It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
Tuesday, October 03, 2023
Study reveals cosmic surprises about star formation from the dawn of time
Imaging and spectroscopic data of CEERS-z7382. a, False-color JWST/NIRCam red-green-blue image centered on the example galaxy (blue: F150W, 1.5 μm; green: F277W, 2.8 μm; red: F444W, 4.4 μm). The image scale and corresponding physical size at z = 7.8328 is marked. b, Full NIRSpec prism spectrum covering 0.7 μm to 5.2 μm (cyan) and associated 1σ error spectrum (gray). c, Detail of the spectral region covering the nebular emission lines from the [O III] λλ4960, 5008 doublet and Hβ. The local best-fit line and continuum model is shown by the black curve. Credit: Nature Astronomy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02078-7
A groundbreaking international study has unveiled remarkable insights into the early evolution of galaxies, shedding light on the fundamental processes that have shaped our universe. The findings were published in Nature Astronomy.
A research team from Denmark and Australia used the extraordinary capabilities of the James Webb Space Telescope to delve back in time billions of years, to the period shortly after the Big Bang when galaxies were first forming.
Study co-author and astrophysicist Associate Professor Claudia Lagos, at The University of Western Australia node of the International Center for Radio Astronomy Research (ICRAR), said researchers found that for more than 12 billion years galaxies followed the same set of rules when it came to the formation rate of stars, as well as their mass and chemical composition.
"It was like the galaxies had a rulebook that they followed—but astonishingly, this cosmic rulebook, appears to have undergone a dramatic rewrite during the universe's infancy," Lagos said.
"The most surprising discovery was that ancient galaxies produced far fewer heavy elements than we would have predicted based on what we know from galaxies that formed later.
"In fact their chemical abundance was approximately four times lower than anticipated, based on the fundamental-metallicity relation observed in later galaxies."
Lagos said the findings challenged previous ideas about how galaxies evolved in the early universe, suggesting that early on galaxies were closely connected to the space around them and influenced by their cosmic neighborhood.
"What's most surprising is that the early galaxies continually received new, pristine gas from their surroundings, with the gas influx diluting the heavy elements inside the galaxies, making them less concentrated," Associate Professor Lagos said.
The discovery challenges existing theories about galaxy evolution and raises questions about the mechanisms at play during the universe's formative years, opening the door to further exploration about the cosmic processes that influenced the development of early galaxies.
More information: Kasper E. Heintz et al, Dilution of chemical enrichment in galaxies 600 Myr after the Big Bang, Nature Astronomy (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41550-023-02078-7
Next to water, coffee is the most popular beverage on Earth and is the world's second most traded good, trailing only oil. It is estimated that humans drink more than 2 billion cups of coffee per day with over 60% of Americans having a cup each day. As a result, over 8 million tons of spent coffee grounds are disposed of on an annual basis.
What if, instead of ending up in a landfill, those coffee grounds could be used as a sustainable, climate-friendly packaging material?
While this may seem like wishful thinking, a new study from Srinivas Janaswamy, associate professor in South Dakota State University's Department of Dairy and Food Science, has revealed how spent coffee grounds can be made into biodegradable films—material that could one day replace plastics.
Plastics are strong, flexible and relatively inexpensive to produce, making them a near "perfect" material for packaging. Plastics, however, pose a serious environmental problem. While recyclable, most plastics end up as litter or in landfills, where they take 700 years to biodegrade. In the oceans, miles of plastic garbage patches—most notably, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which is currently the size of Texas and growing—float aimlessly, underlining the growing environmental crisis that an over-reliance on plastic has created.
Of growing concern are microplastics, a relatively new scientific discovery in which microscopic pieces of plastics are finding their way into the food and water that humans consume. Little to no research on the long-term health effects of microplastics on humans has been conducted thus far.
A safe, sustainable and climate-friendly plastic alternative is needed.
"Plastics constitute a wide range of materials designed to meet many daily needs," Janaswamy said. "Replacing all existing plastics is far from possible at this stage. However, substituting low-cost daily commodity-used conventional plastics, which occupy the most considerable fraction of the environmental contaminants, is feasible and can be achieved."
Why coffee grounds?
Over the past few years, Janaswamy has focused his research efforts on creating biodegradable alternatives to plastic, often from agricultural byproducts. Previously, Janaswamy has prepared films from the cellulose-rich peels of avocados and corn stover.
"This project continues my ongoing efforts to prepare films that could replace plastics," Janaswamy said.
Spent coffee grounds were chosen as the source material for a few different reasons. First, spent coffee grounds are widely available with millions of tons produced annually. While most end up in landfills, some are used for other things, like gardening. While this may seem like an environmentally conscious move, as Janaswamy points out, it actually can cause environmental problems.
"Generally, we discard the coffee ground grounds after we make our coffee," Janaswamy said. "Some of us use them for compositing, gardening and other things. Ironically, such a process demands high amounts of oxygen and releases a good amount of methane, which contributes to global warming."
Second, as emerging economies begin adding chain coffee shops—like Starbucks—the amount of spent coffee grounds will only increase. Using this otherwise unused resource for biodegradable films is a sustainable and economical solution to the plastic crisis.
Finally, spent coffee grounds contain lignocellulosic fibers, the material needed to make the films.
Coffee into film
To prepare the films, the research team first extracted lignocellulosic fibers from the spent coffee grounds. A green chemical modification process was then deployed to make the film more suitable for packaging.
The resulting films were able to biodegrade within 45 days in the soil while also having high tensile strength. Further, the films also had some unique properties of which researchers took note.
"Interestingly, these films could block significant amounts of UV radiation and display antioxidant properties," Janaswamy explained. "I sincerely believe this research outcome opens up new applications for spent coffee grounds."
While this should still be considered "stage one" of turning spent coffee grounds into films, the results from this study showed significant promise.
"The potential for plastic-replacing films from the widely discarded but plentiful and sustainable spent coffee grounds remain unscathed and exciting toward value creation," Janaswamy said.
Sajal Bhattarai, an SDSU graduate and a doctoral candidate at Purdue University, collaborated with Janaswamy on this research.
More information: Sajal Bhattarai et al, Biodegradable, UV-blocking, and antioxidant films from lignocellulosic fibers of spent coffee grounds, International Journal of Biological Macromolecules (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.ijbiomac.2023.126798
In a new study in mice, a team of researchers from UCLA, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, and Harvard University have uncovered a crucial component for restoring functional activity after spinal cord injury. The neuroscientists have shown that re-growing specific neurons back to their natural target regions led to recovery, while random regrowth was not effective.
In a 2018 study published in Nature, the team identified a treatment approach that triggers axons—the tiny fibers that link nerve cells and enable them to communicate—to regrow after spinal cord injury in rodents. But even as that approach successfully led to the regeneration of axons across severe spinal cord lesions, achieving functional recovery remained a significant challenge.
In a new study, published in Science, the team aimed to determine whether directing the regeneration of axons from specific neuronal subpopulations to their natural target regions could lead to meaningful functional restoration after spinal cord injury in mice. They first used advanced genetic analysis to identify nerve cell groups that enable walking improvement after a partial spinal cord injury.
The researchers then found that merely regenerating axons from these nerve cells across the spinal cord lesion without specific guidance had no impact on functional recovery. However, when the strategy was refined to include using chemical signals to attract and guide the regeneration of these axons to their natural target region in the lumbar spinal cord, significant improvements in walking ability were observed in a mouse model of complete spinal cord injury.
Whole spinal cord visualization of regenerating projections from the lower thoracic spinal cord that project to walking execution centers. Credit: EPFL / .Neurorestore
"Our study provides crucial insights into the intricacies of axon regeneration and requirements for functional recovery after spinal cord injuries," said Michael Sofroniew, MD, Ph.D., professor of neurobiology at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and a senior author of the new study. "It highlights the necessity of not only regenerating axons across lesions but also of actively guiding them to reach their natural target regions to achieve meaningful neurological restoration."
The authors say understanding that re-establishing the projections of specific neuronal subpopulations to their natural target regions holds significant promise for the development of therapies aimed at restoring neurological functions in larger animals and humans. However, the researchers also acknowledge the complexity of promoting regeneration over longer distances in non-rodents, necessitating strategies with intricate spatial and temporal features.
Still, they conclude that applying the principles laid out in their work "will unlock the framework to achieve meaningful repair of the injured spinal cord and may expedite repair after other forms of central nervous system injury and disease."
Atmospheric microplastic transport predominantly derived from oceans, study finds
by Hannah Bird , Phys.org
a) Illustration of the global microplastic cycle with sources in the built environment dispersing them through rivers and oceans via aquatic or airborne wind transport before deposition by gravity and precipitation. b) Illustration of microplastics deposition depending upon size and shape, with smaller spherical particles transported further. c) Images of microplastic fibers used in this study. Credit: Nature Geoscience (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-023-01264-6
Microplastics in our natural environments are of increasing concern as these tiny particles (<5mm diameter) pollute ecosystems, posing issues to the well-being of animals and humans alike. There are two principal categories of microplastics: primary particles are manufactured for their size and originate from consumer products, such as the microbeads used in cosmetics, while secondary microplastics occur due to the breakdown of larger materials, such as plastic water bottles and matter from industrial waste.
This breakdown occurs due to ultraviolet radiation from the sun causing plastic to become brittle and thus susceptible to the erosive action of waves in particular to shear off flakes into the surrounding environment.
Their longevity during decomposition, taking upwards of 500 years to complete in a landfill, is a critical factor of their detrimental impact on habitats. Marine animals ingest microplastics suspended in the ocean, and microplastics mixed with the sand on our beaches is barely noticeable. Research has discovered microplastics in the smallest plankton all the way through to filter feeding giants of the sea—whales.
But it is not just the ocean that transports these tiny particles across the globe. Atmospheric wind regimes can carry microplastics vast distances, and their shape has a critical impact on airborne retention before deposition.
New research published in Nature Geoscience considers a theory-based model to determine the settling velocity (the point at which a particle stops being suspended in air and settles due to gravity) of microplastics of various sizes and shapes (up to 100μm long and down to 2μm wide), as compared to previous research that has assumed spherical microplastics. The effect of air turbulence on settling velocity was also factored to determine long distance transport.
Dr. Shuolin Xiao, of Cornell University in New York, and colleagues found that flatter microplastics had overestimates of their dry atmospheric deposition rate under the traditional spherical particle model compared to their newer model, as well as enhanced residence times in the environment >450%. Consequently, this research highlights that microplastics are likely to travel farther than previously thought through atmospheric wind regimes, and therefore deposit over a much larger area. However, by modeling their atmospheric transport it may be possible to determine source locations to aid management plans and reduce further dispersal.
The research team used experimental data on the settling of nylon fibers alongside the model and concluded that very thin and long microplastic fibers would be particularly abundant in both natural and urban environments, being deposited sooner and closer to the source and have greater longevity in ecosystems than spherical particles. The irregularity of air turbulence was found to impact elongated microplastic fibers more than spherical ones as it alters transport orientations and therefore settling velocity due to its weight and air resistance.
This model validates previous work published in Science by Dr. Janice Brahney, Associate Professor at Utah State University, and collaborators who had collected microplastic samples from national parks across the United States. Evaluating a total of 1,260 length and width measurements alongside microplastic fiber shapes, the team determined that these fibers, predominantly derived from clothing, contributed to more than 1,000 metric tons of microplastics deposited by wind and rain within the south and central western United States alone annually.
Estimates of the percentage contribution of key microplastic fiber sources of atmospheric transport: from tires, those entrained from the ocean surface, agricultural and anthropogenic dust, plus general population sources in daily use. Credit: Nature Geoscience (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-023-01264-6
With this knowledge, the research team then considered a number of key sources of microplastics carried by atmospheric transport: particles from roads and tires, particles picked up by wind from the surface of the ocean, dust from agricultural practices (likely from the application of wastewater that contains microbeads from cosmetic and cleaning products) and urban activities, and the vast array derived from the population globally.
Based on the model, deposition of flat fibers from tires were reduced compared to previous models, while those derived from the ocean had increased. Dust from agriculture and urban activities as well as the overall anthropogenic sources in daily use was found to be less impactful. The exact mechanism by which microplastics in the ocean become airborne does however require further investigation, particularly as this appears to be a dominant source.
While some remote areas of the planet may be considered "pristine" and protected from direct human interaction, this research highlights that our fingerprints can still be found in far-reaching locations, and the toll of plastic consumption now will continue to be felt over generations to come if high-risk forms are not sufficiently managed.
More information: Shuolin Xiao et al, Long-distance atmospheric transport of microplastic fibres influenced by their shapes, Nature Geoscience (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41561-023-01264-6
Credit: Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI)
In a breakthrough for environmentally friendly chemical production, researchers at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) have developed an economical way to make succinic acid, an important industrial chemical, from sugarcane.
The team of University of Illinois and Princeton University researchers created a cost-effective, end-to-end pipeline for this valuable organic acid by engineering a tough, acid-tolerant yeast as the fermenting agent, avoiding costly steps in downstream processing. Succinic acid is a widely used additive for food and beverages and has diverse applications in agricultural and pharmaceutical products.
This same pipeline can be used to produce other industrially important organic acids targeted by CABBI in its work to develop sustainable biofuels and biochemicals from crops, said co-author Huimin Zhao, CABBI's Conversion Theme Leader and Professor of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering (ChBE) at Illinois. To reduce reliance on fossil fuels, Conversion researchers are deploying microbes to convert plant biomass into chemicals used in everyday products as an alternative to conventional petroleum-based production.
"This will serve as a blueprint for all the other metabolic engineering products in CABBI," said Zhao, one of several CABBI principal investigators on the project.
The study is published in Nature Communications, and the work builds on years of research on succinic acid production by Zhao and his colleagues using Issatchenkia orientalis, an unconventional yeast ideal for making organic acids.
I. orientalis has the unique ability to thrive in low-pH, or acidic, conditions. Most organisms require a neutral pH environment to survive, including Saccharomyces cerevisiae, a more conventional yeast, or Escherichia coli bacteria. Both have been used by companies and labs to produce succinic acid but proved to be too costly, so efforts to scale up production have failed, Zhao said.
Those microorganisms require the addition of a base to neutralize the toxic acidic conditions so they can continue making succinic acid. But that generates side products, such as gypsum or calcium sulfate, which have to be separated out at the end of the pipeline to purify the product, driving up downstream processing costs.
"One of the bottlenecks in the production of organic acids is the separation cost," Zhao said. "We have to add a lot of base to keep the pH near neutral, between 6 to 7."
With I. orientalis, however, "the organism lives happily at a pH of 3 to 4," so the additives are not required, Zhao said. "In the end, that significantly reduces costs."
The CABBI researchers also did extensive metabolic engineering to rewire I. orientalis to produce robust levels of succinic acid—higher than either S. cerevisiae or E. coli, he said. Using metabolic flux analysis from Rabinowitz's lab, they identified the steps in the yeast's metabolism that limited the production of succinic acid. One key roadblock: Native I. orientalis can't utilize the sucrose from sugarcane. So an enzyme was added that could break down sucrose from the sugarcane juice into glucose and fructose to make succinic acid. Other genes were introduced to overproduce succinic acid.
Credit: Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI)
Credit: CABBI Communications
Working with Singh's group at IBRL, the team then scaled up succinic acid production using industrially relevant equipment to conduct an end-to-end integration of the process. The pilot-scale work showed the new strains could produce up to 110 g/L of succinic acid and, after batch fermentation and downstream processing, an overall yield of 64%—impressive results having commercial significance, Singh said.
The combination of higher production levels through genetic engineering and lower costs from the elimination of downstream separation makes the process "very attractive," Zhao said. "That's why the pipeline is so economical, at least at this pilot scale."
The final step was working with Guest to simulate a full end-to-end, low-pH succinic acid production pipeline, using the open-source software platform BioSTEAM developed by his group. The techno-economic analysis (TEA) and life cycle assessment showed the process was financially viable and could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 34% to 90% relative to fossil fuel-based production processes.
"These advancements in metabolic engineering could have large-scale benefits, simultaneously driving down costs and environmental impacts in support of a circular bioeconomy," Guest said.
The process emits less carbon dioxide (CO2) than conventional petroleum-based chemical processing. Plants like sugarcane also soak up carbon, and CO2 can be used as a substrate for the process, further reducing its carbon footprint.
"It's definitely more environmentally friendly. That's the premise for all the research in CABBI: using renewable resources to make chemicals and fuels," Zhao said.
Researchers plan further scale-up studies soon to support commercialization of the succinic acid production process.
The work will also be a template for production of other CABBI products using I. orientalis, including 3-hydroxypropionic acid (3-HP). The market for 3-HP, used in components of disposable diapers and sealants, exceeds $1 billion, and research to date shows huge promise, Zhao said.
"We expect I. orientalis can serve as a general industrial platform for the production of a wide variety of organic acids," said Vinh Tran, primary author on the paper and a Ph.D. student in ChBE.
The project involved several lab groups and contributions from all three themes of CABBI's research—using sugarcane juice from the Feedstock Production research team, metabolic research and bioprocessing facilities from the Conversion team, and economic and environmental analysis from the Sustainability team.
Co-authors included CABBI researchers Sarang Bhagwat of CEE and Yihui Shen of the Department of Chemistry at Princeton; Somesh Mishra of ABE; Saman Shafaei, Shih-I Tan, Zia Fatma, and Benjamin Crosly of ChBE; and Jayne Allen of CEE.
More information: Vinh G. Tran et al, An end-to-end pipeline for succinic acid production at an industrially relevant scale using Issatchenkia orientalis, Nature Communications (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-41616-9
Renaissance for magnetotactic bacteria in astrobiology
by Thamarasee Jeewandara , Phys.org
Illustrations of magnetotactic bacteria (MTB) under electron microscopes, and MTB from extreme environments on Earth and putatively ancient Mars. A The scanning electron micrograph and (B, C) transmission electron micrographs of MTB. White arrows indicate magnetosome chains, and white triangles indicate granules. D Terrestrial extremotolerant MTB and implications for ancient Mars. MTB are found to be able to resist various hostile settings, such as irradiation, hypomagnetic exposure, microgravity, metal stress, hypersalinity, acidic/hyperalkaline pH, and freezing/moderately hyperthermal temperatures. MTB emerged early in Earth's history. Since ancient Mars was also characterized by many MTB-favorable aquatic/sediment oxic-anoxic conditions and a global magnetic field, it is proposed that Mars may have harbored MTB-like life in the past. Credit: Nature Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology, doi: 10.1038/s41396-023-01495-w
Magnetotactic bacteria can form magnetofossils like magnetic nanocrystals as observed in the Martian meteorite ALH84001, which held a special place in the field of astrobiology primarily in the early 90s. While the flourishing of interest in magnetotactic bacteria has waned over time, a resurgence of magnetosome formation has led to a renaissance of magnetotactic bacteria (abbreviated as MTB) in astrobiology.
Astrobiologists have detected such MTBs living in naturally extreme environments with wide-ranging salinity, temperature, and pH ranges. Some MTB populations can survive extreme extraterrestrial conditions simulated by using simple, inorganic compounds such as sulfate and nitrate. These microorganisms are a model representing astrobiologically ancient Martian life, if it ever occurred to form magnetotactic microorganisms.
In a new report in The ISME Journal, Jianxun Shen and a team of scientists in Earth and planetary physics, ocean and ecological sciences, and geological and planetary sciences at the California Institute of Technology, U.S., University of Liverpool, U.K., and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, China, summarized multiple typical biosignatures that can be applied to detect ancient-MTB on Earth, alongside their extraterrestrial MTB-like counterparts.
Such lifeforms can be transported to space stations and simulation chambers to explore their tolerance potential and distinct biosignatures to aid the evolution of magnetotactic bacteria and their potential as an extraterrestrial biomarker.
The origin of magnetotactic bacteria and their presence on Mars
In 1984, a team of researchers discovered a Martian meteorite, Allan Hills 84001, in the Allan Hills region of Antarctica. They then obtained its potential relic biogenic activity in 1996. The meteorite contained microscopic "disk-like" carbonite particles embedded with nanocrystalline magnetites with chemical and physical properties similar to magnetotactic bacteria (MTB). Shen and colleagues explored prospects of this highly interdisciplinary and significant field of functional magnetotactic bacteria in astrobiology.
The microorganisms are armed with flagellar motility for cells to migrate along magnetic field lines. Magnetosomes are membrane-bound crystals composed of magnetite and greigite crystals. Their origin suggests that they are among the most ancient prokaryotes on Earth.
The intracellular iron-mineral particles of the microorganisms have an excellent trace in the geological record and are known as magnetofossils. Magnetotactic bacteria possess a variety of phenotypes to survive in a wide range of planetary analog environments. As the first type of magneto sensitive and biomineralizing organisms, the bacteria are assumed to have co-evolved on Archean Earth. Due to the similarities between Mars and early Earth, the emergence of MTB-like life on Mars is an intriguing possibility that requires further investigation.
Schematic diagram of key factors in the search for MTB-like biosignatures. The environmental context ought to be suitable for the growth of MTB-like life, including an appropriate magnetic field >~ 6 µT, nutrient enrichment, oxygen content, pH range, redox stratification, irradiation condition, and potential phage interaction. Some common biosignatures of MTB-like life include magnetosome morphology, magnetic properties, and chemistry. Morphological biosignatures include distinct crystal morphology (e.g., elongated hexagonal prismatic magnetite with faceted ends), particle elongation, and particle chains. Magnetic biosignatures include single-domain (SD) sized particles, remanence, coercivity, and anisotropy. Chemical biosignatures include intact crystal lattice that is relatively free of defects (though it may occasionally have twinned crystals), chemically pure composition from selective transport of iron, trace elements that are selectively incorporated into magnetosomes, and isotopes of relevant elements in magnetosomes. Note that a good biosignature is something difficult to produce through inorganic processes; the MTB-produced magnetosome chain structures display the effect of Natural Selection for magnetotaxis, with each of the magnetic, morphological, and chemical features being driven by selection to maximize the efficiency of the cellular magnetotactic response. The central intersection of these factors is what makes magnetofossils a superb biomarker. Credit: Nature Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology, doi: 10.1038/s41396-023-01495-w
Stress tolerance of magnetotactic bacteria to survive interplanetary travel
Magnetotactic bacteria have widespread habitats where different strains exhibit sensitivity to different stress factors, nutrients and oxygen levels. The microorganisms can further tolerate natural extreme environments for high salinity tolerance, extreme pH tolerance, extreme temperature tolerance, and survive Mars-like settings on Earth.
For instance, hours of exposure to the lower near-space environment led to the survival of the wild-type Magnetospirillum gryphiswaldense strain, to highlight the capacity of magnetotactic bacteria to survive interplanetary travel, to take terrestrial life to other astronomic bodies, or bring extraterrestrial life from sources to the prebiotic Earth.
Withstanding simulated extreme environments
Shen and team explored the possibilities of recreating natural extreme environments in the lab, as artificially simulated conditions to provide valuable insights to regulate environmental factors. To test these factors, they analyzed radiation tolerance, hypomagnetic field, low gravity environments, and heavy metal stress to show the capacity of magnetotactic bacteria to withstand/tolerate heavy-metal rich environments and other simulated conditions.
The scientists used morphological microstructures or micro-texture biosignatures to support further findings of magnetosome-like nanostructures that favor magnetotactic-like life, while preserving magnetofossils.
During the search for key factors in MTB-like biosignatures, they studied morphological biosignatures, magnetic biosignatures, isotropic biosignatures, trace element and biogeochemical biosignatures, as well as phage-infection biosignatures to highlight the potential for viruses to have co-existed with organisms in the history of life on Earth.
Outlook
In this way, Jianxun Shen and colleagues studied magnetotactic extremophiles to understand potential life-forms on early Earth and other astronomical bodies with strong magnetic fields and aquatic settings. To understand the role of magnetotactic bacteria, the team explored them in simulated environments with early Earth-like and Mars-like extreme environments.
They suggest transporting a few MTB strains to space environments on the Tiangong Space Station, the International Space Station, or space environmental simulation chambers to study their survival under Mars-like or other extraterrestrial conditions. The scientists propose a range of additional experiments in biogeomagnetism for exciting and practical investigations by integrating advanced scientific equipment.
More information: Jianxun Shen et al, Renaissance for magnetotactic bacteria in astrobiology, The ISME Journal (2023). DOI: 10.1038/s41396-023-01495-w
Wei Lin et al, Origin of microbial biomineralization and magnetotaxis during the Archean, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (2017). DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1614654114
Many countries, even in Africa and the Middle East, which were far behind us a few decades ago, are fast on their way to emerge as new regional hubs of higher education.
Pakistan’s universities fall at the bottom of international rankings, which impacts students keen to learn and progress in their respective fields.
— White Star
Every year, the Federal Public Service Commission (FPSC) conducts a competitive examination, commonly known as CSS, for recruitment of officers at the starting stage in the civil services of Pakistan. The academic requirement for this examination is graduation from a university, duly recognised by the Higher Education Commission (HEC). The examination is usually attempted by the brightest university graduates.
The result of the last CSS examination, announced on September 18, reflects the quality of graduates being produced by our higher educational institutions (HEIs). As per the FPSC, at least 20,000 candidates attempted the written part of the examination, of whom only 393 candidates, or 1.94 percent, passed.
The FPSC has been continually complaining about the falling standards of our education over several years. One of its reports states that many of the candidates were not even familiar with elementary mathematics. Then it states that many candidates “did not even know the direction of a simple compass, confusing north with south and east with west.” Almost all its reports complain about the absence of analytical skills among the candidates who mostly reproduce “crammed knowledge.”
It is not only the CSS examination where the poor quality of our graduates, produced by our HEIs, is visible. Their performance is even worse in international assessment tests, such as the Graduate Record Examination (GRE) etc. No wonder that Pakistani HEIs are either absent from or in the bottom section of international rankings, such as the Times Higher Education (THE), the Quacquarelli Symonds (QS) and the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU).
Many developing countries, which were far behind Pakistan decades ago, are now emerging as regional hubs of higher education, while our standards continue to fall. Where did it all go wrong and can something be done to repair the damage?
How did we get here and what can we do to improve the situation? A BRIEF HISTORY OF HIGHER EDUCATION
While ‘informal’ higher education has been there for centuries, its formal version, with a structured academic programme culminating in a degree or certificate, is a relatively recent phenomenon. “A great teacher like Socrates gave no diplomas,” wrote the mediaeval historian Charles Homer Haskins in his 1923 book The Rise of Universities. “If a modern student sat at his feet for three months, he would demand a certificate, something tangible and external to show for it.”
The modern universities were born in Europe during the Middle Ages. They reached India through British rule several centuries later, where the first three universities started working in 1858 at Calcutta, Bombay (now Mumbai), and Madras (now Chennai).
In due course, the British identified three “characteristic defects of the Indian intellect”, which were the “development of the memory out of all proportions to the other faculties of mind, the incapacity to observe and appreciate facts, and the taste for metaphysical and technical distinctions,” noted the Indian Educational Policy of 1904.
At Independence, present- day Pakistan inherited two universities: the University of Punjab at Lahore, established in 1882, and the University of Sindh, established at Karachi in April 1947. A few months later, on November 27, the Quaid-e-Azam shared his vision of education, stating: “There is [an] immediate and urgent need for giving scientific and technical education to our people in order to build up our future economic life, and to see that our people take to science, commerce, trade and, particularly, well-planned industries. We should not forget that we have to compete with the world, which is moving very fast in this direction.”
But with his passing away, this vision too was forgotten.
Pakistan’s universities fall at the bottom of international rankings, which impacts students keen to learn and progress in their respective fields
| Photos White Star
KICK-STARTS IN PAKISTAN
Things changed a little in the 1970s, during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s five-year rule, when the number of universities in Pakistan doubled. The budgetary allocations for education too witnessed a sharp rise, and the students’ enrolment in HEIs increased by 56 percent. It was also during this time that the University Grants Commission (UGC) was established, to regulate the affairs of HEIs at the federal level.
After a deep slumber, the ball started rolling again in the higher education sector and, by the early 2000s, a think-tank of Pakistani-Americans — known as the Boston Group — produced a detailed report and suggested a set of reforms.
Almost simultaneously, the government too constituted a 19-member ‘Taskforce on Improvement of Higher Education in Pakistan’ with Syed Babar Ali of the Lahore University of Management Sciences (Lums) and Dr Shams Kasim-Lakha of the Aga Khan University (AKU) jointly working as co-chairs. The funding came from the World Bank.
The taskforce concluded that Pakistan’s higher education system was unable to “provide the skills necessary, in the quantities necessary, to achieve the dual objectives of nation-building and global competitiveness.” The report, presented to President Pervez Musharraf in January 2002, suggested a comprehensive set of recommendations, which, had they been followed in true spirit, could have completely changed the higher education landscape in Pakistan.
ENTER THE HEC
However, the one recommendation that was promptly acted upon was the establishment of the Higher Education Commission (HEC), as its chairperson held the status of a federal minister, and there were quite a few aspirants for it. This new organisation was to play a leadership role for the higher education in the country and was entrusted with a very broad range of regulating, monitoring and evaluation functions and operations.
As fate would have it, the sector witnessed unprecedented cash inflows, in the wake of 9/11, as the world’s attention turned to Pakistan and its education system.
The last two decades of higher education in Pakistan can be termed as the ‘HEC era’, as the institution has played the most significant role in shaping the state of higher education we are in.
This era has witnessed a steadfast surge in the numbers: the number of universities increased from 59 in 2002 to 244 at present (145 public and 99 private); students’ enrolment rose from about a quarter of million to almost two million; the number of PhDs rose almost six times, and so on. It is also true that a lot of infrastructural development has taken place, in the shape of new campuses, buildings, laboratories, libraries etc.
But on the downside, it is also a reality that most of these new HEIs were substandard and never met the basics of international benchmarks. The exponential growth of HEIs in the name of “access”, when adequately qualified and competent faculty was in short supply all over the country, turned them into degree-awarding machines, breeding half-baked graduates.
On the other hand, the mushrooming of substandard universities also consumed a big chunk of national financial resources, which otherwise could have been used for promotion of research and teaching at quality HEIs. The result was that, even after spending billions of dollars, the creation of Pakistani versions of India’s prestigious IITs and IIMs (institutes of technology and management), essential for reaping the fruits of the ‘knowledge economy’, still remains a dream.
THE REFORM AGENDA
Any reform agenda should begin with the HEC itself. The organisation has been in operation for 21 years and has yet not been able to establish its image as a professional body. It is a sad commentary on the state of affairs at the HEC that it has not been able to fill the pivotal position of its Executive Director, on a regular basis, since 2018.
Then, the HEIs are the building blocks of higher education. Unfortunately, in the absence of any input or effort on the part of the HEC, they are working on obsolete, in fact, degenerated ancient models. Due to the constraints of space, I will discuss only a few issues here.
Governance: Over the passage of time, the governance models of universities the world over have completely changed. There was a time when the “universities were run by their academic communities, but as mass higher education has taken root, as university research has become a critical element in national economies and as the demand for more accountability, both financial and in academic performance, has grown, pressure has mounted for a ‘modernisation’ of governance structures,” writes Michael Shattock in his book, International Trends in University Governance.
At present, some globally acclaimed models of HEI governance are the so-called Humboldtian model (operational in Germany, Norway and Finland), the Napoleonic model (France and Italy), the Japanese model, the Chinese model, or the historic ones of the United Kingdom, Australia and the United States.
The basic premise of all these models is the separation of the functions of governance and management. The governing bodies formulate policies, set targets, and fix timelines to achieve them. The buck is then passed on to the management to implement them, which reports back to the governing bodies with the implementation status. The governing bodies don’t manage but hold the management accountable.
This is the same model that works well in other sectors too. In Shattock’s words: “Governance is [as]… important in universities… as it is in the wider world of commerce and banking.”
However, in our HEIs’ outdated model, both governance and management functions are entrusted to the same bodies. In a mockery of the system, the governing bodies, such as the Syndicate and the Senate in our HEIs, formulate policies, set targets, fix timelines, and then assume the role of management, to implement — finally reporting to themselves about their performance and accountability.
If that were not bad enough, these bodies are mostly comprised of the employees of their HEIs, which creates a clear case of conflict of interest.
Financial Sustainability: Presently, the biggest source of funding for our public-sector HEIs are the grants released by the federal government through the HEC, with a component coming from the provincial governments. The HEIs’ own contributions are mostly smaller, making them dependent on the government.
Ideally, the government should enhance its spending on education, with corresponding increases in allocations for higher education, as is being done by most of the countries in the world. Nevertheless, in addition to government funding, the HEIs need to supplement their share, on the pattern of other countries, such as China, Turkey and Malaysia.
This could be done by rationalising the fees structure in public sector HEIs, and then subsidising it for the poor — not for everyone, as is currently the practice. It would be a good idea if the fee bill also mentions the amount of subsidy provided by the state, so as to inform the students of the true worth of their subsidised academic programme.
Another area in the realm of financial sustainability that requires due attention is ensuring extreme prudence and transparency in the utilisation of financial resources. Both these commodities are in short supply at present.
Institutional Autonomy: The last few decades have seen the shrinking of institutional autonomy in the higher education sector, both at the level of the HEC as well as at HEIs. During this period, most of the powers to govern and manage the institutions have been progressively usurped by the political and bureaucratic classes, shifting the power centres outside the institutional domains. This has been happening despite the fact that the global trend has been towards granting HEIs more autonomy.
In addition, there are, of course, many other issues in higher education in Pakistan, such as the politicisation of the faculty, staff and students, the appointment of inappropriate persons as HEIs leaders, low quality research, outdated curricula, and the inefficient use of available resources etc.
But I believe they are ‘symptomatic’ in nature and are a manifestation of the diseases we have just discussed. If we correct the governance in HEC and HEIs, bring financial sustainability and ensure institutional autonomy, they all should eventually disappear.
Let’s conclude with the notion that a vibrant and quality-oriented higher education holds the key to several of Pakistan’s economic and social problems. Countries such as China, Turkey and Malaysia are now reaping the fruits of the initiatives taken by them decades ago.
Many countries, even in Africa and the Middle East, which were far behind us a few decades ago, are fast on their way to emerge as new regional hubs of higher education. It would be a tragedy if we allowed this great source of economic and social development to slip away from us.
The writer has been associated with education for over three decades and has served as a university vice-chancellor for over eight years. He can be reached at drshaikhma@gmail.com
