"At The Linux Foundation's Open Source Summit China conference, Linus Torvalds and his buddy Dirk Hohndel, Verizon's Head of the Open Source Program Office, once more chatted about Linux development and related issues," reports ZDNet: Torvalds: "Later this year, we will have the 20th anniversary of the real-time Linux project. This is a project that literally started 20 years ago, and the people involved are finally at that point where they feel like it is done... well, almost done. They're still tweaking the last things, but they hope it will soon be ready to be completely merged in the upstream kernel this year... You'd think that all the basics would have been fixed long ago, but they're not. We're still dealing with basic issues such as memory management...."

Switching to a more modern topic, the introduction of the Rust language into Linux, Torvalds is disappointed that its adoption isn't going faster. "I was expecting updates to be faster, but part of the problem is that old-time kernel developers are used to C and don't know Rust. They're not exactly excited about having to learn a new language that is, in some respects, very different. So there's been some pushback on Rust." On top of that, Torvalds commented, "Another reason has been the Rust infrastructure itself has not been super stable...."

The pair then moved on to the hottest of modern tech topics: AI. While Torvalds is skeptical about the current AI hype, he is hopeful that AI tools could eventually aid in code review and bug detection. In the meantime, though, Torvalds is happy about AI's side effects. For example, he said, "When AI came in, it was wonderful, because Nvidia got much more involved in the kernel. Nvidia went from being on my list of companies who are not good to my list of companies who are doing really good work."

Chinese scientists have developed a new method to produce significant quantities of water from lunar soil brought back by the Chang'e-5 mission in 2020, state broadcaster CCTV reported. The "brand-new method" involves heating moon minerals containing hydrogen to generate water vapor, which could be crucial for future lunar research stations and space exploration. Reuters reports: "After three years of in-depth research and repeated verification, a brand-new method of using lunar soil to produce large amounts of water was discovered, which is expected to provide important design basis for the construction of future lunar scientific research stations and space stations," said CCTV. The discovery could have important implications for China's decades-long project of building a permanent lunar outpost amid a U.S.-China race to find and mine the moon's resources.

Using the new method, one tonne of lunar soil will be able to produce about 51-76 kg of water, equivalent to more than a hundred 500ml bottles of water, or the daily drinking water consumption of 50 people, the state broadcaster said. China hopes that recent and future lunar expeditions will set the foundations to build the International Lunar Research Station (ILRS), an initiative it is co-leading with Russia.

China's world-leading clean energy boom has passed another benchmark, with its wind and solar capacity surpassing a target set by President Xi Jinping almost six years earlier than planned. From a report: The nation added 25 gigawatts of turbines and panels in July, expanding total capacity to 1,206 gigawatts, according to a statement from the National Energy Administration on Friday. Xi set a goal in December 2020 for at least 1,200 gigawatts from the clean energy sources by 2030. China by far outspends the rest of the world when it comes to clean energy, and has repeatedly broken wind and solar installation records in recent years. The rapid growth has helped lead to declines in coal power generation this summer and may mean the world's biggest polluter has already reached peak emissions well before its 2030 target.

Linux creator Linus Torvalds expressed disappointment with the slow adoption of Rust in the Linux kernel at the Linux Foundation's Open Source Summit China. In a conversation with Verizon executive Dirk Hohndel, Torvalds said, "I was expecting updates to be faster, but part of the problem is that old-time kernel developers are used to C and don't know Rust. They're not exactly excited about having to learn a new language that is, in some respects, very different." This resistance has led to "some pushback on Rust," he said. "Another reason has been the Rust infrastructure itself has not been super stable," he added.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Associated Press: A U.S. government report expected to stir debate concluded that fluoride in drinking water at twice the recommended limit is linked with lower IQ in children. The report, based on an analysis of previously published research, marks the first time a federal agency has determined -- "with moderate confidence" -- that there is a link between higher levels of fluoride exposure and lower IQ in kids. While the report was not designed to evaluate the health effects of fluoride in drinking water alone, it is a striking acknowledgment of a potential neurological risk from high levels of fluoride. Fluoride strengthens teeth and reduces cavities by replacing minerals lost during normal wear and tear, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The addition of low levels of fluoride to drinking water has long been considered one of the greatest public health achievements of the last century.

The long-awaited report released Wednesday comes from the National Toxicology Program, part of the Department of Health and Human Services. It summarizes a review of studies, conducted in Canada, China, India, Iran, Pakistan, and Mexico, that concludes that drinking water containing more than 1.5 milligrams of fluoride per liter is consistently associated with lower IQs in kids. The report did not try to quantify exactly how many IQ points might be lost at different levels of fluoride exposure. But some of the studies reviewed in the report suggested IQ was 2 to 5 points lower in children who'd had higher exposures.

Since 2015, federal health officials have recommended a fluoridation level of 0.7 milligrams per liter of water, and for five decades before the recommended upper range was 1.2. The World Health Organization has set a safe limit for fluoride in drinking water of 1.5. The report said that about 0.6% of the U.S. population -- about 1.9 million people -- are on water systems with naturally occurring fluoride levels of 1.5 milligrams or higher. The 324-page report did not reach a conclusion about the risks of lower levels of fluoride, saying more study is needed. It also did not answer what high levels of fluoride might do to adults.

Approvals for new coal-fired power plants in China dropped by 80% in the first half of this year compared to last, according to an analysis from Greenpeace and the Shanghai Institutes for International Studies. The Associated Press reports: A review of project documents by Greenpeace East Asia found that 14 new coal plants were approved from January to June with a total capacity of 10.3 gigawatts, down 80% from 50.4 gigawatts in the first half of last year. Authorities approved 90.7 gigawatts in 2022 and 106.4 gigawatts in 2023, a surge that raised alarm among climate experts. China leads the world in solar and wind power installations but the government has said that coal plants are still needed for periods of peak demand because wind and solar power are less reliable. While China's grid gives priority to greener sources of energy, experts worry that it won't be easy for China to wean itself off coal once the new capacity is built.

"We may now be seeing a turning point," Gao Yuhe, the project lead for Greenpeace East Asia, said in a statement. "One question remains here. Are Chinese provinces slowing down coal approvals because they've already approved so many coal projects ...? Or are these the last gasps of coal power in an energy transition that has seen coal become increasingly impractical? Only time can tell." [...] Gao said that China should focus its resources on better connecting wind and solar power to the grid rather than building more coal power plants. Coal provides more than 60% of the country's electricity. "Coal plays a foundation role in China's energy security," Li Fulong, an official of National Energy Administration, said at a news conference in June. The report notes that China is also looking to nuclear power to help reach its carbon reduction targets. The country approved five nuclear power projects on Monday with 11 units and a total cost of $28 billion.

Waymo has unveiled its sixth-generation robotaxi, an electric minivan made by Chinese automaker Zeekr. While the company claims it's more advanced than previous generations, it features fewer sensors to help reduce costs. The Verge reports: [W]ithin its high-powered computer, it contains all the learnings of the previous five generations of Waymo's autonomous vehicles, meaning it won't have to do as much real-world testing as past models before it can be rolled out to the public. But looming over Waymo's assertion that its new robotaxi will be cheaper to produce is the possibility that it could also be subject to costly new tariffs against Chinese-made electric vehicles. Earlier this year, the Biden administration said it would quadruple tariffs on EVs from China to 100 percent, from the current 25 percent, as a way to "protect American workers and American companies from China's unfair trade practices." [...]

Waymo says the sixth-gen robotaxi will feature a streamlined sensor suite of "16 cameras, 5 lidar, 6 radar, and an array of external audio receivers (EARs)." These sensors will help provide "overlapping fields of view, all around the vehicle, up to 500 meters away, day and night, and in a range of weather conditions." That's the equivalent of over five football fields of visible range. Waymo's use of multiple sensors is important for redundancy, in which multiple sensors and cameras can ensure the vehicle can continue to detect and respond to its surroundings if something fails. It's unclear where and when the new sixth-gen robotaxis will first appear. "Waymo currently operates in Phoenix, San Francisco, and Los Angeles, with plans to launch commercial service in Austin, Texas," notes the report. "The company has been manually testing the Zeekr-made minivans on public roads, with the goal of adding them to its commercial fleet sometime soon."

In 1999 Los Angeles Times reporter Michael Hiltzik co-authored a Pulitzer Prize-winning story. Now a business columnist for the Times, this week he covers new pushback on the COVID lab leak claim: Here's an indisputable fact about the theory that COVID originated in a laboratory: Most Americans believe it to be true. That's important for several reasons. One is that evidence to support the theory is nonexistent.

Another is that the claim itself has fomented a surge of attacks on science and scientists that threatens to drive promising researchers out of the crucial field of pandemic epidemiology. That concern was aired in a commentary by 41 biologists, immunologists, virologists and physicians published Aug. 1 in the Journal of Virology. The journal probably isn't in the libraries of ordinary readers, but the article's prose is commendably clear and its conclusions eye-opening. "The lab leak narrative fuels mistrust in science and public health infrastructures," the authors observe. "Scientists and public health professionals stand between us and pandemic pathogens; these individuals are essential for anticipating, discovering, and mitigating future pandemic threats. Yet, scientists and public health professionals have been harmed and their institutions have been damaged by the skewed public and political opinions stirred by continued promotion of the lab leak hypothesis in the absence of evidence...."

[O]ne can't advance the lab leak theory without positing a vast conspiracy encompassing scientists in China and the U.S., and Chinese and U.S. government officials. How else could all the evidence of a laboratory event that resulted in more than 7 million deaths worldwide be kept entirely suppressed for nearly five years... "Validating the lab leak hypothesis requires intelligence evidence that the WIV possessed or carried out work on a SARS-CoV-2 precursor virus prior to the pandemic," the Virology paper asserts. "Neither the scientific community nor multiple western intelligence agencies have found such evidence." Despite that, "the lab leak hypothesis receives persistent attention in the media, often without acknowledgment of the more solid evidence supporting zoonotic emergence," the paper says...

I've written before about the smears, physical harassment and baseless accusations of fraud and other wrongdoing that lab leak propagandists have visited upon scientists whose work has challenged their claims; similar attacks have targeted experts who have worked to debunk other anti-science narratives, including those about global warming and vaccines... What's notable about the Virology paper is that it represents a comprehensive and long-overdue pushback by the scientific community against such behavior. More to the point, it focuses on the consequences for public health and the scientific mission from the rise of anti-science propaganda... "Scientists have withdrawn from social media platforms, rejected opportunities to speak in public, and taken increased safety measures to protect themselves and their families," the authors report. "Some have even diverted their work to less controversial and less timely topics. We now see a long-term risk of having fewer experts engaged in work that may help thwart future pandemics...."

Thanks in part to social media, anti-science has become more virulent and widespread, the Virology authors write.

According to Kaspersky, hackers linked to Chinese threat actors have targeted Russian state agencies and tech companies in a campaign named EastWind. The Record reports: [T]he attackers used the GrewApacha remote access trojan (RAT), an unknown PlugY backdoor and an updated version of CloudSorcerer malware, which was previously used to spy on Russian organizations. The GrewApacha RAT has been used by the Beijing-linked hacking group APT31 since at least 2021, the researchers said, while PlugY shares many similarities with tools used by the suspected Chinese threat actor known as APT27.

According to Kaspersky, the hackers sent phishing emails containing malicious archives. In the first stage of the attack, they exploited a dynamic link library (DLL), commonly found in Windows computers, to collect information about the infected devices and load the additional malicious tools. While Kaspersky didn't explicitly attribute the recent attacks to APT31 or APT27, they highlighted links between the tools that were used. Although PlugY malware is still being analyzed, it is highly likely that it was developed using the DRBControl backdoor code, the researchers said. This backdoor was previously linked to APT27 and bears similarities to PlugX malware, another tool typically used by hackers based in China.

An anonymous reader shares a report: A record 15 national heat records have been broken since the start of this year, an influential climate historian has told the Guardian, as weather extremes grow more frequent and climate breakdown intensifies. An additional 130 monthly national temperature records have also been broken, along with tens of thousands of local highs registered at monitoring stations from the Arctic to the South Pacific, according to Maximiliano Herrera, who keeps an archive of extreme events.

He said the unprecedented number of records in the first six months was astonishing. "This amount of extreme heat events is beyond anything ever seen or even thought possible before," he said. "The months from February 2024 to July 2024 have been the most record-breaking for every statistic." This is alarming because last year's extreme heat could be largely attributed to a combination of man-made global heating -- caused by burning gas, oil, coal and trees -- and a natural El Nino phenomenon, a warming of the tropical Pacific Ocean surface that is associated with higher temperatures in many parts of the world. The El Nino has been fading since February of this year, but this has brought little relief.

"Far from dwindling with the end of El Nino, records are falling at even much faster pace now compared to late 2023," said Herrera. New ground is broken every day at a local level. On some days, thousands of monitoring stations set new records of monthly maximums or minimums. The latter is particularly punishing as high night-time temperatures mean people and ecosystems have no time to recover from the relentless heat. In late July, for example, China's Yueyang region sweltered though an unprecedentedly elevated low of 32C during its dark hours, with dangerously high humidity.

Apple will begin letting third parties use the iPhone's payment chip to handle transactions, a move that allows banks and other services to compete with the Apple Pay platform. From a report: The move, announced Wednesday, follows years of pressure from regulators, including those in the European Union. Apple said it will allow developers to use the component starting in iOS 18.1, an upcoming software update for the iPhone. The payment chip relies on a technology called NFC, or near-field communication, to share information when the phone is near another device.

The change will allow outside providers to use the NFC chip for in-store payments, transit system fares, work badges, home and hotel keys, and reward cards. Support for government identification cards will come later, the company said. Users will also be able to set a third-party payment app as their default system, replacing Apple Pay. Apple had been reluctant to open up the chip to developers, citing security concerns. The change also threatens the revenue it generates from Apple Pay transactions. The company takes a cut of all payments made via the iPhone.

An anonymous reader shares a report: Pentagon officials say the U.S. stands at the precipice of a new golden age of defense innovation driven by upstart contractors, advances in technology and a world brimming with threats. The Defense Department's inability to make unorthodox bets, feed a vibrant industrial base and embrace readily available technologies has rendered it under-supplied, the target of dual-use evangelists and vulnerable to more nimble adversaries.

Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said in a speech last week the department "cannot tolerate the same old mindsets" as it butts heads with Russia and China, while also invoking America's mass production overhaul during World War II. Heidi Shyu, the Pentagon's chief tech officer, separately called the clip of "nontraditional, venture-backed companies" entering the defense industry "unprecedented," adding: "They're nipping at the heels, I tell you. I have traditional defense contractors say, 'Hey, this isn't fair.'"

Defense Innovation Unit director Doug Beck said the department is at a "positive tipping point." "We've been given the tools, and now it's about execution and delivery," Beck said. "I think we're well on our way out of the dark age." Hicks' declaration comes one year after she stuck her neck out for Replicator, meant to arm troops with thousands of drones and prove the Pentagon can be agile. That $1 billion gambit is on track, with more than 1,000 AeroVironment-made Switchblade 600 drones already in the pipeline, according to officials.

For the first time, two new all-electric passenger trains are operating in the US, which is woefully behind the rest of the world in electrifying its rolling stock. The Verge: The two new trains are operated by Caltrain. California Governor Gavin Newson and House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi were on hand to take the inaugural ride, which took place on Saturday. The trains were put into regular service the following day, running along the route between San Jose and San Francisco.

It's taken almost 20 years since the idea of electric trains was first proposed in California. But officials insisted the new trains will be quieter and faster than the diesel-powered trains in current operation while also providing a better experience for passengers. The two trains will be joined by 17 others that should be in service by mid-September.

[...] It shouldn't come as any shock that the US is lagging behind the rest of the world in introducing electric trains. India is on the cusp of electrifying 100 percent of its rail lines, while China is nearing three-quarters of its network. Over 57 percent of the rail system in the European Union is electric.

"Not many Americans have August 6 circled on their calendars," writes the New York Times, "but it's a day that the Japanese can't forget."

79 years after an atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima, the Times visits a hospital that "continues to treat, on average, 180 survivors — known as hibakusha — of the blasts each day." The bombs killed an estimated 200,000 men, women and children and maimed countless more. In Hiroshima 50,000 of the city's 76,000 buildings were completely destroyed. In Nagasaki nearly all homes within a mile and a half of the blast were wiped out. In both cities the bombs wrecked hospitals and schools. Urban infrastructure collapsed...

[T]he hibakusha and their offspring have formed the backbone of atomic memory. Many see their life's work as informing the wider world about what it's like to carry the trauma, stigma and survivor's guilt caused by the bombs, so that nuclear weapons may never be used again. Their urgency to do so has only increased in recent years. With an average age of 85, the hibakusha are dying by the hundreds each month — just as the world is entering a new nuclear age. Countries like the United States, China and Russia are spending trillions of dollars to modernize their stockpiles. Many of the safeguards that once lowered nuclear risk are unraveling, and the diplomacy needed to restore them is not happening. The threat of another blast can't be relegated to history...

Kunihiko Sakuma [who was 9 months old the day of the attack]: "People died or got sick not just right after the bombing. The reality is, their symptoms are emerging even today, 79 years later. I thought all this was in the past. But as I started talking to survivors, I realized their suffering was ongoing. The atomic bomb is such an inhumane weapon, and the effects of radiation stay with survivors for a very long time. That's why they need our continued support."
The article includes this quote from Keiko Ogura, who was 8 years old at the time of the attack — and still worries she hasn't done enough to abolish the use of nuclear weapons: "As survivors, we cannot do anything but tell our story. 'For we shall not repeat the evil' — this is the pledge of survivors. Until we die, we want to tell our story, because it's difficult to imagine."

Many of the stories are horrifying. But I'll note this one by Seiichiro Mise — who on the day of the atomic bomb attack was 10 years old: "I got married in 1964. At the time, people would say that if you married an atomic bomb survivor, any kids you had would be deformed.

"Two years later, I got a call from the hospital saying my baby had been born. But on my way, my heart was troubled. I'm an atomic bomb victim. I experienced that black rain. So I felt anguished. Usually new parents simply ask the doctor, 'Is it a boy or girl?' I didn't even ask that. Instead, I asked, 'Does my baby have 10 fingers and 10 toes?'

"The doctor looked unsettled. But then he smiled and said it was a healthy boy. I was relieved."
The first U.S. president to visit Hiroshima was Barack Obama in 2016. The article notes he did not issue the official apology many Japanese had hoped for. But he did say "we have a shared responsibility to look directly into the eye of history and ask what we must do differently to curb such suffering again...

"Someday the voices of the hibakusha will no longer be with us to bear witness. But the memory of the morning of Aug. 6, 1945, must never fade."

Fortune reports that Crowdstrike "is enjoying a moment of strange cultural cachet at the annual Black Hat security conference, as throngs of visitors flock to its booth to snap selfies and load up on branded company shirts and other swag." (Some attendees "collectively shrugged at the idea that Crowdstrike could be blamed for a problem with a routine update that could happen to any of the security companies deeply intertwined with Microsoft Windows.") Others pointed out that Microsoft should take their fair share of the blame for the outage, which many say was caused by the design of Windows in its core architecture that leads to malware, spyware and driver instability. "Microsoft should not be giving any third party that level of access," said Eric O'Neill, a cybersecurity expert, attorney and former FBI operative. "Microsoft will complain, well, it's just the way that the technology works, or licensing works, but that's bullshit, because this same problem didn't affect Linux or Mac. And Crowdstrike caught it super-early."
Their article notes that Crowdstrike is one of this year's top sponsors of the conference. Despite its recent missteps, Crowdstrike had one of the biggest booths, notes TechCrunch, and "As soon as the doors opened, dozens of attendees started lining up." They were not all there to ask tough questions, but to pick up T-shirts and action figures made by the company to represent some of the nation-state and cybercriminal grups it tracks, such as Scattered Spider, an extortion racket allegedly behind last year's MGM Resorts and Okta cyberattacks; and Aquatic Panda, a China-linked espionage group.

"We're here to give you free stuff," a CrowdStrike employee told people gathered around a big screen where employees would later give demos. A conference attendee looked visibly surprised. "I just thought it would be dead, honestly. I thought it would be slower over there. But obviously, people are still fans, right?"

For CrowdStrike at Black Hat, there was an element of business as usual, despite its global IT outage that caused widespread disruption and delays for days — and even weeks for some customers. The conference came at the same time as CrowdStrike released its root cause analysis that explained what happened the day of the outage. In short, CrowdStrike conceded that it messed up but said it's taken steps to prevent the same incident happening again. And some cybersecurity professionals attending Black Hat appeared ready to give the company a second chance....

TechCrunch spoke to more than a dozen conference attendees who visited the CrowdStrike booth. More than half of attendees we spoke with expressed a positive view of the company following the outage. "Does it lower my opinion of their ability to be a leading-edge security company? I don't think so," said a U.S. government employee, who said he uses CrowdStrike every day.
Although TechCrunch does note that one engineer told his parent company they might consider Crowdstrike competitor Sophos...

Longtime Slashdot reader schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica: The upper stage from a Chinese rocket that launched a batch of Internet satellites Tuesday has broken apart in space, creating a debris field of at least 700 objects in one of the most heavily-trafficked zones in low-Earth orbit. US Space Command, which tracks objects in orbit with a network of radars and optical sensors, confirmed the rocket breakup Thursday. Space Command initially said the event created more than 300 pieces of trackable debris. The military's ground-based radars are capable of tracking objects larger than 10 centimeters (4 inches). Later Thursday, LeoLabs, a commercial space situational awareness company, said its radars detected at least 700 objects attributed to the Chinese rocket. The number of debris fragments could rise to more than 900, LeoLabs said. The culprit is the second stage of China's Long March 6A rocket, which lifted off Tuesday with the first batch of 18 satellites for a planned Chinese megaconstellation that could eventually number thousands of spacecraft. The Long March 6A's second stage apparently disintegrated after placing its payload of 18 satellites into a polar orbit.

Space Command said in a statement it has "observed no immediate threats" and "continues to conduct routine conjunction assessments to support the safety and sustainability of the space domain." According to LeoLabs, radar data indicated the rocket broke apart at an altitude of 503 miles (810 kilometers) at approximately 4:10 pm EDT (20:10 UTC) on Tuesday, around 13-and-a-half hours after it lifted off from northern China. At this altitude, it will take decades or centuries for the wispy effect of aerodynamic drag to pull the debris back into the atmosphere. As the objects drift lower, their orbits will cross paths with SpaceX's Starlink Internet satellites, the International Space Station and other crew spacecraft, and thousands more pieces of orbital debris, putting commercial and government satellites at risk of collision.

Stressing science education, China is outpacing other countries in research fields like battery chemistry, crucial to its lead in electric vehicles. From a report: China's domination of electric cars, which is threatening to start a trade war, was born decades ago in university laboratories in Texas, when researchers discovered how to make batteries with minerals that were abundant and cheap. Companies from China have recently built on those early discoveries, figuring out how to make the batteries hold a powerful charge and endure more than a decade of daily recharges. They are inexpensively and reliably manufacturing vast numbers of these batteries, producing most of the world's electric cars and many other clean energy systems.

Batteries are just one example of how China is catching up with -- or passing -- advanced industrial democracies in its technological and manufacturing sophistication. It is achieving many breakthroughs in a long list of sectors, from pharmaceuticals to drones to high-efficiency solar panels. Beijing's challenge to the technological leadership that the United States has held since World War II is evidenced in China's classrooms and corporate budgets, as well as in directives from the highest levels of the Communist Party.

A considerably larger share of Chinese students major in science, math and engineering than students in other big countries do. That share is rising further, even as overall higher education enrollment has increased more than tenfold since 2000. Spending on research and development has surged, tripling in the past decade and moving China into second place after the United States. Researchers in China lead the world in publishing widely cited papers in 52 of 64 critical technologies, recent calculations by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute reveal.

China's rapid deployment of robotaxis is raising concerns among the country's 7 million ride-hailing drivers, who fear job losses as autonomous vehicles hit the streets, according to a Reuters report. At least 19 Chinese cities are conducting robotaxi trials, with seven approving tests without human monitors. Baidu's Apollo Go plans to deploy 1,000 vehicles in Wuhan by year-end and operate in 100 cities by 2030. The push for self-driving technology aligns with President Xi Jinping's call for "new productive forces," but contrasts sharply with the more cautious approach in the United States. As robotaxi fleets proliferate, some drivers worry about their livelihoods, with one Wuhan driver predicting "everyone will go hungry."

An anonymous reader quotes a report originally published by Business Insider: A Chinese state-backed company has launched its first 18 satellites in its bid to build a vast orbital network aimed at rivaling Starlink, according to local media. The launch on Monday by Shanghai Spacecom Satellite Technology involved 18 satellites and one rocket, per The China Securities Journal, which is run by state news agency Xinhua. According to the outlet, the rocket lifted off from the Taiyuan satellite and missile launch center in Shanxi province.

These satellites mark the first step in the company's effort to create a 15,000-strong network of Low Earth Orbit satellites, which the firm has dubbed the "Thousand Sails Constellation." The company said it plans to reach that final tally by 2030, per The China Securities Journal. Domestic media has widely called the project the Chinese version of Starlink, which runs about 6,000 satellites. Elon Musk has said that he plans to eventually host a network of 42,000 satellites.

The Thousand Sails Constellation, also known as the G60 project, is one of three planned major satellite networks in the country. Each is expected to field 10,000 or more satellites. Most are anticipated to orbit between 200 and 1,200 miles above the Earth's surface, which is also where Starlink satellites are generally found. The three constellations, along with dozens of ambitious space projects from other Chinese firms, have been fueled by a recent push from the central government to loop the private sector into its science and technology goals.

Chinese scientists discovered water molecules in lunar samples brought back by the Chang'e 5 moon probe, marking the first time whole H2O molecules were found in lunar material. The findings have been published in Nature Astronomy. Smithsonian Magazine reports: The team used X-ray diffraction to analyze the grains of moon soil, in which they found a lunar mineral dubbed ULM-1 whose mass is made up of more than 40 percent water and also includes ammonia. "This is a new form of water stored on the moon," Xiaolong Chen, co-author of the study and physics researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, tells New Scientist's Alex Wilkins.

In the words of CNN's Jessie Yeung, water on the moon is nothing new. Though the samples brought back by the U.S. Apollo missions seemed to show that the moon was dry and lifeless, a recent study suggests that water or hydroxyl may be trapped in glass beads on the moon's surface -- and solar winds could turn the hydroxyl (chemical formula OH) into H2O, according to Yeung. And both American and Indian spacecrafts separately registered what is believed to be water on the moon's surface. This recent discovery, however, marks the first time scientists have found whole molecules of H2O in lunar samples. The findings suggest that "water molecules can persist in sunlit areas of the moon in the form of hydrated salts," the authors write in the study.