Science

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SpaceX wants to take over a Florida launch pad from rival ULA

cape canaveral, Commercial space, launch, Science, slc-37, Space, spacex, starship, united launch alliance, US Space Force / /

First step —

SpaceX now plans at least four Starship launch pads, two in Texas and two in Florida.

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SpaceX's fully-stacked Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster on a launch pad in South Texas.

Enlarge / SpaceX’s fully-stacked Starship rocket and Super Heavy booster on a launch pad in South Texas.

One of the largest launch pads at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station will become vacant later this year after the final flight of United Launch Alliance’s Delta IV Heavy rocket. SpaceX is looking to make the sprawling facility a new home for the Starship launch vehicle.

The environmental review for SpaceX’s proposal to take over Space Launch Complex 37 (SLC-37) at Cape Canaveral is getting underway now, with three in-person public meetings and one virtual meeting scheduled for March to collect comments from local residents, according to a new website describing the plan.

Then federal agencies, led by the Department of the Air Force, will develop an environmental impact statement to evaluate how Starship launch and landing operations will affect the land, air, and water around SLC-37, which sits on Space Force property on the Atlantic coastline.

Environmental studies for rocket launch facilities typically take more than a year, so it will be a while before any major construction begins to convert SLC-37 for Starship launches. In this case, federal officials anticipate publishing a draft environmental impact statement by December, then a final report by October 2025.

More immediately, ULA still has one more Delta IV Heavy rocket to launch from SLC-37 in March with a classified spy satellite for the National Reconnaissance Office. Once that launch is complete, ULA will wind down operations at SLC-37, and eventually turn over the facility back to the Space Force, which will look for a new tenant. For several months, industry sources have pointed to SpaceX as the leading contender to take over SLC-37 after ULA is finished with the launch pad.

But that’s not quite a done deal yet. Last year, a senior official at ULA told Ars on background that the company was also interested in maintaining a presence at SLC-37.

ULA’s new Vulcan rocket, which debuted last month and will replace the Delta IV and Atlas V launch vehicles, uses a different launch pad a few miles up the coast from SLC-37. ULA is upgrading and expanding its ground facilities at Cape Canaveral to ramp up the Vulcan launch cadence, and the ULA official told Ars the company may want to continue using a rocket processing hangar just south of the Delta IV launch pad for storage and horizontal processing of Vulcan rockets.

Details are scarce about everything SpaceX wants to do with SLC-37, but officials wrote on the environmental review website that SpaceX would “modify, reuse, or demolish the existing SLC-37 infrastructure to support Starship-Super Heavy launch and landing operations.”

This aerial view shows a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket awaiting liftoff from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

Enlarge / This aerial view shows a United Launch Alliance Delta IV Heavy rocket awaiting liftoff from Space Launch Complex 37 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida.

The history of SLC-37 dates back to the 1960s, when NASA used the site for eight flights of the Saturn I and Saturn IB rockets to prepare for the Apollo program. The facility sat dormant for 30 years until Boeing moved in to ready SLC-37 for the Delta IV rocket, which has now flown 34 times from SLC-37. The launch pad currently includes a 330-foot-tall (100-meter) mobile gantry, a fixed erector, a fixed umbilical tower, and a flame trench for Delta IV missions.

Starship, the world’s largest rocket, would not need any of that that infrastructure, so if SpaceX takes over the pad, the facility will likely undergo extensive demolition and construction.

If SpaceX isn’t cleared to use SLC-37, the company could build a brand new launch pad designated Space Launch Complex 50. If this is the path SpaceX takes, SLC-50 would be built on undeveloped land north of SLC-37 and south of SpaceX’s primary launch pad for the Falcon 9 rocket at Space Launch Complex 40.

Goodbye to LC-49, hello to SLC-37

SpaceX’s interest in setting up shop at SLC-37 shows the company is getting serious about developing a second base for Starship on Florida’s Space Coast. In 2022, SpaceX constructed a launch tower and launch mount for Starship at Launch Complex 39A (LC-39A), located at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. But the company made little progress there last year as teams focused on Starship test flights from South Texas.

Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, says Starship is the rocket that will make possible his dream of building a settlement on Mars. He has also touted Starship as a vehicle for point-to-point travel on Earth. Both stages of Starship are designed to be fully and rapidly reusable, with the Super Heavy booster and Starship upper stage returning to Earth for propulsive landings. Starship launch pads will double as landing pads.

Before any of those dreams are realized, Starship needs to get into orbit. The first two full-scale Starship test flights last year didn’t make it that far, but SpaceX got close on the second launch in November. SpaceX hopes to achieve a near-orbital mission with the third Starship test launch, perhaps as soon as early March.

Eventually, Musk envisions Starship launching multiple times per day on a variety of missions, carrying people, satellites, cargo, or refueling tankers into orbit. In order to do this, SpaceX will need a lot of launch and landing pads. SpaceX has toyed with the idea of floating offshore launch and landing platforms, but those plans are on hold.

In the near-term, SpaceX plans to build a second Starship launch tower at the company’s Starbase test site in Cameron County, Texas. There’s also the partially-built launch tower at LC-39A, and now SpaceX has set its sights on SLC-37.

SpaceX was previously looking at building another Starship launch pad from scratch on NASA property at the Kennedy Space Center. NASA environmental studies for this location, known as Launch Complex 49, kicked off in 2021. Patti Bielling, a NASA spokesperson, told Ars on Friday the agency is no longer working on Launch Complex 49.

“At this time, there are no activities involving LC-49 on Kennedy,” Bielling said. “Any previous activities regarding LC-49 were suspended, and no actions were taken.”

One of the first operational applications for Starship will be to serve as a human-rated lunar lander for NASA’s Artemis program. SpaceX is developing a version of Starship to ferry astronauts to and from the Moon’s surface, but in order for Starship to reach the Moon, it has to be refueled in low-Earth orbit. This will require perhaps 10 or more refueling flights using a version of Starship called a tanker, all launching in a matter of weeks. Those tanker flights will launch on Super Heavy boosters from pads in Texas and Florida.

In parallel with continued Starship test flights and demonstrating in-space refueling technology, SpaceX needs to build more launch pads to make all this possible. Although SpaceX has backpedaled on several of its Starship launch pad ideas, the company’s interest in SLC-37 suggests it still has big plans for Starship in Florida.

SpaceX wants to take over a Florida launch pad from rival ULA Read More »

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Flowers grown floating on polluted waterways can help clean up nutrient runoff

flowers, Science, syndication / /

here’s hoping it also masks the runoff smell —

Cut-flower farms could be a sustainable option for mitigating water pollution.

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Hands cutting yellow flowers with scissors

Enlarge / The cut flowers could pay for themselves and even turn a profit.

Flowers grown on inexpensive floating platforms can help clean polluted waterways, over 12 weeks extracting 52 percent more phosphorus and 36 percent more nitrogen than the natural nitrogen cycle removes from untreated water, according to our new research. In addition to filtering water, the cut flowers can generate income via the multibillion-dollar floral market.

In our trials of various flowers, giant marigolds stood out as the most successful, producing long, marketable stems and large blooms. Their yield matched typical flower farm production.

Why it matters

Water pollution is caused in large part by runoff from farms, urban lawns, and even septic tanks. When it rains, excess phosphorus, nitrogen, and other chemicals wash into lakes and rivers.

These nutrients feed algae, leading to widespread and harmful algae blooms, which can severely lower oxygen in water, creating “dead zones” where aquatic life cannot survive. Nutrient runoff is a critical issue as urban areas expand, affecting the health of water ecosystems.

Water pollution is an escalating crisis in our area of Miami-Dade and Broward counties in Florida. The 2020 Biscayne Bay fish kill, the largest mass death of aquatic life on record for the region, serves as a stark reminder of this growing environmental issue.

How we do our work

We study sustainable agriculture and water pollution in South Florida.

Inspired by traditional floating farm practices, including the Aztecs’ chinampas in Mexico and the Miccosukees’ tree island settlements in Florida, we tested the idea of growing cut flowers on floating rafts as a way to remove excess nutrients from waterways. Our hope was not only that the flowers would pay for themselves, but that they could provide jobs here in Miami, the center of the US cut-flower trade.

Chemical conditions in the test tanks were the same as in nearby polluted waterways.

Enlarge / Chemical conditions in the test tanks were the same as in nearby polluted waterways.

We floated 4-by-6-foot (1.2-by-1.8-meter) mats of inexpensive polyethylene foam called Beemats in 620-gallon (2,300-liter) outdoor test tanks that mirrored water conditions of nearby polluted waterways. Into the mats, we transplanted flower seedlings, including zinnias, sunflowers, and giant marigolds. The polluted tank water was rich in nutrients, eliminating the need for any fertilizer. As the seedlings matured into plants over 12 weeks, we tracked the tanks’ improving water quality.

Encouraged by the success of the marigolds in our tanks, we moved our trials to the nearby canals of Coral Gables and Little River. We anchored the floating platforms with 50-pound (22.7-kilogram) weights and also tied them to shore for extra stability. No alterations to the landscape were needed, making the process simple and doable.

Some plants grow roots in places–such as the stem–other than where their original roots began.

Enlarge / Some plants grow roots in places–such as the stem–other than where their original roots began.

What still isn’t known

The success of the giant marigolds might be linked to the extra roots that grow from their stems known as adventitious roots. These roots likely help keep the plants stable on the floating platforms. Identifying additional plants with roots like these could help broaden plant choices.

Future raft designs may also need modifications to ensure better stability and growth for other cut-flower and crop species.

What’s next

Our promising findings show floating cut-flower farms could be a sustainable option for mitigating water pollution.

One of us (Locke-Rodriguez) is expanding this research and working to scale up floating farms in South Florida as a demonstration of what could take place in the many locations facing similar issues worldwide.

The Research Brief is a short take on interesting academic work.The Conversation

Jazmin Locke-Rodriguez, Post Doctoral Associate in the Institute of Environment, Florida International University, and Krishnaswamy Jayachandran, Professor of Agroecology, Florida International University.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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skyrocketing-ocean-temperatures-have-scientists-scratching-their-heads

Skyrocketing ocean temperatures have scientists scratching their heads

climate change, global warming, ocean temperatures, Science, syndication / /
beach scene with thermometer

jay_zynism via Getty

For nearly a year now, a bizarre heating event has been unfolding across the world’s oceans. In March 2023, global sea surface temperatures started shattering record daily highs and have stayed that way since.

You can see 2023 in the orange line below, the other gray lines being previous years. That solid black line is where we are so far in 2024—way, way above even 2023. While we’re nowhere near the Atlantic hurricane season yet—that runs from June 1 through the autumn—keep in mind that cyclones feed on warm ocean water, which could well stay anomalously hot in the coming months. Regardless, these surface temperature anomalies could be triggering major ecological problems already.

“In the tropical eastern Atlantic, it’s four months ahead of pace—it’s looking like it’s already June out there,” says Brian McNoldy, a hurricane researcher at the University of Miami. “It’s really getting to be strange that we’re just seeing the records break by this much, and for this long.”

You’ll notice from these graphs and maps that the temperature anomalies may be a degree or two Celsius warmer, which may not sound like much. But for the seas, it really is: Unlike land, which rapidly heats and cools as day turns to night and back again, it takes a lot to warm up an ocean that may be thousands of feet deep. So even an anomaly of mere fractions of a degree is significant. “To get into the two or three or four degrees, like it is in a few places, it’s pretty exceptional,” says McNoldy.

University of Maine

So what’s going on here? For one, the oceans have been steadily warming over the decades, absorbing something like 90 percent of the extra heat that humans have added to the atmosphere. “The oceans are our saviors, in a way,” says biological oceanographer Francisco Chavez of the Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute in California. “Things might be a lot worse in terms of climate impacts, because a lot of that heat is not only kept at the surface, it’s taken to depths.”

A major concern with such warm surface temperatures is the health of the ecosystems floating there: phytoplankton that bloom by soaking up the sun’s energy and the tiny zooplankton that feed on them. If temperatures get too high, certain species might suffer, shaking the foundations of the ocean food web.

Skyrocketing ocean temperatures have scientists scratching their heads Read More »

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Rocket Report: Falcon 9 flies for 300th time; an intriguing launch from Russia

ariane 6, Commercial space, launch, missile defense, rocket report, russia, Science, Space, spacex, starship / /

Co-planar —

Starship is fully stacked in South Texas for the rocket’s third test flight.

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The upper stage for the first Ariane 6 flight vehicle is seen inside its factory in Bremen, Germany. The upper stage's hydrogen-fueled Vinci engine is visible in this image.

Enlarge / The upper stage for the first Ariane 6 flight vehicle is seen inside its factory in Bremen, Germany. The upper stage’s hydrogen-fueled Vinci engine is visible in this image.

Welcome to Edition 6.31 of the Rocket Report! Photographers at Cape Canaveral, Florida, noticed a change to the spaceport’s skyline this week. Blue Origin has erected a full-size simulator of its New Glenn rocket vertically on its launch pad for a series of fit checks and tests. Late last year, we reported Blue Origin was serious about getting the oft-delayed New Glenn rocket off the ground by the end of 2024. This is a good sign of progress toward that goal, but there’s a long, long way to go. It was fun to watch preparations for the inaugural flights of a few other heavy-lift rockets in the last couple of years (Starship, SLS, and Vulcan). This year, it’s New Glenn.

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.

Russia launches a classified satellite. On February 9, Russia launched its first orbital mission of the year with the liftoff of a Soyuz-2-1v rocket from the Plesetsk Cosmodrome in the far north of the country. The two-stage rocket delivered a classified satellite into orbit for the Russian military, Anatoly Zak of RussianSpaceWeb.com reports. In keeping with the Russian military’s naming convention, the satellite is known simply as Kosmos 2575, and there’s little indication about what it will do in space, except for one key fact.

But wait, there’s more … It turns out the launch of Kosmos 2575 occurred at exactly the same time of day as another Soyuz-2-1v rocket launched on December 27 with a Russian military satellite named Kosmos 2574. The newer spacecraft launched into the same orbital plane as Kosmos 2574, a strong indication that the two satellites have a shared mission. In recent years, Russia has tested rendezvous, proximity operations, and, at least in one instance, a projectile that would have applications for an anti-satellite weapon. You can be sure the US military and a global community of hobbyist satellite trackers will watch closely to see if these two satellites approach one another. If they do, they could continue technology demonstrations for an anti-satellite system. It’s unclear if the recent revelations regarding US officials’ concerns about Russian anti-satellite capabilities are related to these recent launches.

European startup testing methane-fueled rocket engine. Space transportation startup The Exploration Company has continued testing its methane-fueled Huracán engine, which will power an in-space and lunar transportation vehicle under development, European Spaceflight reports. Most recently, the Huracán engine completed another round of thrust chamber testing using liquid methane fuel as a coolant and tested a new thermal barrier coating. The methane/liquid oxygen engine is undergoing testing at a facility in Lampoldshausen, Germany, ahead of use on The Exploration Company’s Nyx Moon spacecraft, a transfer vehicle designed for transportation to and from cislunar space and also capable of Moon landings. The Nyx Moon is an evolution of a transfer vehicle the European startup is developing to ferry satellites between different orbits around Earth.

Other uses for Huracán… The Exploration Company appears to be positioning itself not only as a builder and operator of orbital and lunar transfer vehicles but also as a propulsion supplier to other space companies. In 2022, The Exploration Company received funding for the Huracán engine from the French government. At the time, the company described the engine as serving the needs of “the upper stages of small launchers and those of orbital vehicles.” (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.

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New FDA-approved drug makes severe food allergies less life-threatening

fda, food allergies, health, omalizumab, peanut, Science, Xolair / /

Taking the edge off —

Injections over several months allowed people to tolerate larger doses of trigger foods.

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Peanuts

Enlarge / Peanuts

Living with food allergies can be a fraught existence. There is no cure, and the standard management is to be ever vigilant of everything you eat and have an emergency shot of epinephrine constantly handy in case an accidental ingestion leads to a swift, life-threatening reaction. But, for the millions of people in the US who live with such allergies, a new drug may dull the threat.

On Friday, the Food and Drug Administration approved the antibody drug omalizumab (brand name Xolair) as an injection to lessen allergic reactions to foods in people ages 1 and up. In a trial of 168 children and adults with multiple food allergies, participants who received shots of omalizumab for 16 to 20 weeks were much more likely to tolerate a test dose of allergy-inducing foods at the end than those who received a placebo.

Omalizumab—which was previously approved to treat asthma, hives, and nasal polyps—works by binding to a class of antibodies in the body called immunoglobulin E (IgE) that are specifically involved in allergic responses. The monoclonal antibody drug binds IgE, blocking it from binding to its target receptor, thus preventing it from triggering the immune responses that lead to allergy symptoms.

“This newly approved use for Xolair will provide a treatment option to reduce the risk of harmful allergic reactions among certain patients with IgE-mediated food allergies,” Kelly Stone, associate director of the Division of Pulmonology, Allergy, and Critical Care in the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research, said in today’s announcement. “While it will not eliminate food allergies or allow patients to consume food allergens freely, its repeated use will help reduce the health impact if accidental exposure occurs.”

The trial began in 2019 and was run by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and is still ongoing. But an interim analysis of early data was enough to convince the FDA of the drug’s benefit.

More tolerance

For the trial, researchers recruited people who had an allergy to peanuts, as well as at least two other food allergies, including milk, egg, wheat, cashew, hazelnut, or walnut. Those assigned to get omalizumab received shots every two to four weeks for 16 to 20 weeks. Afterward, researchers looked at whether participants could handle 600 milligrams or more of peanut protein, which is equivalent to eating about 2.5 or more peanuts. Of those who got the shot, 68 percent (75 of 110 subjects) handled the peanut doses without moderate to severe allergy symptoms, such as whole-body hives, persistent coughing, or vomiting. In the placebo group, only 6 percent (3 of 55 subjects) managed this.

As secondary tests, the researchers tried other allergy-triggering foods at the higher dose of 1,000 milligrams or more. For cashews, 42 percent (27 of 64) of participants who received omalizumab tolerated the challenge without moderate or severe allergic reactions, compared with 3 percent (1 of 30) in the placebo group. For milk, 66 percent (25 of 38 subjects) who received the drug tolerated the dairy, while only 11 percent (2 of 19) of the placebo group did so. For egg, 67 percent (31 of 46 subjects) on the drug tolerated the dose, compared to 0 percent of the 19 who received placebo.

The benefits of omalizumab were not universal. The FDA notes that 17 percent of the people who received the drug had no significant improvement in their sensitivity to allergy-triggering food. As such, the FDA cautions that even if people receive Xolair, they should still avoid the foods that trigger their allergies.

The trial is ongoing, and researchers plan to look at the longevity of the drug’s effectiveness and whether it can be paired with another strategy to ratchet down food allergies: oral immunotherapy (OIT), which uses small, daily doses of an allergen to build tolerance over time. For the look at longevity, some trial participants will get shots for an additional 24 weeks, followed by more food challenges to see if the drug remains useful at easing allergic responses over the prolonged time period. For the OIT part of the trial, participants will get another 16 weeks of injections and, halfway through that, some will undergo multi-allergen OIT. They will then be followed for 44 additional weeks.

The FDA says the most common side effects of omalizumab are injection site reactions and fever, but the agency also warns of the possibility of joint pain, rash, parasitic infections, malignancies, and abnormal laboratory tests.

New FDA-approved drug makes severe food allergies less life-threatening Read More »

it’s-a-fake:-mysterious-280-million-year-old-fossil-is-mostly-just-black-paint

It’s a fake: Mysterious 280 million-year-old fossil is mostly just black paint

Archaeology, forgeries, fossils, geology, paleontology, Science, Tridentinosaurus antiquus / /

A cautionary tale —

The long bones of the hind limbs appear to be genuine. The rest? Not so much.

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image of a reptilian fossil in a rock

Enlarge / Discovered in 1931, Tridentinosaurus antiquus has now been found to be, in part, a forgery.

Valentina Rossi

For more than 90 years, scientists have puzzled over an unusual 280 million-year-old reptilian fossil discovered in the Italian Alps. It’s unusual because the skeleton is surrounded by a dark outline, long believed to be rarely preserved soft tissue. Alas, a fresh analysis employing a suite of cutting-edge techniques concluded that the dark outline is actually just bone-black paint. The fossil is a fake, according to a new paper published in the journal Paleontology.

An Italian engineer and museum employee named Gualtiero Adami found the fossil near the village of Piné. The fossil was a small lizard-like creature with a long neck and five-digit limbs. He turned it over to the local museum, and later that year, geologist Giorgio del Piaz announced the discovery of a new genus, dubbed Tridentinosaurus antiquus. The dark-colored body outline was presumed to be the remains of carbonized skin or flesh; fossilized plant material with carbonized leaf and shoot fragments were found in the same geographical area.

The specimen wasn’t officially described scientifically until 1959 when Piero Leonardi declared it to be part of the Protorosauria group. He thought it was especially significant for understanding early reptile evolution because of the preservation of presumed soft tissue surrounding the skeletal remains. Some suggested that T. antiquus had been killed by a pyroclastic surge during a volcanic eruption, which would explain the carbonized skin since the intense heat would have burnt the outer layers almost instantly. It is also the oldest body fossil found in the Alps, at some 280 million years old.

Yet the fossil had never been carefully analyzed using modern analytical techniques, according to co-author Valentina Rossi of University College Cork in Ireland. “The fossil is unique, so this poses some challenges, in terms of analysis that we can do when effectively we cannot afford to make any mistakes, i.e., damaging the fossil,” Rossi told Ars. “Previous preliminary studies were carried out in the past but were not conclusive and the results not straightforward to interpret. The incredible technological advancement we are experiencing in paleontology made this study possible, since we can now analyze very small quantities of precious fossil material at the molecular level, without the risk of damaging the whole specimen.”

The fossil under normal light (left) and under UV light (right).

Enlarge / The fossil under normal light (left) and under UV light (right).

Valentina Rossi

Rossi et al. focused on the dark body outline believed to be carbonized soft tissue for their analysis. This involved photographing the fossil—plus some fossilized plants found in the same area—in both white light and UV light, and using those images to build a photogrammetric map and 3D model. They also took minute samples and examined them with scanning electron microscopy, micro X-ray diffraction, Raman spectroscopy, and ATF-FTIR spectroscopy.

The entire specimen, both the body outline and the bones, fluoresced yellow under UV light; the plant specimens did not. But coatings like lacquers, varnishes, glues, and some artificial pigments do fluoresce yellow under UV light. There was no evidence of fossilized melanin, which one might expect to find in preserved soft tissue. Also, fossils with preserved soft tissue are typically flattened with little topography; the T. antiquus specimen showed a lot of topographical variation in the dark outline areas.

The authors thought this was consistent with some kind of mechanical preparation, perhaps to (unsuccessfully) expose more of the skeleton. They concluded that one or more layers of some kind of coating had been applied to the body outline and the bones. The granular texture of what had been presumed to be soft tissue was more consistent with manufactured pigments used in historical paintings—specifically, “a manufactured carbon-based pigment mixed with an organic binder,” i.e., bone black paint. Conclusion: T. antiquus is a forgery and scientists therefore should be wary of using the specimen in comparative phylogenetic analysis.

Tridentinosaurus antiquus.” height=”428″ src=”https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/fakefossil2-640×428.jpg” width=”640″>

Enlarge / Valentina Rossi with an image of Tridentinosaurus antiquus.

Zixiao Yang

How could scientists have presumed the dark outline of carbonized soft tissue for so many decades? “This fossil was discovered in 1931 and back then fossils were treated very differently than today,” said Rossi. “Application of paints, consolidates and lacquers on fossil bones was the norm, because that was the only way to protect the specimens for further deterioration. It was also sometimes to embellish specimens by making them sleek and shiny. Unfortunately, in the case of Tridentinosaurus, the mechanical preparation did most of the damage and then the application of a black paint created the illusion of a lizard-like animal impression on the surface of the rock.”

This analysis also casts doubt on the validity of the fossil’s assigned taxon, which was based on observations of the body proportion and measurements of limbs, neck, and abdomen. Part of the fossil, at least, appears to be genuine—the long bones of the hind limbs—but that doesn’t mean it will be easier now to determine species or where the specimen fits in the fossil record. “The bones that are recognizable appear to be very poorly preserved, so it might be very difficult to extrapolate any information,” said Rossi. “But perhaps the discovery of new fossil material from the same area where this specimen was found might help identify this ancient animal.”

So how can paleontologists prevent this kind of error from happening in the future? Rossi recommends reporting such finds via scientific journals with a detailed explanation of the methods that were used to characterize the surface materials on both the fossil and the rock. “It’s important to be aware that certain practices are not acceptable anymore, and not just because it creates—whether intentionally or by genuine mistake—misinformation and distorts our perception of a specimen,” said Rossi. “But also because the fossil will be irreparably damaged, and we might have lost key information about the original aspect and preservation state of the fossil.”

Paleontology, 2024. DOI: 10.1111/pala.12690  (About DOIs).

It’s a fake: Mysterious 280 million-year-old fossil is mostly just black paint Read More »

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Scientists aghast at bizarre AI rat with huge genitals in peer-reviewed article

AI, frontiers, MidJourney, rats, Science, Scientific publishing / /

AI gone wild —

It’s unclear how such egregiously bad images made it through peer-review.

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An actual laboratory rat, who is intrigued.

Enlarge / An actual laboratory rat, who is intrigued.

Appall and scorn ripped through scientists’ social media networks Thursday as several egregiously bad AI-generated figures circulated from a peer-reviewed article recently published in a reputable journal. Those figures—which the authors acknowledge in the article’s text were made by Midjourney—are all uninterpretable. They contain gibberish text and, most strikingly, one includes an image of a rat with grotesquely large and bizarre genitals, as well as a text label of “dck.”

AI-generated Figure 1 of the paper. This image is supposed to show spermatogonial stem cells isolated, purified, and cultured from rat testes.

Enlarge / AI-generated Figure 1 of the paper. This image is supposed to show spermatogonial stem cells isolated, purified, and cultured from rat testes.

On Thursday, the publisher of the review article, Frontiers, posted an “expression of concern,” noting that it is aware of concerns regarding the published piece. “An investigation is currently being conducted and this notice will be updated accordingly after the investigation concludes,” the publisher wrote.

The article in question is titled “Cellular functions of spermatogonial stem cells in relation to JAK/STAT signaling pathway,” which was authored by three researchers in China, including the corresponding author Dingjun Hao of Xi’an Honghui Hospital. It was published online Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Cell and Developmental Biology.

Frontiers did not immediately respond to Ars’ request for comment, but we will update this post with any response.

The first figure in the paper, the one containing the rat, drew immediate attention as scientists began widely sharing it and commenting on it on social media platforms, including Bluesky and the platform formerly known as Twitter. From a distance, the anatomical image is clearly all sorts of wrong. But, looking closer only reveals more flaws, including the labels “dissilced,” Stemm cells,” “iollotte sserotgomar,” and “dck.” Many researchers expressed surprise and dismay that such a blatantly bad AI-generated image could pass through the peer-review system and whatever internal processing is in place at the journal.

Figure 2 is supposed to be a diagram of the JAK-STAT signaling pathway.

Enlarge / Figure 2 is supposed to be a diagram of the JAK-STAT signaling pathway.

But the rat’s package is far from the only problem. Figure 2 is less graphic but equally mangled. While it’s intended to be a diagram of a complex signaling pathway, it instead is a jumbled mess. One scientific integrity expert questioned whether it provide an overly complicated explanation of “how to make a donut with colorful sprinkles.” Like the first image, the diagram is rife with nonsense text and baffling images. Figure 3 is no better, offering a collage of small circular images that are densely annotated with gibberish. The image is supposed to provide visual representations of how the signaling pathway from Figure 2 regulates the biological properties of spermatogonial stem cells.

Some scientists online questioned whether the text was also AI-generated. One user noted that AI detection software determined that it was likely to be AI-generated; however, as Ars has reported previously, such software is unreliable.

Figure 3 is supposed to show the regulation of biological properties of spermatogonial stem cells by JAK/STAT signaling pathway.

Enlarge / Figure 3 is supposed to show the regulation of biological properties of spermatogonial stem cells by JAK/STAT signaling pathway.

The images, while egregious examples, highlight a growing problem in scientific publishing. A scientist’s success relies heavily on their publication record, with a large volume of publications, frequent publishing, and articles appearing in top-tier journals, all of which earn scientists more prestige. The system incentivizes less-than-scrupulous researchers to push through low-quality articles, which, in the era of AI chatbots, could potentially be generated with the help of AI. Researchers worry that the growing use of AI will make published research less trustworthy. As such, research journals have recently set new authorship guidelines for AI-generated text to try to address the problem. But for now, as the Frontiers article shows, there are clearly some gaps.

Scientists aghast at bizarre AI rat with huge genitals in peer-reviewed article Read More »

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After a decade and $1.2 billion, NASA reveals its booty from Bennu: 121 grams

bennu, Science, Space / /

To Bennu and back —

A long way, and a lot of money, for half a cup.

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A view of eight sample trays containing the final material from asteroid Bennu.

Enlarge / A view of eight sample trays containing the final material from asteroid Bennu.

NASA/Erika Blumenfeld & Joseph Aebersold

After years of speculation, NASA finally revealed on Thursday the totality of the asteroid sample returned from Bennu to Earth last fall: 4.29 ounces (121.6 grams).

To put that number into perspective, the total mass is only slightly more than one-half cup of sugar or a box of 100 paper clips. It’s about the same mass as a small avocado, and you can’t even smear it on toast.

So, in some sense, it’s a pretty small sample. Especially when you consider the lengths to which NASA and its partners went to retrieve it. The space agency’s Goddard Space Flight Center worked with the University of Arizona and Lockheed Martin to build the OSIRIS-REx spacecraft for $800 million. It launched in September 2016 on an Atlas V rocket, which cost an additional $183.5 million. And as it has traipsed across the inner Solar System and back, NASA has spent an additional $200 million on mission operations.

A tin of tuna

Putting that all together, NASA has invested $1.2 billion and the better part of a decade to retrieve a volume of asteroid dust that could fit—comfortably—within a small can of tuna.

But, as the saying goes, good things come in small packages. And small though the sample may be, it is 20 times greater than the amount of asteroid material previously returned to Earth by a pair of Japanese sample return missions. A little will go a long way as scientists study the organics and other materials in this asteroid dust to divine clues to the origin of life and conditions that existed at the dawn of our Solar System. You don’t need handfuls of material to get a meaningful result from an electron microscope.

Moreover, the sample retrieval was double the minimum requirement for the mission, 60 grams. So, OSIRIS-REx can now definitively be labeled as an unqualified success.

Biding their time

The scientific community had to wait longer than expected to know how much material OSIRIS-REx brought back to Earth. As engineers and technicians at Johnson Space Center in Houston worked to open the sample container last October, they were stymied by two stubborn fasteners. Only after new tools were devised was the sample container finally opened to reveal the tiny treasure in January.

In the coming weeks, some Bennu material will be packaged and distributed for researchers to study. As part of the OSIRIS-REx mission, a cohort of more than 200 scientists around the world will explore the regolith’s properties, including researchers from many US institutions, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, and the Canadian Space Agency.

NASA, however, intends to reserve about 70 percent of the material for future study.

After a decade and $1.2 billion, NASA reveals its booty from Bennu: 121 grams Read More »

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SpaceX launches military satellites tuned to track hypersonic missiles

Commercial space, falcon 9, hypersonic, L3Harris, launch, missile defense, missile defense agency, Northrop Grumman, Science, Space, space development agency, spacex / /

Trackers —

These satellites will participate in joint missile tracking exercises later this year.

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SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday with six missile-tracking satellites for the US military.

Enlarge / SpaceX launched a Falcon 9 rocket Wednesday with six missile-tracking satellites for the US military.

Two prototype satellites for the Missile Defense Agency and four missile tracking satellites for the US Space Force rode a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket into orbit Wednesday from Florida’s Space Coast.

These satellites are part of a new generation of spacecraft designed to track hypersonic missiles launched by China or Russia and perhaps emerging missile threats from Iran or North Korea, which are developing their own hypersonic weapons.

Hypersonic missiles are smaller and more maneuverable than conventional ballistic missiles, which the US military’s legacy missile defense satellites can detect when they launch. Infrared sensors on the military’s older-generation missile tracking satellites are tuned to pick out bright thermal signatures from missile exhaust.

The new threat paradigm

Hypersonic missiles represent a new challenge for the Space Force and the Missile Defense Agency (MDA). For one thing, ballistic missiles follow a predictable parabolic trajectory that takes them into space. Hypersonic missiles are smaller and comparatively dim, and they spend more time flying in Earth’s atmosphere. Their maneuverability makes them difficult to track.

A nearly 5-year-old military organization called the Space Development Agency (SDA) has launched 27 prototype satellites over the last year to prove the Pentagon’s concept for a constellation of hundreds of small, relatively low-cost spacecraft in low-Earth orbit. This new fleet of satellites, which the SDA calls the Proliferated Warfighter Space Architecture (PWSA), will eventually number hundreds of spacecraft to track missiles and relay data about their flight paths down to the ground. The tracking data will provide an early warning to those targeted by hypersonic missiles and help generate a firing solution for interceptors to shoot them down.

The SDA constellation combines conventional tactical radio links, laser inter-satellite communications, and wide-view infrared sensors. The agency, now part of the Space Force, plans to launch successive generations, or tranches, of small satellites, each introducing new technology. The SDA’s approach relies on commercially available spacecraft and sensor technology and will be more resilient to attack from an adversary than the military’s conventional space assets. Those legacy military satellites often cost hundreds of millions or billions of dollars apiece, with architectures that rely on small numbers of large satellites that might appear like a sitting duck to an adversary determined to inflict damage.

Four of the small SDA satellites and two larger spacecraft for the Missile Defense Agency were aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket when it lifted off from Cape Canaveral Space Force Station at 5: 30 pm EST (2230 UTC) Wednesday.

The rocket headed northeast from Cape Canaveral to place the six payloads into low-Earth orbit. Officials from the Space Force declared the launch a success later Wednesday evening.

The SDA’s four tracking satellites, built by L3Harris, are the last spacecraft the agency will launch in its prototype constellation, called Tranche 0. Beginning later this year, the SDA plans to kick off a rapid-fire launch campaign with SpaceX and United Launch Alliance to quickly build out its operational Tranche 1 constellation, with launches set to occur at one-month intervals to deploy approximately 150 satellites. Then, there will be a Tranche 2 constellation with more advanced sensor technologies.

The primary payloads aboard Wednesday’s launch were for the MDA. These two Hypersonic and Ballistic Tracking Space Sensor (HBTSS) satellites, one supplied by L3Harris and the other by Northrop Grumman, will demonstrate medium field-of-view sensors. Those sensors can’t cover as much territory as the SDA satellites but will provide more sensitive and detailed missile tracking data.

This illustration shows how the HBTSS satellites can track hypersonic missiles as they glide and maneuver through the atmosphere, evading detection by conventional missile tracking spacecraft, such as the Space Force's DSP and SBIRS satellites.

This illustration shows how the HBTSS satellites can track hypersonic missiles as they glide and maneuver through the atmosphere, evading detection by conventional missile tracking spacecraft, such as the Space Force’s DSP and SBIRS satellites.

“Our advanced satellites on orbit will bring the integrated and resilient missile warning and defense capabilities the US requires against adversaries developing more advanced maneuverable missiles,” said Christopher Kubasik, chairman and CEO of L3Harris. “L3Harris delivered this advanced missile tracking capability on behalf of MDA and SDA on orbit in just over three years after work was authorized to proceed. We are proud to be a critical part of the new space sensing architecture.”

The HBTSS satellites, valued at more than $300 million, and the SDA’s tracking prototypes will participate in joint military exercises in the coming months, where the wide-view SDA satellites will provide “cueing data” to the MDA’s HBTSS spacecraft. The narrower field of view of the HBTSS satellites can provide more specific, target-quality data to a ground-based interceptor, according to a report last year published by the Congressional Research Service. Future tranches, or generations, of SDA satellites will incorporate the medium field-of-view sensing capability flying on the MDA’s HBTSS satellites.

With SDA taking over the responsibility for making this technology operational, that will leave the MDA, which has historically flown its own missile tracking satellites, focused on next-generation sensor development, an MDA spokesperson told Ars.

Military officials decided only last year to place the four SDA satellites on the same launch as the MDA’s HBTSS mission. With all six satellites flying in the same orbital plane, there will be opportunities to see the same targets with both types of spacecraft and sensors. These targets may include scheduled US military missile tests or foreign launches.

“The intent to be able to work with cooperative and noncooperative targets to be able to do our demonstrations,” a senior SDA official said during a background briefing.

SpaceX launches military satellites tuned to track hypersonic missiles Read More »

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SpaceX takes a proactive step toward responsible behavior in orbit

orbital debris, Science, Space, spacex, starlink / /

Clearing one’s orbit —

“We commend this commitment as a first step.”

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A group of Starlink satellites assembled and ready for a launch.

Enlarge / SpaceX’s V2 Mini Starlink satellites awaiting launch.

SpaceX

SpaceX announced this week that it will voluntarily bring down about 100 of its first-generation Starlink satellites, which provide broadband Internet from low-Earth orbit, as part of its commitment to “space sustainability.”

The satellites are presently operational and serving Internet customers. However, in a statement, the company said, “The Starlink team identified a common issue in this small population of satellites that could increase the probability of failure in the future.”

This only represents a small fraction of the Starlink megaconstellation, which SpaceX has been launching on Falcon 9 rockets over the last half-decade. To date, SpaceX has put nearly 6,000 satellites into orbit a few hundred kilometers above the planet. This rapid growth in the company’s constellation has raised widespread concerns about the cluttering of low-Earth orbit and the potential for a profusion of debris.

Previously, SpaceX has initiated controlled de-orbits of 406 satellites. The vast majority of these have already entered Earth’s atmosphere and burnt up. However, 17 have become non-maneuverable. These are in decaying orbits and will eventually burn up in Earth’s atmosphere. Until such time, they are being tracked to prevent collisions with other satellites.

In its announcement this week, SpaceX is saying it will bring down about 100 additional Starlink satellites.

Why is SpaceX doing this?

The company said it is being proactive in deciding to bring down satellites that are currently operational.

“While this proactive approach comes at the cost of losing satellites that are serving users effectively, we believe it is the right thing to do to keep space safe and sustainable—SpaceX encourages all satellite owners and operators to safely de-orbit satellites before they become non-maneuverable,” the statement said.

If nothing else, this is a clever public relations move to get out ahead of satellite de-orbits that the space-tracking community would have spotted eventually. SpaceX is controlling the narrative, and it seems to have worked. The release of this information has, based upon several people I have spoken with, engendered goodwill in the community of scientists and activists who worry about orbital debris, clutter, and the sustainability of activity in low-Earth orbit.

However, there appears to be more to this announcement than simple public relations. SpaceX operates nearly two-thirds of all the active satellites in low-Earth orbit, and it is taking responsibility for reducing the likelihood of uncontrolled satellites whizzing around the planet hundreds of kilometers above the surface.

In this sense, SpaceX has taken an important step toward the establishment of a norm: proactive de-orbiting of one’s satellites.

What are the implications of it?

One of the fiercest protectors of low-Earth orbit is Moriba Jah, a co-founder and chief scientist at Privateer, a company that helps monitor congestion in orbit and seeks to enable sustainable growth of the new space economy. Jah told Ars he welcomed this step by SpaceX.

“Ensuring the safety and accessibility of space for all stakeholders is essential and we commend this commitment as a first step,” he said. “Proactive measures to deorbit satellites and share position information represent significant steps toward mitigating the risks associated with space debris.”

However, he added, this is just an interim step toward what should be a long-term goal—the recycling of satellites in space.

“While it may seem economically prudent to deorbit satellites and let them burn up in the atmosphere, the long-term implications of such practices on space sustainability, and the atmosphere itself, cannot be overlooked,” he said. “The long-term path to a circular space economy is in the adoption of reusable and recyclable satellites.”

This approach would reduce the potential for orbital debris and foster a culture of responsible space operations.

There has been some government leadership in this direction. The United States, primarily but not exclusively through NASA, has been pushing for in-space repairing and reviving of satellites to extend their useful lifetimes, including refurbishment activities. Additionally, the European Space Agency has embraced a “Zero Debris Charter” to drive the development of technologies required for no more debris to be left in orbit by 2030.

In releasing this statement, and proactively deorbiting its own spacecraft, the world’s largest operator of satellites has indicated that it wants to play ball.

SpaceX takes a proactive step toward responsible behavior in orbit Read More »

can-you-sanitize-the-inside-of-your-nose-to-prevent-covid?-nope,-fda-says.

Can you sanitize the inside of your nose to prevent COVID? Nope, FDA says.

COVID-19, fda, health, nasal spray, SARS-CoV-2, Science, warning letter / /

doesn’t pass the sniff test —

There are a lot of COVID nasal sprays for sale, but little data to show they work.

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Can you sanitize the inside of your nose to prevent COVID? Nope, FDA says.

More than four years after SARS-CoV-2 made its global debut, the US Food and Drug Administration is still working to clear out the bogus and unproven products that flooded the market, claiming to prevent, treat, and cure COVID-19.

The latest example is an alcohol-based sanitizer meant to be smeared inside the nostrils. According to its maker, the rub can protect you from becoming infected with SARS-CoV-2 and other nasty germs, like MRSA, and that protection lasts up to 12 hours after each swabbing. That all sounds great, but according to the FDA, none of it is proven. In a warning letter released Tuesday, the agency determined the sanitizer, called Nozin, is an unapproved new drug and misbranded.

While ethyl alcohol is used in common topical antiseptics, like hand sanitizers, the FDA does not generally consider it safe for inside the nostrils—and the agency is unaware of any high-quality clinical data showing the Nozin is safe, let alone effective. The FDA also noted that, for general over-the-counter topical antiseptics, calling out specific pathogens it can fight off—like SARS-CoV-2 and MRSA—is not allowed under agency rules without further FDA review. Making claims about protection duration is also not allowed.

The FDA’s warning letter is nothing to sneeze at; the letter threatens seizure and injunction for failing to adequately respond.

Nozin’s maker, Maryland-based Global Life Technologies Corp., did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Ars. On its website, the company touts its product’s effectiveness with a link to a published study from 2014, indicating that use of Nozin lowered the colonization levels of S. aureus and other bacteria in the noses of 20 healthy health care workers. The study did not address protection from infection or carriage of any viruses. The company also lists unpublished studies indicating that the product can kill bacteria in laboratory conditions, does not irritate skin, and lowered bacterial growth in the noses of 30 people over a 12-hour period.

This is far from the first dubious, nasal-based COVID product the FDA has called out. There was the Corona-cure nasal spray of 2020, and the Halodine and the NanoBio Protect nasal antiseptics of 2021. That year, the Federal Trade Commission sued a company called Xlear over allegedly false claims that its nasal spray can prevent and treat COVID-19. At least two more nasal spray makers received FDA warning letters in 2022.

To date, the FDA has not approved any nasal sprays to prevent or treat COVID-19, and the scant data on their efficacy remains inconclusive. But there are still plenty of such products for sale online. Most, like Nozin, claim to work by killing bacteria and viruses directly. One product, a nitric oxide nasal spray called Sanotize, is currently in a Phase III clinical trial to test whether it can prevent SARS-CoV-2 infections. Others claim to work by coating the nasal passage with the gelling agent iota-carrageenan to provide a barrier to viral entry. A pilot clinical trial of 400 health care workers in Argentina published in 2021 found that the use of an iota-carrageenan nasal spray led to a 4 percent absolute risk reduction in SARS-CoV-2 infection.

Can you sanitize the inside of your nose to prevent COVID? Nope, FDA says. Read More »

google,-environmental-defense-fund-will-track-methane-emissions-from-space

Google, Environmental Defense Fund will track methane emissions from space

edf, Energy, Google, methane, Science, Sustainability / /

It’s a gas —

Satellite data + Google Maps + AI should help figure out where methane is leaking.

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computer-generated image of a satellite highlighting emissions over a small square on the globe.

Enlarge / With color, high resolution.

Google/EDF

When discussing climate change, attention generally focuses on our soaring carbon dioxide emissions. But levels of methane have risen just as dramatically, and it’s a far more potent greenhouse gas. And, unlike carbon dioxide, it’s not the end result of a valuable process; methane largely ends up in the atmosphere as the result of waste, lost during extraction and distribution.

Getting these losses under control would be one of the easiest ways to slow down greenhouse warming. But tracking methane emissions often comes from lots of smaller, individual sources. To help get a handle on all the leaks, the Environmental Defense Fund has been working to put its own methane-monitoring satellite in orbit. On Wednesday, it announced that it was partnering with Google to take the data from the satellite, make it publicly available, and tie it to specific sources.

The case for MethaneSAT

Over the course of 20 years, methane is 84 times more potent than carbon dioxide when it comes to greenhouse warming. And most methane in the atmosphere ultimately reacts with oxygen, producing water vapor and carbon dioxide—both of which are also greenhouse gasses. Those numbers are offset by the fact that methane levels in the atmosphere are very low, currently just under two parts per million (versus over 400 ppm for CO2). Still, levels have gone up considerably since monitoring started.

The primary source of the excess methane is the extraction and distribution of natural gas. In the US, the EPA has developed rules meant to force companies with natural gas infrastructure to find and fix leaks. (Unsurprisingly, Texas plans to sue to block this rule.) But finding leaks has turned out to be a challenge. The US has been using industry-wide estimates that turned out to be much lower than numbers based on monitoring a subset of facilities.

Globally, that sort of detailed surveying simply isn’t possible, and we don’t have the type of satellite-based instruments we need to focus on methane emissions. A researcher behind one global survey said, “We were quite disappointed because we discovered that the sensitivity of our system was pretty low.” (The survey did identify sites that were “ultra emitters” despite the sensitivity issues.)

To help identify the major sources of methane release, the Environmental Defense Fund, a US-based NGO, has spun off a project called MethaneSAT that will monitor the emissions from space. The project is backed by large philanthropic donations and has partnered with the New Zealand Space Agency. The Rocket Lab launch company will build the satellite control center in New Zealand, while SpaceX will carry the 350 kg satellite to orbit in a shared launch, expected in early March.

Once in orbit, the hardware will use methane’s ability to absorb in the infrared—the same property that causes all the problems—to track emissions globally at a resolution down below a square kilometer.

Handling the data

That will generate large volumes of data that countries may struggle to interpret. That’s where the new Google partnership will come in. Google will use the same AI capability it has developed to map features such as roads and sidewalks on satellite images but repurpose it to identify oil and gas infrastructure. Both the MethaneSAT’s emissions data and infrastructure details will be combined and made available via the company’s Google Earth service.

Top image: A view of an area undergoing oil/gas extraction. Left: a close-up of an individual drilling site. Right: Computer-generated color coding of the hardware present at the site.

Top image: A view of an area undergoing oil/gas extraction. Left: a close-up of an individual drilling site. Right: Computer-generated color coding of the hardware present at the site.

Google / EDF

The project builds off work Google has done previously by placing methane monitoring hardware on Street View photography vehicles, also in collaboration with the Environmental Defense Fund.

In a press briefing, Google’s Yael Maguire said that the challenge is keeping things up to date, as infrastructure in the oil and gas industry can change fairly rapidly. While he didn’t use it as an example, one illustration of that challenge was the rapid development of liquified natural gas import infrastructure in Europe in the wake of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The key question, however, is one of who’s going to use this information. Extraction companies could use it to identify the sites of leaks and fix them but are unlikely to do that in the absence of a regulatory requirement. Governments could rely on this information to take regulatory actions but will probably want some sort of independent vetting of the data before doing so. At the moment, all EDF is saying is that it’s engaging in discussions with several parties about potentially using the data.

One clear user will be the academic community, which is already using less-targeted satellite data to explore the issue of methane emissions.

Regardless, as everyone involved in the project emphasizes, getting methane under control is probably the easiest and quickest way to eliminate a bit of impending warming. And that could help countries meet emissions targets without immediately starting on some of the slower and more expensive options. So, even if no one has currently committed to using this data, they may ultimately come around—because using it to do something is better than doing nothing.

Google, Environmental Defense Fund will track methane emissions from space Read More »