nasa

NASA Report States There Is No Evidence That Confirms UFOs Are Extraterrestrial 

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An independent study team from NASA has released a report on UFOs in which they stated that there is no evidence that reported UFO sightings are extraterrestrial. The US Government also now categorizes UFOs as UAPs, or unidentified anomalous phenomena. 

During a press conference, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson discussed how NASA has scientific programs to search for signs of life on Mars and imprints of biology in our atmosphere. He discussed how he hopes the mainstream conversation regarding UAPs and UFOs is centered around science in the future. 

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Chris Impey, a professor of astronomy who has a history of reporting on astrobiology, wrote about the recent report for the publication, The Conversation. 

Impey wrote about how the NASA study team’s report suggests that there’s “little to no evidence to suggest that UAPs are extraterrestrial in origin,” according to astronomer David Spergel. 

Only “a small handful cannot be immediately identified as known human-made or natural phenomena,” out of more than 800 unclassified sightings that have been collected by the Department of Defense. according to the report.

“Many of the recent sightings can be attributed to weather balloons and airborne clutter. Historically, most UFOs are astronomical objects such as meteors, fireballs and the planet Venus. Some sightings represent surveillance operations by foreign powers, which is why the U.S. military considers this a national security issue.”

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“The report does offer recommendations to NASA on how to move these investigations forward,” Impey wrote. 

Data analysis from the report is“hampered by poor sensor calibration, the lack of multiple measurements, the lack of sensor metadata, and the lack of baseline data.” 

Officials described the analysis process like “looking for a needle in a haystack, or separating the wheat from the chaff. [We] needed a consistent and rigorous methodology for characterizing sightings, as a way of homing in on something truly anomalous.”

Spergel said the study team’s goal was “to characterize the hay – or the mundane phenomena – and subtract it to find the needle, or the potentially exciting discovery.

Artificial intelligence can help researchers comb through massive datasets to find rare, anomalous phenomena. AI is already being used this way in many areas of astronomy research,” according to Impey.

moon

Defense Of Advanced Research Projects Agency Exploring Technology For Moon-Based Economy 

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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is embarking on a seven-month study to analyze the infrastructure and baseline technology that would be needed to develop a moon-based economy within the next 10 years. 

Through their lunar architecture study, called LunA-10, DARPA is attempting to establish the framework needed for “rapid scientific and commercial activity on and around the moon,” between 2025 and 2015, according to an Agency statement.

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“A large paradigm shift is coming in the next 10 years for the lunar economy. To get to a turning point faster, LunA-10 uniquely aims to identify solutions that can enable multi-mission lunar systems,” said Michael Nayak, the program manager in DARPA’s Strategic Technology Office. 

The “multi-mission systems” that Nayak is referring to could include dual use military and commercial technology, such as a wireless power station that would offer communication and navigation capabilities. Nayak compared DARPA’s role in building the lunar economy to it’s contributions to the creation of the internet. 

“Just like DARPA’s foundational node of ARPANET grew into the sprawling web of the internet, LunA-10 is looking for those connective nodes to support a thriving commercial economy on the moon,” Nayak stated. 

The US and other nations, as well as commercial companies, have been planning missions as a part of their vision for a future economy on the moon. DARPA and the Air Force Research Laboratory have begun a slew of programs in recent years meant to explore satellite sensing and logistics in a lunar environment. 

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The National Geospatial Intelligence Agency announced in May that they’re developing a Lunar Reference Frame that will show a mapping infrastructure to support a GPS-like capability for the moon. 

According to reports, “the DARPA effort is focused on fusing various infrastructure sectors that have technological overlap into hubs that could be built up in the future, as economic activity on and around the moon increases. Those sectors include: transit and mobility; energy; communications; and other revolutionary orbital or surface infrastructure concepts.”

DARPA is not planning on funding any new technology development, transportation, or integration with space vehicles, and instead is forming teams that are made up of companies with expertise in lunar technology. 

The teams will be responsible for identifying enabling capabilities, developing analytical frameworks, and considering logistical and technical challenges for future moon operations. 

DARPA is projecting their study will officially begin in November and go until June 2024. They’re also coordinating with NASA to create a blueprint for scientific exploration on the moon and Mars.

horsehair worm

‘Mind-Controlling’ Parasitic Worms Are Missing 30% of Genes Found in All Other Animals

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Parasitic worms known for their “mind controlling” abilities are missing 30% of genes that are found in all other animals, scientists say. The thread-like worms are notorious for compelling their insect hosts to jump into water and drown.

Horsehair worms, of which there are hundreds of species, hatch in water where small water-dwelling predators eventually eat their larvae. Land-dwelling predators, such as crickets and beetles that consume these smaller predators, make the ideal host for the parasite.

After spending months as larvae inside these larger predators, the adult parasites force their hosts to actively seek out and enter bodies of water. Once the insect has drowned, the horsehair worms swim out of the host’s rear orifices to begin their next generation.

The worms resemble spaghetti strings, are only a few inches long, and are found all around the world. Spending most of their lives inside other animals, they have no excretory, respiratory or circulatory systems.

According to a study published Tuesday in the journal Current Biology, horsehair worms, which belong to the phylum Nematomorpha, lost about a third of the genes found in other animals somewhere along their evolutionary history. Genome sequencing of two nematomorph species—the freshwater hairworm Acutogordius australiensis and the marine species Nectonema munidae—led researchers to find the missing genes. Beyond their unique reproductive behavior, very little was known about the worms’ genetics until now.

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Tauana Cunha, a postdoctoral research scientist at Chicago’s Field Museum of Natural History and lead author of the study, says, “One of the coolest things, maybe the thing that they are most known for, is that they can affect the behavior of their hosts and make them do things that they wouldn’t do otherwise.”

Cunha told CNN that compared with other animals, the worms seemed to be missing a group of around 200 genes.

“There’s a given set of genes that are expected to be found across animal groups. It’s used as a metric for the quality of your genome.”

The genes are known to control the development of cilia—short hairlike structures found at the cellular level, which aid in cellular movement, perform sensing functions, and remove debris and microbes.

The “tail” of a sperm cell is actually just a single, highly specialized cilium. Many microscopic organisms use cilia to swim and catch food. These structures also line our respiratory tract, retinal cells, and the surface of our lungs.

“We set out to sequence their genomes because nothing like them has ever been sequenced before at that level. The goal was to produce those genomes and eventually use them to understand the evolutionary relationships between hairworms and other kinds of animals.”

Horsehair worms seem to be thriving without cilia. “The large majority of the missing genes were exactly the same between the two species; this was just implausible by chance,” says Cunha about the marine and freshwater horsehair worm species studied.

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Biologist Keiichi Kakui, a lecturer in the Department of Biological Sciences at Hokkaido University in Japan, told CNN that the promising new research combines “genome-scale molecular data and detailed morphological observation.”

Kakui was the lead author of a separate study that identified juvenile marine horsehair worms in isopods, a type of deep-sea crustacean. It is unclear how these parasites are able to navigate the ocean without the sensory structures available to most other animals.

“It is hard for me to imagine how this species finds and enters their host in the vast deep sea.”

Scientists had previously identified five species of marine horsehair worms, joining the hundreds of species found in freshwater. Marine horsehair worms, in contrast to their freshwater counterparts, live their entire lives underwater and are not known to manipulate their hosts’ behavior. However, it appears that all species are missing the same genes, which may indicate that both lineages share a common ancestor from which the genetic deficiency was inherited.

Cunha says the new genetic information could also be used to learn about other parasitic organisms known to influence the behaviors of their hosts.

“By doing this comparative analysis across organisms in the future, we might be able to look for similarities. Or maybe these organisms evolved similar behaviors in completely different ways from each other.”

car

FAA Approves First Flying Car Known As ‘Model A’ 

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This week, the company Alef Aeronautics announced that their “Model A” flying car was granted legal permission from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to test run the vehicle on both the road and the sky. The vehicle will need to run through testing before it can be made available and released to the public.

Alef Aeronautics is the first company to gain the Special Airworthiness Certification from the FAA, the company said in a news release. This specific certification is also given to limit the locations and purpose for the vehicle and where it’s allowed to fly. 

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Before the vehicle can take flight, it also needs to meet the safety standards of the National Highway and Traffic Safety Administration. Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny stated that the company is “hopeful” that the “certification will be our next step.”

“The historical significance of this cannot be overstated. While there have been pioneers like Terrafugia, Paul Moller, and Henry Ford, this is the first time a vehicle, in the traditional sense (parks and drives like a car, functions like a car, looks like a car), has received permission to fly,”  Dukhovny said to USA TODAY. 

“It’s also important that Alef is the first electric car which received permission to fly. And, last but not least, the ability for vertical takeoff is central to most people’s conception of a ‘flying car.'”

During the “Model A’s” development and testing, Alef is required to report any issues, malfunctions, and/or defects to the US government agency under the Code of Federal Regulation. 

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Model A is also available for preorder, it will be able to hold up to two occupants, will sell for around $300,000, and is 100% electric. In the release, the company also stated the vehicle will be drivable on public roads and has vertical takeoff and landing capabilities. 

“The car will be a Low Speed Vehicle, meaning it won’t go faster than about 25 miles per hour on a paved surface. If a driver needs a faster route, they will be able to use the vehicle’s flight capabilities,” according to Alef.

Presales opened up on Friday. Interested customers were able to pay a $150 deposit to get on a waiting list, or $1,500 for a priority spot on the waiting list’s queue. 

The company has been test driving and flying the car’s prototype since 2019. The version that customers could receive has a driving range of 200 miles and a flight range of 110 miles. 

“We’re excited to receive this certification from the FAA. It allows us to move closer to bringing people an environmentally friendly and faster commute, saving individuals and companies hours each week. This is a one small step for planes, one giant step for cars,” said Alef CEO Jim Dukhovny.

The company has stated that they plan to start delivering the vehicles to customers by late 2025.

asteroid

Asteroid Orbiting With Earth, Known As ‘Quasi-Moon,’ Will Be Around For Hundreds Of Years, Scientists Say 

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Astronomers have recently discovered an asteroid that joined Earth’s orbit around the sun. The asteroid has been named 2023 FW13, and is also referred to as a “quasi-moon” or “quasi-satellite” since it orbits the sun in a similar time frame as the Earth does.

However, the asteroid is only “slightly influenced” by Earth’s gravitational pull, according to reports from Earth.com.

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The asteroid itself was initially discovered on March 28th, 2023 by the Pan-STARRS survey telescope, which is located on the top of Haleakalā, a dormant volcano in Maui, Hawaii. Data shows the asteroid is only 50 feet in diameter, and is orbiting about nine million miles away from Earth. 

The Canada-France-Hawaii telescope, the Kitt Peak National Observatory, and the Mount Lemmon SkyCenter soon after confirmed the asteroid’s presence in the Earth’s vicinity. 

The Minor Planet Center officially listed the asteroid at the International Astronomical Union; an organization that is responsible for identifying and designating titles to new planets, moons, and other astronomical objects in our solar system. 

Journalist and astronomer Adrien Coffinet was the first one to classify the asteroid as a “quasi-moon,” after using an orbit simulator developed by Tony Dunn, another astronomer. Coffinet used the model to find that 2023 FW13 travels around the sun the same amount of time the Earth does, while also circling our planet. 

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2023 FW13 has seemingly been joining Earth in its orbit since 100 BCE, and is likely to continue following our planet until 3700. 

“It seems to be the longest quasi-satellite of Earth known to date,” Coffinet said.

“Fortunately, despite hovering relatively close to our planet, this asteroid is unlikely to be on a collision course with the Earth. The good news is, such an orbit doesn’t result in an impacting trajectory ‘out of the blue,’” Harris said.

According to Richard Binzel, an astronomer at MIT, “astronomical objects such as this one could act as stepping stones to Mars, meaning that they could soon be accessed by spacecraft due to their relative low velocity caused by their near-match to the Earth’s orbit. A space mission trying to reach such asteroids makes sense as a way to practice deep-space missions, before committing a crew and hardware to a longer mission to Mars. It’s a shakedown cruise.”

saturn

New Study Reveals Saturn’s Rings Are Much Younger Than The Planet Itself 

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A new study from the University of Colorado at Boulder has found that Saturn’s rings are likely around 400 million years old, which is much younger than the planet of Saturn itself, which is thought to be around 4.5 billion years old. 

The research was published this month in the journal Science Advances, where it states that Saturn’s rings are likely no more than 400 million years old, making the rings significantly younger than Saturn itself, which is around 4.5 billion years old. 

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The study itself was led by physicist Sascha Kempf from the University of Colorado at Boulder. “In a way, we’ve gotten closure on a question that started with James Clerk Maxwell,” said Kempf.

Kempf broke down that the conclusion of their research came after analyzing dust, and tiny grains of rock material which are constantly moving through the entirety of our Earth’s solar system. When there’s influxes of this tiny grain rock material’s presence, it can leave behind a thin layer of dust on the planets, including on the ice that makes up Saturn’s rings. 

“Think about the rings like the carpet in your house. If you have a clean carpet laid out, you just have to wait. Dust will settle on your carpet. The same is true for the rings.”

Kempf and his team of researchers used an instrument known as the Cosmic Dust Analyzer on NASA’s Cassini spacecraft from the years of 2004 to 2017, analyzing the specks of dust around Saturn. Throughout that time, the team collected around 163 grains that originated from beyond the planet’s immediate proximity. 

With this information, they were able to initially hypothesize that Saturn’s rings have only been gathering dust for a few hundred million years; much younger than the age of the planets in our solar system. 

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“We know approximately how old the rings are, but it doesn’t solve any of our other problems. We still don’t know how these rings formed in the first place.”

Scientists do know that Saturn has seven rings that are made up of chunks of ice that are mostly the size of the average boulder here on Earth. For most of the 20th century, it was assumed that the rings formed at the same time that Saturn did. However, as time went on researchers became skeptical about their origin, as the rings are much cleaner when compared to the actual planet of Saturn. 

“It’s almost impossible to end up with something so clean,” Kempf said.

The other interesting aspect of Saturn’s rings and their development is that they also might be vanishing. NASA scientists have reported in the past that the ice chunks that make up the rings are slowly melting and raining down on the planet itself. They’ve reported that the rings could even fully disappear within the next 100 million years. 

While we still know little about how these rings initially formed, and why they formed so much later than the planet itself, this new research gives an intriguing new insight into the history of Saturn, and our solar system overall.

voyager

NASA To Give The Voyager 2 Backup Power So It Lasts Until 2026

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NASA’s Voyager 2 spacecraft has been probing around the solar system for over 45 years. Now, the spacecraft is running out of power, but the Agency has a new plan to keep Voyager 2 running for at least three more years. 

The Voyager 2 initially launched in 1977, and has been helping scientists view and investigate planets far from Earth, as well as learn about how the heliosphere protects the Earth from its volatile interstellar environment. The heliosphere is the sun’s outermost layer that traps particles and magnetic fields within it. 

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NASA engineers and scientists have begun turning off heaters and nonessential parts to preserve power in the Voyager 2, and now have a plan to use reserved power from a safety mechanism within the spacecraft’s voltage, according to reports from NPR. 

“The move will enable the mission to postpone shutting down a science instrument until 2026, rather than this year,” NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory said. 

Both Voyager 2 and Voyager 1, which was launched the same year as its twin Voyager 2, are the only spacecraft to have explored past the heliosphere. 

Ed Stone was the chief scientist at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Lab, who retired last year, has spent decades working on the Voyager program. He was able to see firsthand new data and discoveries from planets such as Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune. 

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“What it revealed was how complex and dynamic the solar system really is. Before Voyager, the only known active volcanoes were here on Earth. Then we flew by Jupiter’s moon, Io, and it has 10 times the volcanic activity of earth. Before Voyager, the only known oceans in the solar system were here on Earth.

Then we flew by another moon of Jupiter, Europa, which it turns out has a liquid water ocean beneath its icy crust,” Stone told NPR. 

Voyager 2 is currently 12.3 billion miles away from Earth, and getting further, Voyager 1 is also expected to lose power in the coming years, and is currently 14.7 billion miles away. 

“The science data that the Voyagers are returning gets more valuable the farther away from the Sun they go, so we are definitely interested in keeping as many science instruments operating as long as possible,” Linda Spilker, the Voyager program’s project scientist at the Jet Propulsion Lab, said in a statement.

tiger

India’s Endangered Tiger Population Is Steadily Increasing Thanks To Conservation Efforts 

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In the beginning of the 20th century, there were around 100,000 tigers roaming around Asia before human intervention caused that number to plummet. In 2006, it was reported that only around 1,411 tigers remained in India; the nation with the most of the world’s remaining tiger population. 

Now, conservation efforts have helped that number grow, and nearly double, to around 3,167, according to reports from last year from a tiger census study. 

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Currently, that number accounts for around 70% of the world’s tiger population, according to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF). Prime Minister Narendra Modi spoke on this increase in an address on Sunday.

“We have thousands of years of history related to tigers … The tiger is considered our brother in many tribes. A better future for humanity is only possible when our environments are protected and our biodiversity continues to expand.”

The tiger population in Asia began steeply declining in the 1940s due to an increase in the human population. Human’s efforts with agricultural expansion, deforestation, and natural infrastructure has impacted the natural environments in which tiger’s live. 

The WWF stated that these human interventions have caused tigers to no longer have a solitary environment, and drastically removed the large territories they use for hunting. They also reported that as of today, tigers exist on only 7% of the land they used to occupy. 

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In 1971, India had a population of around 547 million, and today they’re at 1.4 billion and set to become the world’s most populated country this year. 

In the 1980s, unregulated poaching also caused the tiger population to decline drastically. Tigers have been hunted for sport, social status, and consumption. Although India banned tiger hunting in 1972, it still remains a major issue; in 2005 India cited poaching as the reasoning for the complete extinction of tigers living in an Indian reserve. 

In the past years, conservation efforts have developed 53 new tiger reserves that stretch across 75,800 square kilometers; initially these efforts only had 9 reservations. Authorities have even paid and relocated entire villages as a means of making more space for the tigers. 

Government funded technology has embraced the use of drones, camera traps, and advanced software systems to track tiger populations and ideally keep them safe from illegal poachers. 

While poaching and the ongoing threat of climate change still poses a major threat to the tiger population, the conservation efforts have given many a lot of hope, so much so that India has begun sharing their techniques and strategies with other countries to help them ideally increase declining tiger populations.

lab

Scientists Produce Mice With Two Fathers By Using Male Cells To Make Eggs 

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Scientists from Japan have found a way to create mice with two biological fathers by generating eggs using cells from the males. This recent accomplishment could create revolutionary new possibilities for reproduction in humans. 

The hope is that these advances can eventually aid scientists in creating new treatments for individuals suffering from infertility issues, and potentially lead to a new way for same-sex couples to have a biological child together. 

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Katsuhiko Hayashi led the research from Kyushu University in Japan, and is also internationally known as a pioneer in the field of reproduction; specifically growing eggs and sperm in a lab. He recently spoke to The Guardian regarding this recent discovery. 

“This is the first case of making robust mammal oocytes from male cells.”

Hayashi presented these recent findings at the Third International Summit on Human Genome Editing at the Francis Crick Institute in London. Hayashi predicts “that it will be technically possible to create a viable human egg from a male skin cell within a decade.” 

“Purely in terms of technology, it will be possible [in humans] even in 10 years, [personally I] would be in favor of the technology being used clinically to allow two men to have a baby if it were shown to be safe. I don’t know whether they’ll be available for reproduction. That is not a question just for the scientific program, but also for [society].”

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He went on to explain how this new technique could also be utilized to treat severe forms of infertility, citing the example of women who have Turner’s syndrome, which was one of the biggest initial motivations to pursue this particular study. 

Other scientists are skeptical at Hayashi’s optimism regarding when this treatment will be viable in human subjects, as human cells require a longer cultivation period to produce an egg, which could lead to drastic genetic changes within a potential embryo. 

“The work is fascinating,  but other research has indicated that creating lab-grown gametes from human cells was more challenging than for mouse cells. We still don’t understand enough of the unique biology of human gametogenesis to reproduce Hayashi’s provocative work in mice,” Professor George Daley, the dean of Harvard Medical School, described.

The study involved numerous intricate steps to turn a male skin cell, which carries the XY chromosome, into an egg with the female XX chromosome. They did this by reprogramming the skin cells into a stem-cell like form, making it possible to replace the Y chromosome from the male subject into an X chromosome to become an egg. 

“The trick of this, the biggest trick, is the duplication of the X chromosome,” said Hayashi.

spray

Scientists Name Fungus-Killing Compound After Keanu Reeves

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Researchers from Germany’s Leibniz Institute have found a naturally occurring compound so effective at busting human and plant pathogenic fungi that they named it after actor Keanu Reeves.

The three nonribosomal lipopeptides scientists isolated—Keanumycins A, B, and C—are byproducts of Pseudomonas bacteria typically found in soil and water. Scientists observed the compounds while studying Pseudomonas for their effectiveness against predatory amoebas.

“We have been working with pseudomonads for some time and know that many of these bacterial species are very toxic to amoebae, which feed on bacteria,” said study leader and head of the department of Paleobiotechnology at Leibniz-HKI Pierre Stallforth.

The researchers wanted to know if the same bacteria would be effective against fungi, which have a cell structure similar to amoebas. Testing showed that the bacteria’s byproducts were lethal to a fungus infecting a hydrangea.

The scientists’ findings were published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society in January. The study’s first author, Sebastian Götze, said in a press release that they named the lipopeptides after Keanu Reeves because of his iconic roles in action films.

“The lipopeptides kill so efficiently that we named them after Keanu Reeves because he, too, is extremely deadly in his roles.”

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Notably, the Keanumycins were effective against Botrytis cinerea—the fungus responsible for gray mold rot that destroys various crops, such as strawberries and wine grapes, and causes significant harvest losses. Farmers frequently use chemical fungicides to combat its aggressive spread.

Having seen the potential of the Keanumycins, the study’s authors are conducting experiments to determine whether or not a fungicide containing Keanumycins can effectively eradicate crop-damaging fungi without leaving any harmful residues behind in soil or on produce.

If the results are promising, the compounds could provide a biodegradable alternative to chemical pesticides.

Götze said that the compounds may also help treat human fungal infections that are becoming resistant to conventional antifungals. For instance, Keanumycins are non-toxic to humans and were found to “strongly inhibit” the pathogenic fungus Candida albicans, which is responsible for yeast infections.

“We have a crisis in anti-infectives. Many human-pathogenic fungi are now resistant to antimycotics — partly because they are used in large quantities in agricultural fields.”

Dr. Matt Nelsen, a researcher from Chicago’s Field Museum, told CNN in an email that the study “documents another exciting means by which microbes have evolved to compete with and fight other organisms.”

“Previous efforts have sought to exploit such natural products for human use to combat animal and plant pathogens. However, over time, many pathogenic organisms — including fungi — have evolved resistance to the chemicals we use to battle them. Consequently, we need to find a new way to ‘outsmart’ or ‘one-up’ them.”

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This is not the first time a scientific discovery has been named after a famous face. In February, researchers Juan C. Sánchez-Nivicela, José M. Falcón-Reibán and Diego F. Cisneros-Heredia discovered a mystical steam frog in Ecuador and named it after fantasy author J.R.R. Tolkien.

The frog, Hyloscirtus tolkieni, was found in a habitat that reminded Sánchez-Nivicela of the Fangorn Forest from Tolkien’s “Lord of the Rings” series.

The paper on their findings started with an homage to the opening lines of Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.”

“In a stream in the forest, there lived a Hyloscirtus. Not a nasty, dirty stream, with spoor of contamination and a muddy smell, nor yet a dry, bare, sandy stream with nothing in it to perch on or to eat: it was a Hyloscirtus-stream, and that means environmental quality.”

There are also several beetles named after celebrities, including the Agaporomorphus colberti named after late-night talk show host Stephen Colbert, Agra catbellae named after actress Catherine Bell, Agra katewinsletae named after actress Kate Winslet, and Agra liv, named after actress Liv Tyler. 

Sir David Attenborough, famous broadcaster, biologist and natural historian, has over 40 species named after him, including a prehistoric marine reptile and a native British flower.

On Saturday, Keanu Reeves participated in a reddit AMA (ask me anything) where he was asked about his thoughts on having the killer compounds named after him.

“Hi, thank you…they should’ve called it John Wick…but that’s pretty cool…and surreal for me. But thanks, scientist people! Good luck, and thank you for helping us.”