NASA’s Psyche spacecraft completed its close approach of Mars on May 15, coming within 2,864 miles (4,609 kilometers) of the planet’s surface. This flyby used
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A success for the launch of the Smile satellite to study how the Earth’s magnetosphere responds to the solar wind
A few hours ago, the Smile satellite was launched from the Kourou Spaceport in French Guiana atop a Vega-C rocket. After about 56 minutes, the Smile satellite separated from the rocket’s last stage and began maneuvers that are scheduled to last approximately 25 days. Eleven burns of the spacecraft’s engines will lengthen its orbit, initially circular at an altitude of approximately 700 kilometers, to approximately 121,000 kilometers above the North Pole and approximately 5,000 kilometers above the South Pole.
The Smile (Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer) mission is a joint project between ESA and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, and is part of ESA’s Cosmic Vision program, which aims to improve our understanding of the solar system. In this case, the focus is on the solar wind and how Earth responds to it. Geomagnetic storms and auroras show, in sometimes spectacular ways, the effects of charged particles from the Sun on the Earth’s magnetosphere.
The Smile satellite is equipped with four instruments designed to study the effects of the solar wind in various ways. It’s not the first mission designed to study the magnetosphere and its interactions with the solar wind, and each new satellite offers new insights. The Smile mission is the first to focus on the mechanisms that lead to the transfer of energy from the solar wind to the Earth’s atmosphere to observe them fully on a global scale.
Commercial Space Economy: Space Stations, Space Data Centers, and NASA
Matthew Weinzierl and Brendan Rosseau, authors of Space to Grow, explain the commercial space economy and the role of NASA, Artemis, commercial space stations, space-based data centers, Starlink, GPS, China’s space program, national security, and space governance.
The conversation covers how governments, private companies, and investors build, fund, regulate, and compete in space, from microgravity research and launch markets to lunar exploration, space resources, and the economics of commercial space.
We also try and re-write the Space Treaty and look at the politics of the space race.
Please enjoy the show.
Thinking on Paper is a technology podcast about AI, Space, quantum computing, science, and the systems shaping the future.
🏠 Buy us a beer on Substack: https://thinkingonpaperpodcast.substa… Take us with you on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/00volKq… 🎧 Remember steve jobs on APPLE: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast… 📺 Get the clips and outtakes on Instagram / thinkingonpaperpodcast — Links & Resources Matthew: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/pro… Brendan: linkedin.com/in/brendan-rosseau Buy Space To Grow: https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/ite… — Chapters 00:00 Setting The Scene 03:35 Microgravity 07:43 Economic Incentives 12:14 Political Cycles 17:09 International Collaboration 18:45 National Security in Space 21:36 Space Exploration 24:27 A Day Without Space 28:49 Space Investment 30:37 Space-Based Data Centers 33:40 Space Resources 38:26 Governance in Space 40:55 A New Space Treaty.
Discovery and engineering of retrons for precise genome editing
An extremely interesting new technology which combines bacterial retrons with CRISPR-Cas for localized generation of single-stranded DNA inserts and subsequent targeted genome editing. I remember reading about retrons as an obscure biological phenomenon years ago in a monograph called Mobile DNA III, so it’s awesome to see them leveraged in this way!
A metagenomic screen identifies retron reverse transcriptases for precise genome-editing applications.
A DNA-organizing protein offers new insight into infertility, IVF and generational health
The causes of male infertility can be hard to diagnose, with many tests failing to detect genetic defects. Sometimes, infertility doesn’t even involve the genes themselves. It can arise from improper folding of the father’s DNA in the sperm. If a couple conceives, this mispackaged DNA can damage the lifelong health of the child.
“Paternal health is critical to sperm quality and the health of the offspring,” said Satoshi Namekawa, a professor of microbiology and molecular genetics. “Understanding the packing and folding of DNA in sperm cells is a fundamental question in modern biology.”
Namekawa and Ph.D. student Yu-Han Yeh have now unveiled an important new piece of this puzzle. They have identified a protein, called DAXX, that guides how sperm DNA is organized. DAXX silences thousands of genes so they don’t interfere with reproduction. It also keeps a handful of crucial genes turned on—shaping the delicate, early stages of embryonic development. The work was published recently in Genes & Development.
It took 40 years for technology to catch up to this zipper design
In 1985, the Innovative Design Fund placed an ad in Scientific American offering up to $10,000 to support clever prototypes for clothing, home decor, and textiles. William Freeman PhD ’92, then an electrical engineer at Polaroid and now an MIT professor, saw it and submitted a novel idea: a three-sided zipper. Instead of fastening pants, it’d be like a switch that seamlessly flips chairs, tents, and purses between soft and rigid states, making them easier to pack and put together.
Freeman’s blueprint was much like a regular zipper, except triangular. On each side, he nailed a belt to connect narrow wooden ‘teeth’ together. A slider wrapping around the device could be moved up to fasten the three strips into place, straightening them into a triangular tube. His proposal was rejected, but Freeman patented his prototype and stored it in his garage in the hopes it might come in handy one day.
Nearly 40 years later, MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) researchers wanted to revive the project to create items with ‘tunable stiffness.’ Prior attempts to adjust that weren’t easily reversible or required manual assembly, so CSAIL built an automated design tool and adaptable fastener called the ‘Y-zipper.’ The scientists’ software program helps users customize three-sided zippers, which it then builds on its own in a 3D printer using plastics. These devices can be attached or embedded into camping equipment, medical gear, robots, and art installations for more convenient assembly.
A new system developed at MIT CSAIL helps users design three-sided fasteners called “Y-zippers,” then 3D prints them. The devices can be attached or embedded to camping equipment, medical gear, robots, and art installations, seamlessly switching each item between soft and rigid.
Ancient Martian valley holds major clues to a past ocean
New images of Shalbatana Vallis from ESA’s Mars Express orbiter reveal well-preserved geological clues of past water and lava activity on ancient Mars. [ https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30564/ancient-martia…st-ocean-2](https://www.labroots.com/trending/space/30564/ancient-martia…st-ocean-2)
How much water and lava flowed across the surface of Mars billions of years ago? This is what a recent image obtained from the European Space Agency’s Mars Express orbiter hopes to figure out as the more than two-decade-old orbiter captured incredible images that could help researchers piece together the environment on ancient Mars. This is because these images offer clues of past water and lava activity on Mars when the Red Planet was far warmer and wetter than it is today.
This latest image reveals a vast area comprised of a mixture of buried and visible impact craters, eroded hills and mesas, wrinkle ridges from lava cooling and contracting, chaotic terrain from the melting of ice, dark volcanic ash, and a massive channel called Shalbatana Vallis where researchers hypothesize was craved from massive amounts of groundwater that swelled up to the Martian surface. Because Mars lack plate tectonics like Earth, these landforms have been well-preserved for billions of years. Once Mars became incapable of having liquid water on its surface, the Martian wind and dust buried and eroded some of these features, though not to the extent as we see erosion on Earth.
This Gene Is Linked to Lower Alzheimer’s Risk — And We May Finally Know Why
There’s something special about the APOE2 variant of the APOE (apolipoprotein E) gene: People who carry it tend to live longer, and they have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s disease.
Scientists are still trying to figure out why, and now, they have a new lead.
A team led by researchers at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging in the US set out to answer that question using human stem cell-derived neurons and mouse studies.