Science Wrap: Nobel wins, Mangalyaan's retirement, and concerning cough syrups from Sonipat

The main highlight in this week’s science news was, of course, the announcement of the Nobel Prize winners in the three science categories: Physics, Chemistry, and Medicine. 

Closer home in India, ISRO’s Mangalyaan has finally died after an eight-year-long stint while the World Health Organisation has expressed its concerns over four cough syrups manufactured in India, linking them with 66 deaths in Africa's Gambia. 

1- A trio wins the Chemistry Nobel for "Lego-like" technology

This year’s Nobel Prize in Chemistry has been awarded to Carolyn R Bertozzi (Stanford University, USA), Morten Meldal (University of Copenhagen, Denmark), and K Barry Sharpless (Scripps Research, La Jolla, USA)  “for the development of click chemistry and bioorthogonal chemistry”. 

Coined by Sharpless (who also won the 2001 Chemistry Nobel), the term “click chemistry” is explained in Nobel’s press release as “a form of simple and reliable chemistry, where reactions occur quickly and unwanted by-products are avoided. 

As Medal explains further, click chemistry can be described as a means to create complex structures and link them like pieces of Lego (the plastic building block toys). This technology is now used globally to learn more about cells and to track biological processes. 

2- WHO flags four Indian cough syrups after connection with Gambia deaths

On October 5, the World Health Organisation issued a medical product alert recommending all countries detect and stop using four cough syrups from circulation. All four medicines are manufactured in Sonipat, Haryana, and according to the WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the syrups are linked to acute kidney injuries and 66 children deaths in the Gambia.

India’s Union Health Ministry has responded that the samples linked to these deaths have been sent for testing. Still, the government added that these syrups were meant only for exports and not sold in the native country. 

3- Mangalyaan comes to a halt after eight years

The Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) AKA the Mangalyaan (Mars Vehicle) began its life as a Mars-orbitting space probe on November 5, 2013, when it was first launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO). A year later, the probe began orbiting the Red Planet on September 24, 2014.

Now, eight years later, the probe has finally run out of fuel and battery with ISRO finally retiring the Mars orbitter.

The probe helped to study the Martian landscape, the surface geology, atmospheric processes, and surface temperature, among other factors of Earth’s neighbouring planet. As per ISRO’s press announcement, “despite being designed for a life span of six months as a technology demonstrator, the Mars Orbiter Mission has lived for about eight years in the Martian orbit with a gamut of significant scientific results.” 

4- A "DNA hunter" wins the Medicine Nobel for Neanderthal research

When it comes to the Nobel Prize in Medicine (Physiology), the top prize has been bagged by Svante Pääbo “for his discoveries concerning the genomes of extinct hominins and human evolution”. To put it in simpler terms, the Swedish geneticist’s study of the Neanderthal genomes led the scientist to conclude a link between Neanderthals and modern humans. The term Neanderthal refers to the human subspecies that lived in Eurasia about 40,000 years ago. 

According to Reuters’s report of the event, his work demonstrated practical results during the Covid-19 pandemic as he discovered that people infected with the virus who carry a gene variant inherited from Neanderthals are more at risk of severe illness than those who do not.

Another notable fact about this win is that Svante Pääbo also happens to be one of the few openly-bisexual Nobel winners. 

"The thing that's amazing to me is that you now have some ability to go back in time and actually follow genetic history and genetic changes over time. It's a possibility to begin to actually look at evolution in real-time if you like."

5- Experiments in quantum mechanics lead trio to win the Nobel in Physics

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics to the trio of Alain Aspect (Université Paris-Saclay and École Polytechnique, France), John F. Clauser (J.F. Clauser & Assoc, USA), and Anton Zeilinger (University of Vienna, Austria). 

The three laureates conducted pathbreaking experiments involving entangled quantum states. In other words, their work made two particles behave like a single unit even when they are separated. The results have paved the way for new quantum information-based technology.

"The ineffable effects of quantum mechanics are starting to find applications. There is now a large field of research that includes quantum computers, quantum networks, and secure quantum encrypted communication,"  read the Nobel Committee announcement.