Month: May 2018

Enlarge / The Block 5 version of the Falcon 9 rocket stands on a launch pad at Kennedy Space Center on Thursday. (credit: SpaceX)

On Thursday, a few hours before SpaceX was due to launch a new version of its Falcon 9 rocket, company CEO Elon Musk admitted he was nervous. SpaceX had significantly revamped the nine-engine booster that had powered its astonishing rise to the top of the aerospace industry. Now came the final test.

"The reason that it's so hard to make an orbital rocket work is that your passing grade is 100 percent, and you can't fully and properly test an orbital rocket until it launches," Musk said. He paused a moment and then added, "Man, anyway, I'm stressed."

As it turned out, the Block 5 version of the Falcon 9 rocket did not undergo its orbital test on Thursday, as the ground control systems at Kennedy Space Center stopped the rocket's countdown with just 58 seconds to go. Because there were only about 30 minutes left in the two-hour launch window to send the Bangabandhu Satellite-1 to geostationary transfer orbit, the company ultimately had to scrub and turn around to try for a second launch attempt Friday.

Enlarge / The battle of Liegnitz, 1241. From a medieval manuscript of the Hedwig legend. (credit: Wikimedia Commons)

Next time you picture a Mongol horde sweeping across the Asian steppes on horseback, imagine that about two-thirds of them have liver disease. Hepatitis B is a virus that attacks the liver, causing scarring, organ failure, and sometimes cancer. Its origins and evolutionary history are still a bit of an enigma, but viral DNA left behind in the bones and teeth of ancient people from the Asian steppe may help reconstruct part of our long history with the disease.

The virus showed up in what have been considered extraneous sequences of DNA that are associated with DNA samples but not part of the human genome. Typically, software gets rid of these sequences and uses what's left to assemble the human genome.

Viruses and genomes

While DNA sequencing has focused on the human portion of human genome data, that's starting to change. “Originally, this was nothing we paid much attention to. It was just expensive and kind of a waste product, but now we've started investigating this waste product for possible positives,” said Copenhagen University evolutionary geneticist Eske Willerslev. It's how his team found evidence that Mongol warriors from the steppe carried an early form of the pathogen that would later become the 541-542 CE Justinian Plague.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | ljhimages)

AT&T has told employees that hiring President Trump's personal lawyer was a "big mistake." AT&T is also reportedly forcing its chief lobbyist to retire.

"Our company has been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons these last few days and our reputation has been damaged," AT&T CEO Randall Stephenson told employees in an internal memo Friday. "There is no other way to say it—AT&T hiring Michael Cohen as a political consultant was a big mistake."

The memo was published by The Washington Post. The memo said that chief lobbyist Bob Quinn is retiring, "but a person familiar with the matter said Mr. Quinn was being forced to leave," according to The Wall Street Journal.

Enlarge (credit: Boring Company)

Elon Musk's Boring Company is nearing completion of its first tunnel—a 2.7-mile span in West Los Angeles. In a Thursday evening Instagram post, the mogul showed off a fly-through video:

"Pending final regulatory approvals, we will be offering free rides to the public in a few months," Musk wrote. "As mentioned in prior posts, once fully operational (demo system rides will be free), the system will always give priority to pods for pedestrians & cyclists for less than the cost of a bus ticket."

"The tunnel's proposed route runs parallel to Sepulveda Boulevard, starting at Pico Boulevard and running down to Washington Boulevard in Culver City," the LA Times reports. LA officials waived environmental reviews to give Musk a chance to test out the technology.