Month: July 2023

Enlarge / A box of borax—not for eating. (credit: Getty | Lauren A. Little)

In the latest health fad to alarm and exasperate medical experts, people on TikTok have cheerily "hopped on the borax train" and are drinking and soaking in the toxic cleaning product based on false claims that it can reduce inflammation, treat arthritis, and "detoxify" the body.

The troubling trend harkens back to both the Tide Pod Challenge trend of 2018, in which teens chomped down on detergent packets on camera, and the infamous "Church of Bleach," a faux religious organization that sold industrial beach as a "miracle" solution that could cure a variety of serious diseases when ingested. (The family was recently found guilty of fraud and now awaits sentencing.)

Like the bogus trends that came before them, the new borax enthusiasts have drawn on well-worn conspiracy theories and dubious data to support their poisonous practice. In one video, a TikTok user explained that she put borax in her smoothies because "they are spraying us with chemtrails." Others have suggested borax's unproven health benefits are being purposefully stifled by Big Pharma in a conspiracy to keep people paying for more expensive (and regulated) pharmaceutical products—a common refrain among people peddling unproven health and wellness products.

Enlarge / Artist's illustration of a Starship vehicle in low-Earth orbit.

You've probably heard about SpaceX's plans to use its giant new Starship vehicle to land people on the Moon and Mars, send numerous Starlink satellites or large telescopes into space, or perhaps even serve as a high-speed point-to-point terrestrial transport for equipment or people.

There's another application for SpaceX's Starship architecture that the company is studying, and NASA is on board to lend expertise. Though still in a nascent phase of tech development, the effort could result in repurposing Starship into a commercial space station, something NASA has a keen interest in because there are no plans for a government-owned research lab in low-Earth orbit after the International Space Station is decommissioned after 2030.

The space agency announced last month a new round of agreements with seven commercial companies, including SpaceX. The Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) program is an effort established to advance private sector development of emerging products and services that could be available to customers—including NASA—in approximately five to seven years.

Enlarge / Artist's illustration of a Starship vehicle in low-Earth orbit.

You've probably heard about SpaceX's plans to use its giant new Starship vehicle to land people on the Moon and Mars, send numerous Starlink satellites or large telescopes into space, or perhaps even serve as a high-speed point-to-point terrestrial transport for equipment or people.

There's another application for SpaceX's Starship architecture that the company is studying, and NASA is on board to lend expertise. Though still in a nascent phase of tech development, the effort could result in repurposing Starship into a commercial space station, something NASA has a keen interest in because there are no plans for a government-owned research lab in low-Earth orbit after the International Space Station is decommissioned after 2030.

The space agency announced last month a new round of agreements with seven commercial companies, including SpaceX. The Collaborations for Commercial Space Capabilities (CCSC) program is an effort established to advance private sector development of emerging products and services that could be available to customers—including NASA—in approximately five to seven years.

Enlarge / A look inside the clean room where OSIRIS-REx's samples will be stored. (credit: NASA)

Christmas Day for scientists who study asteroids is coming in just two months when a small spacecraft carrying material from a distant rubble pile will land in a Utah desert.

The return of the OSIRIS-REx sample container on September 24 will cap the primary mission to capture material from an asteroid—in this case, the carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid Bennu—and return some of its pebbles and dust to Earth.

It has been a long time coming. This mission launched seven years ago and has been in the planning and development phase for over a decade. To say the scientists who have fought for and executed this mission are anxious and excited is an understatement. But there is an additional frisson with OSIRIS-REx, as scientists are not entirely sure what they've been able to pull away from the asteroid.

Enlarge / A look inside the clean room where OSIRIS-REx's samples will be stored. (credit: NASA)

Christmas Day for scientists who study asteroids is coming in just two months when a small spacecraft carrying material from a distant rubble pile will land in a Utah desert.

The return of the OSIRIS-REx sample container on September 24 will cap the primary mission to capture material from an asteroid—in this case, the carbonaceous near-Earth asteroid Bennu—and return some of its pebbles and dust to Earth.

It has been a long time coming. This mission launched seven years ago and has been in the planning and development phase for over a decade. To say the scientists who have fought for and executed this mission are anxious and excited is an understatement. But there is an additional frisson with OSIRIS-REx, as scientists are not entirely sure what they've been able to pull away from the asteroid.