My Reflections…
“I was watching “The Good Doctor” on Amazon Prime a few weeks ago along with my 9-year old. Its a lovely series about an autistic but brilliant surgeon. In the particular episode that day, the surgeons struggled to take out some targeted tissue embedded deep inside the brain because of the fear of nicking some surrounding nerves (at least that is what I understood as a layman in biology!) My daughter asked me why could the surgeons not use a scalpel that was only a few molecules wide so that it could easily go through the opening without damaging surrounding nerves. I laughed her off saying that it would be impossible to hold something that small, let alone maneovre it inside the brain. A few days later, I came across the research article on molecule-sized motors and drill machines (previous newsletter ) that could be controlled by controlling the light shone upon them. My daughter instantly jumped at me saying that this was exactly her idea :))) Well, it is a bit far-stretched considering she still doesn’t understand middle school physics :)) But, I was stumped by the imagination of the unrestricted, young mind! Of course, there are fundamental laws of science that cannot be broken but the ground-breaking ideas, discoveries and inventions must begin from such uninhibited wanderings of the mind… The incident was also a stark reminder for me to not allow my conditioned and limited adult imagination to disregard a child’s crazy-sounding fantastic idea…”
— Dr. Sonali Dasgupta
Travelling to Mars? Take this along
As we race to find other habitable planets and learn more about the world outside our planet, understanding the environment on Mars seems to be the most desirable. Not only is it due to its proximity to Earth but also due to the many similarities it shares with our home planet such as:
- The day and night duration of Mars are very similar to that on earth (24 hours, 39 minutes and 35 seconds).
- Scientists have found enough evidence of water in its soil
- Temperature on Mars is not as extreme as some of the other celestial bodies near Earth
A “mini-rover” moves across a field of poppy seeds, similar to what may be expected on the surface of Mars.
Source: Video by Shrivastava et al., Sci. Robot. 5, eaba3499 (2020)
A (RP15) rover successfully moves across a surface of small grainy sand.
Source: Shrivastava et al., Sci. Robot. 5, eaba3499 (2020)
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