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Nuclear rocket for Mars travel
NASA and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) plan to launch and test nuclear-powered rocket engines in space as early as 2027, the agencies announced last week. Such engines promise higher thrust and efficiency than conventional engines, enabling shorter travel times and increased payloads for manned missions to Mars. NASA has been experimenting with nuclear engines since the 1960s, but none have been proven in space. The engine’s nuclear fission reactor, powered by low-enriched uranium, heats and vaporizes a liquid propellant, releasing the gas through a nozzle to provide thrust. NASA will provide the engine, and DARPA will provide the experimental spacecraft that will carry it. The design plan includes a safety review.
pandemic declaration extension
Three years after it began, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared this week that the COVID-19 pandemic remains a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). But the Special Emergency Committee for the Disease has taken the WHO’s recommendations more seriously, hinting that the designation, which could affect travel and quarantine policies, could end later this year. Since WHO first declared COVID-19 a PHEIC on 30 January 2020, the Commission has made 11 recommendations to maintain the designation. Although COVID-19 now has fewer deaths than he did a year ago, “it remains a dangerous infection,” the panel said, adding that within the past eight weeks he has killed more than 170,000 people. of COVID-19-related deaths have been reported, of which approximately 80,000 have died in China. The Committee encouraged WHO to integrate SARS-CoV-2 surveillance into influenza virus surveillance. We have asked the agency to assess how the termination of PHEIC will affect COVID-19 diagnosis, treatment, vaccine development and approval. Separately, President Joe Biden’s administration announced this week that it would end the United States’ national public health emergency declaration in May, with the insurance, for example, extending his COVID-19 coverage to people without health insurance. I am paying for 19 tests and treatments.
The joy of working as a scientist remains unchanged
US Ph.D. scientists and engineers’ job satisfaction in 2021 was in line with the high levels recorded before the pandemic, according to a survey reported last week by the National Science Foundation. Across academia, government and industry, 89% to 95% of respondents said they were very or somewhat satisfied with their primary job, about the same level as in 2019. Employment also remained high at about 85%. In 2021, 3% reported working part-time or not working at all due to the effects of his COVID-19, such as pandemic-related family responsibilities, reduced work hours, and layoffs. , found in a survey of PhD holders.
Reports of a long Covid decline
Covid prevalence is declining among Americans who have had the virus, according to a study. The new data comes from a household pulse survey conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau. Added questions about COVID-19 during the pandemic. According to the latest results analyzed last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation, in June 2022, 19% of those who reported having COVID-19 said he had had Covid long at the time of the survey. By January, that number had dropped to 11% he. This decline suggests that at least some people are recovering from chronic physical disabilities such as fatigue and shortness of breath associated with long Covid. It also suggests that the risk of developing long Covid may have declined over time. 6%.
Dolphins boost fishermen’s catch
For more than a century, fishermen in southern Brazil have hunted cooperatively with wild bottlenose dolphins. Dolphins chase a 40 cm long fish called mullet (Mugil Riza) towards the shore where the fishermen standing in the shallows cast their nets. Researchers have now quantified the benefits for fishermen. Throwing a net in sync with a dolphin predatory dive increases the chances of catching a mullet 17 times. These mammals use rapid-fire echolocation, a sign of hunting, when fishermen are casting. However, this teamwork has become less common over the last 16 years. This is because the mullet population has declined due to overfishing by artisanal and commercial fishers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
R&D spending in China soars again
According to the National Bureau of Statistics, China’s R&D spending will grow by 10.4% in 2022 to reach 3.9 trillion yuan ($457 billion). It was the seventh year in a row that spending increased by more than 10%. China’s R&D spending in 2020 is about 15% less than that of the United States.
Lander returns to research
Eric Lander, who stepped down as President Joe Biden’s chief science adviser in February 2022, resigned from the academic research position he held before taking the job after an investigation found he had been bullying subordinates. We are planning to reopen. He left faculty positions at the Broad Institute and Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology to work at the White House. Institute director Todd Golub wrote to Broad researchers last week: … Eric also deeply values this culture and is committed to maintaining it. ”
Hallucinogens tackle depression
The psychedelic compound dimethyltryptamine (DMT) has shown promise in treating major depressive disorder in early-stage trials, the pharmaceutical company said in a press release last week. It is one of several hallucinogens that have been tested for psychiatric disorders such as psychiatric and post-traumatic stress disorder. Short durations of DMT-induced trips lasting 20 minutes to an hour may offer an alternative to the longer treatment sessions required with other psychedelics such as psilocybin and LSD. half of the patients received active drug and the other half received placebo only. All also received supportive care. Using a standardized rating scale for major depression, the researchers found that those who received DMT experienced a significant reduction in symptoms at the end of two weeks compared to placebo, according to Small Pharma, which manufactured the test compound. was found to show
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Rock-bearing tubes deposited on the surface of Mars by NASA’s Perseverance rover may return to Earth for analysis. These will serve as backups in case the rover fails to deliver other samples to future landers.
Biden stopped mining in the US wilderness
The Biden administration blocked new mining and geothermal development for at least 20 years on 91,258 hectares of northern Minnesota, including rivers, lakes and forests, under a decision announced last week. The protected area includes the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness and its surrounding watersheds, which are some of the most visited wilderness areas in the United States. The policy reverses the policies of former President Donald Trump’s administration that paved the way for copper and nickel mining. Scientists who studied the proposal said pollution from the mine could enter nearby waters.Only Congress can make a mining ban permanent.
NIH Oversight of EcoHealth Grant Wrapped
The federal oversight agency announced that the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has awarded a grant to the EcoHealth Alliance, a New York City-based nonprofit that funded research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) in China. I discovered that I didn’t properly supervise the . In 2020, then-President Donald Trump claimed that SARS-CoV-2 may have originated from his WIV lab, which many scientists continue to say has no proof. It’s an idea. Shortly after, the NIH terminated his EcoHealth grant, which had provided WIV with his $600,000. An 18-month audit by the Office of the Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services says the NIH did not provide valid reasons for termination or failed to provide EcoHealth with the information necessary to appeal the decision. also cited issues with project compliance, such as the two-year delay in a progress report from EcoHealth describing potentially dangerous virus experiments, as “the failure of the NIH to effectively oversee or take timely action.” And the auditors found that EcoHealth’s oversight of WIV eroded when the pandemic began, prompting EcoHealth to invest $90,000 in NIH grants totaling $8 million from 2014 to 2021. We concluded that we had charged the cost. The NIH said it was improving its oversight.
New officials worry about Iranian scientists
Many Iranian scientists were dismayed by the January 17 appointment of hardline conservative cleric Abdolhossein Khosropanah as the new secretary of the Supreme Council for the Cultural Revolution (SCCR). Among other responsibilities, the SCCR elects university deans, presidents of the Academy of Sciences and the Academy of Medical Sciences. Succeeding the more moderate clergy as its secretary, Khoslopana does not formally participate in decisions, but wields considerable unofficial power. Khosropanah, who promotes unproven Islamic medicine against COVID-19, which he claims has cured him three times, has been accused of plagiarism.
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