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“Nano Comes to Life”: DNA NanoTech, Medicine and the Future of Biology with Professor Sonia Contera

The discussion starts with “How small is considered NANO”. Ms. Sonia explains how the term created a big controversy how the word evolved and what size is considered nano. she explains how nanotechnology is used to perform various operations and chemical reactions between such small particles due to nanotechnology and how physics, mechanics, and electricity all are combined.

When questioned about the development of tools and techniques that helped to perform such things Ms.Sonia explained how the powerful microscopes such as atomic microscopes and some techniques helped in performing such operations. She explains how keeping them in water helped them to study how the molecules perform the tasks they do.

As the point of conversion of different sciences came up Ms. Sonia explained some past experiments in which physics helped in biology experiments and vice versa. And also talks about how complexity becomes simplicity as soon as we learn how some things work.

When the topic of constructing nano-scale structures in a bottom-up manner came up Ms.Sonia explained with a simple example of how it works by developing it first and providing the information later so it evolves and also referred to how this technique is used to create drugs which can fight deadly diseases like covid.

Ms.Sonia explains how the principles of biology are worried by nature and how they are used to construct structures and also confirms that they are not entirely good with them as they do not know how cells communicate with each other and they are still learning. She also explains how they are using the natural mechanics of biology. 

Ms.Sonia answers the question theoretically that if we are able to understand the processes of how everything is built and works it connects us with reality and solves many unanswered and it also reconnects us with what we were originally and why we are unable to understand more than other beings.

The word Nano brings many questions to my mind whenever it is used I like watching sci-fi movies Nanotechnologies are used in many ways in such movies. I get curious about how can we create such a small thing and how we are able to control it.

About the Author: She was born in the year 1970, and she is from Madrid, Spain.  She studied for her Licenciatura in physics at the Autonomous University of Madrid. She received her Ph.D. from Osaka University in 2000. She uses physics and Nanotechnology to understand biological problems and also studies how they work and tries to mimic similar processes with nanotechnology using the physics in biology.

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“Worlds Without End: Exoplanets, Habitability, and the Future of Humanity” With Professor Chris Impey

The reality of the existence of exoplanets took so long to confirm because of how hard it is to find planets that reflect light they got from their stars which are not traveling very far into another solar system if the planets shine bright enough it is easy to find but most of the planets don't reflect at high range like earth does. 

When it comes to technology, the 2 mechanisms that helped scientists find the exoplanets were the Doppler shift and the eclipse or transit effect.t how NASA has found 5000+ exoplanets with the help of these mechanisms but how they are able to generate 200+ planets' images only due to so limitations of technology. And also discussed how the Kepler Scape telescope played a major role in proving the existence of exoplanets.

When the topic of the existence of life on other planets and the existence of super-earth was Chris answered that yes there may be because there are many exoplanets that have enough resources to support life.

The existence of rogue planets he says they are abandoned by their star and orbit they travel through the entire space and it is so hard to find a new star and orbit for them.

How a planet's mass, size, and temperature can be measured by the Doppler and eclipse methods was discussed, and how to find the existence of life with the biomarker technique.

The statement given by Chris that the first detection of life beyond Earth is likely within the next five years because of the 3 new telescopes that are being developed. But confirms that according to the data that we have right now there is no other planet that has life on it.

Whenever there is a topic being discussed about space it automatically attracts me towards it I have learned many theories and many discoveries made by great scientists and researchers. I like topics like nuclear stars, magnetars, black holes, etc. which attracted me to space concepts and realities.

About the Author: Christopher David Impey was born in the year 1956. He is an Astronomer, educator, and author. From the year 1986, he has been working as a faculty member at the University of Arizona. Impey had done research on observational cosmology, in particular, low surface brightness galaxies, the intergalactic medium, and surveys of active galaxies and quasars. For his research NASA and NSF supported him with $20 million. As mentioned before he is a great educator he won 11 teaching awards and has taught three massive open online classes with over 180000 enrolled students. He has 180 refereed publications on observational cosmology, galaxies, and quasars. He has published 8 popular books with quite interesting concepts like How it Ends, Dreams of Other Worlds, Humble Before The Void, and Beyond The Future of Space Travel.

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“The End of Astronauts”, Robotic Space Exploration and Our Future on Earth and Beyond with Professor Martin Rees

According to Mr.Rees he thinks that robots have become far better in the past few years, they are able to perform tasks on their own. so sending robots would be far better than sending humans as humans need resources like food and more which aren't required by robots. And also refers to the recent Mars mission in which AI was used and how it worked towards the success of the mission.

Sending people to space with public funds is considered more as space adventure than space exploration by Dr.Rees. he is not against sending people by private companies to space for adventure or exploration as it is privately funded. but disasters during the mission are also considered national trauma.in general space exploration, Dr.Rees thinks it’s far better for people to Earth’s condition than making Mars a habitable planet.

As time goes on Dr.Rees considers humans may become one with the upcoming technology which we can consider as the post-human era where many evolve into cyborgs and super beings achieving things like immortality and more.

When asked about the chances of living beings on planets like Mars and more Dr.Rees considers there must be rules created by humans to protect other beings from humans during space exploration and also from doing illegal stuff like mining asteroids and planets etc.

I have a deep interest in knowing about space, exoplanets, and other universes there are uncovered places in space that are yet to be covered, and there are many theories and experiments that are yet to be performed and proven. Robotics is also one of the areas that creates many questions and new ideas in my mind.

About the Author: he was born in the year 1942 in York, England. He was educated at Bedstone College which was founded by his Parents and both of them are teachers from the age of 13 he was educated at Shrewsbury School. Rees studied mathematical tripos at Trinity College, Cambridge, and also completed a PhD in 1967. The work he did in his post-graduation in astrophysics in the mid-1960s was remarkable.

His main current research interests are:

(i) High energy astrophysics -- especially gamma ray bursts, galactic nuclei, black hole formation, and radiative processes (including gravitational waves).

(ii) Cosmic structure formation -- especially the early generation of stars and galaxies that formed at high redshifts at the end of the cosmic 'dark age'.

(iii) General cosmological issues.

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