Here are four new scientific discoveries that occurred in April.
Discovery of a giant ancient octopus
A new species of octopus was found in a study led by researchers at Hokkaido University. The jaw fossils of this giant “kraken” were found in Japan and Vancouver Island. This discovery uncovers octopuses’ early origins as predators. Researchers found that this giant octopus existed in the Late Cretaceous period between 100 million and 72 million years ago. They predicted that this octopus could have grown up to 19 meters in length (62 feet), almost twice the size of the giant squid today.
The ancient kraken was a profound discovery for the species due to the fine wear marks on the jaws. The intense wear on the well-preserved jaws is theorized to be from extensive force from a strong bite. “Up to 10% of the jaw tip relative to the total jaw length had been worn away, which is larger than that seen in modern cephalopods that feed on hard-shelled prey,” says Professor Yasuhiro Iba of Hokkaido University. “This indicates repeated, forceful interactions with their prey, revealing an unexpectedly aggressive feeding strategy.” This changes scientists’ understanding of the ocean food chain as invertebrates were seen as insignificant. Now, the existence of this jaw shows that octopuses are the exception.
Connection between gut bacteria and depression
A particular bacterium, Morganella morganii, is linked in several studies to major depressive disorder. However, until this research was done at Harvard Medical School, scientists did not think this gut bacteria could ever affect brain function. This study shows an environmental contaminant called diethanolamine (DEA) replaces a sugar alcohol in a molecule produced by M. morganii in the gut. This molecule, which operates very differently from the sugar alcohol, activates the immune system, prompting the release of inflammatory proteins. One of these inflammatory proteins, interleukin-6 (IL-6), is linked to depression in multiple previous studies.
This chain of events provides a potential link between M. morganii and depression. Chronic inflammation is known to play a role in many diseases and is also associated with major depressive disorders. This is leading to a new pathway to treating depression, as DEA could potentially be used as a biomarker to help identify some cases of major depressive disorder. Targeting immune responses could be effective for some of the depressed patients as well, which could lead to a different view of major depressive disorder.
New way to control electrons
The field of orbitronics pertains to the motion of electrons within an atom and around the nucleus. This topic is known as orbital angular momentum, which hypothetically could be used to carry and store information more efficiently. A new study from North Carolina State University shows a far simpler way to use orbital motion in quantum processing and computing using chiral phonons. Phonons are vibrations as a collective wave that travel through materials, and the chiral descriptor means that it goes through a chiral material where atoms are arranged in a spiral pattern, similar to the threads of a screw.
Because of this circular pattern, these atoms contain angular momentum when the waves travel through this chiral pattern, which can be used instead of the more commonly used magnetic pathway. Controlling this motion through magnetism is expensive, heavy and hard to scale. However, quartz, as seen through this study and others, including one from the University of Utah, shows that chiral phonons create a significant electric field. This field could lead to faster and more energy-efficient devices.
AI discovery of physics laws in plasma systems
Machine learning is used by physicists in plasma physics to research non-reciprocal forces, different from Newton’s laws, where one particle applies a force on another particle differently than the force experienced in return. Researchers at Emory University were studying plasma with their AI model and were able to get the AI to describe the notoriously difficult non-reciprocal forces with more than 99% accuracy.
Justin Burton, an Emory professor of experimental physics, believes “our AI method is not a black box: we understand how and why it works. The framework it provides is also universal. It could potentially be applied to other many-body systems to open new routes to discovery.” This success can lead to the use of AI in other fields. This is backed up by Ilya Nemenman, an Emory biophysicist, as he says, “for all the talk about how AI is revolutionizing science, there are very few examples where something fundamentally new has been found directly by an AI system.” This implementation of AI is one of the first steps in using artificial intelligence to push the limits of human knowledge, and will likely continue in future experiments.