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SPONSORED BY  | | | | September 12, 2024: The groundbreaking work of mathematician Ada Lovelace, developing drugs without animal testing, and a new quantum Cheshire Cat thought experiment. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Jared Isaacman, the billionaire entrepreneur and commander of the private Polaris Dawn mission, emerges from a SpaceX Dragon capsule during the world's first commercial space walk. SpaceX | | | • What to do when your data has been hacked, according to a security expert who created the "Have I Been Pwned" website. | 7 min read | | | In 1942 British mathematician Ada Lovelace translated a research paper written by an Italian engineer on a new conceptual invention: the analytical engine. Lovelace was an intellectual peer of the originator of the idea of the analytical engine, Charles Babbage, and she brought her own insight to the translation by correcting the Italian's work and adding seven extensive annotations that were three times the length of the original article. Babbage's analytical engine is considered the first general purpose computer and, if it had been built, would have read instructions in the form of holes punched into card stock. Ada's annotation: One of Lovelace's annotations, titled "Note G," is regarded by many experts as the first-ever computer program, in which she devises an algorithm run by Babbage's machine to calculate Bernoulli numbers (a sequence of rational numbers often used in mathematical analytics).
Why this is historic: Lovelace recognized that a machine designed to crunch numbers would have vast applications if the numbers were viewed as a symbolic representation for other instructions. For example, she envisioned that the machine could one day compose music from text prompts (like the AI programs Suno and Udio do today). This concept would not be put into practical application until Alan Turing's work on his mathematical model of computation (and the Turing machine) 100 years later. | | | This scheme for computing Bernoulli numbers on an analytical machine was devised by Ada Lovelace and is the first published computer program. The Picture Art Collection/Alamy Stock Photo | | | Many research laboratories around the world, biomedical start-up companies and nonprofit groups are pursuing alternative testing methods that replace lab animals. Some labs have phased out animals altogether. In 2022, President Biden signed the FDA Modernization Act 2.0 which eliminated the requirement that all new drug applications include animal testing. While important medical advances like the COVID vaccine and many cancer treatments have depended on studies on animals, about 90 percent of new drugs that work in animals fail in human clinical trials. Aside from the ethical concerns, researchers are looking for better ways to develop drugs, cosmetics, and chemical products.
Alternatives: AI-based algorithms can be as reliable as or more reliable than animals in predicting toxicity for various chemicals. Living cellular "organs-on-a-chip" can mimic multiorgan systems so researchers can run experiments on one or more chips. Some researchers already use cultured human organ tissue (like cardiac tissues) that can be used for safety and drug testing.
What the experts say: "Everyone recognizes that the goal is to eventually try to replace animals," says Naomi Charalambakis, associate director of science policy at the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology. Some advocacy groups estimate that nearly 200 million animals were used for research in 2015. Animals won't vanish from research soon. "We're still very much in the nascent phases," Charalambakis says. | | | SPONSORED CONTENT BY HOWTHELIGHTGETSIN | The Event You Don't Want to Miss this Month: | Fan of big ideas and stimulating debate? HowTheLightGetsIn, the world's largest ideas and music festival, returns to London this 21-22 September. Expect to see Roger Penrose, Sam Harris, Sabine Hossenfelder, Yoshua Bengio and more lock horns over a packed weekend of debates, talks and performances. Enjoy 20% off full festival tickets with code SCIAML30. Get your discounted tickets here.
| | | • Ancient fossils of long-extinct animals like dinosaurs and mastodons excite the public and generate enthusiasm for paleontology. Fossils are crucial to the field, yes, but paleontologists use an extensive variety of tools in their research, from traditional hammers and chisels, to sophisticated statistical analyses and numerical models, to laser spectrometers, CT scanners and synchrotrons, write a group of researchers and professors in paleobiology, earth science, paleontology and more. "Paleontology has provided a fundamental, sobering, contribution to human thought: the reality of species extinction and thus of a world that has dramatically changed over time," they say. | 4 min read | | | One of the first feature articles I wrote as a budding science journalist at The Scientist magazine more than 15 years ago reported the abysmal efficacy of animal models for devising new disease treatments for humans. Even then (practically ancient history in modern medicine AND journalism timelines) researchers knew the severe and costly limitations of developing human medicines based on animal research. Much has changed since I wrote that piece, yes, but animals still play a crucial role in life-saving drugs. If AI does bring about rapid advancement in how we make medicine, as some experts foresee, I truly hope lab animals are one of the first things to go. | How do you like this newsletter? Let me know by emailing: newsletters@sciam.com. Today in Science will return tomorrow. | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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