How a cosmonaut used a tea bag to save the $100 billion International Space Station
Also how the COVID-19 pandemic ends. Plus, new research shows that there's more to obesity and weight loss than *just* calories.
Wherever you are in the world, I hope you are well. If you are in the northern hemisphere, you are probably celebrating some form of fall festival. For me, this Durga Puja has been one of the most boring— it’s been unreal not being able to travel and meet others for such a long time. To add insult to injury, I’ve had a pretty demanding week at work too.
Anyway, I’ll quit whining now. Things could be worse. :)
Let’s start with a story you might’ve missed altogether, though I think it is absolutely incredible.
One year ago, the International Space Station (ISS) was dangerously leaking out air. A cosmonaut was able to save it with the help of a tea bag. That’s right a tea bag that saved the ISS.
Let me elaborate. The ISS faces many dangers. One of them is space junk. Sixteen times, ISS crew have have had to fire rockets to move away. Four times, the space junk was discovered too late, so the crew had to put on space suits and sit inside the Soyuz reentry craft. Thankfully, they didn't need to abandon the ISS altogether.
The ISS also drops to Earth. To stay in its orbit it uses >$200 million of fuel each year.
The ISS is not airtight either. It is leaking air from pressurized modules all the time. It typically loses about a quarter of a kilogram of air per day. But sometimes it gets worse.
Like it did from late 2019 through August 2020. There was a leak. The crew needed to find it. The daily air loss increased from a quarter of a kilogram to more than a kilogram per day.
The crew sealed all the modules and huddled in one end of the ISS. Over four days, they tested each of the sections for leaks.
Nothing.
That left only one gut-wrenching possibility. The Zvezda module that they were huddled inside was the one that was leaking.
The Zvezda module was launched back in 2000 and was the connection to Soyuz- the only way to get back to Earth in case of an emergency.
Then last October, a cosmonaut Anatoly Ivanishin came up with a brilliant idea to find the leak. He opened up a teabag, closed the hatch of the module, and watched the floating leaves on camera that had been set up.
After a few hours, the crew saw some of the leaves float towards a tiny scratch on a metal wall.
It looked like the leaves were floating to a scratch. Only it wasn't a scratch- it was a CRACK in the wall.
The crew plugged the crack with pieces of foam rubber and then taped it up with Kapton tape.
And that is how the crew used a $0.20 tea bag to save a $100 billion space station.
This is the way the pandemic ends. (Not with a bang but with a whimper).
What should we be looking at in this stage of the pandemic? My column this week in the Hindustan Times is about how the COVID-19 pandemic ends.
The two main parameters are viral evolution and host immunity.
Is Delta as bad as it will get? When will new variants arise? What will their properties be?
What do we mean by “immunity” (transmission, mild disease or moderate/severe disease)? How fast can we vaccinate?
One fact is pretty obvious now. SARS-CoV-2 will become endemic and nearly everyone will need to be vaccinated or infected. That said, the end of the pandemic won't look the same everywhere and it might not practically end at the same time either.
Millions of babies are born each year who are immunologically naïve. Antibodies from mothers who are vaccinated or have suffered infections may offer some protection. In many countries, kids' vaccinations have already started. That will help to end the pandemic.
Countries that vaccinated rapidly and dealt with Delta surges are now in a phase of relative normalcy. Even the UK which opened up when cases were rising has seen a drop and plateau (which many experts have been baffled by).
One point I made in the column, which I've also made in my book, is that learning to live with the coronavirus doesn't mean the pandemic doesn't end. We saw this a century ago with the H1N1 pandemic, though it was caused by a different respiratory virus.
There is a misconception that the H1N1 influenza strain of 1918 disappeared when the pandemic ended. It didn’t. Most of the influenza cases that occurred in the past century (apart from bird flu) were caused by descendants of the 1918 virus. But they caused mild disease in most.
That is the ideal endgame here. Most of us are vaccinated or have immunity from infection and subsequent waves of infection cause mild illness. When particular variants emerge that wreak more havoc we get boosters- and by "we", I mean in priority of need.
The biggest blind spot in my view (and I mentioned this in my book and in many columns) is post-COVID or Long COVID. What will be the long term effects in people who have suffered from COVID? Some details emerging, but still too early and too heterogeneous in symptoms.
There’s more to obesity and weight loss than calories
I’ve been reading up quite a bit on gut microbes and their impact on obesity, immunity, and mood. It’s been known for less than two decades that gut microbes that make up the microbiome exert major influences on nearly every aspect of human health. One of the pioneers of this field, Dr. Jeffery Gordon, published a few landmark studies back when I was still in grad school. He was my choice for the student-nominated symposia, but lost to Venki Ramakrishnan who gave an excellent talk on ribosomes. I had dinner with Venki and we had a discussion (this was before he won the Nobel Prize). Gordon is one of the people to watch, and it will not surprise me if he wins a Nobel Prize in the future too. Anyway, I digress.
Anyway, this is a rambling introduction to a piece that I wrote that came out in Science Reporter this month. It is free to read and access as a PDF here.
There’s quite a lot here on the new paradigm in energy balance, obesity, and microbiome research. If you eat food like I do, there’s something here for you.
A couple of broad brushstrokes from my piece:
There’s more to food than calories.
You eat not just for yourself, but for trillions of gut microbes. Go with your gut.
Eat more and diverse plants.
The early data on food restriction and time-bound fasting is that they work.
Sleep, do not feast late at night.
The field is moving rapidly with advances in leading journals every week.
We are not there yet with precisely engineering gut microbes through diet for better health, cognition, and immune responses, but I predict that will happen in the next five years.
That’s it for now. Do let me know what you think.
If there’s enough interest, I might share more of the science of prebiotics/probiotics/synbiotics, circadian rhythms, metabolism, and microbiomes as they get published.
Take care,
Anirban
How a cosmonaut used a tea bag to save the $100 billion International Space Station
Thank you for the wonderful newsletter. The teabag and the space station story is really amazing. Subho Bijoya to you and your family. :)
We are also not sure about long term effects of vaccine. But we are not left with any choice in that matter.
Can you throw more light on gut microbes, weight loss etc. ? Do you mean intermittent fasting works ? Early dinner has always been our tradition. Though recently trend has changed.