As college students settle in to another year of study, those taking science courses may want to check out the September 6th issue of Science – and ask themselves if they’ve made the right choice.
The journal’s content of is a bellwether of the health of the subject. And to judge by two back-to-back articles in its pages earlier this month, those wanting to be where the action is may want to consider switching to biology, where a revolution could be about to break.
In recent years physics has been seen as the place to be, with its city-sized atom smashers, billion-dollar space probes and literally cosmic ambition. Its theories encompass everything from the workings of the atom to the origin of the universe and underpin every gadget and gizmo.
Yet all is not well on the frontier. Despite their best efforts, physicists are running out of big new ideas.
In a sense they are victims of their own success. Theorists have spent decades assembling a mathematical account of the subatomic particles and forces between them, known as the Standard Model. Meanwhile, experimentalists have been putting it to the test in machines such as the 27km-long Large Hadron Collider near Geneva.
And the good news is that the theory has passed every test – culminating last year in the discovery of the Higgs boson, which may well lead to Nobel Prizes next month.
The bad news is that physicists were hoping for more. They wanted the LHC to give them some hints about what lies beyond the Standard Model, which for all its successes is known to be incomplete.
For example, it says nothing about the force of gravity, nor about the driving force of the entire cosmos, known as Dark Energy, or the most common form of mass in the universe, Dark Matter.
The LHC has found nothing to help the theorists with these riddles. Indeed, it has made things worse by ruling out some ideas they had for creating the “Theory of Everything”.
As the Science piece glumly reports, it is a similar story at the other end of the size scale. Astrophysicists are celebrating confirmation of their basic theories about the cosmos by their equivalent of the LHC, the orbiting Planck telescope.
By examining the radiation left over from the Big Bang, Planck supports the long-standing idea that the universe began about 13.8 billion years ago with a brief period of so-called inflation, resulting in a mix of matter and energy that has been expanding ever since.
But like the LHC, Planck has given theorists no clues about what drove that inflation, or why the universe is now filled with enigmatic Dark Energy and Dark Matter.
Many physicists now fear they are entering a long fallow period, unable to squeeze anything new out of their nice, neat but underpowered theories.
Yet over in biology departments, things are looking much brighter. The second piece in Science describes how biologists are facing the realisation that Darwin may not be the final word in evolution.
It reports on packed sessions at this year’s Congress of the European Society for Evolutionary Biology in Lisbon, Portugal, where researchers learnt of results apparently backing a notorious rival theory to Darwinian evolution.
First put forward over 200 years ago by the French naturalist Jean Lamarck, it claims that living organisms can inherit traits acquired by their forebears during their lifetime.
According to Lamarck, giraffes acquired their long neck from antelope forebears, who spent their lives stretching up to eat leaves on trees.
In contrast, Darwinism sees all such traits as the result of random mutation of genes that just happen to prove useful to survival, and thus have a higher chance of being passed on to offspring. The idea of genes being permanently affected by life events is regarded as ludicrous.
Yet while it is clear that genes affect cells and thus the resulting organisms, there have long been hints of the reverse happening as well. One example is diet: we can choose to alter what we eat, and thus what ends up in our cells – which in turn can affect genetically related traits.
About 20 per cent of people carry a genetic trait that boosts their risk of heart attacks by up to 60 per cent. In 2011, researchers showed that the lethal effect of this gene could be switched off by changing diet to one rich in raw fruit and vegetables.
But Lamarckism goes a step further than this “epigenetic” effect. It posits that organisms can influence not only the action of their own genes, but of those of their offspring too.
Now evidence for this is beginning to emerge, as scientists cramming into those meetings in Lisbon heard last month.
A team led by Dr Frank Johannes at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands has been looking for Lamarck-like effects in a plant called Arabidopsis thaliana.
A relative of cabbage, A thalianais has a genome that is both relatively small and thoroughly known, making it an ideal genetic test bed.
The team set about creating multiple generations of the plant to see if they could spawn genetically identical strains with permanently altered traits.
And they appear to have succeeded. In results unveiled at the meeting, the team announced the emergence of strains with different heights and flowering times that have persisted through eight generations – despite them all having the same genes.
This suggests that epigenetic effects can persist down the generations. Given that such effects can be triggered by the environment or even the organism itself, this would mean Lamarck’s ideas cannot be dismissed after all.
Not surprisingly, many researchers are demanding further evidence before accepting this contradiction of Darwin’s idea. Is there perhaps something odd about A thaliana that makes it a rare exception?
For biologists, confirmation of these findings could prove as momentous as the events that struck physics almost a century ago, when studies of a solar eclipse showed that Newton’s law of gravity was just an approximation to the larger truth revealed by Einstein.
In fact, given the likely role of epigenetics in so many human traits, the effect of what was unveiled in Lisbon last month may prove even more momentous.
O Robert Matthews is visiting reader in science at Aston University, Birmingham, England
If you go
Where to stay: Courtyard by Marriott Titusville Kennedy Space Centre has unparalleled views of the Indian River. Alligators can be spotted from hotel room balconies, as can several rocket launch sites. The hotel also boasts cool space-themed decor.
When to go: Florida is best experienced during the winter months, from November to May, before the humidity kicks in.
How to get there: Emirates currently flies from Dubai to Orlando five times a week.
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How to protect yourself when air quality drops
Install an air filter in your home.
Close your windows and turn on the AC.
Shower or bath after being outside.
Wear a face mask.
Stay indoors when conditions are particularly poor.
If driving, turn your engine off when stationary.
Electoral College Victory
Trump has so far secured 295 Electoral College votes, according to the Associated Press, exceeding the 270 needed to win. Only Nevada and Arizona remain to be called, and both swing states are leaning Republican. Trump swept all five remaining swing states, North Carolina, Georgia, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, sealing his path to victory and giving him a strong mandate.
Popular Vote Tally
The count is ongoing, but Trump currently leads with nearly 51 per cent of the popular vote to Harris’s 47.6 per cent. Trump has over 72.2 million votes, while Harris trails with approximately 67.4 million.
The five pillars of Islam
COMPANY PROFILE
Name: HyperSpace
Started: 2020
Founders: Alexander Heller, Rama Allen and Desi Gonzalez
Based: Dubai, UAE
Sector: Entertainment
Number of staff: 210
Investment raised: $75 million from investors including Galaxy Interactive, Riyadh Season, Sega Ventures and Apis Venture Partners
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Cricket World Cup League 2
UAE squad
Rahul Chopra (captain), Aayan Afzal Khan, Ali Naseer, Aryansh Sharma, Basil Hameed, Dhruv Parashar, Junaid Siddique, Muhammad Farooq, Muhammad Jawadullah, Muhammad Waseem, Omid Rahman, Rahul Bhatia, Tanish Suri, Vishnu Sukumaran, Vriitya Aravind
Fixtures
Friday, November 1 – Oman v UAE
Sunday, November 3 – UAE v Netherlands
Thursday, November 7 – UAE v Oman
Saturday, November 9 – Netherlands v UAE
The specs
Engine: 3-litre twin-turbo V6
Power: 400hp
Torque: 475Nm
Transmission: 9-speed automatic
Price: From Dh215,900
On sale: Now
Killing of Qassem Suleimani
The National in Davos
We are bringing you the inside story from the World Economic Forum's Annual Meeting in Davos, a gathering of hundreds of world leaders, top executives and billionaires.
COMPANY PROFILE
● Company: Bidzi
● Started: 2024
● Founders: Akshay Dosaj and Asif Rashid
● Based: Dubai, UAE
● Industry: M&A
● Funding size: Bootstrapped
● No of employees: Nine
COMPANY PROFILE
Founders: Alhaan Ahmed, Alyina Ahmed and Maximo Tettamanzi
Total funding: Self funded
Tree of Hell
Starring: Raed Zeno, Hadi Awada, Dr Mohammad Abdalla
Director: Raed Zeno
Rating: 4/5
Citadel: Honey Bunny first episode
Directors: Raj & DK
Stars: Varun Dhawan, Samantha Ruth Prabhu, Kashvi Majmundar, Kay Kay Menon
Rating: 4/5
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The specs
Engine: Dual 180kW and 300kW front and rear motors
Power: 480kW
Torque: 850Nm
Transmission: Single-speed automatic
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U19 World Cup in South Africa
Group A: India, Japan, New Zealand, Sri Lanka
Group B: Australia, England, Nigeria, West Indies
Group C: Bangladesh, Pakistan, Scotland, Zimbabwe
Group D: Afghanistan, Canada, South Africa, UAE
UAE fixtures
Saturday, January 18, v Canada
Wednesday, January 22, v Afghanistan
Saturday, January 25, v South Africa
UAE squad
Aryan Lakra (captain), Vriitya Aravind, Deshan Chethyia, Mohammed Farazuddin, Jonathan Figy, Osama Hassan, Karthik Meiyappan, Rishabh Mukherjee, Ali Naseer, Wasi Shah, Alishan Sharafu, Sanchit Sharma, Kai Smith, Akasha Tahir, Ansh Tandon
Singham Again
Director: Rohit Shetty
Stars: Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor Khan, Ranveer Singh, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, Deepika Padukone
Rating: 3/5
Match info
Costa Rica 0
Serbia 1
Kolarov (56')
The specs: 2018 Chevrolet Trailblazer
Price, base / as tested Dh99,000 / Dh132,000
Engine 3.6L V6
Transmission: Six-speed automatic
Power 275hp @ 6,000rpm
Torque 350Nm @ 3,700rpm
Fuel economy combined 12.2L / 100km
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SPECS
Engine: Two-litre four-cylinder turbo
Power: 235hp
Torque: 350Nm
Transmission: Nine-speed automatic
Price: From Dh167,500 ($45,000)
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The specs
Engine: Direct injection 4-cylinder 1.4-litre
Power: 150hp
Torque: 250Nm
Price: From Dh139,000
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FA Cup fifth round draw
Sheffield Wednesday v Manchester City
Reading/Cardiff City v Sheffield United
Chelsea v Shrewsbury Town/Liverpool
West Bromwich Albion v Newcastle United/Oxford United
Leicester City v Coventry City/Birmingham City
Northampton Town/Derby County v Manchester United
Southampton/Tottenham Hotspur v Norwich City
Portsmouth v Arsenal
COMPANY%20PROFILE
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Call of Duty: Black Ops 6
Developer: Treyarch, Raven Software
Publisher: Activision
Console: PlayStation 4 & 5, Windows, Xbox One & Series X/S
Rating: 3.5/5
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre turbo
Power: 181hp
Torque: 230Nm
Transmission: 6-speed automatic
Starting price: Dh79,000
On sale: Now
The specs
Engine: 1.5-litre 4-cylinder petrol
Power: 154bhp
Torque: 250Nm
Transmission: 7-speed automatic with 8-speed sports option
Price: From Dh79,600
On sale: Now
Company%20Profile
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The five pillars of Islam
Britain's travel restrictions
- A negative test 2 days before flying
- Complete passenger locator form
- Book a post-arrival PCR test
- Double-vaccinated must self-isolate
- 11 countries on red list quarantine
Company%20Profile
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Company profile: buybackbazaar.com
Name: buybackbazaar.com
Started: January 2018
Founder(s): Pishu Ganglani and Ricky Husaini
Based: Dubai
Sector: FinTech, micro finance
Initial investment: $1 million
Company%20Profile
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Managing the separation process
- Choose your nursery carefully in the first place
- Relax – and hopefully your child will follow suit
- Inform the staff in advance of your child’s likes and dislikes.
- If you need some extra time to talk to the teachers, make an appointment a few days in advance, rather than attempting to chat on your child’s first day
- The longer you stay, the more upset your child will become. As difficult as it is, walk away. Say a proper goodbye and reassure your child that you will be back
- Be patient. Your child might love it one day and hate it the next
- Stick at it. Don’t give up after the first day or week. It takes time for children to settle into a new routine.And, finally, don’t feel guilty.
What is the FNC?
The Federal National Council is one of five federal authorities established by the UAE constitution. It held its first session on December 2, 1972, a year to the day after Federation.
It has 40 members, eight of whom are women. The members represent the UAE population through each of the emirates. Abu Dhabi and Dubai have eight members each, Sharjah and Ras al Khaimah six, and Ajman, Fujairah and Umm Al Quwain have four.
They bring Emirati issues to the council for debate and put those concerns to ministers summoned for questioning.
The FNC’s main functions include passing, amending or rejecting federal draft laws, discussing international treaties and agreements, and offering recommendations on general subjects raised during sessions.
Federal draft laws must first pass through the FNC for recommendations when members can amend the laws to suit the needs of citizens. The draft laws are then forwarded to the Cabinet for consideration and approval.
Since 2006, half of the members have been elected by UAE citizens to serve four-year terms and the other half are appointed by the Ruler’s Courts of the seven emirates.
In the 2015 elections, 78 of the 252 candidates were women. Women also represented 48 per cent of all voters and 67 per cent of the voters were under the age of 40.
Get inspired
Here are a couple of Valentine’s Day food products that may or may not go the distance (but have got the internet talking anyway).
Sourdough sentiments: Marks & Spencer in the United Kingdom has introduced a slow-baked sourdough loaf dusted with flour to spell out I (heart) you, at £2 (Dh9.5). While it’s not available in the UAE, there’s nothing to stop you taking the idea and creating your own message of love, stencilled on breakfast-inbed toast.
Crisps playing cupid: Crisp company Tyrells has added a spicy addition to its range for Valentine’s Day. The brand describes the new honey and chilli flavour on Twitter as: “A tenderly bracing duo of the tantalising tingle of chilli with sweet and sticky honey. A helping hand to get your heart racing.” Again, not on sale here, but if you’re tempted you could certainly fashion your own flavour mix (spicy Cheetos and caramel popcorn, anyone?).