necro81 writes: ULA's Vulcan rocket, many years in development, had a successful first launch this morning from Cape Canaveral. The expendable rocket, which uses two methane-fueled BE-4 engines from Blue Origin in its first stage, is the successor to the Delta and Atlas-V launch vehicles.

Years overdue, and with a packed manifest for future launches, Vulcan is critical to the ULA's continued existence. The payload on this first mission is called Peregrine -- a lunar lander from Astrobotic. Unfortunately, Peregrine has suffered an anomaly some hours into flight; it is unclear whether the mission can recover. UPDATE: According to Reuters, Peregrine's propulsion system experienced issues hours after separating from Vulcan, "preventing the spacecraft from angling itself toward the sun for power."

"While mission engineers regained control, the faulty propulsion system is losing valuable propellant, forcing Astrobotic to consider 'alternative mission profiles,' suggesting a moon landing is no longer achievable," reports Reuters.

In the most recent update (#5) on X, Astrobotic said in a statement: "We've received the first image from Peregrine in space! The camera utilized is mounted atop a payload deck and shows Multi-Layer Insulation (MLI) in the foreground. The disturbance of the MLI is the first visual clue that aligns with out telemetry data that points to a propulsion system anomaly. Nonetheless, the spacecraft's battery is now fully charged, and we are using Peregrine's existing power to perform as many payload and spacecraft operations as possible. At this time, the majority of our Peregrine mission team has been awake and working diligently for more than 24 hours. We ask for your patience as we reassess incoming data so we can provide ongoing updates later this evening."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Washington Post: People are swallowing hundreds of thousands of microscopic pieces of plastic each time they drink a liter of bottled water, scientists have shown -- a revelation that could have profound implications for human health. A new paper released Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences found about 240,000 particles in the average liter of bottled water, most of which were "nanoplastics" -- particles measuring less than one micrometer (less than one-seventieth the width of a human hair). [...]

The typical methods for finding microplastics can't be easily applied to finding even smaller particles, but Min co-invented a method that involves aiming two lasers at a sample and observing the resonance of different molecules. Using machine learning, the group was able to identify seven types of plastic molecules in a sample of three types of bottled water. [...] The new study found pieces of PET (polyethylene terephthalate), which is what most plastic water bottles are made of, and polyamide, a type of plastic that is present in water filters. The researchers hypothesized that this means plastic is getting into the water both from the bottle and from the filtration process.

Researchers don't yet know how dangerous tiny plastics are for human health. In a large review published in 2019, the World Health Organization said there wasn't enough firm evidence linking microplastics in water to human health, but described an urgent need for further research. In theory, nanoplastics are small enough to make it into a person's blood, liver and brain. And nanoplastics are likely to appear in much larger quantities than microplastics -- in the new research, 90 percent of the plastic particles found in the sample were nanoplastics, and only 10 percent were larger microplastics. Finding a connection between microplastics and health problems in humans is complicated -- there are thousands of types of plastics, and over 10,000 chemicals used to manufacture them. But at a certain point, [...] policymakers and the public need to prepare for the possibility that the tiny plastics in the air we breathe, the water we drink and the clothes we wear have serious and dangerous effects. "You still have a lot of people that, because of marketing, are convinced that bottled water is better," said Sherri Mason, a professor and director of sustainability at Penn State Behrend in Erie. "But this is what you're drinking in addition to that H2O."

Some researchers say we've seen a fall in disruptive new discoveries. But we may be entering a golden age of applied science. From a report: 2023 had barely begun when scientists got some jolting news. On Jan. 4, a paper appeared in Nature claiming that disruptive scientific findings have been waning since 1945. Scientists took this as an affront. The New York Times interpreted the study to mean that scientists aren't producing as many "real breakthroughs" or "intellectual leaps" or "pioneering discoveries." That seems paradoxical when each year brings a new crop of exciting findings. In the 12 months following that paper, scientists have listened to the close encounters between supermassive black holes, demonstrated the power of new weight loss drugs and brought to market life-changing gene therapies for sickle cell disease.

What the authors of the January paper measured was a changing pattern in the way papers were cited. They created an index of disruptiveness that measured how much a finding marked a break with the past. A more disruptive paper would be cited by many future papers while previous papers in the same area would be cited less -- presumably because they were rendered obsolete. This pattern, they found, has been on a decades-long decline. One of the authors, Russell Funk of the Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, said they wanted to measure how new findings shifted attention away from old ways of doing things.

"Science definitely benefits from a cumulative work and studies that come along and refine our existing ideas. But it also benefits from being shaken up every now and then," he said. We're seeing fewer shake-ups now. Funk said he thinks it's related to funding agents taking too few risks. But others say it may only reflect changes in the way scientists cite each other's work. Scientists I talked to said researchers cite papers for many reasons -- including as way to ingratiate themselves with colleagues, mentors or advisers. Papers on techniques get a disproportionate number of citations, as do review articles because they're easier to cite than going back to the original discoveries. Citations in papers are "noisy data" Funk admitted, but there's a lot of it -- millions of papers -- and such data can reveal interesting trends. He agreed, though, that people shouldn't conflate disruption with importance. He gave the example of the LIGO (the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory), which made a big splash in 2016 by detecting gravitational waves, long ago predicted by Einstein. By his definition it was not disruptive.

The BBC checks in on "the pioneers of space exploration — the 24 Nasa astronauts who travelled to the Moon in the Apollo missions of the 1960s and 1970s." Ken Mattingly and Frank Borman died within a few days of each other late last year. Now only eight people who have voyaged beyond the Earth's orbit remain. Who are they, and what are their stories...? There are only four people still alive who have walked on the Moon — Charlie Duke is one of them. He did it aged 36, making him the youngest person to set foot on the lunar surface... Charlie Duke now lives outside San Antonio, Texas, with Dorothy, to whom he has been married for 60 years....

Jim Lovell is one of only three men to have travelled to the Moon twice, and following Frank Borman's death in November 2023, he became the oldest living astronaut....

After leaving Nasa in 1975, [Harrison Schmitt] was elected to the U.S. Senate from his home state of New Mexico, but only served one term. Since then he has worked as a consultant in various industries as well as continuing in academia.
And when confronted by a man claiming Apollo 11 was an elaborate lie, 72-year-old Buzz Aldrin "punched him on the jaw." Despite struggles in later life, he never lost his thirst for adventure and joined expeditions to both the North and South Poles, the latter at the age of 86. While embracing his celebrity, he has remained an advocate for the space programme, especially the need to explore Mars.

"I don't think we should just go there and come back — we did that with Apollo," he says.
Last 93-year-old Buzz Aldrin got married — and thanked his fans for remembering his birthday. "It means a lot and I hope to continue serving a greater cause for many more revolutions around the sun."

Long-time Slashdot readers necro81 writes: The popular vision of Neptune is azure blue. This comes mostly from the publicly released images from Voyager 2's flyby in 1989 — humanity's only visit to this icy giant at the edge of the solar system. But it turns out that view is a bit distorted — the result of color-enhancing choices made by NASA at the time. A new report from Oxford depicts Neptune's blue color as more muted, with a touch of green, not much different than Uranus. The truer-to-life view comes from re-analyzing the Voyager data, combined with ground-based observations going back decades. (Add'l links here, here, and here.)

This is nothing new: most publicity images released by space agencies — of planets, nebulae, or the surface of Mars — have undergone some color-enhancement for visual effect. (They'll also release "true-color" images, which try to best mimic what the human eye would see.) Many images — such as those from the infrared-seeing JWST — need wholesale coloration of their otherwise invisible wavelengths. The new report is a good reminder, though, to remember that scientific cameras are pretty much always black and white; color images come from combining filters in various ways.
Also thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis for sharing the story.

Tuesday's launch was different. "SpaceX launched its first batch of Starlink satellites designed to connect directly to unmodified smartphones..." reports SpaceNews, "after getting a temporary experimental license to start testing the capability in the United States." Six of the 21 Starlink satellites that launched on a Falcon 9 rocket at 10:44 p.m. Eastern from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, carry a payload that the company said could provide connectivity for most 4G LTE devices when in range. SpaceX plans to start enabling texting from space this year in partnership with cellular operators, with voice and data connectivity coming in 2025, although the company still needs regulatory permission to provide the services commercially. Initial direct-to-smartphone tests would use cellular spectrum from SpaceX's U.S. mobile partner T-Mobile. SpaceX has also partnered with mobile operators in Australia, Canada, Chile, Japan, New Zealand, and Switzerland....

Meanwhile, early-stage ventures AST SpaceMobile and Lynk Global are closing in on fundraising deals to expand their dedicated direct-to-device constellations. AST SpaceMobile said January 2 it is seeking to secure funds this month from "multiple parties" ahead of launching its first five commercial satellites early this year on a Falcon 9. Lynk Global, which is currently providing intermittent texting and other low-bandwidth services to phones outside cellular networks in parts of the Solomon Islands, Cook Islands, and Palau, plans to raise funds by merging with a shell company run by former professional baseball player Alex Rodriguez.

The White House has convened a last-minute meeting to discuss a private lunar mission, Peregrine Mission One, after the Navajo Nation requested a delay due to cultural concerns over the transport of human ashes for burial on the moon. "The moon holds a sacred place in Navajo cosmology," said Navajo Nation President Buu Nygren in a statement. "The suggestion of transforming it into a resting place for human remains is deeply disturbing and unacceptable to our people and many other tribal nations."

If successful, the commercial mission scheduled to launch Monday "will be the first time an American-made spacecraft has landed on the lunar surface since the end of the Apollo program in 1972," notes CNN. Longtime Slashdot reader garyisabusyguy shares the report: The private companies providing these lunar burial services, Celestis and Elysium Space, are just two of several paying customers hitching a ride to the moon on Pittsburgh-based Astrobotic Technology's Peregrine lunar lander. The uncrewed spacecraft is expected to lift off on the inaugural flight of the United Launch Alliance's Vulcan Centaur rocket from Florida's Cape Canaveral Space Force Station. Celestis' payload, called Tranquility Flight, includes 66 "memorial capsules" containing "cremated remains and DNA," which will remain on the lunar surface "as a permanent tribute to the intrepid souls who never stopped reaching for the stars," according to the company's website.

"We are aware of the concerns expressed by Mr. Nygren, but do not find them substantive," Celestis CEO Charles Chafer told CNN. "We reject the assertion that our memorial spaceflight mission desecrates the moon," Chafer said. "Just as permanent memorials for deceased are present all over planet Earth and not considered desecration, our memorial on the moon is handled with care and reverence, is a permanent monument that does not intentionally eject flight capsules on the moon. It is a touching and fitting celebration for our participants -- the exact opposite of desecration, it is a celebration." Elysium Space has not responded to CNN's request for a comment, but the company's website describes its "Lunar Memorial" as delivering "a symbolic portion of remains to the surface of the Moon, helping to create the quintessential commemoration." "I've been disappointed that this conversation came up so late in the game," John Thornton, Astrobotic Technology CEO, said. "I would have liked to have had this conversation a long time ago. We announced the first payload manifest of this nature to our mission back in 2015. A second in 2020. We really are trying to do the right thing and I hope we can find a good path forward with Navajo Nation." [...]

Friday's meeting convened by the White House is scheduled to feature representatives from NASA, the FAA, the US Department of Transportation, and the Department of Commerce. But Navajo Nation officials have little hope that they will be able to stop Monday's launch. "Based off of what we're seeing, and NASA are already having their pre-launch briefing, it doesn't look like they have any intention of stopping the launch or removing the remains," Ahasteen said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Consumer Reports has found that plastics retain a "widespread" presence in food despite the health risks, and called on regulators to reassess the safety of plastics that come into contact with food during production. The non-profit consumer group said on Thursday that 84 out of 85 supermarket foods and fast foods it recently tested contained "plasticizers" known as phthalates, a chemical used to make plastic more durable. It also said 79% of food samples in its study contained bisphenol A (BPA), another chemical found in plastic, and other bisphenols, though levels were lower than in tests done in 2009.

Consumer Reports said none of the phthalate levels it found exceeded limits set by U.S. and European regulators. It also said there was no level of phthalates that scientists confirm is safe, but that does not guarantee the safety of foods you eat. Phthalates and bisphenols can disrupt the production and regulation of estrogen and other hormones, potentially boosting the risk of birth defects, cancer, diabetes, infertility, neurodevelopmental disorders, obesity and other health problems. Among tested supermarket foods, Annie's Organic Cheesy Ravioli contained the most phthalates in nanograms per serving, 53,579, followed by Del Monte sliced peaches and Chicken of the Sea pink salmon.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from VICE News: Last week border officials in the Punjab region of India revealed they intercepted 107 drug-carrying drones sent by smuggling gangs last year over the border from Pakistan, the highest number on record. Most were carrying heroin or opium from Pakistan to be dropped and received by collaborators in the Punjab, notorious for having India's worst levels of opiate addiction. Last year the head of a police narcotics unit in Lahore, a city in Pakistan which borders the Punjab, was dismissed after he was suspected of running a drug trafficking gang sending drones over to India. But the use of cheap flying robots instead of humans to smuggle drugs across borders is a worldwide phenomenon. [...]

[D]rones will likely become an everyday part of drug dealing too, according to Peter Warren Singer, author of multiple books on national security and a Fellow at think tank New America, with legit medicines due to be delivered by drone in the U.S. later this year and maybe in the U.K. too. "We are just scraping the surface of what is possible, as drone deliveries become more and more common in the commercial world, it will be the same with delivery of illicit goods. In our book, Burn-In, we explain how a future city will see drones zipping about delivering everything from groceries and burritos to drugs, both prescribed by a doctor or bought off a dealer. Drones have traditionally been used by governments and corporations for what are known as the "3 D's" jobs that are too dull, dirty, or dangerous for humans. For criminals, it is the same, except add in another D: Dependable. A drone doesn't steal the product and can't be arrested or snitch if caught."

Liam O'Shea, senior research fellow for organized crime and policing at defense and security thinktank RUSI, said drones were at the moment of limited value to wholesale traffickers and organized criminal gangs because of their range and the weight they can carry. "It makes sense that smugglers would seek to use drones. They are cheap and easy to acquire. They also lower the risks involved in some transactions, as smugglers do not have to be physically present during transactions. They offer opportunities for smuggling in areas where previous routes were too risky, such as prisons and over securitized borders. "I expect them to be of greater value to smaller players and distributors dealing with smaller quantities. Wholesale drug traffickers will still need to use routes that facilitate smuggling at higher volume or using drones to make multiple trips, which entails risks of detection. That may well change as improvements in technology improve drones' carrying capacity and crime groups are better able to access drones with greater capacity."

As the number of bees and other pollinators falls, field pansies are adapting by fertilizing their own seeds, a new study found. From a report: Every spring, trillions of flowers mate with the help of bees and other animals. They lure the pollinators to their flowers with flashy colors and nectar. As the animals travel from flower to flower, they take pollen with them, which can fertilize the seeds of other plants. A new study suggests that humans are quickly altering this annual rite of spring. As toxic pesticides and vanishing habitats have driven down the populations of bees and other pollinators, some flowers have evolved to fertilize their own seeds more often, rather than those of other plants.

Scientists said they were surprised by the speed of the changes, which occurred in just 20 generations. "That's rapid evolution," said Pierre-Olivier Cheptou, an evolutionary ecologist at the University of Montpellier in France who led the research. Dr. Cheptou was inspired to carry out the study when it became clear that bees and other pollinators were in a drastic decline. Would flowers that depend on pollinators for sex, he wondered, find another way to reproduce? The study focused on a weedy plant called the field pansy, whose white, yellow and purple flowers are common in fields and on roadsides across Europe. Field pansies typically use bumblebees to sexually reproduce. But they can also use their own pollen to fertilize their own seeds, a process called selfing.

Selfing is more convenient than sex, since a flower does not have to wait for a bee to drop by. But a selfing flower can use only its own genes to produce new seeds. Sexual reproduction allows flowers to mix their DNA, creating new combinations that may make them better prepared for diseases, droughts and other challenges that future generations may face. To track the evolution of field pansies in recent decades, Dr. Cheptou and his colleagues took advantage of a cache of seeds that France's National Botanical Conservatories collected in the 1990s and early 2000s. The researchers compared these old flowers with new ones from across the French countryside. After growing the new and old seeds side by side in the lab under identical conditions, they discovered that selfing had increased 27 percent since the 1990s.

NASA's Juno spacecraft made its closest flyby yet of Io, one of Jupiter's largest moons, sending back images of "sharp cliffs, edgy mountain peaks, lakes of pooled lava and even a volcanic plume," reports the New York Times. From the report: The Juno spacecraft, designed to study the origin and evolution of Jupiter, arrived at the planet in 2016. NASA extended the mission in 2021, and the orbiter has since captured photos of the Jovian moons Ganymede, Europa and most recently Io. [...] Juno conducted a number of more distant observations of Io in recent years. Its latest flyby occurred on Dec. 30, when the spacecraft came within 932 miles of the moon. The images captured during this visit were made with an instrument called JunoCam and are in visible wavelengths. They are some of the highest resolution views of Io's global structure. The mission's managers shared six images of Io on the mission's website, and members of the public have since uploaded digitally enhanced versions that highlight features on Io's surface.

Mission scientists are already at work analyzing these images, searching for differences across Io's surface to learn how often its volcanoes erupt, how bright and hot those eruptions are and how the resulting lava flows. According to Dr. Bolton, the team will also compare Juno's images to older views of the Jovian moon to determine what has changed on Io over a variety of encounters. And they'll get a second set of data to work with in a month, when Juno completes another close flyby of the explosive world on Feb. 3.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Interesting Engineering: Marking a significant advancement in medical science, the world's first partial heart transplant has achieved the expected outcome after over a year of research efforts. Carried out by Duke Health, the patient, a young individual, now exhibits functioning valves and arteries that are growing in tandem with the transplant, as initially expected by the medical team. In spring 2022, doctors carried out the procedure on a baby who needed a new heart valve. Before, they used non-living valves, which didn't grow with the child. This meant the child needed frequent replacements, and the surgeries had a 50 percent chance of being deadly. The new procedure avoids these problems, according to the team.

Babies with serious heart valve problems face a tough challenge because there aren't any implants that can grow with them. So, these babies end up needing new implants over and over until they're big enough for an adult-sized valve. It's a problem that doesn't have a solution yet. Duke Health doctors, leading a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, discovered that the innovative valve collection method used in the partial heart transplant resulted in two properly functioning valves and arteries that are growing along with the child, resembling natural blood vessels. "This publication is proof that this technology works, this idea works, and can be used to help other children," said Joseph W. Turek, first author of the study and Duke's chief of pediatric cardiac surgery, in a statement. The research also notes that the new procedure requires less immunosuppressant medication, reducing potential long-term side effects.

It also facilitates a "domino transplant" method, where one donor heart benefits multiple patients, potentially doubling the number of hearts available for children with heart disease by utilizing previously unused hearts and valves.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: ChatGPT is still no House, MD. While the chatty AI bot has previously underwhelmed with its attempts to diagnose challenging medical cases -- with an accuracy rate of 39 percent in an analysis last year -- a study out this week in JAMA Pediatrics suggests the fourth version of the large language model is especially bad with kids. It had an accuracy rate of just 17 percent when diagnosing pediatric medical cases. The low success rate suggests human pediatricians won't be out of jobs any time soon, in case that was a concern. As the authors put it: "[T]his study underscores the invaluable role that clinical experience holds." But it also identifies the critical weaknesses that led to ChatGPT's high error rate and ways to transform it into a useful tool in clinical care. With so much interest and experimentation with AI chatbots, many pediatricians and other doctors see their integration into clinical care as inevitable. [...]

For ChatGPT's test, the researchers pasted the relevant text of the medical cases into the prompt, and then two qualified physician-researchers scored the AI-generated answers as correct, incorrect, or "did not fully capture the diagnosis." In the latter case, ChatGPT came up with a clinically related condition that was too broad or unspecific to be considered the correct diagnosis. For instance, ChatGPT diagnosed one child's case as caused by a branchial cleft cyst -- a lump in the neck or below the collarbone -- when the correct diagnosis was Branchio-oto-renal syndrome, a genetic condition that causes the abnormal development of tissue in the neck, and malformations in the ears and kidneys. One of the signs of the condition is the formation of branchial cleft cysts. Overall, ChatGPT got the right answer in just 17 of the 100 cases. It was plainly wrong in 72 cases, and did not fully capture the diagnosis of the remaining 11 cases. Among the 83 wrong diagnoses, 47 (57 percent) were in the same organ system.

Among the failures, researchers noted that ChatGPT appeared to struggle with spotting known relationships between conditions that an experienced physician would hopefully pick up on. For example, it didn't make the connection between autism and scurvy (Vitamin C deficiency) in one medical case. Neuropsychiatric conditions, such as autism, can lead to restricted diets, and that in turn can lead to vitamin deficiencies. As such, neuropsychiatric conditions are notable risk factors for the development of vitamin deficiencies in kids living in high-income countries, and clinicians should be on the lookout for them. ChatGPT, meanwhile, came up with the diagnosis of a rare autoimmune condition. Though the chatbot struggled in this test, the researchers suggest it could improve by being specifically and selectively trained on accurate and trustworthy medical literature -- not stuff on the Internet, which can include inaccurate information and misinformation. They also suggest chatbots could improve with more real-time access to medical data, allowing the models to refine their accuracy, described as "tuning."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the Los Angeles Times: The former Westside Pavilion, a long shuttered indoor mall, will be transformed into a UCLA biomedical research center aimed at tackling such towering challenges as curing cancer and preventing global pandemics, officials announced Wednesday. The sprawling three-story structure will be known as the UCLA Research Park and will house two multidisciplinary centers focusing on immunology and immunotherapy as well as quantum science and engineering. Establishment of the public-private research center is a coup for Southern California that "will cement California's global, economic, scientific and technical dominance into the 22nd century and beyond," said Gov. Gavin Newsom.

The former owners of the mall, Hudson Pacific Properties Inc. and Macerich, said Wednesday that they sold the property to the Regents of the University of California for $700 million. By purchasing the former shopping center, UCLA saved several years of potential toil to build such a facility on campus. UCLA is the most-applied-to university in the nation, but its Westwood home is among the smallest of the nine UC undergraduate campuses, leaving it limited room for growth. The former mall sits on prime real estate in the heart of the Westside at Pico Boulevard and Overland Avenue, about two miles from the UCLA campus. The mall was owned by commercial developers who spent hundreds of millions of dollars to dramatically remake the old shopping center into an office complex intended to appeal to technology firms, which signed some of the biggest office leases in L.A.'s Silicon Beach before the pandemic.

Google agreed to become the sole tenant and began paying rent last year yet never moved in. The interior is mostly unfinished, but is ready for UCLA to build out to its specifications in a process Newsom said would take about 40 months. The UCLA Research Park "will serve as a state of the art hub of research and innovation that will bring together academics, corporate partners, government agencies and startups to explore new areas of inquiry and achieve breakthroughs that serve the common good," UCLA Chancellor Gene Block said. In addition to flexible work areas, the former mall's 12-screen multiplex movie theater may be converted into lecture halls or performance spaces offering programming across the arts, humanities, sciences and social sciences, the chancellor's office said. One tenant of the research park will be the new California Institute for Immunology and Immunotherapy.

The research publisher Science announced today that all of its journals will begin using commercial software that automates the process of detecting improperly manipulated images. From a report: The move comes many years into our awareness that the transition to digital data and publishing has made it comically easy to commit research fraud by altering images. While the move is a significant first step, it's important to recognize the software's limitations. While it will catch some of the most egregious cases of image manipulation, enterprising fraudsters can easily avoid being caught if they know how the software operates. Which, unfortunately, we feel compelled to describe (and, to be fair, the company that has developed the software does so on its website).

Much of the image-based fraud we've seen arises from a dilemma faced by many scientists: It's not a problem to run experiments, but the data they generate often isn't the data you want. Maybe only the controls work, or maybe the experiments produce data that is indistinguishable from controls. For the unethical, this doesn't pose a problem since nobody other than you knows what images come from which samples. It's relatively simple to present images of real data as something they're not. To make this concrete, we can look at data from a procedure called a western blot, which uses antibodies to identify specific proteins from a complex mixture that has been separated according to protein size. Typical western blot data looks like the image at right, with the darkness of the bands representing proteins that are present at different levels in different conditions.