An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists working on an experimental anti-ageing therapy claim to have broken a record by extending the lifespan of a lab rat called Sima. Named after the Hindi word for "limit" or "boundary", Sima is the last remaining survivor from a group of rodents that received infusions of blood plasma taken from young animals to see if the treatment prolonged their lives. Sima, who was born on February 28, 2019, has lived for 47 months, surpassing the 45.5 months believed to be the oldest age recorded in scientific literature for a female Sprague-Dawley rat, the researchers say. So far, Sima has outlived her closest rival in the study by nearly six months. "We have the oldest living female Sprague Dawley rat," said Dr Harold Katcher, a former biology professor at the University of Maryland, now chief scientific officer at Yuvan Research, a California-based startup.

Researchers have rushed to produce and trial therapies based on young blood plasma after numerous experiments found that infusions could reinvigorate aging organs and tissues. But while studies have found benefits for rodents, there is no evidence to date that the somewhat vampiric approach to youthfulness will help humans dodge the passage of time, despite the best wishes of Silicon Valley. The results from Katcher's latest study will be written up when Sima dies, but data gathered so far suggests that eight rats that received placebo infusions of saline lived for 34 to 38 months, while eight that received a purified and concentrated form of blood plasma, called E5, lived for 38 to 47 months. They also had improved grip strength. Rats normally live for two to three years, though a contender for the oldest ever is a brown rat that survived on a restricted calorie diet for 4.6 years.

A patent filing on the potential therapy describes how plasma from young mammals is purified and concentrated before use. Some components, such as platelets, are removed, as they can trigger immune reactions. The patent names pigs, cows, goats, sheep and humans as possible donors. The amount of plasma needed to produce a single concentrated dose is at least as much as the recipient has in their entire body, it states. If the therapy ever shows promise in humans -- large trials are needed in more animals first -- Katcher believes the plasma could be collected from pigs at abbatoirs.

SpaceX on Thursday test fired 31 of the 33 engines in the towering rocket booster of its Starship prototype, as the company prepares to launch the rocket to orbit for the first time. CNBC reports: Called a "static fire," the milestone test is the final major hurdle before SpaceX tries to launch the nearly 400-foot-tall rocket to space. The company said in a tweet shortly after the test that the engines at the base of the Super Heavy booster fired for "full duration," meaning the expected length of the test. CEO Elon Musk said in a subsequent tweet that SpaceX turned off one engine before the test and another engine "stopped itself." "Still enough engines to reach orbit!" Musk said.

SpaceX has steadily been building up to the first flight test of its Starship rocket. President and COO Gwynne Shotwell on Wednesday stressed the first launch attempt would be experimental. The company will next analyze the result of Thursday's static fire test. Shotwell estimated that a successful static would see SpaceX ready to launch the first Starship orbital flight "within the next month or so." You can watch the static fire test here.

Chip suppliers have warned that a European effort to impose a ban on "forever chemicals" will cause widespread disruption to already tight semiconductor supply chains. From a report: Five European countries, including Germany and the Netherlands, on Tuesday proposed that the EU phase out tens of thousands of so-called forever chemicals, known as PFAS, used in the production of semiconductors, batteries, aircraft, cars, medical equipment and even frying pans and ski wax.

The ban would constitute "the broadest restriction proposal in history," Frauke Averbeck, who led the proposal for the German Environment Agency, said. "It's a huge step for us to take." Richard Luit, senior policy adviser at the Dutch National Institute for Public Health and Environment, added: "If no action is taken we estimate that the societal costs will exceed the costs without a restriction." However, industry executives warned that a broad ban could have severe consequences for many sectors. Chemours, a leading supplier of high-end fluoropolymers, warned that the chemicals were "absolutely critical" for semiconductor manufacturing as well as a wide range of other industries.

Scientists have spotted 12 more moons around Jupiter, adding to an already-huge number that just seems to grow and grow. From a report: There's so many moons around this gas giant planet that astronomer Scott Sheppard struggles to keep track. "With this new haul, we're up to, I believe, 92 ... actually, I have to check that," he says, leaning over to type into his computer at the Carnegie Institution for Science, Earth and Planets Laboratory in Washington, DC. " Yeah, so 92 is the number that we have right now." His team is currently tracking some more moons that, once confirmed over the next year or two, should put Jupiter over 100.

There's good reason to keep looking for more moons, Sheppard says: If one was found in a convenient orbit, a spacecraft on a mission to Jupiter could fly close by and take a peek, letting scientists figure out what the moonlet is made of. That's important because Jupiter's small, outer moons are fairly mysterious. Astronomers suspect that they are remnants of the original building material that got used to form the solar system's biggest planet. Sheppard has been discovering new moons around Jupiter for over two decades, leading some colleagues to jokingly call him "Galileo," after the famous astronomer who first discovered that Jupiter had moons in 1610. Every few years, Sheppard and his fellow astronomers take advantage of better technology and bigger telescopes to add more moons to the tally. At the moment, Jupiter holds the record for the most known moons, beating out Saturn, which has 83.

In a study published Wednesday in PLOS Climate, a group of astrophysicists proposes shooting lunar dust into space to help partially shield sunlight to Earth. The Washington Post reports: The team used computer simulations to model various scenarios where massive quantities of dust (and we mean a lot of dust) in space can reduce the amount of Earthbound sunlight by 1 to 2 percent, or up to about six days of an obscured sun in a year. Their cheapest and most efficient idea is to launch dust from the moon, which would land into orbit between the sun and Earth and create a sunshade. Yes, the idea sounds like science fiction. Yes, it would require (a lot of) new engineering. Yes, there are more feasible climate mitigation tactics that can be employed now and in the near future. But the researchers view this rigorous physics experiment as a backup option that could aid -- not replace -- existing strategies to help humankind live on a more comfortable Earth. [...]

In the new study, the authors concede their idea isn't perfect but say it addresses some problems with previous concepts. For instance, the amount of material needed to actually shade the sun exceeds 10 billion kilograms (22 billion pounds), which is about 100 times more mass than humans have ever sent into space. Bromley says dust is very efficient at scattering sunlight relative to its size. The team considered different types of dust, scattering properties and size. The team found that aggregates of fluffy and highly porous particles scattered light the best, but they opted for a particle perhaps more easily accessible in space: moon dust. "We really do focus on lunar dust, just plain old, as-it-is lunar dust, without any indication of changing its shape," said Bromley, who said future moon mining could excavate the dust needed. Perhaps the greatest challenge is getting the right material exactly where you need it, Bromley said.

In one computer simulation, the team shot lunar dust from the moon's surface toward the sun. Bromley said the device to launch the lunar dust into space could be something similar to an electromagnetic gun, cannon or rocket -- picture a T-shirt cannon sending dust into orbit. In the simulation, the dust scattered along various routes until the team found suitable trajectories, which allowed the dust to concentrate temporarily and act as a sun shield. Bromley said the dust would periodically disperse away from Earth and throughout the solar system. In another simulation, the team shot off dust from a space platform about 1 million miles from Earth. This would be in an area known as L1 (Lagrange point 1), where objects tend to stay put because of equal gravitational pulls between the sun and Earth. This idea required more astronomical cost and effort because they would need a space platform and a dust supply that could be easily replenished. In either scenario, people on the ground wouldn't be able to see the shield or feel any difference, although some tools would probably be able to detect changes in the incoming solar radiation.