Ocean quack & Electrical impulse gene therapy (Fast Access: 25th April 2014)

As always an easily digestible look at two of this week’s science news stories:

Ocean quack explanation

The source of a quacking noise that has stumped ocean scientists for over 50 years has finally been discovered. Every winter and spring the strange noise has been picked up in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, but until now the root of the sound remained a mystery.

It turns out the ‘quacking’ belongs to the Antarctic minke whale! There were suspicions that these whales were the source but only recently was it confirmed. Last year scientists attached acoustic sound recorders to two minke whales via suckers and listened in on their vocalisations. By doing so they heard the distinctive mystery quack – a noise the whales make when they are about to head on a deep dive for feeding.

Another baffling sound in the Southern Ocean (‘The Bloop’) was recently solved as the noise of Antarctic ice cracking. Click here to listen to ‘the quack‘ and ‘The Bloop‘.

Bionic ear implant regrows nerves

Cochlear implants are essentially hearing aids that are surgically inserted into the ear to help amplify sound for people with hearing difficulties. Despite making noises louder they don’t enhance things like the pitch of sounds, so listening to music, for example, is often not that enjoyable for the recipient. However, scientists in Australia have managed to manipulate cochlear implants to send DNA into the ear via electrical impulses. This DNA is targeted so that it can deliver gene therapy to regrow lost auditory (sound) nerves. By this method the patient can partially regain their full depth of hearing and not just volume.

Whilst this is very exciting news in itself, the number of potential applications for the gene therapy is more thrilling still! By managing to regrow nerves in the ear via gene therapy delivered by electrical impulses, scientists now have an insight that the same non-invasive method could be used to regrow other nerves. There are already suggestions that the treatment could be used in the brain to benefit people with Parkinson’s disease or depression.

Particle Fever

Particle Fever documents scientists at CERN during the largest and most expensive experiment ever undertaken. The world wide web was even invented at CERN in order for scientists to easily share the vast amount of data they were working with!

The film follows the building of the Large Hadron Collider. This was created to mimic the conditions at the Big Bang to allow scientists to search for the predicted Higgs boson particle, which could potentially explain the origin of all matter (stuff). Not to ruin the ending, but unless you had your head buried in the sand you will now their quest was successful. To have the exact moment of discovery on film is, in my opinion, rather magical!

If you don’t know your boson from your proton – not to worry! The documentary has been crafted so that the journey is accessible to everyone. In fact if you go to the Particle Fever website they even have a glossary to help you on your way. For example, did you know that particles are subdivided into force carrying particles called bosons and matter (stuff) particles which include electrons and quarks?

So physics lover or not, this documentary will immerse the viewer in an impressive feat of determination and collaboration (scientists from over 100 nations worked on the project). There is a special screening on tonight at the Science Museum. If you can’t make that then sign up on the documentary’s website to get an alert when a showing is next near you.