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Jul 30, 2023

L-72 Forecast: 80% Favorable for Antares Launch

Posted by in categories: climatology, space

The Wallops Range forecast issued today for the Tuesday, Aug. 1, launch of Northrop Grumman’s 19th resupply mission to the International Space Station puts weather at 80% favorable.

A weak area of high pressure will move off the coast Sunday evening, as a weak upper-level disturbance tracks toward the Wallops region with a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms Monday morning through late Monday evening. The upper-level trough will remain over the Wallops Region Tuesday with a chance of an afternoon, sea breeze, pop-up shower or thunderstorms during the countdown. At this time, the primary concern for launch is a slight chance of cumulus clouds.

NASA commercial cargo provider Northrop Grumman is targeting 8:31 p.m. EDT Tuesday, Aug. 1, for the launch.

Jul 30, 2023

How a Microbial Evolutionary Accident Changed Earth’s Atmosphere

Posted by in category: biotech/medical

An extra membrane that once had digestive functions let marine microbes boost their yield from photosynthesis. Today, they’re responsible for locking carbon in the ocean and putting oxygen in the air.

Jul 30, 2023

Supermassive black hole found spitting a giant, high-energy jet toward Earth

Posted by in category: cosmology

NASA has identified a supermassive black hole blasting its energetic jets straight toward Earth. Don’t worry, though, this blazar is located 400 million light-years away.

Jul 30, 2023

Covid was created by Chinese military scientist before Wuhan lab leak as US spies probe bombshell claims, says author

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, military

US spies are probing whether Covid was created by a Chinese military scientist before it leaked from a Wuhan lab, according to reports.

Zhou Yusen, who worked for the People’s Liberation Army, filed a patent for a Covid vaccine before the pandemic was declared — and mysteriously died just weeks later.

Zhou, 54, worked alongside researchers at the under-fire Wuhan Institute of Virology — the lab at the centre of the storm over a possible lab leak.

Jul 30, 2023

Infineon Is Using Circuit Boards That Can Be Recycled Using Hot Water

Posted by in category: materials

Germany’s largest semiconductor manufacturer, Infineon Technologies, is using printed circuit boards (PCB) that can easily be recycled by immersing them in hot water.

Infineon is experimenting with a biodegradeable PCB developed by UK start-up Jiva Materials. It’s called Soluboard and is manufactured from natural fibers, a number of other biodegradeable ingredients, and a halogen-free polymer. The finished board is as flame retardant as other PCB substrates on the market today.

When Soluboard is immersed in warm water the polymer dissolves and the layers of the composite material delaminate, which allows the fibers to be composted and the “remaining solution” can be safely disposed of just like waste water. The additional benefit of these PCBs is the way in which they breakdown (see the image below), allowing 90% of the components attached to a board to be reclaimed and then either reused or recycled.

Continue reading “Infineon Is Using Circuit Boards That Can Be Recycled Using Hot Water” »

Jul 30, 2023

Genome editing prevents hypertrophic cardiomyopathy in mice

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, genetics

In a recent study published in the journal Nature Medicine, researchers pursued one-time cures for hypertrophic cardiomyopathy (HCM). They used a previously constructed murine model of HCM, designated as R403Q-129SvEv, to evaluate two different genetic therapies, as follows:

I) an adenine base editor (ABE8e)

Ii) a potent Cas9 nuclease delivered by an adeno-associated virus (AAV) vector.

Jul 30, 2023

Meet the 29-year-old doctor leading Bryan Johnson’s $2 million per year reverse aging process, who costs up to $1,000 an hour

Posted by in categories: biotech/medical, life extension

https://youtube.com/watch?v=TpME8ShuDNg

Oliver Zolman, best known for leading tech CEO Bryan Johnson’s anti-aging process, reportedly charges up to $1,000 per hour.

Jul 30, 2023

NASA is planning to use nuclear power for the first human trip to Mars

Posted by in categories: nuclear energy, space travel

The space race has been revived, but this time, the goal post has been shifted much further – to Mars. As recent technological advancements promise to open new horizons of exploration, NASA plans to cut the travel time to Mars with a nuclear-powered spacecraft.

A trip to Mars currently takes approximately seven months, covering a staggering 300-million-mile journey. NASA, in collaboration with the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), now proposes an ambitious plan that hinges on the promise of nuclear thermal propulsion technology to reduce this duration significantly.

NASA aims to launch a nuclear-powered spacecraft, known as DRACO (Demonstration Rocket for Agile Cislunar Operations), into Earth’s orbit either by late 2025 or early 2026. The spacecraft, under construction by Lockheed Martin, a leading aerospace and defense company, will serve as a testbed for this groundbreaking technology.

Jul 30, 2023

Falcon Heavy was able to launch the world’s largest commercial communications satellite, Jupiter 3, which weighs more than 9,000kg and is the size of a minibus, into orbit on the second attempt

Posted by in category: satellites

The day before, SpaceX was still able to send the Jupiter-3 satellite into space using a Falcon Heavy rocket. A few days earlier, the launch was cancelled for unknown reasons when the countdown stopped at the 65-second mark.

Here’s What We Know

Falcon Heavy failed to set a world record for payload mass. The minibus-sized Jupiter 3 weighs more than 9,000kg, and Hughes Network Systems calls it the world’s largest commercial communications satellite. But the record belongs to Europe’s Ariane 5 rocket, which sent two satellites into orbit weighing a combined 10.2 tonnes. This happened two years ago.

Jul 30, 2023

Google-backed startup sets two world records in geothermal power

Posted by in category: energy

A Google-backed startup has successfully tested an enhanced geothermal system that could harness Earth’s inner heat to generate clean electricity anywhere, anytime — and they built it, ironically, with technology perfected by the oil industry.

The challenge: Geothermal power plants take advantage of the heat radiating from deep inside the Earth to create electricity. Usually, this is done by drilling wells down to natural underground reservoirs of hot water and using that steam to spin electric turbines.

This is a clean, reliable source of energy, but it is hard to scale. The need to build geothermal plants near existing hydrothermal reservoirs, which are relatively rare, limits its use to a handful of places — today, geothermal supplies just 0.4% of the US’s utility-scale electricity.