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nasa-hasn’t-landed-on-the-moon-in-decades—china-just-sent-its-third-in-six-years

NASA hasn’t landed on the Moon in decades—China just sent its third in six years

Chang'e 6, china vs united state, Science, Space / /

Marching on —

China is going. NASA is talking about going. What gives?

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A Long March 5 rocket carrying the Chang'e-6 lunar probe blasts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on May 3, 2024 in Wenchang, China.

Enlarge / A Long March 5 rocket carrying the Chang’e-6 lunar probe blasts off from the Wenchang Space Launch Center on May 3, 2024 in Wenchang, China.

Li Zhenzhou/VCG via Getty Images

China is going back to the Moon for more samples.

On Friday the country launched its largest rocket, the Long March 5, carrying an orbiter, lander, ascent vehicle, and a return spacecraft. The combined mass of the Chang’e-6 spacecraft is about 8 metric tons, and it will attempt to return rocks and soil from the far side of the Moon—something scientists have never been able to study before in-depth.

The mission’s goal is to bring about 2 kg (4.4 pounds) of rocks back to Earth a little more than a month from now.

Chang’e-6 builds upon the Chinese space program’s successful lunar program. In 2019, the Chang’e-4 mission made a soft landing on the far side of the Moon, the first time this had ever been done by a spacecraft. The far side is more challenging than the near side, because line-of-sight communications are not possible with Earth.

Then, in late 2020, the Chang’e-5 mission landed on the near side of the Moon and successfully collected 1.7 kg of rocks. These were subsequently blasted off the surface of the Moon and returned to China where they have been studied since. It marked the first time in half a century, since efforts by the United States and Soviet Union, that samples were returned from the Moon.

Ambitious plans

The latest Chinese flight to the Moon launched Friday will synthesize the country’s learnings from its last two missions, by collecting and returning samples from the far side of the Moon.

“If the Chang’e-6 mission can achieve its goal, it will provide scientists with the first direct evidence to understand the environment and material composition of the far side of the moon, which is of great significance,” said Wu Weiren, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering and chief designer of China’s lunar exploration program.

This mission follows the launch and deployment of the Queqiao-2 relay satellite in March, which will serve as a bridge between communications from the far side of the Moon to operators back on Earth. China has also announced two future lunar missions, Chang’e-7 and Chang’e-8, later this decade. These robotic missions will land near the lunar South Pole, test lunar resources, and prepare the way for future crewed missions.

Nominally, China’s current plan calls for the first landing of two taikonauts on the surface of the Moon in 2029 or 2030. Eventually it wants to establish a lunar outpost.

China’s lunar missions are not operating in a vacuum—OK, technically, they are—but the point here is that China’s exploration efforts are proceeding alongside a parallel effort by the United States, NASA, and about three dozen partners under the auspices of the Artemis program.

Can NASA compete?

After decades of focusing its exploration efforts elsewhere, NASA finally turned back to the Moon about seven years ago. Since that time it has worked alongside the commercial space industry to develop a plan for a sustainable return to the lunar surface.

From the outside, China’s lunar program appears to be in the lead. It is difficult to argue about the string of successes with the Chang’e lunar program and the unprecedented landing on the far side of the Moon. If Chang’e-6 proves successful, that will be another strike in favor of China’s lunar program.

But to its credit, NASA is not simply seeking to replicate the glories of its Apollo lunar program in the 1960s and early 1970s. China’s first lunar mission with astronauts, for example, is intended to land two taikonauts on the Moon for just a few hours. The vehicles will be fully expendable, as were the Apollo rockets and spacecraft more than half a century ago.

NASA is taking a different approach, working with industry to develop a fleet of commercial cargo landers—such as Intuitive Machines’ largely successful Odysseus mission earlier this year—as well as larger human landers built by SpaceX and Blue Origin. This overall “architecture” is far more complex, requiring myriad launches to refuel spacecraft in orbit. It will likely take several years longer to get to the first lunar landing missions, either later this decade or earlier in the 2030s. But should NASA persist and succeed in this approach, it will open up a highway to the Moon the likes of which could only be dreamed of during the Apollo era. Imagine a flotilla of spacecraft going to and from the Moon. That’s the vision.

So it’s a competition between China’s embrace of a traditional approach versus NASA’s efforts to open the way into some kind of new future. Watching how this lunar competition unfolds over the next decade will be one of the most fascinating stories to follow.

NASA hasn’t landed on the Moon in decades—China just sent its third in six years Read More »

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Rocket Report: Astroscale chases down dead rocket; Ariane 6 on the pad

ariane 6, china, launch, long march-5, NASA, orion, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex, starship / /

RIP B1060 —

Rocket Factory Augsburg, a German launch startup, nears a test-firing of its booster.

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This image captured by Astroscale's ADRAS-J satellite shows the discarded upper stage from a Japanese H-IIA rocket.

Enlarge / This image captured by Astroscale’s ADRAS-J satellite shows the discarded upper stage from a Japanese H-IIA rocket.

Welcome to Edition 6.42 of the Rocket Report! Several major missions are set for launch in the next few months. These include the first crew flight on Boeing’s Starliner spacecraft, set for liftoff on May 6, and the next test flight of SpaceX’s Starship rocket, which could happen before the end of May. Perhaps as soon as early summer, SpaceX could launch the Polaris Dawn mission with four private astronauts, who will perform the first fully commercial spacewalk in orbit. In June or July, Europe’s new Ariane 6 rocket is slated to launch for the first time. Rest assured, Ars will have it all covered.

As always, we welcome reader submissions, and if you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

German rocket arrives at Scottish spaceport. Rocket Factory Augsburg has delivered a booster for its privately developed RFA One rocket to SaxaVord Spaceport in Scotland, the company announced on X. The first stage for the RFA One rocket was installed on its launch pad at SaxaVord to undergo preparations for a static fire test. The booster arrived at the Scottish launch site with five of its kerosene-fueled Helix engines. The remaining four Helix engines, for a total of nine, will be fitted to the RFA One booster at SaxaVord, the company said.

Aiming to fly this year… RFA hopes to launch its first orbital-class rocket by the end of 2024. The UK’s Civil Aviation Authority last month granted a range license to SaxaVord Spaceport to allow the spaceport operator to control the sea and airspace during a launch. RFA is primarily privately funded but has won financial support from the European Space Agency, the UK Space Agency, and the German space agency, known as DLR. The RFA One rocket will have three stages, stand nearly 100 feet (30 meters) tall, and can carry nearly 2,900 pounds (1,300 kilograms) of payload into a polar Sun-synchronous orbit.

Arianespace wins ESA launch contract. The European Space Agency has awarded Arianespace a contract to launch a joint European-Chinese space science satellite in late 2025, European Spaceflight reports. The Solar wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer (SMILE) is a 4,850-pound (2,200-kilogram) spacecraft that will study Earth’s magnetic environment on a global scale. The aim of the mission is to build a more complete understanding of the Sun-Earth connection. On Tuesday, ESA officially signed a contract for Arianespace to launch SMILE aboard a Vega C rocket, which is built by the Italian rocket-maker Avio.

But it may not keep it … In late 2023, ESA member states agreed to allow Avio to market and manage the launch of Vega C flights independent of Arianespace. When the deal was initially struck, 17 flights were contracted through Arianespace to be launched aboard Vega vehicles. While these missions are still managed by Arianespace, Avio is working with the launch provider to strike a deal that would allow the Italian rocket builder to assume the management of all Vega flights. The Vega C rocket has been grounded since a launch failure in 2022 forced Avio to redesign the nozzle of the rocket’s solid-fueled second-stage motor. Vega C is scheduled to return to flight before the end of 2024. (submitted by Ken the Bin)

The easiest way to keep up with Eric Berger’s space reporting is to sign up for his newsletter, we’ll collect his stories in your inbox.

Update on ABL’s second launch. ABL Space Systems expected to launch its second light-class RS1 rocket earlier this year, but the company encountered an anomaly during ground testing at the launch site in Alaska, according to Aria Alamalhodaei of TechCrunch. Kevin Sagis, ABL’s chief engineer, said there is “no significant delay” in the launch of the second RS1 rocket, but the company has not announced a firm schedule. “During ground testing designed to screen the vehicle for flight, an issue presented that caused us to roll back to the hangar,” Sagis said, according to Alamalhodaei. “We have since resolved and dispositioned the issue. There was no loss of hardware and we have validated vehicle health back out on the pad. We are continuing with preparations for static fire and launch.”

Nearly 16 months without a launch … ABL’s first RS1 test flight in January 2023 ended seconds after liftoff with the premature shutdown of its liquid-fueled engines. The rocket crashed back onto its launch pad in Alaska. An investigation revealed a fire in the aft end of the RS1 booster burned through wiring harnesses, causing the rocket to lose power and shut off its engines. Engineers believe the rocket’s mobile launch mount was too small, placing the rocket too close to the ground when it ignited its engines. This caused the hot engine exhaust to recirculate under the rocket and led to a fire in the engine compartment as it took off.

Rocket Report: Astroscale chases down dead rocket; Ariane 6 on the pad Read More »

alarming-superbug-from-deadly-eyedrop-outbreak-has-spread-to-dogs

Alarming superbug from deadly eyedrop outbreak has spread to dogs

antibiotics, CDC, drug resistance, eyedrop, EzriCare, fda, infectious diseases, outbreak, Pseudomonas aeruginosa, Science / /

gone to the dogs —

It’s unclear how the dogs became infected with the same strain in the eyedrops.

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A dog gets examined by veterinary technicians in Texas.

Enlarge / A dog gets examined by veterinary technicians in Texas.

Two separately owned dogs in New Jersey tested positive last year for a dreaded, extensively drug resistant bacterial strain spread in the US by contaminated artificial eye drops manufactured in India. Those drops caused a deadly multi-state outbreak in humans over many months last year, with at least 81 people ultimately infected across 18 states. Fourteen people lost their vision, an additional four had eyeballs surgically removed, and four people died.

The preliminary data on the dogs—presented recently at a conference of disease detectives hosted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention—highlights that now that the deadly outbreak strain has been introduced around the US, it has the potential to lurk in unexpected places, spread its drug resistance to fellow bacteria, and cause new infections in people and animals who may have never used the drops.

The two dogs in New Jersey were not known to have received the drops linked to the outbreak: EzriCare Artificial Tears and two additional products made by the same manufacturer, which were recalled in February 2023. Such over-the-counter products are sometimes used in animals as well as people. But the dogs’ separate owners said they didn’t recall using the drops either. They also didn’t report any exposures in health care settings or recent international travel that could explain the infections. One of the dogs did, at one point, receive eye drops, but they were not an outbreak-associated brand. The only connection between the two dogs was that they were both treated at the same veterinary hospital, which didn’t stock the outbreak-associated eyedrops.

The dogs’ infections were caught between March and June 2023 when clinicians at the veterinary hospital were working to address a chronic cough in one of the dogs and a stubborn ear infection in the other, according to CBS News, which was present for the CDC’s conference of its Epidemic Intelligence Service in Atlanta. The ear and lung swabs were sent to an academic veterinary laboratory in Pennsylvania, where a microbiologist noticed that bacteria from both swabs had uncommon drug-resistance features. The microbiologist then uploaded genetic sequences of the bacterial strains to a national database, where they caught the attention of the CDC and state health authorities.

The genetic sequences uploaded were of the carbapenemase-producing carbapenem-resistant Pseudomonas aeruginosa (CP-CRPA) strain—and they were highly similar to the bacterial strain identified in the deadly eyedrop outbreak. These bacteria are extensively resistant to antibiotics, resisting even last-line drugs, and can silently colonize animals and humans for months or years. An investigation ensued.

Infection gaps

Emma Price, the CDC epidemic intelligence service officer who presented the investigation’s findings at the conference, suggested it was fortunate they were able to make the connection. “Because [the academic veterinary laboratory] had a grant and a veterinary microbiologist works there, he did his great due diligence and uploaded the results. That’s how we got the notification, because the strain matched the outbreak strain,” Price told CBS News.

However, the disease detectives were ultimately unable to identify exactly how the two dogs became infected. “Shared exposures included treatment in the veterinary hospital’s surgical preparation and recovery areas for both canines and ophthalmology department visits by either the affected canine or another animal in the same household,” Price and colleagues wrote in their findings. But all of the sampling done of the veterinary hospital where the dogs were treated turned up negative for the eyedrop outbreak strain.

In the process of the investigation, the epidemiologists also conducted an infection control assessment of the veterinary hospital, finding a variety of “gaps.” These included problems with hand hygiene practices, personal protective equipment use—including use of gloves—and equipment and environmental cleaning and disinfection at the hospital. Price noted that these problems are not uncommon and that there is a general lack of emphasis on infection control in veterinary settings.

Though Price and her colleagues were unable to identify the direct route of infection, they suspect the dogs were likely infected either by exposure to a contaminated product or secondary transmission at the veterinary hospital.

Both dogs have since made full recoveries, but because CRPA strains can silently colonize many body sites on both humans and animals, it’s possible that the bacteria still linger on the dogs or on the other pets and people in their households. Price warned the owners of possible future transmission and recommended they flag this risk to their health care providers. She also noted the potential for the bacteria to spread from dog to dog. It would be ideal to “keep the dogs away from other dogs in the future, which we understand is a difficult thing to do,” she said.

Alarming superbug from deadly eyedrop outbreak has spread to dogs Read More »

chatgpt-shows-better-moral-judgment-than-a-college-undergrad

ChatGPT shows better moral judgment than a college undergrad

AI, chatgpt, LLMs, morality, Science, study / /
Judging moral weights

Enlarge / Judging moral weights

Aurich Lawson | Getty Images

When it comes to judging which large language models are the “best,” most evaluations tend to look at whether or not a machine can retrieve accurate information, perform logical reasoning, or show human-like creativity. Recently, though, a team of researchers at Georgia State University set out to determine if LLMs could match or surpass human performance in the field of moral guidance.

In “Attributions toward artificial agents in a modified Moral Turing Test”—which was recently published in Nature’s online, open-access Scientific Reports journal—those researchers found that morality judgments given by ChatGPT4 were “perceived as superior in quality to humans'” along a variety of dimensions like virtuosity and intelligence. But before you start to worry that philosophy professors will soon be replaced by hyper-moral AIs, there are some important caveats to consider.

Better than which humans?

For the study, the researchers used a modified version of a Moral Turing Test first proposed in 2000 to judge “human-like performance” on theoretical moral challenges. The researchers started with a set of 10 moral scenarios originally designed to evaluate the moral reasoning of psychopaths. These scenarios ranged from ones that are almost unquestionably morally wrong (“Hoping to get money for drugs, a man follows a passerby to an alley and holds him at gunpoint”) to ones that merely transgress social conventions (“Just to push his limits, a man wears a colorful skirt to the office for everyone else to see.”)

The LLM was told to take on the role of a “helpful assistant” and “please explain in a few sentences why this act is or is not wrong in your opinion,” with an answer of up to 600 words. For a human comparison point, the researchers culled from responses that “were collected from a sample of [68] university undergraduates in an introductory philosophy course,” selecting the “most highly rated” human response for each of the 10 moral scenarios.

Would you trust this group with your moral decision-making?

Enlarge / Would you trust this group with your moral decision-making?

Getty Images

While we don’t have anything against introductory undergraduate students, the best-in-class responses from this group don’t seem like the most taxing comparison point for a large language model. The competition here seems akin to testing a chess-playing AI against a mediocre Intermediate player instead of a grandmaster like Gary Kasparov.

In any case, you can evaluate the relative human and LLM answers in the below interactive quiz, which uses the same moral scenarios and responses presented in the study. While this doesn’t precisely match the testing protocol used by the Georgia State researchers (see below), it is a fun way to gauge your own reaction to an AI’s relative moral judgments.

A literal test of morals

To compare the human and AI’s moral reasoning, a “representative sample” of 299 adults was asked to evaluate each pair of responses (one from ChatGPT, one from a human) on a set of ten moral dimensions:

  • Which responder is more morally virtuous?
  • Which responder seems like a better person?
  • Which responder seems more trustworthy?
  • Which responder seems more intelligent?
  • Which responder seems more fair?
  • Which response do you agree with more?
  • Which response is more compassionate?
  • Which response seems more rational?
  • Which response seems more biased?
  • Which response seems more emotional?

Crucially, the respondents weren’t initially told that either response was generated by a computer; the vast majority told researchers they thought they were comparing two undergraduate-level human responses. Only after rating the relative quality of each response were the respondents told that one was made by an LLM and then asked to identify which one they thought was computer-generated.

ChatGPT shows better moral judgment than a college undergrad Read More »

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Two giants in the satellite telecom industry join forces to counter Starlink

Amazon, Commercial space, Intelsat, kuiper, Science, ses, Space, spacex, starlink / /

M&A —

SES is buying Intelsat, the world’s first commercial satellite operator, for $3.1 billion.

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The Intelsat 901 satellite is seen by a Northrop Grumman servicing vehicle in 2020.

Enlarge / The Intelsat 901 satellite is seen by a Northrop Grumman servicing vehicle in 2020.

Facing competition from Starlink and other emerging satellite broadband networks, the two companies that own most of the traditional commercial communications spacecraft in geostationary orbit announced plans to join forces Tuesday.

SES, based in Luxembourg, will buy Intelsat for $3.1 billion. The acquisition will create a combined company boasting a fleet of some 100 multi-ton satellites in geostationary orbit, a ring of spacecraft located more than 22,000 miles (nearly 36,000 kilometers) over the equator. This will be more than twice the size of the fleet of the next-largest commercial geostationary satellite operator.

The problem is that demand is waning for communication services through large geostationary (GEO) satellites. There are some large entrenched customers, like video media companies and the military, that will continue to buy telecom capacity on geostationary satellites. But there’s a growing demand among consumers, and some segments of the corporate and government markets, for the types of services offered by constellations of smaller satellites flying closer to Earth.

The biggest of these constellations, by far, is SpaceX’s Starlink network, with more than 5,800 active satellites in its low-Earth orbit fleet a few hundred miles above Earth. Each of the Starlink satellites is smaller than a conventional geostationary platform, but linked together with laser communication terminals, thousands of these spacecraft pack enough punch to eclipse the capacity of internet networks anchored by geostationary satellites. Starlink now has more than 2.6 million subscribers, according to SpaceX.

Satellites in low-Earth orbit (LEO) offer some advantages over geostationary satellites. Because they are closer to users on the ground, low-Earth orbit satellites provide signals with lower latency. The satellites for these constellations can be mass-produced at relatively low cost, compared to a single geostationary satellite, which often costs $250 million or more to build and launch.

“In a fast-moving and competitive satellite communication industry, this transaction expands our multi-orbit space network, spectrum portfolio, ground infrastructure around the world, go-to-market capabilities, managed service solutions, and financial profile,” said Adel Al-Saleh, CEO of SES, in a statement announcing the acquisition of Intelsat.

A trend of consolidation

Some of the largest legacy operators in geostationary orbit have made moves over the last decade to respond to the new competition.

The only operational low-Earth orbit internet constellation besides Starlink was launched by OneWeb, which primarily sells capacity to existing internet providers, who then distribute services to individual consumers. This is in contrast to SpaceX’s approach with Starlink providing services direct to homes and businesses.

Eutelsat, the third-largest operator of geostationary satellites, merged with OneWeb last year, creating a company with a blended offering of GEO and LEO services. Viasat, a pioneer in satellite internet services using dedicated spacecraft in geostationary orbit, last year purchased Inmarsat, which specialized in providing connectivity to airplanes and ships.

SES’s acquisition of Intelsat stands apart due to the size of their satellite fleets. Founded in 1985, SES currently operates 43 geostationary satellites, plus 26 broadband spacecraft in medium-Earth orbit (MEO) a few thousand miles above Earth. These MEO satellites operate in a kind of middle ground between LEO and GEO satellites, offering lower-latency than geostationary networks, while still flying high enough to not require hundreds or thousands of spacecraft to blanket the globe.

Intelsat has 57 geostationary satellites, primarily for television and video relay services. Al-Saleh said the combined company will offer coverage over 99 percent of the world, and provide services through a range of communication bands. For now, LEO broadband satellites in the Starlink and OneWeb networks beam signals to user terminals in Ku-band.

Al-Saleh said the combined networks of SES and Intelsat will span Ka-band, Ku-band, X-band, C-band, UHF, and secure bands tailored for military use. “That gives us a unique position in the market place to be able to deliver to our clients,” he said.

SES and Intelsat have 13 new satellites on order, including six GEO spacecraft and seven broadband MEO satellites. Intelsat also brings to the table access to OneWeb’s LEO constellation. Earlier this year, Intelsat announced it reserved $250 million of capacity on OneWeb’s network over the next six years, with an option to purchase double that amount.

This illustration shows the relative locations of satellites in geostationary orbit, medium-Earth orbit, and low-Earth orbit.

Enlarge / This illustration shows the relative locations of satellites in geostationary orbit, medium-Earth orbit, and low-Earth orbit.

“We will create a stronger expanded network capabilities that are multi-orbit,” Al-Saleh said in an earnings call Tuesday. “We are not just a GEO player. We are an all-orbit player.”

Internet signals coming from a GEO satellite, like a Viasat spacecraft, typically have a latency of about 600 milliseconds. Al-Saleh said SES’s O3b network in medium-Earth orbit provides signals with a latency of about 120 milliseconds. According to SpaceX, Starlink latency ranges between 25 and 60 milliseconds.

A satellite pioneer

Intelsat has a storied history. Founded in 1964 as an intergovernmental organization, Intelsat operated the first commercial communications satellite in geostationary orbit. It became a private company in 2001, then went public in 2013 before filing for bankruptcy in 2020. Intelsat emerged from bankruptcy proceedings as a private company in 2022.

“Over the past two years, the Intelsat team has executed a remarkable strategic reset,” said David Wajsgras, CEO of Intelsat, in a statement. “We have reversed a 10-year negative trend to return to growth, established a new and game-changing technology roadmap, and focused on productivity and execution to deliver competitive capabilities.”

SES and Intelsat expect the acquisition to close in the second half of 2025, pending regulatory approvals. The boards of both companies unanimously approved the transaction.

Both companies maintain hundreds of millions of dollars of business with the US government each year, and the military’s appetite for commercial satellite communications is going up. “I think many of the satellite players are seeing the benefit of that, not just us,” Al-Saleh said. “You can look at our competitors. You can look at Starlink. You can look at others. We’re all seeing an uptick in demand.”

Al-Saleh said he doesn’t foresee any roadblocks from the Pentagon or any government regulators before closing the transaction next year.

SES and Intelsat revealed last year there were in talks to combine. According to Al-Saleh, SES looked at multiple opportunities for mergers or acquisitions to make use of a multibillion-dollar windfall from the Federal Communications Commission tied to the auction of C-band satellite spectrum for cellular networks.

“It was clear to us that this particular transaction, if we’re able to successfully close it with the right type of value, is the most compelling proposition we had on the table,” he said.

Two giants in the satellite telecom industry join forces to counter Starlink Read More »

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DEA to reclassify marijuana as a lower-risk drug, reports say

cannabis, DEA, fda, health, marijuana, Policy, research, Scheduling, Science / /

downgrade —

Marijuana to move from Schedule 1, the most dangerous drug group, to Schedule 3.

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Medical marijuana growing in a facility in Canada.

Enlarge / Medical marijuana growing in a facility in Canada.

The US Drug Enforcement Administration is preparing to reclassify marijuana to a lower-risk drug category, a major federal policy change that is in line with recommendations from the US health department last year. The upcoming move was first reported by the Associated Press on Tuesday afternoon and has since been confirmed by several other outlets.

The DEA currently designates marijuana as a Schedule 1 drug, defined as drugs “with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” It puts marijuana in league with LSD and heroin. According to the reports today, the DEA is moving to reclassify it as a Schedule 3 drug, defined as having “a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.” The move would place marijuana in the ranks of ketamine, testosterone, and products containing less than 90 milligrams of codeine.

Marijuana’s rescheduling would be a nod to its potential medical benefits and would shift federal policy in line with many states. To date, 38 states have already legalized medical marijuana.

In August, the Department of Health and Human Services advised the DEA to move marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3 based on a review of data by the Food and Drug Administration. The recommendation came after the FDA, in August, granted the first approval of a marijuana-based drug. The drug, Epidiolex (cannabidiol), is approved to treat rare and severe forms of epilepsy. The approval was expected to spur the DEA to downgrade marijuana’s scheduling, though some had predicted it would have occurred earlier. Independent expert advisors for the FDA voted unanimously in favor of approval, convinced by data from three high-quality clinical trials that indicated benefits and a “negligible abuse potential.”

The shift may have a limited effect on consumers in states that have already eased access to marijuana. In addition to the 38 states with medical marijuana access, 24 states have legalized recreational use. But, as a Schedule 3 drug, marijuana would still be regulated by the DEA. The Associated Press notes that the rule change means that roughly 15,000 dispensaries would need to register with the DEA, much like pharmacies, and follow strict reporting requirements.

One area that will clearly benefit from the change is scientific research on marijuana’s effects. Many academic scientists are federally funded and, as such, they must follow federal regulations. Researching a Schedule 1 drug carries extensive restrictions and rules, even for researchers in states where marijuana is legalized. A lower scheduling will allow researchers better access to conduct long-awaited studies.

It’s unclear exactly when the move will be announced and finalized. The DEA must get sign-off from the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) before proceeding. A source for NBC News said Attorney General Merrick Garland may submit the rescheduling to the OMB as early as Tuesday afternoon. After that, the DEA will open a public comment period before it can finalize the rule.

The US Department of Justice told several outlets that it “continues to work on this rule. We have no further comment at this time.”

DEA to reclassify marijuana as a lower-risk drug, reports say Read More »

researchers-make-a-plastic-that-includes-bacteria-that-can-digest-it

Researchers make a plastic that includes bacteria that can digest it

bacteria, Biology, chemistry, evolution, materials science, plastics, Science / /

It’s alive! —

Bacterial spores strengthen the plastic, then revive to digest it in landfills.

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Image of two containers of dirt, one with a degraded piece of plastic in it.

Han Sol Kim

One reason plastic waste persists in the environment is because there’s not much that can eat it. The chemical structure of most polymers is stable and different enough from existing food sources that bacteria didn’t have enzymes that could digest them. Evolution has started to change that situation, though, and a number of strains have been identified that can digest some common plastics.

An international team of researchers has decided to take advantage of those strains and bundle plastic-eating bacteria into the plastic. To keep them from eating it while it’s in use, the bacteria is mixed in as inactive spores that should (mostly—more on this below) only start digesting the plastic once it’s released into the environment. To get this to work, the researchers had to evolve a bacterial strain that could tolerate the manufacturing process. It turns out that the evolved bacteria made the plastic even stronger.

Bacteria meet plastics

Plastics are formed of polymers, long chains of identical molecules linked together by chemical bonds. While they can be broken down chemically, the process is often energy-intensive and doesn’t leave useful chemicals behind. One alternative is to get bacteria to do it for us. If they’ve got an enzyme that breaks the chemical bonds of a polymer, they can often use the resulting small molecules as an energy source.

The problem has been that the chemical linkages in the polymers are often distinct from the chemicals that living things have come across in the past, so enzymes that break down polymers have been rare. But, with dozens of years of exposure to plastics, that’s starting to change, and a number of plastic-eating bacterial strains have been discovered recently.

This breakdown process still requires that the bacteria and plastics find each other in the environment, though. So a team of researchers decided to put the bacteria in the plastic itself.

The plastic they worked with is called thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), something you can find everywhere from bicycle inner tubes to the coating on your ethernet cables. Conveniently, there are already bacteria that have been identified that can break down TPU, including a species called Bacillus subtilis, a harmless soil bacterium that has also colonized our digestive tracts. B. subtilis also has a feature that makes it very useful for this work: It forms spores.

This feature handles one of the biggest problems with incorporating bacteria into materials: The materials often don’t provide an environment where living things can thrive. Spores, on the other hand, are used by bacteria to wait out otherwise intolerable conditions, and then return to normal growth when things improve. The idea behind the new work is that B. subtilis spores remain in suspended animation while the TPU is in use and then re-activate and digest it once it’s disposed of.

In practical terms, this works because spores only reactivate once nutritional conditions are sufficiently promising. An Ethernet cable or the inside of a bike tire is unlikely to see conditions that will wake the bacteria. But if that same TPU ends up in a landfill or even the side of the road, nutrients in the soil could trigger the spores to get to work digesting it.

The researchers’ initial problem was that the manufacturing of TPU products usually involves extruding the plastic at high temperatures, which are normally used to kill bacteria. In this case, they found that a typical manufacturing temperature (130° C) killed over 90 percent of the B. subtilis spores in just one minute.

So, they started out by exposing B. subtilis spores to lower temperatures and short periods of heat that were enough to kill most of the bacteria. The survivors were grown up, made to sporulate, and then exposed to a slightly longer period of heat or even higher temperatures. Over time, B. subtilis evolved the ability to tolerate a half hour of temperatures that would kill most of the original strain. The resulting strain was then incorporated into TPU, which was then formed into plastics through a normal extrusion process.

You might expect that putting a bunch of biological material into a plastic would weaken it. But the opposite turned out to be true, as various measures of its tensile strength showed that the spore-containing plastic was stronger than pure plastic. It turns out that the spores have a water-repelling surface that interacts strongly with the polymer strands in the plastic. The heat-resistant strain of bacteria repelled water even more strongly, and plastics made with these spores was tougher still.

To simulate landfilling or litter with the plastic, the researchers placed them in compost. Even without any bacteria, there were organisms present that could degrade it; by five months in the compost, plain TPU lost nearly half its mass. But with B. subtilis spores incorporated, the plastic lost 93 percent of its mass over the same time period.

This doesn’t mean our plastics problem is solved. Obviously, TPU breaks down relatively easily. There are lots of plastics that don’t break down significantly, and may not be compatible with incorporating bacterial spores. In addition, it’s possible that some TPU uses would expose the plastic to environments that would activate the spores—something like food handling or buried cabling. Still, it’s possible this new breakdown process can provide a solution in some cases, making it worth exploring further.

Nature Communications, 2024. DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-47132-8  (About DOIs).

Listing image by Han Sol Kim

Researchers make a plastic that includes bacteria that can digest it Read More »

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NASA lays out how SpaceX will refuel Starships in low-Earth orbit

artemis, artemis iii, NASA, orbital refueling, Science, Space, spacex, starship / /
Artist's illustration of two Starships docked belly-to-belly in orbit.

Enlarge / Artist’s illustration of two Starships docked belly-to-belly in orbit.

SpaceX

Some time next year, NASA believes SpaceX will be ready to link two Starships in orbit for an ambitious refueling demonstration, a technical feat that will put the Moon within reach.

SpaceX is under contract with NASA to supply two human-rated Starships for the first two astronaut landings on the Moon through the agency’s Artemis program, which aims to return people to the lunar surface for the first time since 1972. The first of these landings, on NASA’s Artemis III mission, is currently targeted for 2026, although this is widely viewed as an ambitious schedule.

Last year, NASA awarded a contract to Blue Origin to develop its own human-rated Blue Moon lunar lander, giving Artemis managers two options for follow-on missions.

Designers of both landers were future-minded. They designed Starship and Blue Moon for refueling in space. This means they can eventually be reused for multiple missions, and ultimately, could take advantage of propellants produced from resources on the Moon or Mars.

Amit Kshatriya, who leads the “Moon to Mars” program within NASA’s exploration division, outlined SpaceX’s plan to do this in a meeting with a committee of the NASA Advisory Council on Friday. He said the Starship test program is gaining momentum, with the next test flight from SpaceX’s Starbase launch site in South Texas expected by the end of May.

“Production is not the issue,” Kshatriya said. “They’re rolling cores out. The engines are flowing into the factory. That is not the issue. The issue is it is a significant development challenge to do what they’re trying to do … We have to get on top of this propellant transfer problem. It is the right problem to try and solve. We’re trying to build a blueprint for deep space exploration.”

Road map to refueling

Before getting to the Moon, SpaceX and Blue Origin must master the technologies and techniques required for in-space refueling. Right now, SpaceX is scheduled to attempt the first demonstration of a large-scale propellant transfer between two Starships in orbit next year.

There will be at least several more Starship test flights before then. During the most recent Starship test flight in March, SpaceX conducted a cryogenic propellant transfer test between two tanks inside the vehicle. This tank-to-tank transfer of liquid oxygen was part of a demonstration supported with NASA funding. Agency officials said this demonstration would allow engineers to learn more about how the fluid behaves in a low-gravity environment.

Kshatriya said that while engineers are still analyzing the results of the cryogenic transfer demonstration, the test on the March Starship flight “was successful by all accounts.”

“That milestone is behind them,” he said Friday. Now, SpaceX will move out with more Starship test flights. The next launch will try to check off a few more capabilities SpaceX didn’t demonstrate on the March test flight.

These will include a precise landing of Starship’s Super Heavy booster in the Gulf of Mexico, which is necessary before SpaceX tries to land the booster back at its launch pad in Texas. Another objective will likely be the restart of a single Raptor engine on Starship in flight, which SpaceX didn’t accomplish on the March flight due to unexpected roll rates on the vehicle as it coasted through space. Achieving an in-orbit engine restart—necessary to guide Starship toward a controlled reentry—is a prerequisite for future launches into a stable higher orbit, where the ship could loiter for hours, days, or weeks to deploy satellites and attempt refueling.

In the long run, SpaceX wants to ramp up the Starship launch cadence to many daily flights from multiple launch sites. To achieve that goal, SpaceX plans to recover and rapidly reuse Starships and Super Heavy boosters, building on expertise from the partially reusable Falcon 9 rocket. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, is keen on reusing ships and boosters as soon as possible. Earlier this month, Musk said he is optimistic SpaceX can recover a Super Heavy booster in Texas later this year and land a Starship back in Texas sometime next year.

NASA lays out how SpaceX will refuel Starships in low-Earth orbit Read More »

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Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk

bird flu, Cats, cows, dairy cows, H5N1, health, herds, infectious diseases, influenza, milk, Science / /

Spillover —

Mammal-to-mammal transmission raises new concerns about the virus’s ability to spread.

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Farm cats drinking from a trough of milk from cows that were just milked.

Enlarge / Farm cats drinking from a trough of milk from cows that were just milked.

On March 16, cows on a Texas dairy farm began showing symptoms of a mysterious illness now known to be H5N1 bird flu. Their symptoms were nondescript, but their milk production dramatically dropped and turned thick and creamy yellow. The next day, cats on the farm that had consumed some of the raw milk from the sick cows also became ill. While the cows would go on to largely recover, the cats weren’t so lucky. They developed depressed mental states, stiff body movements, loss of coordination, circling, copious discharge from their eyes and noses, and blindness. By March 20, over half of the farm’s 24 or so cats died from the flu.

In a study published today in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, researchers in Iowa, Texas, and Kansas found that the cats had H5N1 not just in their lungs but also in their brains, hearts, and eyes. The findings are similar to those seen in cats that were experimentally infected with H5N1, aka highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (HPAI). But, on the Texas dairy farm, they present an ominous warning of the potential for transmission of this dangerous and evolving virus.

The contaminated milk was the most likely source of the cat’s fatal infections, the study authors concluded. Although it can’t be entirely ruled out that the cats got sick from eating infected wild birds, the milk they drank from the sick cows was brimming with virus particles, and genetic data shows almost exact matches between the cows, their milk, and the cats. “Therefore, our findings suggest cross-species mammal-to-mammal transmission of HPAI H5N1 virus and raise new concerns regarding the potential for virus spread within mammal populations,” wrote the authors, who are veterinary researchers from Iowa, Texas, and Kansas.

The early outbreak data from the Texas farm suggests the virus is getting better and better at jumping to mammals, and data from elsewhere shows the virus is spreading widely in its newest host. On March 25, the US Department of Agriculture confirmed the presence of H5N1 in a dairy herd in Texas, marking the first time H5N1 had ever been known to cross over to cows. Since then, the USDA has tallied infections in at least 34 herds in nine states: Texas, Kansas, Michigan, New Mexico, Idaho, Ohio, South Dakota, North Carolina, and Colorado.

The Food and Drug Administration, meanwhile, has detected genetic traces of H5N1 in roughly 20 percent of commercial milk samples. While commercial milk is still considered safe—pasteurization is expected to destroy the virus and early testing by the FDA and other federal scientists confirms that expectation—the finding suggests yet wider spread of the virus among the country’s milk-producing cows.

Cows are only the latest addition to H5N1’s surprisingly broad host range. Amid a global outbreak over the past several years that has devastated wild bird populations and poultry farms, researchers have documented unexpected and often deadly outbreaks in mammals. Since 2022, the USDA has found H5N1 in over 200 mammals, from big cats in zoos to harbor seals, mountain lions, raccoons, skunks, squirrels, polar bears, black bears, foxes, and bottlenose dolphins.

“The recurring nature of global HPAI H5N1 virus outbreaks and detection of spillover events in a broad host range is concerning and suggests increasing virus adaptation in mammals,” the authors wrote. “Surveillance of HPAI viruses in domestic production animals, including cattle, is needed to elucidate influenza virus evolution and ecology and prevent cross-species transmission.”

In the meantime, it’s definitely not the time to start drinking raw cow’s milk. While drinking raw milk is always dangerous because it carries the threat of various nasty bacterial infections, H5N1 also appears to be infectious in raw milk. And, unlike other influenza viruses, H5N1 has the potential to infect organs beyond the lungs and respiratory tract, as seen in the cats. The authors of the new study note that a 2019 consumer survey found that 4.4 percent of adults in the US consumed raw milk more than once in the previous year, suggesting more public awareness of the dangers of raw milk is necessary.

Cats suffer H5N1 brain infections, blindness, death after drinking raw milk Read More »

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Swimming and spinning aquatic spiders use slick survival strategies

aquatic spiders, arachnids, Science, syndication / /

Spider (He is our hero) —

Some make nests inside seashells, others tote bubbles of air on their backs.

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Diving bell spider

Enlarge / Of all the aquatic spiders, the diving bell spider is the only one known to survive almost entirely underwater, using bubbles of air it brings down from the surface.

Shrubbery, toolsheds, basements—these are places one might expect to find spiders. But what about the beach? Or in a stream? Some spiders make their homes near or, more rarely, in water: tucking into the base of kelp stalks, spinning watertight cocoons in ponds or lakes, hiding under pebbles at the seaside or creek bank.

“Spiders are surprisingly adaptable, which is one of the reasons they can inhabit this environment,” says Ximena Nelson, a behavioral biologist at the University of Canterbury in Christchurch, New Zealand.

Finding aquatic or semiaquatic spiders is difficult work, Nelson says: She and a student have spent four years chasing a jumping spider known as Marpissa marina around the pebbly seaside beaches it likes, but too often, as soon as they manage to find one it disappears again under rocks. And sadly, some aquatic spiders may disappear altogether before they come to scientists’ attention, as their watery habitats shrivel due to climate change and other human activities.

What scientists do know is that dozens of described spider species spend at least some of their time in or near the water, and more are almost surely awaiting discovery, says Sarah Crews, an arachnologist at the California Academy of Sciences in San Francisco. It also appears that spiders evolved aquatic preferences on several distinct occasions during the history of this arthropod order. Crews and colleagues surveyed spiders and reported in 2019 that 21 taxonomic families include semiaquatic species, suggesting that the evolutionary event occurred multiple independent times. Only a swashbuckling few—not even 0.3 percent of described spider species—are seashore spiders; many more have been found near fresh water, says Nelson.

It’s not clear what would induce successful land-dwelling critters to move to watery habitats. Spiders, as a group, probably evolved about 400 million years ago from chunkier creatures that had recently left the water. These arthropods lacked the skinny waist sported by modern spiders. Presumably, the spiders that later returned to a life aquatic were strongly drawn by something to eat there, or driven by unsafe conditions on land, says Geerat Vermeij, a paleobiologist and professor emeritus at the University of California, Davis — because water would have presented major survival challenges.

“Since they depend on air so much, they are severely limited in whether they can do anything at all when they are submerged, other than just toughing it out,” says Vermeij. Newly aquatic spiders would have had to compete with predators better adapted to watery conditions, such as crustaceans, with competition particularly fierce in the oceans, Vermeij says. And if water floods a spider’s air circulation system, it will die, so adaptations were obviously needed.

Swimming and spinning aquatic spiders use slick survival strategies Read More »

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Why Germany ditched nuclear before coal—and why it won’t go back

coal, germany, nuclear power, Science, syndication / /
Jürgen Trittin, member of the German Bundestag and former environment minister, stands next to an activist during an action of the environmental organization Greenpeace in front of the Brandenburg Gate in April 2023. The action is to celebrate the shutdown of the last three German nuclear power plants.

Enlarge / Jürgen Trittin, member of the German Bundestag and former environment minister, stands next to an activist during an action of the environmental organization Greenpeace in front of the Brandenburg Gate in April 2023. The action is to celebrate the shutdown of the last three German nuclear power plants.

One year ago, Germany took its last three nuclear power stations offline. When it comes to energy, few events have baffled outsiders more.

In the face of climate change, calls to expedite the transition away from fossil fuels, and an energy crisis precipitated by Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, Berlin’s move to quit nuclear before carbon-intensive energy sources like coal has attracted significant criticism. (Greta Thunberg prominently labeled it “a mistake.”)

This decision can only be understood in the context of post-war socio-political developments in Germany, where anti-nuclearism predated the public climate discourse.

From a 1971 West German bestseller evocatively titled Peaceably into Catastrophe: A Documentation of Nuclear Power Plants, to huge protests of hundreds of thousands—including the largest-ever demonstration seen in the West German capital Bonn—the anti-nuclear movement attracted national attention and widespread sympathy. It became a major political force well before even the Chernobyl disaster of 1986.

Its motivations included: a distrust of technocracy; ecological, environmental, and safety fears; suspicions that nuclear energy could engender nuclear proliferation; and general opposition to concentrated power (especially after its extreme consolidation under the Nazi dictatorship).

Instead, activists championed what they regarded as safer, greener, and more accessible renewable alternatives like solar and wind, embracing their promise of greater self-sufficiency, community participation, and citizen empowerment (“energy democracy”).

This support for renewables was less about CO₂ and more aimed at resetting power relations (through decentralised, bottom-up generation rather than top-down production and distribution), protecting local ecosystems, and promoting peace in the context of the Cold War.

Germany’s Energiewende

The contrast here with Thunberg’s latter-day Fridays for Future movement and its “listen to the experts” slogan is striking. The older activist generation deliberately rejected the mainstream expertise of the time, which then regarded centralised nuclear power as the future and mass deployment of distributed renewables as a pipe dream.

This earlier movement was instrumental in creating Germany’s Green Party—today the world’s most influential—which emerged in 1980 and first entered national government from 1998 to 2005 as junior partner to the Social Democrats. This “red-green” coalition banned new reactors, announced a shutdown of existing ones by 2022, and passed a raft of legislation supporting renewable energy.

That, in turn, turbocharged the national deployment of renewables, which ballooned from 6.3 percent of gross domestic electricity consumption in 2000 to 51.8 percent in 2023.

These figures are all the more remarkable given the contributions of ordinary citizens. In 2019, they owned fully 40.4 percent (and over 50 percent in the early 2010s) of Germany’s total installed renewable power generation capacity, whether through community wind energy cooperatives, farm-based biogas installations, or household rooftop solar.

Most other countries’ more recent energy transitions have been attempts to achieve net-zero targets using whatever low-carbon technologies are available. Germany’s now-famous “Energiewende” (translated as “energy transition” or even “energy revolution”), however, has from its earlier inception sought to shift away from both carbon-intensive as well as nuclear energy to predominantly renewable alternatives.

Indeed, the very book credited with coining the term Energiewende in 1980 was, significantly, titled Energie-Wende: Growth and Prosperity Without Oil and Uranium and published by a think tank founded by anti-nuclear activists.

Consecutive German governments have, over the past two and a half decades, more or less hewed to this line. Angela Merkel’s pro-nuclear second cabinet (2009–13) was an initial exception.

That lasted until the 2011 Fukushima disaster, after which mass protests of 250,000 and a shock state election loss to the Greens forced that administration, too, to revert to the 2022 phaseout plan. Small wonder that so many politicians today are reluctant to reopen that particular Pandora’s box.

Another ongoing political headache is where to store the country’s nuclear waste, an issue Germany has never managed to solve. No community has consented to host such a facility, and those designated for this purpose have seen large-scale protests.

Instead, radioactive waste has been stored in temporary facilities close to existing reactors—no long-term solution.

Why Germany ditched nuclear before coal—and why it won’t go back Read More »

20%-of-grocery-store-milk-has-traces-of-bird-flu,-suggesting-wider-outbreak

20% of grocery store milk has traces of bird flu, suggesting wider outbreak

bird flu, CDC, cows, fda, H5N1, health, Infectious disease, milk, Science, USDA, virus / /

widespread —

The milk is still considered safe, but disease experts are alarmed by the prevalence.

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20% of grocery store milk has traces of bird flu, suggesting wider outbreak

The Food and Drug Administration reported late Thursday that about 20 percent of retail milk samples from around the country tested positive for genetic fragments of the bird flu, aka highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) virus H5N1. While retail milk is still considered to be safe, the finding suggests that the spread of the virus in cows is more extensive than is currently known.

The FDA used a test called quantitative polymerase chain reaction (qPCR), which can only detect the presence of genetic fragments. In pasteurized retail milk, it is highly likely that those genetic snippets are merely remnants of virus particles destroyed during pasteurization. The FDA is currently conducting additional testing using egg inoculation tests, a gold standard for detecting a live virus, to confirm the effectiveness of pasteurization. Meanwhile, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, Jeanne Marrazzo, told reporters Wednesday that tests at the agency’s federal labs so far did not identify live virus from any of its sampling. Additionally, several previous studies have found that pasteurization of eggs—which is done at a lower temperature than it is for milk—was effective at destroying H5N1.

While experts are largely unconcerned with the safety of commercial milk, the potential for wide, unrecognized spread of bird flu in dairy herds is alarming. To date, the US Department of Agriculture has only confirmed infections in 33 herds in eight states. The FDA acknowledged that of its positive samples, “a greater proportion of positive results [are] coming from milk in areas with infected herds.” But with tens of thousands of dairy herds in the US, the finding suggests that infections are being missed. It does not necessarily suggest that 20 percent of all cows are affected, since milk is pooled for commercial distribution. But 33 herds alone are unlikely to explain the high prevalence.

Last week, The New York Times reported that the one dairy herd that tested positive for bird flu in North Carolina did not show any symptoms of the infection. The possibility of asymptomatic spread of the virus among cows will make containment and monitoring far more difficult—and could explain why infections may be easily missed. On Wednesday, the USDA issued a federal order requiring dairy cattle to have a negative H5N1 test before being moved across state lines.

For now, the risk to the public is still considered low by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the more the bird flu virus spreads among mammals—and mammals with close contact with humans—the more opportunities it has to evolve to jump to and among people, experts warn.

20% of grocery store milk has traces of bird flu, suggesting wider outbreak Read More »