The Clock that Never Stops Ticking
Michael Roshbosh, Jeffrey C. Hall, and Michael W. Young were recently awarded the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine at the Karolinska Institute in Sweden for their findings on the circadian rhythm. The circadian rhythm or our ‘biological clock’ is not distinctly human, but rather it effects the way numerous organisms’ biological workings respond to the natural environment. When plants open their petals in the morning and close at night, when we awake when the sun shines and sleep when it is dark, is all due to our responsiveness to the time of day. Although this phenomenon has naturally been occurring, how does it work?
The groundwork for discovering why the circadian rhythm may be disrupted began in 1970s by identifying a mutation in a gene named “period” in fruit flies. Through further studies, these scientists located a protein named PER “encoded by period (that) accumulated during the night and was degraded during the day” (Nobel Foundation). They discovered that the PER changed over 24-hours and was therefore, connected to the circadian rhythm. In conjunction with the discovery of the protein “time” or TIM, they recognized that TIM and PER work together in the nucleus of a cell to prevent PER from following its own rhythm. By identifying several more proteins, Young was able to explain how the PER matches the Earth’s natural cycle. Light was also recently proven to monitor the circadian rhythm and therefore, our daily functions.
Although we never think about why we react to certain times of day, experiences like ‘jet-lag,’ when your body has a temporary disconnection to a new time of day, make us aware of our inner workings. “Studies also show that chronic misalignment between our lifestyle and the rhythm dictated by our inner timekeeper is associated with increased risk for various diseases” (Nobel Foundation). So, while we may be aware of this process, there is always more to learn about what effects our well-being. Next time you get too tired to finish your assignments because its 12 am, or you can’t wake up because the sun isn’t up yet, you can blame it on the forces of nature and your loyalty to planet Earth.
Source:
Nobel Foundation. “2017 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine: Molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm.” ScienceDaily. ScienceDaily, 2 October 2017. <www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171002092603.htm>.
-Stephanie Montalti
The Future is Here
In today’s era of burgeoning technological advancement, Elon Musk has been a prominent figure in both the scientific and business worlds. In order to summarize his achievements so far, here are the first few introductory lines from his Wikipedia page:
“Elon Reeve Musk (born June 28, 1971) is a South African-born Canadian American business magnate, investor,[9][10] engineer,[11] and inventor.[16] He is the founder, CEO, and CTO of SpaceX; a co-founder,[17] Series A investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla Inc.; co-chairman of OpenAI; and founder and CEO of Neuralink. Musk is also a co-founder and former chairman of SolarCity, co-founder of Zip2, and founder of X.com, which merged with Confinity and took the name PayPal.”
One of the many companies he is involved with, OpenAI, is best explained by their tagline, “Discovering and enacting the path to safe artificial general intelligence.” In a recent project conducted by OpenAI, Musk set an AI robot into the world of DOTA 2, a battle-centered multiplayer videogame. According to an article by Inverse, “the bot independently discovered established strategies and invented some things that professional observers are studying to implement in their own gameplay.” Within 6 months, it beat the top player in the game.
Musk’s goal here wasn’t to show the fallacies of video games or to anger a bunch of dedicated gamers – his goal was to show the public that within 6 months, an AI was able to learn, implement, and invent war-based strategies and beat people that had been playing video games for years. In a real-life scenario, the wrong people getting ahold of AI could be deadly. Although many people still think of AI as something of “the future,” or attribute it to be science-fiction, the facts are AI is real and developing and we need to have regulations in place before it begins to pose a serious threat.
Sources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elon_Musk
https://www.inverse.com/article/37551-elon-musk-s-a-i-just-destroyed-the-world-s-best-video-gamers
https://openai.com/
-Merav
Turtles All The Way Down
In a strange but heartwarming turn of events, the island of St. Helena, one of three British Territories located in the South Atlantic Ocean, the oldest tortoise alive is complicating the global conversation about same-sex marriage.
You may be familiar with Jonathan, the 186 year old tortoise featured on St. Helena’s five pence coin (pictured below). He is a bit of a worldwide icon, considering he is one of the world’s oldest land animals living today. Jonathan, officially named by Governor Sir Spencer Davis decades later, was shipped with three other tortoises from the Seychelles to St. Helena as a gift to the governor in 1882; at this point he was fully grown, which means that he had to have been at least 50 years old upon arrival, if not older.
![5 pence coin [Saint Helena Island Info:Notes and Coins of St Helena]](https://i0.wp.com/sainthelenaisland.info/coin005.jpg)
In 1991, the French consul gave the St. Helena governor another tortoise, named Frederica, who was thought to become Jonathan’s mate. For years, people were baffled by why the two tortoises never produced offspring. Until just this year when, according to The Times, during a recent inspection, vets realized that Frederica had male reproductive organs; and so Frederica was renamed Frederick. All these years, no one knew that the tortoise who Jonathan ate and slept with, was in fact another male.
This story comes up during a time when, though our Congress has approved same-sex marriage in all 50 states, LGBT-rights are still problematized worldwide. Places like Russia, India, Ghana, and more are not safe for queer folks, and as sweet as stories like this one are, they show how progress needs to be made. Though its neighbor islands have legalized such unions, St. Helena is still deciding on whether to legislate for same-sex marriage. That the icon of an island (albeit, a non-human icon, but still) can be gay but not its citizens (according to legislation) is a strange fact indeed.
St. Helena residents can expect a Supreme Court hearing on this issue in January of next year. In the meantime, we can all appreciate that, even in the animal kingdom, #LoveIsLove.
-Isaiah Rivera
Glass Dome
New Zealand’s incoming Prime Minister was announced on October 19 to be Jacinda Ardern, leader of the Labour Party, a self-identified social democrat, former DJ, and ex-mormon who broke with the church because of her pro-LGBT ideology. She will be the country’s third female head of state and, at thirty-seven, their youngest in recent history.
Often, it may appear frustrating to United States citizens that the ultimate glass ceiling has never been broken since there has yet to be a female president. However, it is important to note that, despite arbitrary boundaries dividing the world, we are all active members of an international community. And in that international community, there have been several democratically elected heads of state (not counting royalty, or those appointed to the position rather than being chosen by the people). Think of it not as a stainless glass ceiling, but rather a glass dome stretched over the world, with several cracks and open gashes piercing the exterior.
But citizens in the United States should acknowledge and celebrate New Zealand’s choice not only because it is a woman, but because of her party’s political views. After nine years of conservative rule by the National Party, Ardern is advocating for a social welfare state rooted in hers and Labour’s belief that a government should be a support system for the people, has a focus on environmental protection, Maori (the country’s indigenous tribe) development and possesses an open contempt for capitalism.
In this way, Ardern distinguishes herself from other female heads of state (past and present) who might offer little in the way of societal improvement beyond their gender changing the status quo. Such as conservative leaders Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany (a flawed insistence on immigrants conforming to German culture), Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom, Prime Minister Erna Solberg of Norway, or recently impeached President Park Geun-hye of South Korea.
That’s not to say that social democratic female leaders are free of criticism, such as State Counselor Aung San Suu Kyi of Burma who refuses to acknowledge the human rights abuses her government has enacted against the Rohingya people, or President Dilma Rousseff of Brazil who has been impeached due to financial corruption.
Although her term has yet to start, there are some potential red flags in Ardern’s candidacy from a socialist standpoint as well. For one thing, her party plans on taking a strong stance on restricting immigration and international trade. For another thing, she was not directly elected by the people. In the general election held on September 23, Labour earned forty-six seats in Parliament, while National earned fifty-six. Though National had a majority, they did not have the required sixty-one seats to possess a majority government. A third political party, New Zealand First, had earned nine seats, which automatically enabled its leader, Winston Peters, to be the “kingmaker” in that he had the right to throw his support behind either candidate, and ensure them the ministry. Despite leading a conservative party, Peters announced on live television, before informing either Ardern or outgoing Prime Minister Bill English, that he was forming a coalition government with Labour. Whether or not this coalition with a conservative party will compromise Labour’s socialist ideology or help unify political divisions, only time will tell. Certainly, New Zealand’s politics are far less contentious and polarizing than in the United States, which allows for an optimistic viewpoint.
New Zealand is a country proudly rooted in glass shards. They were the first to grant women’s suffrage and have elected three female heads of state (which, out of forty prime ministers is not a lot, but still a lot more than other countries). And as citizens of an international community, that should count as a win for all of us. But when the dome truly breaks, gender equality will not just look like female heads of state; gender equality will look like economic justice, which will look like social welfare states, open borders and racial equality.
Here’s to the glass dome breaking, shard by shard.
~Amanda Jerido-Katz
The Junction Journal 
