science guru jan 2014

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SCIENCE GURU Mountain View High School Science Magazine Dec 2013 • Jan 2014 e latest and hottest news about science from all around the world! We publish an issue every month; copies can be found in Dr. ornburg’s room and issues are posted on our blog. Editor-in-Chief: Kiana Nouri Science Guru club meets every Friday at lunch in 120, Dr. ornburg’s room Biocomputers Pratik Mulpury I magine growing a computer just like clones in a bio lab we might see in a sci-fi movie. is may not be as far out in the future as we may think. Today, computers are made of semiconductors that are used to carry out computations, while computers made of living parts have existed solely in the realm of science fiction; only lim- ited research has been conducted in the field. Continued page 9 Left to right Avni Singhal, Rohun Saxena, Kiana Nouri, Varsha Suresh Kumar, Dr. ornburg Science News & Facts Kiana Nouri Sorry Albert! New Physics Challenges Albert Einstein Einstein’s relativity theory may not be accurate. Strange signals picked up from black holes and distant supernovae suggest there’s more to space-time than Einstein believed. Einstein envisaged space-time as a perfectly smooth surface warped by the mass of stars, planets, and galaxies to produce gravity. Now signals from a variety of celestial objects are hinting at some- thing different. If the observations are confirmed – and they are controversial – they suggest that the landscape of reality is al- together more rugged than Einstein thought. at would mean his isn’t the last word on space-time or gravity – and would change fundamentally our perception of the universe. Continued page 6 Hypothetical Dark Energy and Invisible Dark Matter by Jasmine Deng Page 10 Did You Know Your Face Is Made Up of Junk? by Varsha Kumar Page 8 Comet Investigation by Carter Fox Page 4 Long Live . . . Us by Jasmine Deng Page 3

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Science Guru Magazine, BlogKiana Nouri (Founder & Editor-in-chief)Mountain View High School's Science Magazine

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Page 1: Science Guru Jan 2014

SCIENCE GURUMountain View High School Science Magazine

Dec 2013 • Jan 2014The latest and hottest news about science from all around the world! We publish an issue every month; copies can be found in Dr. Thornburg’s room and issues are posted on our blog.

Editor-in-Chief: Kiana Nouri ⚛ Science Guru club meets every Friday at lunch in 120, Dr. Thornburg’s room

BiocomputersPratik Mulpury

Imagine growing a computer just like clones in a bio lab we might see in a sci-fi movie. This

may not be as far out in the future as we may think. Today, computers are made of semiconductors that are used to carry out computations, while computers made of living parts have existed solely in the realm of science fiction; only lim-ited research has been conducted in the field.

Continued page 9

Left to right Avni Singhal, Rohun Saxena, Kiana Nouri, Varsha Suresh Kumar, Dr. Thornburg

Science News & FactsKiana Nouri

Sorry Albert! New Physics Challenges Albert Einstein

Einstein’s relativity theory may not be accurate. Strange signals picked up from black holes and distant supernovae suggest there’s more to space-time than Einstein believed. Einstein envisaged space-time as a perfectly smooth surface warped by the mass of stars, planets, and galaxies to produce gravity. Now signals from a variety of celestial objects are hinting at some-thing different. If the observations are confirmed – and they are controversial – they suggest that the landscape of reality is al-together more rugged than Einstein thought. That would mean his isn’t the last word on space-time or gravity – and would change fundamentally our perception of the universe.

Continued page 6

Hypothetical Dark Energy and Invisible Dark Matter

by Jasmine Deng

Page

10Did You Know Your Face Is Made Up of Junk?

by Varsha Kumar

Page

8Comet Investigation

by Carter Fox

Page

4Long Live . . . Us

by Jasmine Deng

Page

3

Page 2: Science Guru Jan 2014

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Is there a DNA or chemical element in your blood responsi-ble for happiness? According to

UCLA scientists, ancient philoso-phers and modern psychologists, there is—and the secret to happi-ness is quite trivial. If in fact that is true, what are these basic compo-nents? What does happiness mean to each of us and how can we fulfill this pursuit of happiness?

The art and science of hap-piness has been researched and analyzed for centuries. Alain de Botton, the British philosopher, discusses this in his Epicurus on Happiness video. The ancient Greek philosopher Epicurus claimed that “friends, freedom, and an analyzed life” are the key ingredients of a happy life. In fact, present-day psychologists are researching certain positive emotions and causes of happi-ness, such as freedom and friends. Some of these key emotions are gratitude, serenity, joy, interest, hope, pride, amusement, inspira-tion, awe, and love.

Psychologist Barbara Fred-rickson has done research in this area. She has demonstrated that positive emotions affect our health. She has developed a the-ory called “Broaden and Build,” through which she describes how positive emotions broaden our lives and how resilience is fueled by positive emotions.

Fredrickson’s research con-cludes: “ratio of three to one posi-tive emotions to negative emo-tions is the point at which people tend to flourish and thrive.” As

another example, according to psychologist Sonja Lyubomirsky, “50% of our happiness is set by our genes, 10% by life circum-stances beyond our control, and 40% by our own actions”.

Now that we know the for-mula, we need to substitute the values that correspond to each of our lives. In my specific case, my family represents the Epicurean “friends”. Financial freedom, po-litical freedom, and the freedom to live a meaningful life are my pur-pose, but achieving it is not trivial.

One key tool I can use to help me is acquiring an education. By going to university, I can learn about my interests, my passion, and what I can do best in life as a professional. I can achieve finan-cial freedom and live a fulfilling life. Getting a degree is an excel-lent goal; since I gain knowledge that I can give. As a junior in high school I started my own very small technology startup, and I am still working on it. I still plan to continue my education in tech-nology and science and utilize it to start more ventures. This pro-vides me with financial freedom and opens my hand into “giving” more to others, so they can get their opportunities in life.

The third ingredient of Epi-curean life, “the analyzed life”, is what I need to work on, in the process of achieving a life with freedom. Epicurus taught us that we look in the wrong places for the pursuit of happiness—for example, a spending spree using a credit card.

On the other hand, if we analyze our lives periodically, we can observe that it is not achieve-ments such as education or money that are the aims of our lives. My aim is to utilize education to contribute to living a meaningful life. For me that means being able to increase my knowledge. I gain knowledge to live a stimulating and fulfilling existence. I plan to share this stimulating life, spread knowledge when I can, and give financially what I can.

So, if there is a shortage of “the happiness element” in your blood chemistry and gene activity, is there another secret to happi-ness? Absolutely. Live an analyzed life that, rather than indulging materialistic cravings, thrives in the freedom of living a meaning-ful life. ⚛

Kiana Nouri is the founder, presi-dent, and editor-in-chief of Science Guru Blog, Magazine, and Club. This issue of Science Guru is cre-ated, edited, and published by her.

The Scientific Basis of Happiness: Gene Activity and Blood ChemistryLetter From the Editor Kiana Nouri

Page 3: Science Guru Jan 2014

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The idea of immortality has been around for a very, very long time. Many people in myth and legend are claimed to be immortal – more specif-ically, gods and goddesses, or very holy figures, in some religions. The quest

for immortality has been (one can say) immortal throughout the ages as well.Around 200 bc, Qin Shi Huang, the first emperor of a unified China, des-

perately sought an “elixir of life” that supposedly would grant him immortality. This “elixir of life” mainly consisted of mercury pills, which today are known to be, unfortunately, poisonous. At least he is immortal in our memory in teaching us that the path to immortality is not paved with mercury.

In the early 1800s, Leonard “Live-Forever” Jones claimed to be immortal. According to Jones, death occurred because of immorality (not to be confused with immortality), and with prayer and fasting death could be avoided. He is, needless to say, not alive today.

Of course, with improved medicine and technology, we’ve greatly elongated human life spans, for which many people are grateful. We have not quite guar-anteed immortality, but we can now grow lumps of liver, brain, some bits of the heart, and retinal cells. So it appears stem cell research is paying off. However, we can grow only the differentiated cells, meaning that we can grow the specific lung cells, heart cells, and nerve cells, but they grow two-dimensionally, mean-ing that they grow to become totally flat, stuck on a petri dish.

The issue is that we happen to be three-dimensional organisms, with three-dimensional hearts and brains and organs. We can – and have – made gel scaffolds to get around this, but these are fairly effective only for small parts of organs, not the complete one. But with the pace of technology, it is quite reason-able that we should perfect this within a few decades.

Continued next page

Long Live . . . Us

Jasmine has been an active member of our club for two years now. She is the community coordinator for Science Guru.

Jasmine Deng

Qing Shi Huang Di, the first Chinese emperor

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This past year, Comet ISON made a stunning journey through the inner solar system. This extraordinary comet amazed astronomers around the world as it made a daring encounter with the sun. Scientists and amateur

astronomers watched ISON closely. If ISON survived, it would reach a magni-tude visible to the naked eye—but, sadly, the sun’s intense heat and gravity broke apart this icy rock from the early solar system.

Comet ISON’s journey started nearly a light year from the sun, at the very edge of our solar system. There lies an immense cloud of icy planetesimals called the Oort Cloud. Occasionally, some of these icy pieces of rock are slung across the solar system towards the sun by the effect of solar gravity. Comet ISON journeyed among these planetesimals until it was pulled away and slung into the inner solar system.

ISON was three to four miles across and its tail extended over 57,000 miles into space. Its moment of truth with the sun came on Thanksgiving Day. In the images above, the sun is blocked to show the comet moving towards it. ISON fought the sun, but soon was disintegrated by its extreme heat and gravity. How-ever, something later appeared coming out from the opposite side of the sun, as seen in the second image.

Continued next page

Comet Investigation

Carter Fox is a new member of Science Guru this year.

Carter Fox

Page 5: Science Guru Jan 2014

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Scientists cheered, think-ing ISON had survived its close encounter with the sun. Unfor-tunately, these dreams died when the remains were found not to be a comet, but simply a small amount of leftover rock and pebbles that survived the encoun-ter with the sun.

Comets have always fasci-nated humans, and ISON is surely not the only comet we have in-vestigated. Right now the Rosetta spacecraft is on its way to comet 67P, a comet around two and a half miles wide controlled by Ju-piter’s gravity. Rosetta will attempt to orbit the comet and to send a lander down to the surface.

After finding a safe landing spot, Rosetta will launch its lander to the surface of the comet. The lander is equipped with harpoons that will be released to tether itself to the surface, preventing it from bouncing back into space. Once on the surface it will drill and heat samples to investigate organic molecules and their construction.

The Stardust spacecraft has al-ready rendezvoused with a comet and safely returned home a sam-ple capsule. On January 2, 2004, Stardust swung past comet Wild 2 and attempted to pick up particles from the comet. Afterward, the spacecraft’s sample-return cap-sule landed in the Utah desert on January 15, 2006. Scientists

discovered surprising compounds in the capsule such as olivine, a mix of iron and magnesium.

Comets are extraordinary objects from the far reaches of our solar system that continue to im-press astronomers with their beau-ty and complexity. The Stardust and Rosetta missions and study of comet ISON help scientists around the world unravel the mysteries of the early solar system. ⚛

Watch this animation to see how Rosetta will deploy its lander and what will happen as it descends to the surface: http://www.space.com/24090-european-spacecraft-

to-land-on-comet-in- 2014- animation.html

Comet Investigation Carter FoxContinued from previous page

Already, we can print skin on 3D printers just from taking some of the patient’s skin and isolating individual skin cells, then grow-ing them and “printing” skin, as if from a regular inkjet printer.

(Luckily, skin is a two-dimen-sional organ.) While few probably are in desperate need of a skin transplant, this can aid healing, possibly saving patients’ lives, and prevent scarring.

According to the National Kidney Foundation, as of June 21, 2013, there were 118,617 people waiting for lifesaving organ trans-plants in the US. Of those, 96,645 were waiting for kidney trans-plants. Soon we may be able to grow kidneys in labs and trans-plant them into the human body. This isn’t just limited to kidneys – we could grow eyes, hearts, lungs, and other organs and tissues.

No doubt the road to immor-tality still has a long way left to

go. But we’re getting closer to in in continuing stem cell research, and someday, we may all become a society composed of immortal individuals like a society of vam-pires and the undead. Now, most people can live to eighty or even reach their centennial. But will we reach immortality? Only time will tell. ⚛

Long Live . . . Us Jasmine DengContinued from page 3

A skin printer

The scaffold for a kidney

Page 6: Science Guru Jan 2014

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In quantum theory, nothing is static or certain. Particles and energy can fluctuate and pop in and out of existence on the brief-est of time scales. Many theories of quantum gravity – the yearned-for “theories of everything” that will unify our descriptions of space-time and gravity with quan-tum mechanics – suggest some-thing similar is true of space-time: instead of a smooth continuum, it is a turbulent quantum foam with no clearly defined surface.

Einstein’s undulating land-scape becomes more like a choppy seascape through which particles and radiation must fight their way. Lower-energy light with its longer wavelengths would be akin to an ocean liner, gliding through the foamy quantum sea largely undisturbed. Light of higher energy and shorter wavelengths, on the other hand, would be more like a small dinghy battling through the waves.

Want an A+ in your Chem-AP re-test? Drink a double espresso for breakfast!Coffee has long been a friend of students working through the night, but it does more than just keep us awake. A study provides the first convincing evidence that caffeine enhances long-term memory in people – provided the dose is right. The effects mirror similar results seen in honeybees; a boost to memory from caffeine-laden nectar may help bees return to certain plants.

Researchers strongly

suspected that caffeine enhances memory, but studies that tried to show this in people weren’t con-clusive, as any apparent benefits in memory could have been due to increased attention, a known benefit of caffeine.

Studies in animals such as rats, meanwhile, suggested that it enhances memory consolida-tion – the process of strengthen-ing memories between acquiring them and retrieving them – which should affect long-term memory.

Bench your best player to win the seriesDropping one route can boost a network’s overall performance by emphasizing better options. Ac-cording to the emerging science of networks, there are good rea-sons why some systems perform better in seemingly disadvanta-geous conditions. It’s just a natu-ral property of certain kinds of networks, although a paradoxical one called Braess’s paradox.

The best implementation is to close roads to get everyone home

faster, which has worked in New York and Boston. Cities have used it for the electricity grid and it is being used in wireless networks. Now scientists are applying the paradox to any network, includ-ing working on curing cancer by using this paradox on networks in the human body.

A drug for perfect pitchDo you think you could have been Michael Tilson Thomas, the San Francisco Symphony maestro, but missed the opportunity to start in early childhood? A mood-stabilis-ing drug can help you achieve per-fect pitch – the ability to identify any note you hear without infer-ring it from a reference note.

Since this is a skill that usually is acquired only early in life, the discovery is the first evidence that it may be possible to revert the human brain to a childlike state, enabling us to treat disorders and unlock skills that are difficult, if not impossible, to acquire beyond a certain age.

Continued next page

Science News and Facts Kiana NouriContinued from page 1

Page 7: Science Guru Jan 2014

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From bilingualism to sporting prowess, many abilities rely on neural circuits that are laid down by our early experiences. Until the age of seven or so, the brain goes through several “critical periods” during which it can be changed radically by the environment. During these times, the brain is said to have increased plasticity.

Takao Hensch, professor of neurology at Harvard University, has conducted research on mice and found that certain drugs can be used to kick in the brain’s plas-ticity machinery.

He used valproate – a drug used to treat bipolar disorder – to cure amblyopia in adult mice. Hensch and Dr. Allan Young of London’s King college used Val-proate to make adults able to have perfect pitch, and it worked. Their next experiment inviolves using this drug to cure autism.

This time next year, we might be wearing computers on our heads!Already a hit with early adopters, the much-hyped Google Glass headset will be released to the public in 2014. And in response to feedback from those testers, it is likely to boast a few extra features.

For starters, developers are keen to incorporate eye-tracking

so that the device can overlay information on top of objects or areas that the wearer is gazing at. That could boost the headset’s ability to deliver ultra-personal, targeted advertising. Glass could also get tricked out with gesture recognition, which would allow users to control it just by waving their hands.

The Explorer program to test early versions of Glass has already given rise to a slew of potentially game-changing applications. For example, it has allowed surgeons to transmit their view of an op-eration to medical students else-where, and helped people watch what they eat – literally – as a way of managing diabetes.

Critics say the headset’s cam-era will destroy privacy, and its distracting screen could ruin social interaction. But if Glass and several competing products launch next year as expected, millions of people could become hooked. That will definitely to change the way we look at the world.

New electric conductor: staneneMove over, graphene. The one-atom-thick form of carbon, famed for its conductive abilities, may soon have a rival in the form of stanene, a single layer of tin atoms. Though it doesn’t yet exist, calculations suggest that stanene – from the Latin for tin, stannum – might conduct electricity with 100 per cent efficiency, leading to low-power computer chips.

Earth’s fraternal twin discoveredAstronomers have discovered an exo-planet with the same mass as Earth. The planet, called KOI-314c, is sixty per cent larger than Earth and is thought to be more gas than rock – so it is unlikely to be conducive to life. Its unusual properties challenge assumptions that any Earth-mass planet would have an Earth-like composition. ⚛

(Portions printed from New Scientist.)

Science News and Facts Kiana Nouri

Continued from previous page

Page 8: Science Guru Jan 2014

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Varsha has been vice president and a very active member of Science Guru since it was started.

Varsha Kumar

And by that I mean junk DNA. Junk DNA is DNA that does not code for proteins, but rather has a function for protein that we have yet to fully understand.

Geneticists have realized that only a small number of genes influences your face shape, which results in variation. Other factors that influences your face shape are distant acting enhancers. Axel Visel from the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory believes that these enhancers influence variation when it comes to face shape. These face enhancers are part of the non-coding DNA (hence where the name “junk DNA” came from) that influences our face shape.

Visel wanted to visualize how these enhancers influenced face shape during development. With the help of his colleagues, he used a technique called optical projection tomography, which allowed him to create a 3D model of a developing mouse embryo to show where and how the enhancers influence face shape.

To see the effect the enhancers had, the scientists engineered mice to lack one of the 120 enhancers involved in face structure. After eight weeks, the sci-entists compared the mice skulls to the control group. The experiment revealed that deleting an enhancer had effects on face structure, such as making the mice’s face longer.

So why is this important? Knowing the genome for face shape will allow scientists to study variants and use that information to identify variants on a smaller level. ⚛

If you’re interested on this topic, check out this link!http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn24462-your-face-may-have-been-sculpted-

by-junk-dna.html#.UsRn_mRDvFg

Did You Know That Your Face Is Made Up of Junk?

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Recent research by a team at Stanford has shown that biocomputing may be the next frontier for comput-ers. This group of researchers was led by Drew Endy, an assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford. They turned the bacteria E. coli into a computer that performed the most basic functions of computers – logic, data storage, and data transmission. Furthermore, they demon-strated the ability to do this in all types of living cells.

Similar things have been accom-plished by other researchers, but this research set itself apart with the “tran-scriptor”, which is their equivalent of a transistor in a normal computer. It is able to turn a small amount of informa-tion into a large amount of information by creating a change in the flow of RNA polymerase, an enzyme that produces RNA – similar to how normal transistors create a change through creating a small change in voltage.

Despite the transcriptor being the most unique part of this biocomputer, there are several other components of constructed by the Stanford research-ers. In a computer memory is stored in a base-two numerical system (ones and zeroes) that the computer then inter-prets. The biocomputer created by the researchers at Stanford operates on a similar protocol.

The researchers used the interac-tions between two enzymes created by the E. coli to flip the direction of DNA sequence end to end and to flip it back again. (There are enzymes in other microbes that interact similarly.) As Endy put it, “If you are reading along a particular section of DNA and it reads one way, we can arbitrarily label that sec-tion a zero. If it reads the opposite way, we can call that orientation a one.”

Due to the two enzymes being pro-duced by the microbe and not another microbe, the data that is stored can be controlled by the biocomputer itself. Moreover, the data is extremely easy to read; the microbe is engineered in such a way that the DNA sections, when put under ultraviolet light, shine in different

colors for the two directions of the DNA sequence. All it takes to read the data is the simple action of shining ultraviolet light on the microbes.

What is the use of this data if it cannot be shared? The biocomputer solves this problem by making the data go viral. Using a virus called M13, which lives a symbiotic lifestyle in bacteria, the researches have created a biological internet. When M13 inhabits bacteria, it broadcasts its genome to other cells. These other cells do not have to be bacte-ria and can be any type of cell.

The researches took advantage of this unique attribute of M13 by engineer-ing the microbe “computer” to switch the package with the M13’s genome with the microbe’s genome. This makes the M13 send the microbe’s DNA in place of the M13’s DNA, which gives the biocom-puter the ability to send to any cell the genetic code containing the data of the computer. This ability to send genetic code allows researchers to make modifi-cations to many cells at the same time.

In addition to all of this, the bio-computers created by the researchers can perform logic like a normal computer. The biocomputer contains genetic gates that open and close to control an enzyme that travels along a DNA strand. This is based on the same core concept that a normal computer has, with its silicon gates that open and close to control the flow of electrons.

Using the Boolean logic system, commonly used in computing, there are two outputs: true and false. If the output is true, electrons flow. If the outputs is false, electrons do not flow. In comput-ing there are several logic gates that op-erate the electron flow, such as the “and” gate, which gives an output of ‘true” if both inputs are true (true is represented by a one and false is represented by a zero) or the “or” gate which gives an output of true when when one of the two inputs or both of the inputs are true. The biocomputer mimics Boolean logic with both these gates and all the other major gates in computing. If the output is true the enzyme flows, and if the output is false the enzyme does not flow.

All biological organisms have the ability to self-replicate and self-assemble into functional components. The eco-nomic benefit of biocomputers lies in thr potential of all biologically derived systems to self-replicate and self-assem-ble, given appropriate conditions. For instance, all of the necessary proteins for a certain biochemical pathway, which could be modified to serve as a biocom-puter, could be synthesized many times over inside a biological cell from a single DNA molecule, which could itself be replicated many times over.

This characteristic of biological molecules could make their produc-tion highly efficient and relatively inexpensive. In comparison, electronic computers require manual production, biocomputers could be produced in large quantities from cultures, without machinery needed to assemble them and reducing impact on our environment.

As one would expect, the potential effect the biocomputer can have on our world is immense. One day we might see engineers using the biological computer to program cancer cells to stop their de-structive growth or to program a group of microbes to produce insulin when sugar is detected. The possibilities are endless.

Sadly, there are still some flaws with the biocomputer due to technical issues resulting from differences caused by divergent evolution and the technology is many years off from human use. Yet, even small amounts of computing using this technology can have a profound ef-fect on our world. ⚛

Pratik Mulpury is a new member this year.

Drew Endy’s Youtube channel, with a video about biocomputers:

https://www.youtube.com/user/chthonicphage/feed

Biocomputers Pratik MulpuryContinued from page 1

Page 10: Science Guru Jan 2014

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Dark energy is defined by Google as “a theoretical repulsive force that counteracts gravity and causes the universe to expand at an accelerating rate”.

Dark energy has always been a mysterious force, and its existence has al-ways been questioned. The unknown of it is far greater than the known. We know that about seventy percent of the universe consists of dark energy and that it is distributed evenly, with constant density, throughout space, and can be detected only via gravity. However, the entire theory of dark energy is based on observa-tion; we have never been able to directly measure dark energy nor directly ana-lyze dark matter, the invisible mass of the universe that is thought to consist of an entirely new type of matter with entirely new types of elementary particles.

The main problem leading to the hypothesis of the existence of dark energy is the fact that universe is not, in fact, expanding at a uniform rate nor, in fact, expanding at a decelerating rate. In 1929, Hubble showed that the further away a galaxy is, the more rapidly it is moving away from us. Again in 2011, the Nobel Prize winners in 2011 of physics – Saul Perlmutter, Brian Schmidt, and Adam Riess – proved that the universe is accelerating. The discovery lent credence to the existence of dark energy and dark matter, both of which were first postulated with Hubble’s discovery. Dark matter, on the other hand, was originally hypoth-esized by Vera Rubin to explain the speed of stars revolving around galaxies.

The leading contender for explaining dark energy, of which much less is known compared to dark matter, is quantum vacuum energy – an idea, tied to quantum mechanics, that even in the vacuum of space, particles are constantly

Continued next page

Hypothetical Dark Energy and Invisible Dark Matter

Jasmine has been an active member of our club for two years now. She is the community coordinator for Science Guru.

Jasmine Deng

What our universe consists of

Our accelerating universe

Page 11: Science Guru Jan 2014

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winking in and out of existence, generating energy. We so far have not been able to link the math of quantum mechanics, dealing with the physics of on a very small scale, to the math of general rela-tivity, which deal with physics on a very large scale.

Most scientists stick with the hypothesis that dark energy is a form of vacuum energy known as the “cosmological constant”, as its strength never varies. If so, a number w – relating the pres-sure pushing space apart to the density of dark energy – must equal negative one. Einstein origi-nally predicted this “cosmological constant”.

To find out more about both dark energy and dark matter, we have to study them – which is dif-ficult when we don’t have actual samples to analyze. So far, study methods consist of, not studying dark energy directly, but studying what is affected by dark energy.

One method to deter-mines the rate of accel-eration of the universe caused by dark energy. It measures the light from a specific type of superno-vas (Type Ia). Each Type Ia explosion has about the same brightness, and as the light travels towards Earth, it is stretched by the universe’s expan-sion to appear red. (This

phenomenon is called “redshift”.) The higher the redshift, the longer the light has been traveling and the farther back in time the su-pernova occurred. Examining as many supernovas as possible can help scientists determine how fast galaxies are moving away from each other.

There are also other ways to study dark energy, albeit indirect-ly. We can also detect dark matter through gravitational lensing – the gravitational field of a galaxy (or a cluster of galaxies) deflects passing light. The more mass there is, the greater the deflection.

Thus, we can infer the existence of matter even if we can’t see it.

We can actu-ally weigh the universe through measuring light intensity of a gal-axy or the luminosity. The more luminous a galaxy, the more mass it possesses. Another ap-

proach is to calculate the rotation of a galaxy’s body. Variations in velocity indicate regions of vary-ing gravity – and therefore mass.

Of course, problem still exist. We still don’t know exactly what dark matter and dark energy are. Most quantum field theories pre-dict a cosmological constant w for dark energy that is more than one hundred orders of magnitude too large. But so far, our conclusions are that something, at least, is hap-pening in the ninety-five percent of the universe that is dark.

Alternatives to dark energy involve modifying the laws of gravity to eliminate dark energy, or the idea that our galaxy and

its neighborhood may lie within a giant void. Alternatives to dark mat-ter involve changing the laws of gravity to MOND (Modified Newtonian Dynamics) or possibly that dark matter is just ordinary matter that is difficult to detect (such as MACHOs). Above all, it’s probably best to keep an open mind. ⚛

Hypothetical Dark Energy . . . Jasmine Deng

How gravitational lensing works

Possible futures of our accelerating universe

Continued from previous page

Page 12: Science Guru Jan 2014

On-line Blog: Scienceguru18.blogspot.com

From the EditorDear Readers,

We hope you have enjoyed our December–January issue.Feel free to visit us online at [email protected] or join our weekly club meetings every Friday at Lunch, room 120.

—Kiana Nouri

Coming soon to a class near you:The February 2014

issue of Science Guru!

A report on the latest gadgets from the Las Vegas Electronics Show

The science of “college acceptance”

Science Guru Club Officers

Kiana NouriRohun Saxena

Varsha Suresh KumarJasmine DengAvni Singhal

Science Guru Club Members

Carter FoxKelyn Wood

Pratik Mulpury

AdvisorDr. Katie Thornburg

Mountain View High School3535 Truman Avenue,Mountain View, CA 94040