emre Kara
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What are bacteria? How are bacteria used in life?

Bacteria or microbes are living organisms that consists of only one cell. They can live in various environments. These environments include oceans, glacials, oil and some other different places and materials. There are several interactions between bacteria and humans, and the number of these interactions is increasing day by day thanks to advancing technology. 

Bacteria can harm people, or they can create an interaction that named as mutualism. Mutualism involves two sides which benefit from this interaction. Bacteria can create not only mutualistic interactions but also some other different interactions.

Cell Structure of a Bacteria:

As I stated at the beginning, bacteria is a living organism that consists of only one cell. These single-celled organisms are called prokaryote. Bacteria do not have a core. Therefore, DNA exists on cytoplasm disorderly. There is no membrane organelle in bacteria. That’s why they do not contain chloroplasts and mitochondria. As a result, they sustain their energy requirement by carrying out various ways. 

Bacteria which sustain energy by carrying out respiration without oxygen are called anaerobic bacteria. Besides, bacteria that create energy by carrying out respiration with oxygen are called aerobic bacteria. Some other types of bacteria are called temporary anaerobic and aerobic. As a direct result of their small size and noncomplex evolution, the genetics of bacteria can change easily. Hence, they can be used for diverse purposes. 

Bacteria have plasmids that let them manage to gain some different and useful abilities. A plasmid can be described as a small, extrachromosomal DNA molecule within a cell that is physically separated from chromosomal DNA and can replicate independently. Artificial plasmids can be used for recombinant DNA technology and molecule cloning. Recombinant DNA technology can be described as cutting DNA by using some different genetic technologies and putting together with some other DNA molecules. As a result, DNA gains various abilities. These abilities make recombinant DNA technology rather important. 

Where are the bacteria used?

Water Treatment: Biological water treatment is one the most common way for water processing. Bacteria expedite the water treatment process in small areas such as water treatment facilities. Moreover, carrying out this process in these areas is better than carrying out in a natural lake or river for several reasons. Generally, anaerobic bacteria takes place in this process as pumps that contain oxygen are needed. This makes the process more cost-effective. 

As a result of this process, sewers which seen as total garbage and useless generates energy and also gets purified. Furthermore, bacteria such as ”Geobacter” and ”Shewanella” produce electron by consuming sludges in water. Also, methanogenic bacteria transform the CO2 into methane gas. Through the burning of this gas, energy is produced. Finally, Matthew Silver states that dairy products’ wastes contribute to a high amount of energy.

Producing Renewable Energy Resources:  Bacteria are used to produce biofuel, and biofuel is one of the most common renewable energy resources. Professor Nigel Scrutton from The University of Manchester and his colleagues modified Fibroblast Activation Protein(FAP) in bacteria, and they have succeeded in producing propane gas that can be used for fuel in various ways by fermentation and some other ways. Thus, it is believed that bacteria will be a key factor to produce renewable energy in the future. Scientists try to reduce the cost of this biofuel process, and it seems that this method will be used with a lower cost in the future. 

Cleaning Up Oil Pollution: Scientists go on searchings about finding the perfect bacteria for cleaning up oil pollution. In different parts of the world that contain oil contamination, oil-consuming bacteria has been detected. Bacteria are injected into the land in an artificial intervention method, but there is a problem in this method. The problem is these bacteria will compete with each other. Moreover, several nutrients given to the bacteria that have been injected into the land to evolve more efficiently, and this process is called ”biostimulation”. It is known that bacteria not only coordinate with the environment but also evolve so rapidly. That’s why it is rather likely that bacteria that exist in an area polluted with oil will evolve to feed on oil. 

Food Production: It can be said that photosynthesis is the main food source, and some type of bacteria carry out photosynthesis. These bacteria are called photosynthetic, and they carry out photosynthesis by using chlorophyll pigment. They produce food in this way, but we’ll talk about some different types of food production in that essay. Bacteria which is fed with hydrogen transform CO2 into the proteins that are a food source for humans. In other words, we can produce food from the air by using these bacteria. Furthermore, scientists know that plants transform CO2 that exists in the air into the food, and they carry out this process by doing photosynthesis, but they did not gain this ability in the evolutionary process. They created a mutualist relation between bacteria that can do photosynthesis. As a direct result of this relationship, they have connected. Food production by using bacteria seems a great way to solve not only ongoing but also possible future nutrient problems.

Cleaning Of Plastic Pollution: I have already said that bacteria not only coordinate with the environment but also evolve so rapidly. That situation is the same for bacteria that fed with plastic. Some bacteria that fed with plastic have been found and scientists try to enhance their efficiency. It is quite likely that great results will be achieved in the future by modifying the enzyme that consumes plastic. Plastic is a substance that dissolves in nature for a very long time and pollutes our nature. That’s why this research white hope for nature. 

Bacteria are also used for some different reasons thanks to their ability of rapid evolution and coordination. Bacteria that feed on greenhouse gases affect the climate, while bacteria that live in the human gut benefit by establishing a mutualistic relationship with humans. Moreover, there is a great number of benefits using bacteria for cancer treatment. It seems that bacteria are the main factor in the future, and they will solve our ongoing problems. Scientists find out a new ability of bacteria every day, and it is outstanding for the science world.

The Race to Mine Minerals in The Pacific: Who Will Be The Winner?

Müfit Yılmaz Gökmen
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The Race to Mine Minerals in The Pacific: Who Will Be The Winner?

An article appeared on Nature magazine in April 2018 stunned China: Japan discovered 16 billion tonnes of rare minerals in its waters. According to the paper, the minerals found can supply the world’s demand for hundreds of years. In detail, there are yttrium enough for 780 years, dysprosium for 730 years, europium for 620 years and terbium for 420 years.

The underwater treasure chest sits offshore of Minamitori Island, located 1,850 kilometres southwest of Tokyo. While this area belongs to Japan’s maritime borders, the rights of the minerals belong to the island dwellers.

Analyst Jack Lifton described the discovery “as a game-changer” as the political disagreement among the maritime borders has grown between China and Japan since the tension over the Pacific islands in 2014. Following the crisis, China increased the quota 10%, which spiked the rare mineral prices but resumed the export of rare minerals to Japan after the World Trade Organization (WTO) interfered. In the long term, China’s domination in the rare mineral market faces a considerable threat as its share of the market has fallen to 68% in 2020 from 90% in 2011.

“We need to find a cheaper way to reach these minerals,” says Yutaro Takaya, who took part in the Nature study. Takaya points out the major issue faced by all the countries who desire to reach deep-sea minerals. China is still far behind in the technology needed to mine deep-sea minerals compared to Japan. Therefore, if Japan manages to reach the chest box buried deep in the Pacific before China does it in the Yellow Sea, its dominance on the market will encounter a significant threat. Additionally, the US is hoping to decrease its supply from China as rare minerals were found in a mountain called Round Top, which sits at the east of El Paso.

Rare minerals are used in various products such as smartphone batteries and electric automobiles. These elements occupy the bottom second line of the Periodic Table and represent 17 metallic elements in total.

China Has A Long Way To Go

Japan detected vast amounts of rare minerals before and has started to develop technologies to reach these minerals a long time ago. In 2011, the team of scientists led by Yasuhiro Kato of the University of Tokyo found the rare minerals in sea mud at 78 different locations again in Minami-Torishima island according to Nature Geoscience. The minerals sit between 3,500 to 6.000 metres of depths of the ocean in large volumes clustered together. “Just one square kilometre of the deposits would provide one-fifth of the current global consumption,” said Takaya in the time of the discovery.

Japan is conducting deep-sea sample collecting tests in its exclusive economic zone (EEZ). During one dive, a deep-sea observing vessel spends more than 200 minutes to reach 6,000 metres of depth. In long term, it is estimated that Japan needs 3,500 tons of rare minerals daily to supply its industry. The first step may be a 30 cm wide pipe which will operate 10 hours a day to bring around 350 tons of minerals to the surface.

China is dedicating too much time and investment in its future sea mining operations. According to Liu Feng, secretary-general of the China Ocean Mineral Resources Research and Development Association (COMRA), China is in the process of developing the state of the art technology required to mine minerals from the ocean bed. Most importantly, he underlines the geographical area China has, which is the largest as the country secured five contracts regarding deep-sea exploration.

Feng says there are some countries more developed in deep-sea exploration than China, including Germany, Japan and Belgium. All these countries have successfully launched mining tests on the deep-sea floor between 2,000 and 6,000 meters deep. In contrast, China only managed to reach 500 metres of depth in its deep-sea mining tests. China has to develop its weak industry first and then proceed with its plans to mine the seabed. Fengs also mentions the complex systematic coordination requirements for the wide-scale seabed mining operations. Nonetheless, China goes further in testing its deep-sea mining capability and goes under depths of 1,000 meters in 2020.

Pixabay.

Shall We Focus On Mining Asteroids?

Japan was exporting 30% of the rare minerals from Asian countries other than China by late 2017. The country is determined to get out of China’s shadow in obtaining rare earth minerals and will surely go on exploring new seabeds and invest in deep-sea mining technology. China currently holds the processing technology in its hands but it may also not last too long.

US and Australia signed an agreement in November 2019 and in January US signed another with Canada, to secure rare earth elements (REEs). Chicago-NY based MP Materials acquired the Mountain Pass mine sits on the border of California and Nevada, where today 15% of the global supply of REEs are produced. The mined elements are sent to China for processing but MP Materials is planning to open its own in 2022.

Some defend the idea that humanity shall only focus on the deeply buried sources and shall stop spending money on new space exploration markets such as asteroid mining and water-extracting from the surface of planetary bodies. For some, the solution of survival only resides within the Earth, for others we must go to the Moon and Mars and asteroids to extract their resources to further expand the borders of civilization and protect Earth from dying.

Focusing on Earth seems like an easier option. Especially when there are billions of tons of REEs waiting to be mined. On the other hand, the space is full of cosmic treasure chests which contain minerals equal to a few Earths. The best example is 16 Psyche.

200 kilometres wide, the asteroid contains minerals equal to 74 times of the whole world’s economy… NASA has already begun a space exploration mission to reach the asteroid in 2030. The mission, called Lucy, will cost NASA 450 million dollars. If the US manages to land AI-powered mining spacecraft on the asteroid in the following decades, the budget spent on the exploration will be a matter of laughter.

Critics don’t have the chance to show Psyche 16 as a distraction from the real-world issues. The space rock covered with heavy metals was first discovered in 1852. So, where the minerals are the civilization goes.

References:

1-https://chinadialogueocean.net/10891-china-deep-sea-exploration-comra/

2-https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-pacific-14009910

3-http://www.asahi.com/ajw/articles/AJ202001220007.html

4-https://spectrum.ieee.org/tech-talk/semiconductors/materials/us-and-japan-seeking-to-break-chinas-grip-on-rare-earths

5-https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimvinoski/2020/04/07/the-us-needs-china-for-rare-earth-minerals-not-for-long-thanks-to-this-mountain/?sh=79b6d55928b9

6-https://www.dijitalx.com/2017/01/19/200-kilometrelik-asteroidin-degeri-en-az-10000-katrilyon-dolar/

7-https://www.dijitalx.com/2018/12/30/japonya-dunyaya-yuzyillarca-yetecek-nadir-mineral-rezervi-kesfetti/

What is the strongest insect in the world?

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What is the strongest insect in the world?

There are many different animals all around the world. Some of them are famous for their different skills such as dragging, lifting, and pulling. However, there is one insect that takes the first place as being the strongest animal in the world compared to its body weight. It is a Dung Beetle!

What is a Dung Beetle?

Their scientific name is onthophagus taurus. They use dung and/or manure and sometimes other animals, that’s why they get the name of Dung Beetle. They have many different colors: black, metallic green or red. They can be found almost everywhere except Antarctica. It means that they can live in almost every habit.

They have a huge hornlike weapon to prevent themselves from any possible attacks. It seems like mostly female dung beetles have this weapon.

Why are they the strongest insects?

Especially male Dung Beetles can pull 1,141 times their own body weight. It is like pulling 12 buses full of people. According to Rob Knell of Queen Mary, University of London, male dung beetles need to be strong in order to fight in a battle where female dung beetles are digging holes and tunnels. In case of a battle, male dung beetles tend to fight to protect their family.

Then, who is the strongest person in the world?

While writing this article, I had this question in my mind. We learned now that the strongest animal compared to its body weight is dung beetles, however, who is the strongest person in the world?

It is Eddie Hall!

Eddie Hall became the strongest man on the earth on the 9th of July, 2016. His previous record was 463 kg and he beat it with 500 kg.

He describes this record as “the most incredible lift in human history and one of the most dangerous things I’ve ever done.”

You may find it interesting…

10 Interesting Facts About Human Beings

Resources

Top 10 Strongest Animals

Dung Beetle

Just how strong is a dung beetle?

Video: World’s Strongest Man winner Eddie Hall shares his intense eating and training regime

10 Interesting Facts About Human Beings

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10 Interesting Facts About Human Beings

There are probably more than 100 interesting facts about human beings. However, we wanted to share 10 of them with you. We hope you enjoy it and learn something new with us!

If you’re 80 years old and have an active life, in your lifetime, you probably walked enough to travel around the world 5 times.

In a lifetime, a person produces enough saliva to fill more than two swimming pools. However, we don’t know the size of the pools.

Every time you drink water, it might contain a dinosaur’s molecule that it drank itself.

An average person has enough DNA to travel from the Sun to the Pluto 17 times.

It approximately takes 60 seconds for an individual blood cell to complete its travel in your body.

You start developing fingerprints when you’re around 3 months old.

Your teeth carry 99% of your body’s calcium.

Do you want to live longer? If yes, then you should get enough sleep – at least 7 hours a night.

Your nose has a huge impact on the sound and shape of your voice.

Your tongue has the strongest muscles in your body, however, when you get older you lose them easily. It also means losing your taste buds.

You Might Find This Interesting…

Do You Want To Increase Your Memory?

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60 Fascinating Facts about Life

15 Quick Science Facts that Will Blow Your Mind

Do You Want to Increase Your Memory?

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Do You Want to Increase Your Memory?

Increasing your memory will support you to move one step forward in social-cultural and economic activities as well as making your life easier. Keeping the formulas, dates, or names in the mind… Who wouldn’t want that, right?

When you type “How to increase my memory?” on Google Search Engine, you get many options like puzzles, games, and difficult tests. However, today we will suggest something that has been proved by science. It is also free and easy to apply. It is sleeping!

Scientists say that if you have regular sleep (8 hours a day, fully dark and quiet as much as possible) you’ll notice that your memory will increase. The main purpose of this article is to tell you about the experience. But first, let’s learn more about sleep!

Hidden Treasure: Sleep

While we are discovering the unhidden parts of oceans, launching rockets and telescopes into space 50 years ago, we’re missing one thing in our lives: finding the hidden treasure of the brain and sleep.

Keep this in mind: Sleeping is very complicated, complex, and harder to describe than you think. Maybe you’ve heard of the different stages of sleep. For example; NREM and REM. These stages have different functions. However, we’ll not go into these in this writing. It’ll be enough if you know the following:

NREM is the stage;

  • where your sleep is deep,
  • the body’s physiologically active phase is,
  • that is responsible for the production/destruction of your body parts during your sleep.

REM is the stage;

  • where we dream,
  • when our body is paralyzed,
  • when our sensory sensations are active.
Source: Truedark

If you follow the graphic below while you’re reading the information above, you can easily understand the stages of NREM, REM, and awakeness. A person who sleeps approximately at 23:00 directly goes to the NREM 3 & 4 stages and shows a deeper and low wave spectrum sleep as it is seen in Cycle 1. In the following hours, while the third and fourth NREM stages are decreasing, the first and second stages of NREM starts to increase in a parallel to the REM stage. It means you’re dreaming in the meantime of getting awake.

The Experiment of Increasing Your Memory

In 2006, a group of researchers in Germany came up with an idea of an experiment. They invited young and healthy human beings for their experiment and divided them into two groups: Group A & Group B. The people in Group A had electrode pads on their forehead and backhead while Group B had nothing. In the end, the researchers led them to sleep.

The researchers started to give to Group A very low and carefully calculated amounts of electricity (stimulation) instead of recording the electrical brain waves emitted from their brains during sleep. However, they applied this stimulation only at the deepest stage of NREM. The researchers did not want Group A to feel the stimulation and wake up because of it that’s why they kept the stimulation very low. On the other hand, its effects on sleep were unpredictably high.

Before the experiment, both the experiment groups got notified about the information list. A day after sleeping, the researchers gave them the information list and let them do it. The researches could not believe how the test results were. The people in Group A got two times higher scores compared to Group B. In other words, the researchers doubled the test scores by increasing the electrical quality of deep sleep brain wave activity.

They also reported they stimulation applied in the stage REM was not successful. The stimulation where there was synchronized, low, and slow electrical brain waves in the stage of NREM, was improving memory.

BE CAREFUL! Don’t try this experiment at home. Some people really got injured while trying to give electrical brain waves.

If there are people around you that want to improve their memory and getting prepared for exams, just remind them to have a good and stable sleep. This is the reason why we wanted to share this paper with you.

I suggest you to read “Why We Sleep” by Matthew Walker if you’re interested in learning more about sleep. Enjoy and don’t forget to check other papers.

Original article appeared on DijitalX TR, written by Mehmet Emin Köse.

Hot stars are plagued by giant magnetic spots

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Hot stars are plagued by giant magnetic spots

Astronomers using European Southern Observatory (ESO) telescopes have discovered giant spots on the surface of extremely hot stars hidden in stellar clusters. Not only are these stars plagued by magnetic spots, some also experience superflare events, explosions of energy several million times more energetic than similar eruptions on the Sun. The findings, published today in Nature Astronomy, help astronomers better understand these puzzling stars and open doors to resolving other elusive mysteries of stellar astronomy.

The team, led by Yazan Momany from the INAF Astronomical Observatory of Padua in Italy, looked at a particular type of star known as extreme horizontal branch stars — objects with about half the mass of the Sun but four to five times hotter. “These hot and small stars are special because we know they will bypass one of the final phases in the life of a typical star and will die prematurely,” says Momany, who was previously a staff astronomer at ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile. “In our Galaxy, these peculiar hot objects are generally associated with the presence of a close companion star.”

Surprisingly, however, the vast majority of these extreme horizontal branch stars, when observed in tightly packed stellar groups called globular clusters, do not appear to have companions. The team’s long-term monitoring of these stars, made with ESO telescopes, also revealed that there was something more to these mysterious objects. When looking at three different globular clusters, Momany and his colleagues found that many of the extreme horizontal branch stars within them showed regular changes in their brightness over the course of just a few days to several weeks.

“After eliminating all other scenarios, there was only one remaining possibility to explain their observed brightness variations,” concludes Simone Zaggia, a study co-author from the INAF Astronomical Observatory of Padua in Italy and a former ESO Fellow: “these stars must be plagued by spots!”

Spots on the Sun vs spots on extreme horizontal branch stars (artist's impression)
Spots on the Sun vs spots on extreme horizontal branch stars [ESO/L. Calçada, INAF-Padua/S. Zaggia]

Mystery of extreme horizontal branch stars are unveiling

Spots on extreme horizontal branch stars appear to be quite different from the dark sunspots on our own Sun, but both are caused by magnetic fields. The spots on these hot, extreme stars are brighter and hotter than the surrounding stellar surface, unlike on the Sun where we see spots as dark stains on the solar surface that are cooler than their surroundings. The spots on extreme horizontal branch stars are also significantly larger than sunspots, covering up to a quarter of the star’s surface. These spots are incredibly persistent, lasting for decades, while individual sunspots are temporary, lasting only a few days to months. As the hot stars rotate, the spots on the surface come and go, causing the visible changes in brightness.

Beyond the variations in brightness due to spots, the team also discovered a couple of extreme horizontal branch stars that showed superflares — sudden explosions of energy and another signpost of the presence of a magnetic field. “They are similar to the flares we see on our own Sun, but ten million times more energetic,” says study co-author Henri Boffin, an astronomer at ESO’s headquarters in Germany. “Such behaviour was certainly not expected and highlights the importance of magnetic fields in explaining the properties of these stars.”

After six decades of trying to understand extreme horizontal branch stars, astronomers now have a more complete picture of them. Moreover, this finding could help explain the origin of strong magnetic fields in many white dwarfs, objects that represent the final stage in the life of Sun-like stars and show similarities to extreme horizontal branch stars. “The bigger picture though,” says team member, David Jones, a former ESO Fellow now at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain, “is that changes in brightness of all hot stars — from young Sun-like stars to old extreme horizontal branch stars and long-dead white dwarfs — could all be connected. These objects can thus be understood as collectively suffering from magnetic spots on their surfaces.”

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