SpaceX gets a lot of press for its rocket ship launches and landings. We’ve seen the Falcon 9 explode in extraordinary spectacles. We’ve seen a rocket overcome intimidating odds. We don’t, however, hear about SpaceX’s spacecraft, the Dragon, nearly as often. While the Falcon 9 rocket ships perform quick missions to deliver payload into orbit, Dragon cargo spacecraft take long journeys into space and take some time to return to Earth.
Well, the Dragon did return to Earth on Wednesday and brought with it “critical NASA science,” according to the space agency. The 3,000 pound commercial resupply spacecraft made a splash in the Pacific Ocean just before 3 p.m. EDT packed with 3,700 pounds of valuable scientific data transported from the International Space Station.
Space provides scientists an environment where they can perform experiments not possible on Earth. The space station’s microgravity, for example, can offer unique insight into how particles, bodies, and organisms behave in space. NASA describes one nanotechnology study to test how microparticles interact when not burdened by the standard force of Earth’s gravity.
But sometimes these experiments study the effects of a microgravity environment on astronauts themselves. Identical-twin astronauts Scott and Mark Kelly engaged in a nearly yearlong study to test how the human body adapts to microgravity environments.
While Mark spent a year on Earth, Scott spent a year in space. When Scott returned to Earth in February 2016, he left behind human research samples at the International Space Station. When the Dragon returned home yesterday, part of its cargo included Kelly’s leftover data, which NASA hopes to analyze and apply to the agency’s Journey to Mars in the 2030s.
SpaceX, meanwhile, may not have the twin experiment scientific data, but has planned its own trip to Mars, with an ambitious deadline of 2018.
Google has been finding more ways to make Gemini a part of your daily routine, from putting together playlists to ordering groceries through your favorite apps. Now it's expanding those capabilities to more services, with Google Search joining in, too.
The company has announced a new Connected Apps Platform that makes it easier for developers to bring their services to both Gemini and Search. Alongside this, Google is adding new partners to its growing lineup, bringing more of the apps people already use into its AI ecosystem.
In the broad context of AI and its perceived harms, health and medical risks often pop up in the conversation. The warnings even come from frontier AI labs, such as ChatGPT-maker OpenAI and Anthropic, both of which have warned about misusing AI to cook up bioweapons. Security experts have already spotted a few such incidents in the wild, especially with the usage of AI models without any solid guardrails.
Well, it appears that the risks run deeper. As per an analysis appearing in the British Medical Journal (BMJ), AI bots are now being deployed to influence public policies governing health risks to citizens. In this instance, an attempt was made using AI bots to thwart regulations that aim to restrict the sale of disposable vapes, all while disguising the manipulation efforts as a response from real humans.
What if checking your drinking water for dangerous chemicals were as simple as plugging a tiny gadget into your smartphone? Researchers in Japan have developed a compact sensor that could make that possible, potentially bringing sophisticated water contamination testing out of expensive laboratories and into people's hands.
Scientists at the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology (OIST) have created a portable device capable of detecting extremely low concentrations of PFAS, commonly known as "forever chemicals." The findings were published in the journal Biosensors and Bioelectronics, which demonstrate how an inexpensive sensor and a smartphone could make identifying potentially harmful chemicals in water a lot easier.