NUMBER THEME
EVOLUTION - A TREE WITH
NUMEROUS BRANCHES

Is the human species at an evolutionary impasse?

Although the bulk of the DNA of modern humans still comes from a group that evolved in Africa, discoveries about intergroup interbreeding complicate the view of our species’ evolution. Human groups that met less than 100,000 years ago probably exchanged more than their genes on such occasions. Neanderthals who lived in what is now France about 50,000 years ago knew how to make fire. Fire-making is a key skill that different human groups were able to pass on to each other.
The human being is a primate that has developed a culture, and is classified in the genus Homo and separately in the species Homo sapiens. Humans are anatomically similar and related to the great apes as one of the main groups on the primate family tree but have more developed brains and the ability to articulate speech and think abstractly. The man's pronounced upright posture freed his hands to use objects. However, some of these traits are not unique to humans, and the anatomical and cognitive gap between humans and great apes (orangutans, gorillas, chimpanzees, and bonobos) is much smaller than originally thought.

MEDICINE

Innovative solutions for lumbago, sciatica, disc herniation...

As a result of the biological aging process, combined with the long-term workload, degenerative diseases of the spine are almost inevitable already after the age of 40, in both men and women. In addition to heavy physical work and prolonged sitting, a physically passive lifestyle - in the car, in the office, in front of the TV, at the computer - is very harmful to the spine and today is one of the key risk factors for the development of degenerative diseases of the spine. Moreover, in the computer era, the lack of physical activities among, paradoxically, increasingly younger people, makes these diseases not only more frequent than before but also increasingly prevalent in the relatively young population.
In the therapeutic arsenal of modern neurosurgery, there are several new procedures for the treatment of back pain caused by degenerative and pathological changes in the spinal column. Ph.D. med NenadŽivković, a specialist in neurosurgery at Acibadem Bel Medic hospital, classifies them in a completely new category, which is "somewhere between" conservative (non-surgical) and surgical treatment of spinal problems. These are methods that are performed in a one-day surgery - some of them exclusively under local anesthesia - and are very comfortable for patients, and enable quick recovery and return to normal life activities.
 

SPACE EXPLORATION

The hunt for aromatic molecules

GOTHAM, a multi-university group of astrochemists, has been working for several years on a project to detect polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, PAHs, in interstellar space.
In the last seventy years, only 267 molecules have been detected in interstellar space, as of August 2022. Many of these are reactive chemical species, which would not be stable on Earth, and would immediately react with other nearby chemical species, or molecules. Technically, some of them do not strictly fit the definition of a molecule, but due to the very high dilution of compounds in interstellar space, they can exist in space for many moons - until they finally run into another molecule. The chances are that that second molecule is hydrogen (H2) since it is the most abundant molecule in the universe.
It is known that aromatic organic compounds make up a huge percentage of known organic compounds on Earth, therefore it is concluded that such compounds should be widespread in space as well. It is estimated that between 10 and 25% of the carbon present in interstellar space is in the form of aromatic compounds. The GOTHAM project decided to examine one such region, Taurus Molecular Cloud 1 (eng. Taurus Molecular Cloud, TMC-1). It is assumed that in such regions of space, PAHs are formed from carbon present in the form of dust under the influence of strong radiation.

SCIENTIFIC ASSUMPTIONS

When will we meet aliens...

If there are an infinite number of galaxies, stars, and planets in the universe, why have we not had contact with extraterrestrials until now? That question is the essence of the Fermi paradox. However, recently, Chinese scientists tried to answer the question: when will we come into contact with an extraterrestrial civilization? Using mathematical and astrophysical models, scientists Wende Song and He Gao, from the Department of Astronomy at Peking University, calculated that the human race will come into contact with an extraterrestrial civilization only in about 400,000 years!
The mentioned scientists published their paper entitled "The number of possible intelligent civilizations that can be communicated within our galaxy and the possibilities of communication between them".
In a paper published in the "Astrophysical Journal", the assumption was made that the time 400,000 years is the time when the human species could come into contact with extraterrestrials.
Studying extraterrestrial civilizations is confusing because scientists can only do it from the perspective of people on Earth. Fortunately, many have come to grips with this question, following strict scientific rules. At one time, it was assumed that there are 36 possible civilizations (CETI) in the Milky Way that can be communicated with (CETI)! How much can it be believed?

MOLECULAR BIOLOGY

Genome editing prevents world hunger

In 2020, 811 million people were undernourished, representing a tenth of the world's population. This increase of 161 million occurred in one year and is equal to the increase in the previous five years. The consequences of the famine were most felt in Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Caribbean. According to a recent UN report, climate change, conflict, and economic recession are the main drivers of insecurity in food production. Poverty and inequality also play a role. With the world's population projected to grow to 10 billion by 2050, something needs to be done urgently. Editing ie.
genome editing has applications in the production of crops with higher yields and more nutrients, resistant to climate change, diseases, and pests. However, could something like this be the solution to world hunger?
 

LINGUISTICS

About planned languages

The struggle against the imposition of a national language as an international one led many thinking people, from Descartes and Comenius to Schleier and Zamenhof, to search for a nationally neutral language that would not discriminate against other languages. That is why in contemporary interlinguistic the prevailing opinion is that only a planned language with the linguistic potencies and characteristics of every living language, with the existence of its spoken representatives - that is, to be spoken (spoken, paroleta), and therefore a living (live, vivant) language - it can, under the circumstances of eventual international social consensus, perform the role of an international language.
If we ignore the various schematic, numerical, and mathematically rigid languages that fall into the category of so-called a priori languages, in the multitude of planned a posteriori languages that draw their lexicon from living linguistic materials, there are groups of languages with Romance, Germanic and Slavic lexicons.