COVID-19 Vaccine Stories I : Modern(a) Twists

The whole  World applauded when a unique  Public-Private Partnership  was forged.  The   US Governmental agency,  National Institutes of Health (NIH) and  Moderna the  American pharmaceutical company    joined forces   to confront the  COVID-19 pandemic. They began with a shared vision: to come up with a vaccine  against the deadly virus in the shortest time possible. The two have been in partnership for about 4  years in matters of health.  Everything went on as planned.  National Institute of Allergy and infectious Diseases  (NIAID)  under the umbrella of NIH readily shared their laboratory findings with Moderna and then  Lo and behold!    a vaccine  mRNA 1273 or Spikevax  was in the market in record time. 

Moderna Covid-19 Vaccine 
Courtesy: wikipedia

NIH put out a report    that "The incidence of symptomatic COVID-19 was thus 94.1% lower in participants who received mRNA-1273 compared to those receiving placebo........... The FDA  issued an Emergency Use Authorisation  for Moderna to make the vaccine available for the prevention of COVID-19 in adults on December 18, 2020."  Peer reviewed  results  appeared in the prestigious New England Journal of Medicine in Dec. 2020.   In May 2021, Biden administration even hinted at  waving patent protection on humanitarian grounds. Rachel Cohen,  director for the non-profit Drugs and Neglected Diseases initiative in New York City Cohen is reported to have said : “These vaccines are an unparalleled triumph for science, but if only 20% or 30% of the world winds up benefiting, what is the point of the innovation?”

This must have been the  point at which  relationship turned sour,  the distaste spilling out in the open.  Moderna went  ahead and filed  core patents  omitting the names of the NIAID  scientists.  This makes Moderna  sole owner of intellectual property and sole beneficiary of  the profits reaped  from sales.   Anthony  Fauci, Director of NIAID is emphatic that names of NIAID scientists should have been included as inventors in the patent application   because it was a collaborative work.  Moreover   Moderna had received to the tune of 1.4billion dollars of government funding ( tax payers' money) to develop and test the vaccine.  However  CEO of Moderna  claims, that his scientists independently  invented the particular mRNA sequence used in the  vaccine. While NIAID argue they have already  published similar results much earlier in 2017(see Ref.2).  

It appears that Moderna extended consolation  arm to NIH by offering  co-ownership. But legal experts say co-ownership and co-inventor status are not equivalent. There is much more in fine print for co-ownership.

Moderna Headquarters,
Cambridge, Massachusetts
Courtesy: wikipedia

Moderna was founded as ModeRNA Therapeutics  in  2010.    The name implies modified RNA  the focus of the  company. For Moderna it makes business sense   to have full and exclusive ownership on the patent because the  COVID-19 vaccine market is expected to be   $19.5 billion in another 5 years.  Add to  this the fact that   Moderna's product menu has only one item:.  COVID-19 vaccine.

Tailpiece:

Reliefweb states: "Moderna’s Q3 profit before tax for 9 months ending September 30 is $7.8 billion on $11.2 billion revenue giving a pre-tax profit margin of 70 percent. The company projects full year 2021 sales to be “between $15 billion and $18 billion”. Using the lower end of the estimate —70 percent of $15 billion is $10.5 billion in profit for 2021. The vaccine is Moderna’s only commercial product."

REFERENCES:

1. Experimental Coronavirus vaccine highly effective

2. Immunogenicity and structures of a rationally designed prefusion MERS-CoV spike antigen:  Jesper Pallesen et al (PNAS Aug 19, 2017)

3. What the Moderna–NIH COVID vaccine patent fight means for research

4. COVID-19 vaccine market set to touch $19.5bn by 2026

5. In shock move, US backs waiving patents on COVID vaccines

6. Covid-19: Moderna seeks to exclude US government scientists from vaccine patents, despite public investment

7. Moderna, escalating dispute with NIH, claims government had no role in key vaccine patent

8. Pfizer, BioNTech and Moderna making $1,000 profit every second while world’s poorest countries remain largely unvaccinated

Time concrete turned Green

Obviously  the  concern is about the carbon footprint of concrete. According to a recent report, the annual global  usage of concrete is roughly 30 billion tonnes.  Going by the current trend,  this will rise  upwardly  for decades to come.    Concrete,  an aqueous   slurry  of cement, sand and gravel  can be poured  and  set  in any form.   Once set, the product has enormous strength, stability and durability with absolutely no maintenance cost.   Over centuries concrete has inspired and dared  architects and builders to dream big and build big. 

Burj Khalifa, Dubai

Concrete is 10-15% cement, 15-20% water and the rest an aggregate of gravel and sand. To get high quality concrete, water  to cement ratio must be kept low without compromising the workability of the mixture.  The ingredients are  mixed, set and cured  at room temperature. Seems like a very benign process. So what exactly is our quarrel  with  concrete?  Well our  issue is  not with concrete per se  but with the  cement in the formulation.  Cement is made by the calcination   limestone with clay at 1450 deg.C. This high temperature is achieved using fossil fuel, usually coal which holds a heavily  tarnished environmental  record.  During  the  calcination process multiple reactions take place in sequential  and parallel fashion. First of all  limestone which  is calcium carbonate,  releases  carbon dioxide  and becomes   calcium oxide  and  reacts with  oxides and silicates of  aluminium and iron   in the clay.   The resultant product  is  cement,  a complex mixture of  tricalcium silicate (3CaO · SiO2), dicalcium silicate (2CaO · SiO2), tricalcium aluminate (3CaO · Al2O3), and a tetra-calcium aluminoferrite (4CaO · Al2O3Fe2O3) with small amounts of gypsum (CaSO4 ).  This mixture called clinker  is enhanced with additives if needed and then  pulvarized to yield cement. This is the conventional cement  usually referred to as Portland cement.

Thus cement manufacturing is one of the most energy intensive  industries.  It is one of the highest consumers of fossil fuels.  Approximately   3 GJ of thermal energy and 110 kWh of electrical energy are needed to produce 1 tonne of cement.    In terms of  CO2 emissions  too the cement industry tops the list  with   600 kilograms of carbon dioxide  released into the atmosphere for every  tonne of cement manufactured .  And that  indeed  is our concern. 

We  cannot simply wish away the use of fossil fuels and switch to alternate/renewable energy . Simply because the cost factors are not   yet favourable.  Besides  Coal industries  are  the biggest  employment generators.    There are enormous  hurdles along this  path  because  globally fossil fuels are subsidised at two levels: production level and consumption level both of which  keep the cost to the consumer low.  A recent report in Nature (ref.2) states that  subsidies worth an average of US$555 billion each year were given  from 2017 to 2019.  The figure dropped  $345 billion in 2020 only because of lower fuel consumption and declining fuel prices during the COVID-19 pandemic. But can  the subsidies be withdrawn all  of a sudden?  The answer is No.  Among other factors, rising fossil fuel prices  will be extremely hard on people  in  developing and under-developed countries.     Political  parties and  governments may not want to even tilt the applecart. Along with drastic changes in  political and societal   mindset, cost effective   alternate energy sources must be made available. COP26 in Glasgow is debating this aspect and whole world is listening.

Another question  pops up here : do we have  alternatives for limestone? Perhaps we do. Fly ash, the residue from the coal plants is a possible candidate and so is  slag from the iron and steel industry.  Fly ash is the fine residue  after the combustion of coal   while slag is the residue from iron blast furnaces. Both contain  oxides of silicon, aluminum, iron and calcium and hence  bear an overall chemical resemblance to Portland  cement but not in precise composition or structure.  Nevertheless studies have shown  that  blending  conventional  cement with 20% of either  fly ash or  slag doesn't adversely affect the properties of the final concrete.  Currently blended  cement formulations with varying fly ash/slag  content are available in the market. However here is the catch:   with  a global consensus shaping up to phase out  coal by 2070,  future  availability of fly ash will eventually be an issue.   Slag has its own disadvantages regarding workability,permeability  and durability  which are being looked into.

Tailpiece:

Burj Khalifa :  Having consumed 110,000 tonnes of concrete,  Burj Khalifa, currently the tallest building on Earth, is guilty of releasing  660,000,00 kilograms of  carbon dioxide  into our atmosphere.  The environmental cost factor  of a total of 55,000 tonnes of steel and 103,000 square metres of glass  remains to be calculated.  

References:

1. Concrete needs to lose its colossal carbon footprint: Nature,30 Sept.2021

2. Why fossil fuel subsidies are so hard to kill?

3. Zimmer, M., Kuhanathan, A. & Badre, A. Abolishing Fuel Subsidies in a Green and Just Transition (Allianz, 2021).

4. Agenda for CoP26: Why phasing out coal will not be decided in a jiffy?

4.Optimizing-the-use-of-fly-ash-concrete.pdf

5. Sag Cement Organisation

6. Sustainable cement: the simple switch that could massively cut global carbon emissions

7.

GoodFood4All

Since the 1960's Prof Paul Ehrlich  has been  cautioning us  that  sustainable population for  Earth  is in the range of 1.5-2.0 billion. That was the world population  way back in the 1930's.  Whether Prof.Ehrlich's assumption is justifiable or not, not even in our wildest dreams  a  reset  to that number is possible.   United Nations'  Worldometer  shows that  as of Sept. 2021  we stand at  7.9 billion. The  UN study group on population furthermore   forecasts that  population  will peak at 11 billion by 2100 before a downward trend sets in.  There are other schools  who predict  that the peak will be at  9.7 million in 2060's  and thereafter it will begin to  decline.  Developing nations  will be registering  maximum growth,  sub-Saharan Africa topping the list with  +114% and  East/Southeast Asia tailing at  13%. Whichever way one looks at it, the challenge  indeed will be  to feed the additional  billions. 

No poverty and   Zero Hunger by 2030  are the top two priorities of  United Nations'  Sustainable Development  agenda initiated in 2015.   Recent  COVID-19  pandemic  has exposed the deep and wide flaws in the global food distribution system.  Approximately  2.37 billion people did not have access to adequate food in 2020. Geopolitical and socio-economic factors aggravated the situation. 

It is not that we don't produce enough.  According to  2020 Statistical Yearbook published by the  Food and Agricultural Organisation (FAO),  we produce 1.5 times more food than we require:  plentiful supplies  of sugar cane, corn and soybeans come from the Americas, rice, wheat and potatoes from Asia.  However  approximately one third of the food produced is annually wasted, for want of storage, transport, logistics and marketing facilities, inflicting  a whooping   $1 trillion loss per year to the global economy.  

If stringent steps are not taken,   millions will continue to  remain hungry forever.     The UN Food Systems Summit was held last  week  in New York.   With the  tagline of GoodFood4All, the summit's vision is  "a world where good food is affordable and accessible – where governments and businesses work together to provide it – and where farmers in every country grow food in a way that protects the planet." The basic question is not about optimum world population but  sustainable population that specific geographic regions can support. This calculation needs to done taking into consideration the natural resources and anthropogenic activities that lead to  irreversible drain on the ecosystem. For example it is estimated that human civilisation began with  a forest cover of roughly  60million square kilometres, which has shrunk to less than  40 million square kilometres as of now.  

We survived Malthusian Prophesies and Ehrlich's Apprehensions with advances in science and technology.   Will we be able to achieve  good food for 11 billion  in the same way?

 

Tailpiece

Soylent Green is a  bizarre 1973  Hollywood Movie  starring Charlton Heston.  Set in 2022, New York City is brimming with a population of 40 million.  The film  is a dystopian take on population explosion and acute scarcity of water, food  and shelter  leading to horrifying, macabre  consequences. 

REFERENCES:

1.Paul Ehrlich: Collapse of civilisation is near certainty within decades

2 The Population Bomb : Paul Ehrlich ,Macmillan (Revised 1971) ISBN:978-0345021397

3. Deforestation and world population sustainability: a quantitative analysis

Lessons from Venus's Flower Basket

Trans.Zool.Soc.Lond.3, 203-215, 1849

"One of the most singular and beautiful as well as the rarest of the marine productions.... the lowest class of organized bodies"...... those were the words of Sir Richard Owen 180 years ago.  He was referring to Euplectella Aspergillum,  the deep sea glass sponge popularly known as Venus's Flower Basket.   With the help of a neatly drawn diagram, he went on to describe   minutely and meticulously the physical  features  of the  sponge   for the benefit of  the learned members of the  Zoological Society of London.  The hand drawn black and white diagram   captures in full the intricate geometry of the object  and can compete with the best digital photograph of today .  The presentation was later published in a subsequent issue of the Society's journal.  And it is indeed a pleasure to read that paper.(see reference 1)

Venus' Flower Basket

The   secret of this sponge's  etherial beauty obviously  lies in its glassy skeleton. The  skeleton is composed of  spicules of amorphous hydrated silica . And where does the silica come from? From the sea water of course.  Sand (Silicon dioxide) reacts slowly with sea water, to yield  Silicic acid (H4SiO4). The sponge has specialized cells  which  secrete  an enzyme  Silicatein, which  extracts pure silica  from silicic acid  and facilitates its  assembly  into  spicules.  The resultant glass fibre has an inner core of  spicules  wrapped in concentric  layers of  silica and organic matter are woven together to form a fine mesh of alternating  holes and squares.    The structure has superior mechanical strength, can withstand with elegance the high speed ocean currents, and various types of mechanical  stresses,  without fracturing. In case a crack is develops in the outer layer,  it remains localised  because the layered structure prevents inward propagation of the crack.  Thus primitive though the organism might be, it is equipped with state of the art technology to build a glass fibre skeleton sturdy, beautiful and functional.

Prof  Joanna Aizenberg at the Harvard University and her team from Bell Laboratories were amazed to find the striking similarities between the sponge skeleton and modern optical fibers.  The glass skeleton is structurally and functionally more  advanced  in comparison to the  man-made optical fibers.  On top of that  while we need  high temperature to manufacture optical fibers, the primitive sponge mocks at us by achieving it at the cold temperature of the ocean bed. 

The sponge is a kind of water pump as well. It sucks  in water  through the  lateral pores and then vents it out from the top. To model   this fluid flow  Falcucci et al needed to run  advanced algorithms at the  High performance computing Center,  Cineca, Italy. Upon simulation   they found   nutrient rich  swirls being generated  within the body cavity of the sponge  which  facilitates  food filtration while  the external ridges reduce hydrodynamic drag and   increase the  residence time of the fluid inside.  Being aware of  the implications of this finding in high riser architecture, Falcucci is excited : "Will there be less aerodynamic drag on high-rise buildings built with  a similar lattice work of ridges and holes?Will it optimise the  distribution of forces applied?"

REFERENCES:

1.Description of a new genus and species of sponge Euplectella Aspergillum,O

2. Biological glass fibers: Correlation between optical and structural properties: Aizenberg et al., Proc.Natl.Acad.Sci.  101, 3358-3363 (2004)

3. Fibre-optical features of a glass sponge

4. Marine sponges inspire the next generation of skyscrapers and bridges

5.How intricate Venus’s-flower-baskets  manipulate the flow of seawater

6. Extreme flow simulations reveal skeletal adaptations of deep-sea sponges: G. Falcucci et al.Nature 595, 537-541, 2021. 

What is in a name ?

Nada, said the Bard  400 odd years ago and we believed .  We believed that   the pathogen that causes Covid pandemic , would  by any other name  be   dangerous to humanity.  So when the  pandemic took us by surprise and shook us top to toe, we referred  to  the   variants of concern (VOC)  by the country where they  were first detected and identified.  Thus  we  discussed at length about  the UK ,  Indian ,  South African and   Brazilian  variants as   an easier  alternative  to the  string of alphanumerics such  as B.1.1.7 or B.1.167.2 etc.   Because a dot or a number this way or that  and one would have gotten it all wrong. Though the general public was comfortable  to use the simple GI tags,  several country heads rebelled and  protested against this geographical labelling.  For the  first time perhaps being bestowed with a  GI tag was no honour.  To settle matters amicably, the    World Health Organisation  announced its  decision to use Greek alphabets to indicate  the SARS-CoV-2 variants. This decision was not taken in a hurry or in  isolation  but  after much deliberations    with agencies such as  the  Virus Evolution Working Group, the  WHO COVID-19 reference laboratory network, representatives from  the current scientific nomenclature groups and experts and organisations  from several  countries.   As stated by WHO, the idea  was to come up with easy-to-pronounce and non-stigmatising labels for the  variants.  The Greeks have so far not protested against the (mis)use of their alphabets !  

Thus B.1.1.7 which was  popularly known as the UK variant has been renamed as  the Alpha variant, B.1.351, the  South African variant  becomes the  beta  variant,   P.1 the Brazil variant becomes the  Gamma  variant  and B.1.617.2,  the Indian variant becomes  delta variant.    Scientific communities will continue to use the   alphanumeric notations known as the Pango Nomenclature because those are loaded with information.   

To study variants of a given strain, scientists  generally   draw up a family trees that clearly depict the immediate ancestors  and their descendants in other words, the lineage.   These are  called  phylogenetic clusters or clades.  The blue, green and orange  blocks below depict typical family clusters.

A typical phylogenetic tree
Courtesy: wikipedia

SARS-CoV-2 virus has been  unusual in many of its characteristics,  especially  the speed with which it mutates.  A simple family tree as shown above was found grossly  inadequate.   It became  an absolute necessity  that a dynamic  grouping system be in place to accommodate the  rapidly  increasing variants.  A group of scientists in U.K .  developed  the Pangolin or Pango  system  (Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak LINeages) of nomenclature.  

During  the initial days  of the outbreak of the   pandemic in  Wuhan  two types of  dominant  variants   were identified:  A and B. (Scientists till now haven't been able to zero in on their common ancestor.  That is another story, let us not go there now).    Several  direct  lineages of  B have so far been identified, of which   B.1 is the most predominant line.  It has   1000+ sub-lineages  and sub.sub-lineages.  In the Pango system, the  alphabetic prefix denotes clear ancestry,  each dot means next generation and the number denotes the order in which it was identified.   Thus B.1, is the first identified  of the 4009  direct descendants  of B  and B.1.617 is the 617th identified descendant of B.1.   In order to avoid unwieldy  long numbering, each cluster has just three levels, primary, secondary  and tertiary. Example  B1, B.1.1. and B.1.1.1  form  one cluster.     B.1.1.1. takes  on n alias   C and   its first identified descendant is  designated as C.1  and not   B.1.1.1.1 .     

The Pango is dynamic and flexible enough to accommodate all variants identified so far and yet to be . Though a bit labyrinthine at first glance it is simple and easy to navigate.   

Tree diagram of lineages of SARS-CoV-2
according to the Pango nomenclature system.
Courtesy: MinMaj7th, wikipedia

There are other classification systems too such as the GISAIDS and Nextstrain.  All these provide    specific and detailed  informations on genetic and epidemiological features and  spread of a pathogen. 

Tailpiece

The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), will soon be renamed.  Several allegations have surfaced  that   James Webb,  head  of NASA during   1961-68,   didn't  treat  gay and lesbian people  properly.   The JWST, set to peep into the unchartered regions of the cosmos  is  NASA’s upcoming prestigious  astronomical project. 

REFERENCES:

1. Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants

2.A dynamic nomenclature proposal for SARS-CoV-2 lineages to assist genomic epidemiology

3. Pango Lineage Nomenclature: provisional rules for naming recombinant lineages

4 .GISAID Mission

5. Nextstrain: real-time tracking of pathogen evolution

On Gain of Function Research

Corona viruses were first reported in 1965 in connection with research on viruses causing common cold.  Later  David Tyrrell pioneer in this field based on the then available data made a statement:  "Corona viruses cause acute, mild upper respiratory infection (common cold)"(1,2).    Ten plus years later  the   SARS  outbreak in 2003 with a case fatality ratio of 11% and   MERS, in 2017 with a case fatality ratio of  35%  forced scientists to reevaluate the coronaviridae family of viruses(3,4,). Because the causative agents, the  pathogens though  hitherto unknown to humankind,  were traced  to the corona family.   This  was also  like a wake up call,  to be alert and  prepared because there are lethal viruses lurking everywhere. A benign virus might have an hitherto unknown close cousin who might be pure evil.  Consequently  World Health Organisation's priority list of  diseases  that "pose the greatest public health risk due to their epidemic potential and/or whether there is no or insufficient countermeasures," included an X factor (5). 

The WHO document further stated that "Disease X represents the knowledge that a serious international epidemic could be caused by a pathogen currently unknown to cause human disease. The R&D Blueprint explicitly seeks to enable early cross-cutting R&D preparedness that is also relevant for an unknown “Disease X” (5).  (also see When Enemy is Unknown, this column Feb.2020).

So how do we enable early cross-cutting R&D preparedness to combat an unknown enemy?  That is where the tools of genetic engineering came in handy to the  scientific community.  Among other things  investigations began on  how a rather mild pathogen might  mutate to a dangerous  avatar  and  how a pathogen hitherto known only in  birds and animals might cross over  to humans (6).   Under the  innocuous label of  " Gain of Function Research",  scientists began  tinkering with the genes  of the existing viruses to make them  more lethal and/or contagious. Because this knowledge is essential to design effective countermeasures such as vaccines.   Naturally, GOF ( short for gain of function)  research triggered heated debates in scientific circles on the risks and benefits involved. Fear of possible laboratory leaks prompted many to shun and vehemently object to  GOF research.  True,  experiments are conducted in highly sophisticated labs adhering to stringent levels of biosafety. But still...   

Marc Lipsitch, professor of epidemiology at the Harvard  School of Public Health argued:  “Is this work so valuable for public health that it outshines the risk to public health in doing it?"(5) The debate reached  high pitch and high heat when scientists mutated the naturally occurring H1N1 bird flu virus  enabling it to be airborne and more infectious. There were other such scary  instances too. Of course all these  experiments were confined  in petridishes within four walls of  labs with very high biosafety level. Arturo Casadevall,  microbiologist at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine,  New York City, reassured everyone: “There is really no evidence that these experiments are in fact such high risk,” he said. “A lot of them are being done by very respectable labs, with lots of precautions in place.”  Nevertheless   the Obama government  clamped  morartorium  on GOF research in 2014 (6).   But it now appears that the research continued unhindered elsewhere.    The  moratorium was lifted  in 2017 and NIH, USA stated that  this line of research  helps us  to "identify, understand, and develop strategies and effective countermeasures against rapidly evolving pathogens that pose a threat to public health" (7) 

There are groups who insist that SARS-CoV-2,  the deadly virus responsible for COVID-19 pandemic is  a product of the GOF research, which somehow leaked out. The suspicion that  the SARS-CoV-2 is not a  natural pathogen but an engineered one , is due  to the detection of  an unusual   signature in its genetic makeup( 8).  A  natural predecessor from whom SARS-CoV-2 could have inherited this feature has not yet been identified either.  Then came the revelation of  the American links to the ongoing  GOF research projects at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, the epicentre of the COVID-19 pandemic (9).  This time, along with the dissenting scientists, public too  protested and demanded explanations. The  pitch rose so high that National Institute of Health, USA deemed it necessary to put out the following statement: "neither the agency nor its National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has “ever approved any grant that would have supported ‘gain-of-function’ research on coronaviruses that would have increased their transmissibility or lethality for humans."

Between 2014-2019, Wuhan Institute of Virology  has received  huge research funds from National Institutes of Health, USA.  Currently  this is being investigated. For the time being  NIH is  tightlipped  about the details, citing pending investigations (9).  Meanwhile speculations are flourishing.    But science is not built on speculations, we need concrete proofs.

TAILPIECE:

In brief:  The Road to hell is always paved with good intentions. 

REFERENCES:

1. Cold Wars: The Fight against the Common Cold: David Tyrrell and Michael Fielder,Oxford University Press 2002

2. Covid-19: First coronavirus was described in the BMJ in 1965 

3. Consensus document on the epidemiology of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS)

4. MERS situation Update May 2021

5. Why Scientists Tweak Lab Viruses to Make Them More Contagious

6. US suspends risky disease research . 

7. NIH Lifts Funding Pause on Gain of Function Research

8. Natural and unnatural history of the coronavirus: The uncertain path to the pandemic  

9. Inside the risky bat-virus engineering that links America to Wuhan. 

Journey to the centre of the Earth

"That is Snaefellsjokull a mountain about five thousand feet in height, one of the most remarkable in the whole island, and certainly doomed to be the most celebrated in the world, for through its crater we shall reach the centre of the earth.”

The  Journey to the Centre of the Earth with Axel and uncle Otto is indeed an exciting experience.   Jules Verne published the French original in 1864 and later a new improved version appeared   in 1867. Since then the book has been translated into almost all languages, adapted to the big and small screens, made into video games, theme parks etc.  With a combination of  available scientific information of the day and fertile imagination  Verne wove  an  extraordinary   fiction.  Central to the theme  was the pure fantasy  of subterranean  volcanic  tubes which  facilitate  the journey.  Snæfellsjökull  glacier and adjoining areas have now been developed into  National Adventure Park by the Govt. of Iceland. 

Ever since its birth 4.5 billion years ago,  the Earth has gradually been cooling down, radiating  heat to space.    Analysing  the  magnetic records of ancient igneous rocks, scientists  detected  a sharp increase in the strength of the Earth's magnetic field between 1 and 1.5 billion years ago.    A "likely indication of the first occurrence of solid iron at Earth's centre and the point in Earth's history at which the solid inner core first started to "freeze" out from the cooling molten outer core", state scientists at the University of Liverpool.  

Structure of Earth

This cooling of the hot liquid outer core  and consequent deposition of iron crystals on the inner core is a  process in progress, though  extremely  slow.  The  inner core, 96% iron and the rest mostly nickel, manifests its presence  in myriad ways including  Earth's magnetic field and its rotation, but its existence could be detected  only in  1906, when  seismological measurements became possible. Since then  seismological wave propagation studies together with simulation and modelling  have  extensively been used to gain information about Earth's interior.  

The question  how   Earth's iron rich inner core which is hotter than the surface of the Sun remains a solid  is not yet fully  answered, though it is agreed upon that iron exists in some crystalline form.  Experimental observations that seismic waves propagate faster in the North-South direction than in the East-West direction suggest  a directionality for the core. The  most plausible,  generally accepted  answer is   the preferential alignment of the iron crystals with their long axis  along the rotation axis of the earth.   However that raises another the  question:  why  such preferential  crystalline alignment ?  Because the Earth's core is not growing uniformly, say scientists. The  east side under Indonesia's Banda sea is growing faster than the  west side under Brazil.  But  gravity quickly  evens out this discrepancy by aligning the crystals and restoring the spherical shape.  And here comes  the next question: why this lopsided growth?  Looks like we need to wait for answers and more questions.

REFERENCES:

1. Journey to the centre of the Earth : Jules Verne

2. Is Earth’s core lopsided? Strange goings-on in our planet’s interior?.

3. Lopsided Growth of Earth'sInner Core 

4. Dynamic history of the inner core constrained by seismic anisotropy. Frost, D.A., Lasbleis, M., Chandler, B. et al.Nature  Geoscience.  3 June.2021

5.

Harnessing Hydrogen

Tokyo 2020 Olympics was all set to unravel the  unique  achievements of Japan  in harnessing hydrogen energy. In fact the tagline of the Tokyo Olympics was  to be Hydrogen Olympics.  Japan was ready with its fleet of hydrogen powered vehicles, hydrogen refueling stations and   hydrogen powered athletes' villages. But unfortunately the event had to be called off due to the pandemic. But Japan is not disappointed. Tokyo Olympics was just one of the milestones in  Japan's roadmap  to  green eneergy.  Japan is bent upon  erasing its carbon footprints as much as possible  by  2050.  To reach  this final destination Japanese  academic and industrial research institutions  are working overtime , in close collaboration.  

Concept of a fuel cell

The energy content in 1 kg hydrogen is almost equivalent to 1 gallon(~ 2.8kg) of  gasoline. The concept of hydrogen fuel cells was demonstrated way back in 1932 and since then has been  tapped in  limited edition applications.  In its simplest form an hydrogen fuel cell consists of anode and cathode separated by an electrolyte. Hydrogen is introduced at the anode and air/oxygen at the cathode. At the anode a catalyst  splits  hydrogen atoms  into protons  and electrons. The protons move through the electrolyte  towards cathode, combine with oxygen and form water.  Electrons flow through the external circuit generating an electric current.   Simple though it is,  there are several complex technical challenges to overcome to make the process commercially feasible. Challenges begin   from the  primary production stage to  storage, transportation, delivery and ultimate use. 

Hydrogen is abundant in nature but is always  in chemically combined form such as in water or in hydrocarbons. Hence it is necessary to have cost effective processes to strip hydrogen free. Then comes the storage needs. While for on-site applications, perhaps hydrogen can be stored in gaseous form, for long distance distributed applications  appropriately designed network of  gas pipelines is necessary. That calls for huge investments in infrastructure development.  Storage and distribution as  liquid  hydrogen is another possibility but requires cooling the gas to  -263 degC making it  an energy intensive, expensive process.  Fixing hydrogen gas as ammonia  is often preferred because  ammonia is easy to liquify and transport, and later hydrogen can be reclaimed through   catalytic cracking  of ammonia.  

Chiyoda Corporation  believes in  Energy and Environment in Harmony. Scientists and Technologists at  Chiyoda have come up with a more attractive alternative.  They  have perfected the technology of reversibly  hydrogenating toluene to methyl cyclohexane (MCH) using  platinum nanoparticles as catalysts. The advantage with MCH is that the existing petroleum refinery set up and associated storage/distribution network system could be used as such with minimal modification. That spells a huge saving.  In April 2020 Chiyoda  joined hands with  Mitsubishi Corporation, Mitsui & Co. Ltd. and NYK Shipping Line  and   transported MCH produced at  Darussalam, Brunei  to Kawasaki refineries in Japan. In fact  Kawasaki  is   involved in all 4 stages: production, storage, transportation and utilisation. While Mitsubishi  is  experimenting with  hydrogen gas turbines,  ENEOS, the mammoth energy company will be setting up hydrogen refilling stations for automobiles.  Japan is dead serious about  its Mission Hydrogen. It has even set a target price  of  US$ 2.0 per kg by 2050.   

Tailpiece:

In the meanwhile hydrogen is getting color-coded  depending upon how it is produced. 

   

Grey Hydrogen:      Natural gas is split into hydrogen and CO2   .  Hydrogen is collected and                                          stored, but CO2 is let out into the atmosphere.  This is the current process.

Blue Hydrogen:       Process is the same as for Grey Hydrogen but CO2 is  not let out into the                                      atmosphere but fixed in appropriate manner.

Green Hydrogen:     Hydrogen is produced by electrolysis of water using energy from a                                                combination of  renewable resources such as  wind and solar 

Pink Hydrogen:        Electrolysis of water using  nuclear power.

Yellow Hydrogen:     Electrolysis of water using exclusively  solar power.

REFERENCES:

1. Focal point : Hydrogen Energy in Japan : Nature 25th March 2021

2. Alternate Fuels Data Centre

3. Transitioning to hydrogen

4. Australia's pathway to $2 per kg hydrogen

5. The hydrogen color spectrum 

Secrets of Mariana Trench

Percy  the Martian rover  is  currently  having a field day, literally.   Already it has sent 13,854 images  and  recorded an audio  of itself  driving  around  on the Martian landscape.  Based on the information received so far, indications are that there could be water  trapped  under he Martian crust. A great feat indeed.   Percy's three dimensional measurements are equally impressive:  weight 1025kg, height of 7ft, width  9ft and length  10ft.   And it is made of rigid, tough  material because the terrain it explores demands it. 

Mariana Trench Location  
courtesy Wikipedia

However Percy would be crushed and crunched if it ever attempted to explore the secrets of  Mariana trench. This is  the deepest  oceanic ditch at a depth of 11,000 meters.  Domain experts are of the opinion that the trench can submerge  Mount Everest  completely , with still a clearance of  2 kilo meters of water column above it.  The trench is not quite a touristic spot  what  with pressures upto 1000 bars and temperature below 4degC and total darkness. Initially it was thought that life as we know it couldn't exist  there  but later studies revealed that he trench  is home to  several marine species.   So  how do these species befriend  such hostile the conditions or more correctly how do they  adapt themselves?

pseudoliparis amblystomopsis 
courtesy: wikipedia

Deep sea investigators found  that Nature has played its evolutionary tricks to perfection. Studying the anatomy  of deep sea snailfish,Pseudoliparis swirei, researchers detected  several peculiarities. The  body is a bit gooey and the skull  is not in one piece but has a fractured  format perhaps to accommodate internal and external pressure differences The bones are not calcified  but are tender cartilages. In fact the species lack the gene for calcification altogether.  The snailfish is about 15-20cm in length yet  can withstand more water pressure than 1,600 elephants standing on its head says Mckenzie Gerringer  whose area of research is deep sea Physiology and Ecology .  

Taking cues from the anatomy of the snailfish, a team of Chinese scientists  have now designed a soft robot exactly like the original.   Pliable polymer silicon is used to shape the gooey  body with a  body length of 11.5cm and tail length of 10.5cm, and a wing span of 28cm. Muscles are made of dielectric elastomers(DE), which are smart electroactive materials that can produce strain.  Each DE muscle is equipped with a compliant electrode  inserted between two layers of DE sheets. Instead of packaging the electronics in a single printed circuit board, the team made a distributed array of several small  PCBs, gain a takeaway from the original. The team conducted field tests in Mariana trench itself, in South China sea as well as in deep lakes. The results are extremely promising.  It is expected that such soft robots will help us unlock the secrets of the deep sea.

Tailpiece  

The name Pseudoliparis swirei, is indeed a tribute to the memory of   Herbert Swire, a member of a British marine expedition team. In 1870, HMS Challenger carried this  team to explore the depths of the sea and they discovered the Mariana Trench.  Herbert Swire was the navigational sub-lieutenant  who kept an accurate journal and published it later.    

REFERENCES:

1. Life history of abyssal and hadal fishes from otolith growth zones and oxygen isotopic compositions.

2. Introducing Mariana Snailfish

3.Distribution, composition and functions of gelatinous tissues in deep-sea fishes: Gerringer et al

4. Morphology and genome of a snailfish from the Mariana Trench provide insights into deep-sea adaptation.  Kun Wang et al 

Cellulose Again

Cellulose chain courtesy Wikipedia

The  story of plastics actually began with cellulose,  way back during the last two decades of nineteenth century.   Cellulose,  isolated from wood pulp  was subjected to serious chemistry and Hyatt Manufacturing Company brought out celluloid in 1870.  This was cellulose nitrate  made  sufficiently pliable by adding small amounts of camphor.  But the material had a huge drawback; it was a fire hazard,  it burst into flames spontaneously  at the slightest provocation.  In fact its more popular name was gun cotton and often substituted for gunpowder.   Its meeker cousin cellulose acetate  was  synthesised by French chemist  Paul Schutzenberger.  The credit for taming cellulose acetate and unravelling several of its  useful qualities goes to two siblings Camille and Henri Dreyfus.  They found that cellulose acetate  could be made into neat protective films, spun into fibres,  and could also be injection moulded  into any desired  object.  In 1912  Swiss chemist Brandenberger perfected the art of making cellophane a thin transparent  film which revolutionised the packing industry.   But the golden period of cellulose plastics  was short lived.  The two world wars  demanded  cheaper, more versatile plastics  and the petrochemical industry generously provided cheap raw materials  for  the nylons, polythenes, polyesters, polyurethanes, polycarbonates etc.....  Cellulose was marginalised  for limited  applications.

Courtesy :wikipedia

In a recent comprehensive review   Tian Li and coworkers  highlight the need to relook at cellulose. They build a case particularly for cellulose fibres downsized to smaller free standing  fibrils. Such  microsized or nanosized fibrils  could be  made into  transparent papers with gloss and texture,  excellent for various  packaging applications.  This biodegradable material could prove to be the best alternative  to  the  millions of tons of nondegradable plastic garbage we keep  accumulating on a daily basis. 

These fibrils could also be excellent reinforcing materials.  Cellulose has an abundance of hydroxyl groups  which can form  extensive intra and inter chain  hydrogen bonding. Such  networks can  improve the mechanical properties of composites.  It has since  been established that  nano cellulosic fibrils perform far superior to conventional micro size  fibrous  reinforcements in composites. Japan's Ministry of Environments has already taken note of this and initiated Nano Cellulose Vehicle Project (NCV) to develop lightweight automotive components.  Calculations show that a 10% reduction in the weight of the vehicle  could  reduce fuel need by about  6%.  

Though cellulose is a plentiful, renewable resource,   challenges remain.  One that tops the list is the energy and cost intensive steps involved in the  isolation of cellulose  and its subsequent  processing  into  nano form. Global teams are at work to tackle this challenge.    Researchers at the  Edinburgh Napier University in collaboration with South African Paper and Pulp Industry (Sappi)  seem to have developed a  cost effective process  to turn wood pulp  into  "nanomaterial that could be used to build greener cars, thicken foods and even treat wounds".

REFERENCES:

1. "Developing fibrillated cellulose as a sustainable technological material. Li et    al.; Nature  590,pp 47-56, 4 February 2021

2. Tokyo Motor Show 2019: NCV (Nano Cellulose Vehicle Project)

3. Conversion Economics of Forest Biomaterials: Risk and Financial Analysis of CNC Manufacturing

4. A New Low-cost Process to Make Nano cellulose

4.American Process: Production of Low Cost Nanocellulose for Renewable, Advanced Materials     Applications.  

In the Sea, on the Land or Somewhere in between?

 Exactly 150 years ago on 1st February 1871, Charles Darwin wrote  to a colleague : 

"But if (and oh what a big if) we could conceive in some warm little pond with all sorts of ammonia and phosphoric salts,—light, heat, electricity &c. present, that a protein compound was chemically formed, ready to undergo still more complex changes, at the present day such matter wd be instantly devoured, or absorbed, which would not have been the case before living creatures were formed." 

Eighty years later in 1952 Stanley Miller and Harold Urey translated Darwin's thoughts into an experiment. Using water, methane,  ammonia, hydrogen and electric spark to mimic lightning, he synthesised amino acids, the building blocks of proteins. The hypothesis of oceanic primordial soup containing all possible chemicals  subjected to  Sun's ultraviolet rays and occasional lightning  giving rise to life's molecules gained  wider  acceptance.  

Miller-Urey  Experimental set up
Courtesy:wikipedia

But almost immediately  everything changed. The 1953 Nature paper by Watson and Crick established  deoxyribonucleic acid, DNA for  short,  as the macromolecule of life with the   genetic code   encrypted in a unique way in the DNA chain using 4 nucleobases: adenine, guanine, thymine and cytosine. In 2017, a group of scientists  repeated the Miller-Urey experiment  with suitable modifications and demonstrated that abiotic synthesis of nucleobases is also possible.  And then RNA replaced DNA as the original molecule!

The prebiotic soup model  has thermodynamic as well as kinetic   inconsistencies.  Issue is   not the formation of the building blocks, but the process of linking them and sustaining these linkages in a vast and seemingly limitless waterbody.  The  peptide bonds,  and the phosphodiester bonds, which form   the backbone of the proteins and  nucleic acids respectively,  are  both  extremely susceptible to water.  Biochemist Robert Shapiro  a vehement critic of the  primordial soup hypothesis  stated: "And of course the apparatus itself has no resemblance whatsoever to the primitive Earth. One of the popular magazines said that if this apparatus had been left on for a million years, something like the first living creature might have crawled out of it. And I say, if he'd left his apparatus on for a million years, he would have run up one hell of an electric bill " . 

Nonetheless the primordial soup model prevails, of course with modifications. For example  Professor John Sutherland  feels that small shallow ponds filled with  primordial soup,  and which have a tendency to dry out and refill might be a possibility.   The clay bed of such a pond  subjected to  periodic wet and dry cycles together with light and dark cycles of day and night would coax/catalyse  molecules to form, organise, hold together  and grow.  If the clay is rich in minerals such as quartz, then the issue of chirality could also be somewhat  settled. Because  as professors  Hazen and Sverjensky point out "such surfaces may have contributed centrally to the linked prebiotic problems of containment and organization by promoting the transition from a dilute prebiotic “soup” to highly ordered local domains of key biomolecules". 

Anthropogenic activities have irreversibly contaminated all possible terrestrial sites hence 

Professor Sutherland   is pinning  hopes on Perseverance, the rover  heading towards Mars.  Perseverance is programmed to land in the Jezero crater in Mars and collect and bring back  soil and rock samples. The assumption is that 3.5 billion years ago  this  crater could have been  a water body that underwent wet-dry cycles and  hence a faint probability that it could have supported life.  Scientists hope that Martian rocks and soil samples might hold secrets of  life,  that  the ancient biosignatures inscribed in there  might still be decipherable. 

Are we  going a bit too far ?

REFERENCES:

1. Life and Letters (Darwin 1887, Vol 3:168–169)

2. Miller SL (1953) A production of amino acids under possible primitive Earth conditions.           Science 117:528–529.

3. Synthesis of activated pyrimidine ribonucleotides in prebiotically plausible conditions 

4. Formation of nucelobases in Miller-Urey reducing atmosphere.

5. A Simpler Origin for  Life   

6. Mineral surfaces, Geochemical complexities and the origins of Life

7. Chance, necessity and the origins of Life 

7. Perseverance Rover's landing site: Jezero Crater