Month: September 2023

Enlarge / A Falcon 9 rocket lifts off August 31 from Space Launch Complex 40 at Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida. (credit: SpaceX)

It probably seems like SpaceX is launching almost every day, and that's not far from the case. It also might seem like SpaceX is regularly breaking one of its records, whether it's in the number of launches, turnaround time, or reusing Falcon 9 boosters. It's also true.

SpaceX blew past one of those records over Labor Day weekend when the company launched a Falcon 9 rocket from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida. This mission was SpaceX's 62nd launch of the year using its Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy rocket, or 63rd if you count the test flight of the Starship mega-rocket in April.

SpaceX has launched 83 Falcon 9 or Falcon Heavy missions over the past 12 months.

Enlarge / Orange amphipods caught the eye (and interest) of Brown University graduate students conducting field research. (credit: David Johnson)

Scour the salt marshes of Plum Island Estuary in Massachusetts and you're likely to spot bright orange shrimp lurking among the vegetation and detritus. That unusual hue is a sign that a shrimp has been infected with a parasitic worm, which also seems to affect the shrimp's behavior. Infected shrimp typically become sluggish and spend more time exposed in the open marsh, easy pickings for hungry birds. Now biologists at Brown University have sequenced the DNA of these shrimp to hone in on the molecular mechanisms behind the changes, according to a recent paper published in the journal Molecular Ecology.

“This may be an example of a parasite manipulating an intermediate host to ensure its own transmission between hosts,” said co-author David Rand of Brown University, drawing an analogy to how malaria spreads to humans via the intermediary of mosquito bites. “Rabies could be another relevant example: it drives infected individuals ‘mad’ so they bite others and infect the next host. Learning the molecular mechanisms of these kinds of host-parasite interactions can have important implications for how to manage pathogens generally, and in humans.”

Parasites that control and alter the behavior of their hosts are well-known in nature. Most notably, there is a family of zombifying parasitic fungi called Cordyceps—more than 400 different species, each targeting a particular insect species, whether it be ants, dragonflies, cockroaches, aphids, or beetles. In fact, The Last of Us game co-creator Neil Druckmann has said the premise was partly inspired by an episode of the BBC nature documentary Planet Earth (narrated by Sir David Attenborough) portraying the "zombification" of an ant in vivid detail. Scientists are keen to study Cordyceps to learn more about the origins and intricate mechanisms behind these kinds of pathogen-based diseases.

Enlarge / The Space Launch System rocket is seen on its launch pad, LC-39B, in Florida. (credit: Trevor Mahlmann)

In a new report, the federal department charged with analyzing how efficiently US taxpayer dollars are spent, the Government Accountability Office, says NASA lacks transparency on the true costs of its Space Launch System rocket program.

Published on Thursday, the new report (see .pdf) examines the billions of dollars spent by NASA on development of the massive rocket, which made a successful debut launch in late 2022 with the Artemis I mission. Surprisingly, as part of the reporting process, NASA officials admitted the rocket was too expensive to support its lunar exploration efforts as part of the Artemis program.

"Senior NASA officials told GAO that at current cost levels, the SLS program is unaffordable," the new report states.

Enlarge (credit: Marc Bruxelle)

"Climate breakdown has begun," declared UN Secretary-General António Guterres. Guterres is not a climate expert himself, but in this case, he's basing his opinion on the data and analyses generated by the actual experts. If you thought this year was a bit of a weather suffer-fest, it probably wasn't your imagination, as the Northern Hemisphere has just experienced its hottest summer on record, driving the year to date into the second-hottest position.

While the weather isn't climate, the climate sets limits on the sort of weather we should expect. And a growing number of analyses of this year's weather show that climate change has been in the driver's seat for several events.

Hot, hot, hot

On Wednesday, the World Meteorological Organization released its August data, showing that the month was the second hottest on record and the hottest August we have experienced since temperature records have been maintained. The only month that has ever been warmer is... the one immediately before it, July 2023.

Enlarge (credit: Chesnot / Contributor | Getty Images Europe)

Recently, Elon Musk has made it clear that he blames advocates speaking out about hate speech for plummeting ad revenue on X, the platform formerly known as Twitter. But today, Reuters published an exclusive interview with a former Twitter ad exec, AJ Brown, who seemed to push back on Musk's narrative.

The platform's former head of brand safety and ad quality suggested that X advertisers aren't just pulling back as a knee-jerk reaction to critics' claims that the platform has become increasingly toxic under Musk. Brown told Reuters that X shifting its content moderation policy to "limiting reach" of offensive content—rather than removing the content—"made it challenging to convince brands" that Musk's social media platform "was safe for ads."

"Helping people wrap their minds around the concept that violating a policy would no longer result in the removal of whatever was violating the policy, was a difficult message to communicate to people," Brown told Reuters.

Enlarge (credit: Atari / Benj Edwards)

On Thursday, Atari announced that it will acquire AtariAge, a popular online community for the Atari enthusiasts over two decades. AtariAge is best-known for selling Atari 2600, 5200, and 7800 console homebrews in high-quality cartridge form, as well as games, for the Atari line of computers and other retro systems.

"Atari is now taking its retro-related IP seriously and is creating a wide array of hardware and software based on that IP, while also creating new, original content," wrote AtariAge founder Albert Yarusso in a statement posted on the AtariAge forums.

Yarusso says he will take on a full-time role with Atari and continue to run AtariAge as usual but will have more time to focus on fixing up the site's games database, which he feels needs updating. Still, AtariAge is showing no signs of slowing down on the homebrew front, planning to publish 20 new games on a variety of retro platforms in time for the upcoming Portland Retro Gaming Expo in October.

Enlarge (credit: Atari / Benj Edwards)

On Thursday, Atari announced that it will acquire AtariAge, a popular online community for the Atari enthusiasts over two decades. AtariAge is best-known for selling Atari 2600, 5200, and 7800 console homebrews in high-quality cartridge form, as well as games, for the Atari line of computers and other retro systems.

"Atari is now taking its retro-related IP seriously and is creating a wide array of hardware and software based on that IP, while also creating new, original content," wrote AtariAge founder Albert Yarusso in a statement posted on the AtariAge forums.

Yarusso says he will take on a full-time role with Atari and continue to run AtariAge as usual but will have more time to focus on fixing up the site's games database, which he feels needs updating. Still, AtariAge is showing no signs of slowing down on the homebrew front, planning to publish 20 new games on a variety of retro platforms in time for the upcoming Portland Retro Gaming Expo in October.

Enlarge / The Federal Communications Commission seal hangs inside a meeting room at the headquarters ahead of an open commission meeting in Washington, DC, on Thursday, December 14, 2017. (credit: Getty Images | Bloomberg)

The US Senate today confirmed nominee Anna Gomez to the Federal Communications Commission, finally giving President Biden a Democratic majority on the telecom regulator more than two and a half years into his presidency. The vote to confirm Gomez was 55-43 and went mostly along party lines.

Biden's first nominee was Gigi Sohn, a longtime consumer advocate who drew united opposition from Republicans and doubts from more conservative Democrats. Sohn withdrew her nomination in March 2023, blaming the cable lobby and "unlimited dark money" for scuttling her appointment. The Senate never scheduled a floor vote on Sohn.

Biden tried again in May with the nomination of Gomez, a State Department digital policy official who was previously deputy assistant secretary at the US National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) from 2009 to 2023. A lawyer, Gomez was vice president of government affairs at Sprint Nextel from 2006 to 2009 and before that spent about 12 years at the FCC in several roles.