Science & TechnologyS


Satellite

New report shows micro-meteor impacts have left 'uncorrectable' damage to the Webb telescope's mirror

Brandon Specktor
LIve Science
Tue, 19 Jul 2022 19:21 UTC
damage james webb telescope micro meteors
© NASA/ CSA/ ESAA large micrometeoroid struck the JWST's C3 mirror, leaving permanent damage, a new report finds.
Fortunately, engineers planned for this.

Since launching on Dec. 25, 2021, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) has been pelted by at least 19 tiny space rocks — including one large one that left noticeable damage on one of the telescope's 18 gold-plated mirrors.

In a sprawling new status report posted to the pre-print database arXiv.org (opens in new tab), NASA researchers have shared the first images showing the extent of that damage. Seen on the C3 mirror in the lower right-hand corner of the image, the impact site appears as a single bright white dent besmirching the golden mirror's surface.

Comment: See also: First micrometeoroid impact hits James Webb Space Telescope just months into flight

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Laptop

China and TSMC: A looming tech nightmare no one is talking about

Scottie
ScottiesTech.Info
Tue, 19 Jul 2022 14:36 UTC
TSMC and China ScottieTech.Info
We all know about Apple, Google, Amazon, Microsoft, and so on.

But there's one tech company that's utterly massive in its importance to the entire industry, and no one is talking about it.

Well, to be precise, no one is talking about what MIGHT happen should the current, um, global mayhem go one step too far...

Join me as I take a look at TSMC: the biggest tech company you've never heard of!
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Satellite

Russia building laser weapon to 'soft kill' US spy satellites

Tyler Durden
Zero Hedge
Fri, 15 Jul 2022 09:20 UTC
Krona coplex
Krona's Lidar Complex
1/ control and computing center
2/ narrow-angle telescope
3/ wide•angle telescope
4/ lidar system
5/ low-Orbiting satellites
6/ high-orbiting satellites
Russia is developing a new anti-satellite weapon that could soon disrupt Western spy satellites flying over its territory.

The Space Review published a new report indicating "strong evidence that a space surveillance complex in Russia's northern Caucasus is being outfitted with a new laser system called Kalina that will target optical systems of foreign imaging satellites flying over Russian territory."

Construction of the Kalina project began in 2011. In a 2014 financial document, Kalina's stated purpose was to "create a system for the functional suppression of electro-optical systems of satellites" using high-powered laser pulses.
Laser telescope
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Brain

Hidden consciousness detected with EEG predicts recovery of unresponsive patients


Science Daily
Wed, 13 Jul 2022 07:24 UTC
Consciousness
© vitstudio/ShutterstockSome scientists believe consciousness is generated by quantum processes, but the theory is yet to be empirically tested.
A new study finds that signs of covert consciousness -- subtle brainwaves detectable with EEG -- are the strongest predictor of eventual recovery for brain-injured patients who otherwise appear completely unresponsive.

The findings suggest brainwave analysis has the potential to completely change how unresponsive patients with acute brain injury are managed.

The study was published online in The Lancet Neurology.

"One of the most difficult challenges in ICU care is determining whether an unresponsive patient with a brain injury is likely to recover and to identify those that may benefit most from rehabilitation," says study leader Jan Claassen, MD, associate professor of neurology and chief of critical care and hospitalist neurology at Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons.
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Blue Planet

DNA from ancient population in Southern China suggests Native Americans' East Asian roots

Cell Press
Phys.org
Thu, 14 Jul 2022 12:00 UTC
skull china
© Xueping JiThe lateral view of the skull unearthed from Red Dear Cave.
For the first time, researchers successfully sequenced the genome of ancient human fossils from the Late Pleistocene in southern China. The data, published July 14 in the journal Current Biology, suggests that the mysterious hominin belonged to an extinct maternal branch of modern humans that might have contributed to the origin of Native Americans.

"Ancient DNA technique is a really powerful tool," Su says. "It tells us quite definitively that the Red Deer Cave people were modern humans instead of an archaic species, such as Neanderthals or Denisovans, despite their unusual morphological features," he says.

The researchers compared the genome of these fossils to that of people from around the world. They found that the bones belonged to an individual that was linked deeply to the East Asian ancestry of Native Americans. Combined with previous research data, this finding led the team to propose that some of the southern East Asia people had traveled north along the coastline of present-day eastern China through Japan and reached Siberia tens of thousands of years ago. They then crossed the Bering Strait between the continents of Asia and North America and became the first people to arrive in the New World.

Comment: Asia is proving to be quite the melting pot, and source, for ancient humanity: DNA from 16 ancient peoples found on Indonesian island spanning last 3,000 years

See also:

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Microscope 1

Uncharted genetic territory offers insight into human-specific proteins


phys.org
Wed, 13 Jul 2022 07:58 UTC
genome road
© Karen Arnott/EMBL-EBIUncharted territories in the human genome.
When researchers working on the Human Genome Project completely mapped the genetic blueprint of humans in 2001, they were surprised to find only around 20,000 genes that produce proteins. Could it be that humans have only about twice as many genes as a common fly? Scientists had expected considerably more.

Now, researchers from 20 institutions worldwide bring together more than 7,200 unrecognized gene segments that potentially code for new proteins. For the first time, the study makes use of a new technology to find possible proteins in humans — looking in detail at the protein-producing machinery in cells. The new study suggests the gene discovery efforts of the Human Genome Project were just the beginning, and the research consortium aims to encourage the scientific community to integrate the data into the major human genome databases.

The study recently published in Nature Biotechnology, was co-led by Dr. Jorge Ruiz- Orera from Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in the Helmholtz Association (MDC) in Germany, Dr. Sebastiaan van Heesch from the Princess Máxima Center for pediatric oncology in the Netherlands, Dr. Jonathan Mudge from the European Molecular Biology Laboratory — European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) in the United Kingdom, and Dr. John Prensner from the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard in the United States.

Comment: See also: "Noncoding" RNA molecules found to create micropeptides

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Syringe

Microparticles could be used to deliver 'self-boosting' vaccines

Anne Trafton
MIT News
Wed, 13 Jul 2022 00:00 UTC
self-boosting vaccines
© MIT News
Most vaccines, from measles to Covid-19, require a series of multiple shots before the recipient is considered fully vaccinated. To make that easier to achieve, MIT researchers have developed microparticles that can be tuned to deliver their payload at different time points, which could be used to create "self-boosting" vaccines.

In a new study, the researchers describe how these particles degrade over time, and how they can be tuned to release their contents at different time points. The study also offers insights into how the contents can be protected from losing their stability as they wait to be released.

Using these particles, which resemble tiny coffee cups sealed with a lid, researchers could design vaccines that would need to be given just once, and would then "self-boost" at a specified point in the future. The particles can remain under the skin until the vaccine is released and then break down, just like resorbable sutures.
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Satellite

James Webb Space Telescope: Stunning new images released by NASA after first color photo unveiled at White House

William Harwood
CBS News
Tue, 12 Jul 2022 17:48 UTC
james webb carina nebula
© NASA, ESA, CSA, and STScI via Getty ImagesThe edge of a nearby, young, star-forming region called NGC 3324 in the Carina Nebula.
After a presidential reveal Monday, NASA unveiled more spectacular "first light" pictures from the James Webb Space Telescope on Tuesday, showcasing interacting galaxies, the death throes of a slowly dying star and a stellar nursery where massive young suns are being born and blazing light sculpts vast clouds of gas and dust.

Warmed up by cheerleaders chanting "J-W-S-T, J-W-S-T," NASA Administrator Bill Nelson, senior agency managers and a throng of enthusiastic Webb engineers and scientists looked on at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, as the new images were released, one at a time.

"In the words of the famous Carl Sagan, 'Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known,'" Nelson said. "I think those words are becoming reality."

Comment:



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Info

NASA mission to study electrical currents in Earth's upper atmosphere

Vanessa Thomas
SciTechDaily
Mon, 11 Jul 2022 17:33 UTC
Cubesats Above Atmosphere
© NASA/Johns Hopkins APLThis illustration shows the three CubeSats of NASA’s EZIE mission flying in formation above Earth. The spacecraft will study electrical currents in Earth’s atmosphere that link changes in the magnetosphere to effects at the Earth’s surface during geomagnetic storms – the same storms that trigger the colorful auroral displays.
NASA's Electrojet Zeeman Imaging Explorer (EZIE) project - a mission to explore electrical currents in Earth's upper atmosphere - has passed a crucial developmental milestone, after rigorous review, moving the mission from the design phase to the construction phase.

EZIE will investigate auroral electrojets, which are powerful electrical currents flowing approximately 65 miles (100 kilometers) above the ground in the ionosphere, a region of Earth's atmosphere rich in ions ( charged atoms). These electrojets are connected to the beautiful auroras that dance across the polar night skies. They are part of a vast electrical circuit flowing between Earth and the surrounding space, out to some 100,000 miles (160,000 kilometers) away. The discoveries of EZIE will help to resolve decades-old arguments regarding the structure and evolution of the electrojets, paving the way for a more thorough understanding of Earth's space weather — magnetic events in space that can affect our ever increasingly technological society.
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Seismograph

42-foot tsunami would hit Seattle in minutes after quake, study finds


Zerohedge
Sun, 10 Jul 2022 23:00 UTC
tsunami quake
The Washington State Department of Natural Resources (DNR) released a terrifying new simulation of a monster earthquake rocking the Seattle Fault that would produce a tsunami as high as four stories in the central business district of Seattle.

"Tsunami waves could be as high as 42 feet at the Seattle Great Wheel and will reach inland as far as Lumen Field and T-Mobile Park," Washington State DNR tweeted.

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