Science Lounge

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China leads research in 90% of crucial technologies — a dramatic shift this century

The United States tops the remaining areas in an assessment of 74 technologies.

www.nature.com

China is leading research in nearly 90% of the crucial technologies that “significantly enhance, or pose risks to, a country’s national interests”, according to a technology tracker run by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) — an independent think-tank.

The ASPI’s Critical Technology Tracker evaluated research on 74 current and emerging technologies this year, up from the 64 technologies it analyzed last year. China is ranked number one for research on 66 of the technologies, including nuclear energy, synthetic biology, small satellites, while the United States topped the remaining 8, including quantum computing and geoengineering.

The results reflect a drastic reversal. At the beginning of this century, the United States led more than 90% of the assessed technologies, whereas China led less than 5% of them

 

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Recently in Science, looking at perhaps the most fundamental Chicken or Egg question. RNA-based replication at the origin of life.

QT45 - A small polymerase ribozyme that can synthesize itself and its complementary strand.

Abstract​

The emergence of a chemical system capable of self-replication and evolution is a critical event in the origin of life. RNA polymerase ribozymes can replicate RNA, but their large size and structural complexity impede self-replication and preclude their spontaneous emergence. Here we describe QT45: a 45-nucleotide polymerase ribozyme, discovered from random sequence pools, that catalyzes general RNA-templated RNA synthesis using trinucleotide triphosphate (triplet) substrates in mildly alkaline eutectic ice. QT45 can synthesize both its complementary strand using a random triplet pool at 94.1% per-nucleotide fidelity, and a copy of itself using defined substrates, both with yields of ~0.2% in 72 days. The discovery of polymerase activity in a small RNA motif suggests that polymerase ribozymes are more abundant in RNA sequence space than previously thought.

 

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“… Compared to the sun, its luminosity is about 300,000 times greater and its diameter about 1,500 times greater.

If it were in the place of the sun, its surface would extend to a distance between the orbits of Jupiter and Saturn, our solar system's fifth and sixth planets. Traveling at the speed of light would take six hours to circumnavigate the star's surface.

WOH G64, around 10 million years old, appears to be near the end of its lifespan. In contrast, the sun is about 4.5 billion years old and has an estimated 5 billion more years left. WOH G64 is located about 160,000 light-years from Earth. A light-year is the distance light travels in a year, 5.9 trillion miles (9.5 trillion km)….”

A supergiant star that is evolving amazingly rapidly — it changed from red supergiant to yellow hypergiant in a little over a decade, which seems nuts based on what scientists have previously observed.