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Category Archives: Transhuman News

Trio Finalizes Packing, Science Activities Before Friday Departure – NASA Blogs

Posted: April 6, 2024 at 11:37 am

Astronaut Loral OHara is pictured inside the cupola as the orbital complex soared 259 miles above Turkmenistan.

The 10 residents aboard the International Space Station worked a half-day then went to bed early on Friday resting up before the departure of three crewmates. During their shortened day, the orbital crewmates packed the departing Soyuz crew ship and continued ongoing science tasks.

NASA astronaut Loral OHara along with Roscosmos cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya are in their sleep period having gone to bed just before lunchtime. The trio is sleep-shifting before entering the Soyuz MS-24 crew ship and undocking from the Rassvet module at 11:54 p.m. EDT tonight. They will ride the Soyuz back to Earth and parachute to a landing in Kazakhstan at 3:17 a.m. on Saturday (12:17 p.m. Kazakh time). Live mission coverage will begin at 8 p.m. on Friday on NASA+, NASA TV, the NASA app, YouTube, and the agencys website.

On Friday morning, OHara finished her packing work and wrapped up biomedical activities documenting her adaptation to microgravity. Novitskiy continued transferring cargo inside the Soyuz and made final checks of the spacecrafts systems. Vasilevskaya relaxed during her shift. The threesome will wake up several hours before their departure, finalize science tasks, and complete loading the Soyuz spacecraft.

NASA Flight Engineers Matthew Dominick and Tracy C. Dyson teamed up Friday morning for biology work inside the Destiny laboratory module. The duo cleaned habitats and fed mice being observed for a study testing a gene therapy to improve eye health in space. NASA Flight Engineers Mike Barratt and Jeanette Epps gathered in the Kibo laboratory module and removed external research hardware that had been placed outside in the space environment. The gear holds samples exposed to space radiation and extreme temperatures to inform the development of advanced materials and promote the commercial space industry.

Cosmonauts Oleg Kononenko and Alexander Grebenkin began their day swabbing station surfaces and collecting microbe samples for analysis. Kononenko also prepared salt tablets for the departing crewmates to ingest and help with their adjustment to Earths gravity. Roscosmos Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub also assisted with the microbe sampling duties then stowed protein crystal growth kits inside the returning Soyuz crew ship.

Learn more about station activities by following thespace station blog,@space_stationand@ISS_Researchon X, as well as theISS FacebookandISS Instagramaccounts.

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Brain Research Tops Science Schedule Ahead of Crew Departure – NASA Blogs

Posted: at 11:37 am

Astronaut Mike Barratt processes brain organoid samples to learn how microgravity affects the central nervous system and ways to counteract neurodegenerative conditions.

Brain research topped the science schedule on Wednesday while the Expedition 70 crew kept up its cargo work. Three individuals also continue focusing on their departure from the International Space Station this weekend.

The Human Brain Organoid Models for Neurogenerative Disease and Drug Discovery (HBOND) investigation on the station is helping researchers understand how microgravity affects the central nervous system. Results may also shed light on ways to prevent and treat Parkinsons disease and multiple sclerosis on Earth. NASA astronauts Mike Barratt and Tracy C. Dyson treated brain organoid samples exposed to Parkinsons and multiple sclerosis with a drug injection for the neurodegenerative disease study today. Those samples will be analyzed under the KERMIT fluorescence microscope to evaluate the effectiveness of the drug treatment.

Barratt then moved on and cleaned cupola window scratch panes in preparation for the total eclipse of the sun on April 8 before joining NASA Flight Engineer Loral OHara for an eye exam. OHara imaged Barratts retina, optic nerve, and cornea using standard medical imaging hardware with support from doctors on the ground. Earlier in the day, OHara operated the Ultrasound 2 device and scanned the neck, shoulder, and leg veins on NASA Flight Engineer Jeanette Epps. The eye and vein exams were part of regularly scheduled medical checkups ensuring astronauts remain healthy in space. OHara also spent a few moments with Dyson replacing batteries on and calibrating chemical sensors.

NASA Flight Engineer Matthew Dominick started his day exploring how the brain regulates blood flow in weightlessness. He wore a specialized cap and attached sensors to himself measuring his blood flow, blood pressure, and electrical heart activity simultaneously. Results may help counteract Earthbound and space-caused blood pressure issues such as light-headedness or fainting. Dominick then spent the rest of the day on a variety of cargo and cleaning tasks. Epps and Barratt also continued unpacking some of the more than 6,000 pounds of science and supplies aboard the SpaceX Dragon cargo spacecraft.

Cosmonaut Oleg Novitskiy continued stowing equipment and readying the Soyuz MS-24 spacecraft that he, OHara, and Belarus spaceflight participant Marina Vasilevskaya will ride back to Earth on April 6. OHara packed personal items for return aboard the Soyuz as well as excess gear that will be returned aboard the Dragon spacecraft. Vasilevskaya spent her day researching how diet affects microbes that live in a crew members gut system.

Station Commander Oleg Kononenko gathered science hardware and radiation detectors for return to Earth aboard the Soyuz spacecraft. Flight Engineer Nikolai Chub explored futuristic spacecraft and robotic piloting techniques then collected station microbe samples for analysis. Flight Engineer Alexander Grebenkin assisted Chub with the microbe collections and also serviced computer and video gear throughout the stations Roscosmos segment.

Learn more about station activities by following thespace station blog,@space_stationand@ISS_Researchon X, as well as theISS FacebookandISS Instagramaccounts.

Get weekly video highlights at:https://roundupreads.jsc.nasa.gov/videoupdate/

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Kazakhstan Russia Space Station | Nation % World AP news of the day | chronicleonline.com – Citrus County Chronicle

Posted: at 11:37 am

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Mysterious object that crashed through Florida home was likely space junk from the International Space Station – Livescience.com

Posted: at 11:36 am

A mysterious object that came crashing through a house in Florida is possibly debris from the International Space Station (ISS).

The cylindrical tube was a few inches long and weighed nearly 2 pounds (0.9 kilograms). It crashed through the roof and both floors of Alejandro Otero's home in Naples, Florida, at 2:34 pm local on March 8, startling his son.

The origins of the object have yet to be determined, but Otero thinks it's likely one of nine drained batteries discarded from the ISS. Earlier the same day, a large cargo pallet carrying the batteries and belonging to the Japanese space agency JAXA re-entered Earth's atmosphere over the Gulf of Mexico. Jettisoned from the space station in 2021, the debris was expected to burn up in the atmosphere, one may have survived reentry.

"Looks like one of those pieces missed Ft Myers and landed in my house in Naples," Otero wrote on X, formerly known as Twitter, in response to a post describing the jettisoned pallet. "Tore through the roof and went thru 2 floors. Almost his [hit] my son."

Related: Sci-fi inspired tractor beams are real, and could solve a major space junk problem

Otero has handed over the home-wrecking debris to officials from NASA.

"NASA collected an item in cooperation with the homeowner, and will analyze the object at NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida as soon as possible to determine its origin," Joshua Finch, a NASA spokesperson, told Live Science.

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Once engineers identify the provenance of the object, Otero will seek to make a claim against the federal government to pay for his house's repair, although this process could prove complex if the material is deemed to have come from JAXA.

Florida isn't the only place that's been hit by falling space junk. Four of China's Long March 5B boosters the workhorses of the country's growing space program fell to Earth between 2020 and 2022, raining debris down on the Ivory Coast, Borneo and the Indian Ocean. In 2021 and 2022, debris from falling SpaceX rockets smashed into a farm in Washington state and landed on a sheep farm in Australia.

Space agencies around the world try to keep tabs on the more than 30,000 largest pieces of junk, but many more pieces of debris are too small to monitor.

Scientists have proposed multiple ways of tidying Earth's skies, such as gathering junk up in nets; collecting it with clawed robots; or firing a halfmile-long (0.8 kilometer) tether from another spacecraft to grab it.

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Mitsubishi takes stake in Starlab Space – SpaceNews

Posted: at 11:36 am

CAMBRIDGE, Mass. Japans Mitsubishi Corp. is joining Starlab Space, the joint venture of Voyager Space and Airbus Defence and Space that is developing a commercial space station.

Starlab Space announced April 4 that Mitsubishi has become a strategic partner of Starlab Space and would take an equity stake in the joint venture. A Starlab spokesperson declined to provide specific details about the agreement, including its financial value or the size of the equity stake.

We are excited to join forces withStarlab, a best-in-class team comprising Airbus and Voyager, to drive innovation and catalyze advancements in space exploration, said Mikito Nakaniwa, division chief operating officer of Mitsubishis Infrastructure, Ship & Aerospace Division, in a statement.

The announcement did not identify any specific roles or responsibilities for Mitsubishi in Starlab, stating only that the company would significantly increase the value ofStarlab by using space research to support terrestrial product development in a range of industries. It would also provide Japanese industry with access to Starlabs capabilities.

Our next-generation space station relies on both innovation and experience. Hence Mitsubishi Corporation, a pioneer of space business in Japan since the 1960s with a strong drive for shaping the future, is a perfect addition to our team, said Mike Schoellhorn, chief executive of Airbus Defence and Space, in the statement.

Having a Japanese company involved in Starlab could also help the company access funding from the Japanese government. Current partners in the International Space Station are pondering how they will continue their current activities on the station once it is retired around the end of the decade, with a preference for keeping investments in their countries rather than making direct payments to an American commercial space station operator.

Voyager and Airbus announced the creation of the Starlab Space joint venture in August, with Voyager holding a majority stake. The companies had previously announced an agreement where Airbus would provide technical support, including work on the stations single large module, for Starlab.

One reason for the partnership was to give Starlab better access to European markets through Airbus. In November, Airbus and Voyager announced they signed a memorandum of understanding with the European Space Agency to explore how to use Starlab to provide ESA with continued access to low Earth orbit after the retirement of the ISS. That could involve using commercial cargo and crew vehicles developed in Europe with the support of ESA, which announced a cargo vehicle initiative around the time the memorandum was signed.

Starlab Space announced in January that it reached an agreement with SpaceX to launch the Starlab station on a single flight of SpaceXs Starship vehicle in the late 2020s.

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Falling Object That Crashed Into Florida Home May Be Debris From the International Space Station – Smithsonian Magazine

Posted: at 11:36 am

A picture of the International Space Station captured by the Space Shuttle Discovery in 2007. Last month, a two-ton pallet of batteries released by the space station in 2021 re-entered Earth's atmosphere. It was expected to mostly burn up upon re-entry, but a two-pound piece of debris that struck a Florida home may have come from the batteries. NASA

A cylindrical object weighing about two pounds tore through the roof of Alejandro Oteros home in Naples, Florida, last month. Otero was on vacation when his son, who was in the house when the debris fell, gave him a call, WINK News Annalise Iraola reported in March.

Something ripped through the house and then made a big hole on the floor and on the ceiling, Otero told the publication. It was a tremendous sound. It almost hit my son. He was two rooms over and heard it all.

Now, experts speculate the falling object might have come from the International Space Station (ISS)the crash occurred shortly after some batteries ejected from the station in 2021 re-entered Earths atmosphere, per Ars Technicas Stephen Clark.

The total mass of the batteries was originally 2.6 metric tons, but most of it was expected to burn up upon re-entry, according to the European Space Agency (ESA).

So you had a two-ton thing that re-entered the atmosphere, and this is some small fragment of it that survived and went through this poor guys house, Jonathan McDowell, an astrophysicist at the Center for Astrophysics, Harvard & Smithsonian, who studies atmospheric re-entries, theorizes to Gizmodos Passant Rabie.

NASA has retrieved the object and is planning to analyze it to determine its origin, as Joshua Finch, a NASA spokesperson, tells Live Sciences Ben Turner.

In 2018, nine used batteries on the ISS got stranded at the station instead of being shipped back to Earth on a supply ship due to a series of delays, per Ars Technica. On March 11, 2021, the ISS released the batteries, attached to a cargo pallet, into space.

The pallet is safely moving away from the station and will orbit Earth between two to four years before burning up harmlessly in the atmosphere, NASA said in a 2021 statement. As the pallet approached Earth last month however, the ESA said in a statement that some parts of the debris could reach the groundthough the likelihood of someone getting hit was very low.

The ESA estimated that the batteries would reach Earth between 1:30 p.m. and 3:08 p.m. Eastern time on March 8. Changing levels of atmospheric drag, among other factors, made it difficult to predict where the re-entry would occur. The crash at Oteros home occurred at 2:34 p.m. Eastern time on March 8, per Ars Technica.

Such instances of falling debris are far from uncommona large object from space makes an uncontrolled re-entry into Earths atmosphere around once a week, with much of the object burning up. But the pallet with nine batteries was the most massive object to ever be released from the ISS. And on this occasion, a fragment may have survived and struck Oteros home.

I was shaking. I was completely in disbelief. What are the chances of something landing on my house with such force to cause so much damage, Otero told WINK News. Im super grateful that nobody got hurt.

NASA was rolling the dice and they made an unlucky throw, McDowell tells Gizmodo of the batteries release.

Around 28,000 objects launched to space remain in orbit around Earth, per the ESA. The Ivory Coast, Borneo and the Indian Ocean have been hit by falling debris from Chinas Long March 5B boosters, and SpaceX rockets have rained material on farms in Washington state and Australia, per Live Science.

Otero could make a claim against the federal government for the cost of the damage if the object is NASAs, Michelle Hanlon, an aviation and space law expert at the University of Mississippi, tells Ars Technica. Even if the object was launched by another country, that country would be absolutely liable to the homeowner for the damage caused, Hanlon says to the publication.

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Former flight attendant for Belavia Airlines is back on earth from the ISS – AIRLIVE

Posted: at 11:36 am

Roscosmos Cosmonaut Oleg Novitsky, the first female cosmonaut from Belarus Marina Vasilevskaya and NASA astronaut Loral OHara returned from the International Space Station to Earth.

At 09:24 Moscow time, the engine of the Soyuz MS-24 manned spacecraft was turned on to decelerate from orbit, at 09:54 the descent vehicle entered the dense layers of the atmosphere and at 10:03 the main parachute was inserted.

At exactly 10:18 Moscow time, the Soyuz MS-24 international crew landed 147km south-east of the Kazakh city of Zhezkazgan.

Marina Vitalyevna Vasilevskaya(born 14 September 1990) is a flight instructor andflight attendantforBelavia AirlinesinBelarus.She is the firstBelarusianwoman to be launched into space.

In December 2022, during a competitive selection held inBelarus, she was selected among six applicants from more than three thousand women to participate in a space flight under theBelarusian Woman in Space project on the RussianSoyuzspacecraft toISS.

On 24 July 2023, she commenced theoretical and practical training for the flight at theYuri A. Gagarin Cosmonaut Training CenterinStar City, Russia.In October, she began practical training on theSoyuz MSspacecraft simulator to conduct routine flight andundockingoperations,and underwent training inzero gravityconditions on theIlyushin II-76 laboratory aircraft.

She traveled to the station withRoscosmoscosmonautOleg NovitskyandNASAastronautTracy Caldwell-Dyson, where she and Oleg spent approximately 13 days aboard the orbital complex as a part of21st ISS visiting expedition.

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Why libertarians don’t trust RFK Jr. – UnHerd

Posted: April 2, 2024 at 4:07 am

Independent presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced Nicole Shanahan, a 38-year-old attorney and philanthropist, as his running mate last week. Outside of Silicon Valley, Shanahan is a relative political unknown, though as the ex-wife of Google co-founder Sergey Brin, she brings considerable financial assets to the ticket.

Reaction to the pick has been mixed, however especially among a constituency RFK Jr has courted: libertarians. In a recent interview, Libertarian Party Chair Angela McArdle expressed concern about the ticket, saying that Shanahan doesnt necessarily fit into alignment with any of our views. RFK Jr.s new veep was a supporter of Hillary Clintons 2016 campaign, and has donated to Democratic and Left-leaning causes in the past. In 2020, she donated to Marianne Williamson, Peter Buttigieg and Joe Biden.

RFK Jr. is himself a former Democrat, of course and a progressive one, at that. He has a long history of energy and climate activism completely contrary to the limited government ethos of libertarianism. He previously called the National Rifle Association a terrorist group, although he does support the second amendment. He said the Koch brothers should be prosecuted for treason on environmentalist grounds. He also supports student loan debt forgiveness and affirmative action, both liberal stances.

Nevertheless, after RFK Jr. formally left the Democratic Party in October 2023 opting to face-off against President Joe Biden in the general election rather than the primaries widespread speculation ensued that he might seek the Libertarian Partys nomination. Last summer, he attended FreedomFest, an annual gathering of libertarians, and emphasised his involvement in issues that matter to us: most notably, the federal governments efforts to suppress dissenting speech on social media, particularly relating to Covid-19.

Indeed, RFK Jr.s contrarian views on Covid-19 policies like mandates, lockdowns, and the vaccines themselves have made him a target of social media censors, who were often pressured by government agents to take down provocative speech. (The Supreme Court is currently weighing whether these actions violated the First Amendment in Murthy v. Missouri.) Many of the underlying views are themselves attractive to libertarians; one need not agree with everything RFK Jr. has said about vaccines to nevertheless admire his opposition to making them compulsory.

It was RFK Jr.s opposition to mandates and lockdowns that first drew the attention of some libertarians. When I spoke with her in June 2023, McArdle was optimistic that his views on the pandemic had stirred an awakening within him, causing him to reconsider many of his other political stances.

Following the 7 October attack by Hamas on Israel, RFK Jr. expressed unqualified support for the US continuing to send aid to Israel, a stance that alienated many libertarians, who do not believe American taxpayers should be required to fund foreign wars. Support for RFK Jr. among rank-and-file LP members now appears lukewarm at best; at a California Libertarian Party convention in February, Kennedy garnered just one vote in the straw poll.

When asked about running for the LP nomination, RFK Jr. has remained evasive and declined to rule it out. As such, the speculation continues. But it seems unlikely he will go for it, and if he did, he would face deep-rooted scepticism, if not outright hostility, from many within the party. In 2016, libertarians booed former Gov. Gary Johnson who sought and obtained the partys presidential nomination for supporting drivers licences. RFK Jr.s heresies loom somewhat larger.

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So Much Polar Ice Is Melting That It’s Slowing Down the Earth’s Rotation – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

"Things are happening that are unprecedented." Spin Cycle

Climate change is causing so much polar ice melt that it's slowing down Earth's rotation and here's the kicker it will alter how we measure time in the future.

That's the outrageous conclusion that Duncan Agnew, geophysicist and professor at University of California, San Diego, reached by analyzing data from satellite imagery, as detailed ina new study published in the journal Nature.

Basically, as polar ice melts into the ocean, there's less mass overall at the poles and the middle of the planet becomes a little heavier, hence slowing down Earth's rotation.

"If you have a [figure] skater who starts spinning, if she lowers her arms or stretches out her legs, she will slow down," Agnew told NBC News, using ice skating as an analogy to what's happening to Earth's rotational velocity.

And that raises a problem for the measurement of time itself. If Earth's rotation is slowing down, that means timekeepers all over the world will have to adjust. This has impacts reaching far beyond our watches. It touches the functioning of satellites, computers, financial institutions and everywhere else where every second counts.

Institutions will likely have to adjust. The global time standard, known as Coordinated Universal Time or UTC, almost matches the Earth's rotation but because the rotation speed can be variable, this has at times necessitated timekeepers to add or subtract a leap second to the clock, Agnew explains in his paper.

After crunching numbers, Agnew concluded that if polar ice did not melt, we would have had to subtract a second from clocks all over the world by 2026. But because of ice melt slowing down Earth's rotation, this time change may come instead in 2029, he said.

"Its kind of impressive, even to me, weve done something that measurably changes how fast the Earth rotates," said Agnew to NBC News. "Things are happening that are unprecedented."

More on climate change: Scientists Propose Hacking Viruses to Fight Climate Change

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Alzheimer’s May Spread Through Blood Transfusions, Scientists Find – Futurism

Posted: at 4:04 am

Image by Getty / Futurism

We still don't know the exact cause of Alzheimer's diseasefor every patient, but research has increasingly pointed to environmental factors such as meat and processed foods and particles in car pollution that seem to lead to the tragic and degenerative condition.

Add another possible culprit to that list: blood.

Results from a new study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports suggest that transfusions and transplants of blood, bone marrow, organs and other biological matter from one person with hereditary Alzheimer's to a healthy person can spread the disease.

Canadian scientists at the University of British Columbia arrived at this conclusion after performing lab experiments with mice and stem cells.

For the study, they bred mice to be carriers of human inheritable Alzheimer's,and specifically a gene that synthesizes amyloid plaques. They then extracted stem cells from their bone marrow and injected this biological tissue into healthy mice that were not carriers.

Within nine months, the normal mice were showing signs of cognitive decline, as well as changes in their brains such as the accumulation of amyloid plaques, fibrous deposits that are classic hallmarks of Alzheimers.

The researchers had several takeaways.

Oneis that Alzheimer's can arise from stem cells outside the body's central nervous system, which overturns some preconceptions abouthow the disease forms.

"One of the potential outcomes of this study is to spur the field to move away from the conventional central dogma of AD [Alzheimer's disease] pathology, which states that the accumulation of brain-derived A [amyloid], specifically produced by neurons, is the cause of the disease," the researchers write. "This study demonstrates the contribution A, generated outside the brain, in establishing the disease."

Another is thatthe pathway to developing Alzheimer's could be similar to how people acquire prion brain diseases like CreutzfeldtJakob's, which can be transmitted. People eating cows with Mad Cow Disease have been known to develop a version of CreutzfeldtJakob disease.

In a nutshell, Alzheimer's could be passed to healthy people through the donation of biological matter. This would mean that potential donors would have to be screened for the condition.

"This supports the idea that Alzheimer's is a systemic disease where amyloids that are expressed outside of the brain contribute to central nervous system pathology," University of British Columbia immunologist and principle author Wilfred Jefferies said in a statement. "As we continue to explore this mechanism, Alzheimers disease may be the tip of the iceberg and we need to have far better controls and screening of the donors used in blood, organ and tissue transplants as well as in the transfers of human derived stem cells or blood products."

More on Alzheimer's Disease: Weird Particle Floating Through Air May Cause Alzheimers

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