Black holes are the astrophysics equivalent of spooky season

Fun question for all you scientists out there: is it possible for the skills and strategies used in astrophysics to translate into biology? Yesterday, Bwog Science Editor Alex Tang attended the Department of Biological Sciences seminar given by Columbia Physics Professor Szabolcs Marka (yes, you read that right – physics). Here, he discusses the insights that Professor Marka shared from his multidisciplinary research experiences. The talk was titled “On the Beauty and Impact of Astrophysics: From Gravitational Waves to Biology.”

Professor Marka calls himself someone who practices “Renaissance Science.” In an allusion to the “Renaissance Man,” Marka is referring to his passion in all aspects of scientific research, starting from the inception of an idea, followed by the theoretical aspects and finally the experimental aspects. Also relevant is his interest in a variety of incredibly different fields in science. While Marka is a physicist by title, his research interests have spanned topics as diverse as gravitational waves and insect physiology. Seminar host Dr. John Hunt made the joke that in order to give this seminar, Dr. Marka had to make the arduous, exceedingly difficult journey from Pupin to Fairchild – a rare journey if you think about it.

In his seminar, Dr. Marka began by giving the biologists in the room a quick primer on gravitational waves. Whenever two massive, dense objects (ie black holes and neutron stars) collide in astrophysics, they create black holes. Black holes are the densest entities known in astrophysics, with a gravitational pull so heavy that not even light can escape. The density of a black hole is equivalent to 60 times the mass of the solar system roughly occupying the size of Long Island. The collision of two dense objects creates a ripple in spacetime, which is propagated outwards. Think about throwing a pebble into a lake. The impact of the pebble with the lake represents the collision of the two dense astronomical objects, and the ripples you see in the water represent the gravitational waves that are equidistantly propagated outwards from the collision.

Gravitational waves (created by massive collisions) were actually predicted by Einstein about a century ago. However, they have been incredibly hard to prove. Once these gravitational waves reach Earth, they are insanely tiny. The effect that a gravitational wave has in pushing or pulling an object on Earth compared to the object’s mass is equivalent to the proportion of a millionth of a cent in the US national debt (17.7 trillion dollars).

In 2015, LIGO (Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory) sensed a blip in spacetime, proving the existence of gravitational waves for the first time. LIGO is an incredibly sensitive instrument that can monitor discrepancies in spacetime differences via tiny changes in the patterns of intersecting light. Read more here from a LectureHop we did two years ago if you’re interested in learning more. The sensing of gravitational waves has remained the most sensitive measurement done by mankind.

In his work with gravitational waves, Dr. Marka acquired expertise in lasers and optics technologies. Marka realized that such technologies could be transferred to other scientific fields, including biology. He qualified this thought by stating that science progresses the quickest when the expertise of different fields are combined to produce the most robust technologies and strategies.

Marka then provided a plethora of biological projects he has been involved in, as collaborations with other biologists on campus. In an experiment done with mosquitoes, Marka and his colleagues realized that when exposed to infrared light from a laser, the mosquitoes will be repelled backward. As a result, Marka’s team was able to produce a wall of infrared light from a laser that could effectively shut out mosquitoes from a separate space. It’s important to note that the wall that is shutting out mosquitoes is not a materially hard wall, but a light ray. Marka and his team induced mutations into the mosquitoes to knock out certain bodily sensors, such as sight, the ability to sense high heat, and ocelli sensors, in an attempt to determine why the mosquitoes were repelled by the infrared laser. None of the knockouts achieved a widespread tolerance to infrared, although the compromised ocelli mutants experienced a 15% difference in behavioral response to the infrared light.

Marka’s team then created a computer simulation (another skill gleaned from astrophysics) called Tanzania IBIRI. The program simulated a village in Tanzania, taking into account the local climate, structure of the village, mosquito flight patterns, etc. in order to determine how well an installation of various infrared laser beams would repel mosquitoes from the village. The question was whether installing infrared lasers in individual houses would repel mosquitoes out of the village for good, or if the mosquitoes would merely migrate into homes without the infrared protection. Marka and his team actually visited a Tanzanian village to determine the efficacy of his computer simulation. Future calibration is needed in this project.

In a separate project, Marka and his team built a mosquito swarm generator that would encourage a swarm of mosquitoes to mate within a given space. Within the swarm generator, a computer observer would be able to determine mosquito mating patterns, including the flight paths and sounds of mating mosquitoes. Doing so would provide insights into how best to combat mosquito reproduction, with wide health implications for humans. In a separate field test, Marka’s team also designed drones to find and study swarms in the wild and to use machine learning to allow these drones to identify swarms through long-distance listening of swarm sounds.

Finally, Marka discussed his experiment regarding the gait of drosophila fruit flies. Marka’s team developed a sensor that could accurately measure the gait, or walking, movements of these flies. The sensor combined technologies in optic touch sensing and high-speed video imaging, which would input data into a computer that could provide automatic tracking and quantification of the flies. From this model, the scientists determined the kinematic changes in drosophila gait in response to several factors, such as gravitational load changes (in other words, extra weight added onto the flies). Insights into the drosophila gait sensing could be translated into other animal models, such as mice, which could, in turn, provide insight into how gait is affected by neurological diseases.

Professor Marka covered a lot of science in his one-hour talk, and as an undergraduate, I often felt overwhelmed by the variety of projects that he described. Overall, however, I was inspired by how multidisciplinary his science was, and how well his skills from his experience with gravitational waves transferred to his ability to study insects. A true “Renaissance scientist,” Dr. Szabolcs Marka epitomizes collaboration in science, a lesson that all budding scientists should learn.

Black hole via Public Domain Pictures