Lawmakers and Federal Reserve officials are so concerned about Facebook’s plans to launch a new digital currency that they’re contemplating a novel response — having the central bank create a competitor.
Momentum is building for an idea that was once considered outlandish — a U.S. government-run virtual currency that would replace physical cash, a dramatic move that could discourage major companies like Facebook from creating their own digital coins.
Russian biologist Denis Rebrikov has started gene editing in eggs donated by women who can hear to learn how to allow some deaf couples to give birth to children without the genetic mutation that impairs hearing. The news, detailed in an e-mail he sent to Nature on 17 October, is the latest in a saga that kicked off in June, when Rebrikov told Nature of his controversial intention to create gene-edited babies resistant to HIV using the popular CRISPR tool.
Rebrikov’s latest e-mail follows a September report in Russian magazine N+1 that one deaf couple had started procedures to procure eggs that would be used to create a gene-edited baby — but the eggs that Rebrikov has edited are from women without the genetic mutation that can impair hearing. He says the goal of the experiments is to better understand potentially harmful ‘off-target’ mutations, which are a known challenge of using CRISR–Cas9 to edit embryos.
Cyber-espionage operations from Cozy Bear, a threat actor believed to work for the Russian government, continued undetected for the past years by using malware families previously unknown to security researchers.
Relying on stealthy communication techniques between infected systems and the command and control (C2) servers, the group managed to keep their activity under the radar for a long time.
Cyber-espionage campaigns that likely started in 2013, collectively named "Operation Ghost," have been attributed to this group, and continued through 2019.
A senior South Korean lawmaker has said the country should reconsider proposals for acquiring either light or medium aircraft carriers with Catapult Assisted Take-Off Barrier Arrested Recovery, or CATOBAR, configurations to respond to growing regional security threats. These were alternatives to South Korea's reported decision to purchase a number of large amphibious assault ships capable of supporting fixed-wing short takeoff and vertical landing combat jets, namely the F-35B Joint Strike Fighter. This call for reassessing that choice comes as the South Korean Ministry of Defense may be leaning toward acquiring 20 more conventional F-35A models rather than B variants, further deferring plans to develop a fixed-wing naval aviation capability.
Boeing expects to carry out a pad abort test for its CST-100 Starliner commercial crew vehicle in early November, followed by an uncrewed orbital flight test in mid-December, a company executive said Oct. 8.
During a panel session of the International Symposium for Personal and Commercial Spaceflight (ISPCS) here, John Mulholland, vice president and program manager for commercial programs for Boeing’s space exploration business unit, said the company was targeting a Dec. 17 launch of its Starliner vehicle on a United Launch Alliance Atlas 5 from Cape Canaveral.
That mission, called the Orbital Flight Test (OFT) by Boeing, will send the Starliner to the International Space Station, docking with the station and remaining there for about a week before undocking and landing at one of several locations in the western United States. Mulholland said that if the mission launches as currently scheduled, the landing would most likely be at White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico.
Boeing had planned to fly OFT earlier this year, but announced in April it was delaying the launch, then scheduled for May, until later in the summer because of a tight schedule and a conflict with another Atlas 5 launch.
Russia's Hmeymim airbase in Syria currently hosts about 30 warplanes and helicopters but will be able to accommodate more aircraft after the reconstruction, a base official said. This reported by Sputnik.
"The second runway is being reconstructed, which will increase its capabilities. New hangars have been built, in which aircraft are kept. These structures protect against possible attacks of combat drones, as well as from rain and direct sunlight", the official said.
According to the officer, there are currently about 30 aircraft at the airbase, including Su-35S fighter jets, Su-34 fighter-bombers and Su-24 attack aircraft, as well as Mi-35 attack helicopters and Mi-8AMTSh assault transport helicopters.
China appears to have accidentally revealed the existence of a new high-speed ground-launched missile. A brief glimpse of what looks to be a test launch of this previously unseen weapon emerged earlier this week in an official video released in the run-up to the 70th anniversary of the founding of the Communist State on Oct. 1. There have already been indications that a number of new or otherwise previously unseen aircraft, missiles, and other systems will be present at a major parade in Beijing to mark the occasion next week.
The People's Liberation Army Rocket Force, or PLARF, posted the full video on social media on Sept. 25, 2019. Sometime afterward, the original one-minute long montage was replaced with one that omitted the launch of the unknown weapon and replaced it with unrelated footage of known missiles, according to the South China Morning Post.
DARPA's Gremlins project has been delayed due to the earthquake damage at China Lake.
The NGA may be interested in an ISR version of the MQ-25 for maritime surveillance.
The US military is interested in small hard kill interceptor drones to kill drones.
The USAF's Reapers will test out SRC's Agile Condor pod.
A USAF drone strike killed 30 pine nut workers in Afghanistan.
The USAF's XQ-58A Valkyrie can be armed with 2 air to air missiles and the USAF is looking to tailor the airworthiness process for attritable aircraft like the Valk.
The US Army tested using a Gray Eagle with a Chinook.
The US Army is seeking an American made quadcopter.
Britain signed a £100 million contract for its Protector UAV.
Britain's Protector is getting closer to civilian airspace approval.
China appears to be ready to unveil the Malan triangle UAV at the upcoming military parade. And they did! This is the WZ-8, a high speed recon UAV. It appears to be in service.
China and Serbia are deepening their UAV cooperation. China is giving Serbia nine Wing Loong UAVs.
China's Sharp Sword carrier based UAV is claimed to be entering service by the end of the year. It may be the aircraft may NOT be carrier based, but in service already. It did get displayed at the October 1st military parade.
China's reported plan to put a ISR drone on its carriers makes sense to some.
Hezbollah in Lebanon claims to have shot down an Israeli drone.
Houthi drones attacked crude oil sources at two Aramco plants in Saudi Arabia and have disrupted the supply, at least for a short time. An estimated ten drones made the attack. The Houthi attack knocked out half the Saudi crude oil supply. One senior US administration official stated the attacks didn't come from the Houthi. The Houthis state the refineries are still targets. Saudi Arabia presented evidence of the origin of the drones that attacked.
How DID drones take out 5% of the world's oil supply?
An interstellar comet C/2019 Q4 was discovered on August 30 by an amateur astronomer Gennady Borisov at MARGOT observatory (Crimea). One of the obvious questions is where does this object come from. Taking an orbit obtained by Nakano and published by MPC in CBET 4670 we numerically integrated the motion of C/2019 Q4, the sun and 647 stars or stellar systems from our list of potential stellar perturbers of cometary motion. As a result we obtained that 1 Myr ago C/2019 Q4 passed double star Kruger 60 at a small distance of 1.74 pc having an extremely small relative velocity of 3.43 km/s. Almost the same results were obtained from our own orbital solutions.
China’s first amphibious assault ship, a Landing Helicopter Dock known as Type 075, was launched in Shanghai on Thursday.
The People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN or Chinese Navy), the customer of the vessel, said in a statement that after a brief ceremony starting at 9:20 am at a CSSC’s Hudong-Zhonghua shipyard, waters began to be pumped into a dry dock in which the ship’s hull was built.
Participants at the ceremony – officials from the central and Shanghai governments, officers from the Central Military Commission’s Equipment Development Department and the PLA Navy, executives of the State-owned conglomerate China State Shipbuilding Corp as well as the vessel’s designers and construction workers – applauded as they watched the launch process, the statement said, without providing more details about the event.
According to the PLAN, the new class of ship was domestically developed and constructed. It will have a strong capability to carry out amphibious combat and other tasks.
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As for its specifications, rumors speak of “36,000 tons of displacement”, “capacity of 28 helicopters”, “diesel engine with the 9,000 kW 16PC2-6B” and “four CIWS including two HQ-10 and two H/PJ-11”.
While the Type 075 appears to slightly smaller than the U.S. Navy’s LHA, it is larger compared to French or Spanish/Australian LHD equivalents. It is actually pretty close in size to Italy’s future Trieste LHD.
The first Type 075 was constructed in record time (this has become the norm nowadays, for Chinese shipbuilding: extremely fast construction pace that no one can match). A second vessel of the class is already under construction while a larger version is rumored to be planned.
Foot prints have been found on Calvert Island, British Columbia dating from over 10,000 years ago.
H. neanderthalensis (Neandertals):
There was a shift at a single site of how stone tools were made during Late Acheulian the at Caune de l’Arago.
Did modern humans and Neandertals keep interbreeding over a long period?
Did the Neandertal Eustachian tube contribute to their extinction?
Neandertals were more innovative with their tools than normally credited.
The Neandertals footprints give insight into their social lives.
How Neandertals used birds, including their feathers, in the Qesem Cave, Israel.
Denisovans:
Denisovans seem to have had fingers more like modern humans than Neandertals.
Using genetics and epigenetics, researchers have reconstructed the shape of the face of at least one Denisovan. The facial features are distinct from Neandertals and modern humans.
The introgression of Denisovan genetics into modern humans gave us an immunity boost.
Sima de los Huesos Hominin
At least one of the Simea de los Huesos proto Neandertals seems to have been murdered.
One of the hominins at Sima de los Huesos had a pathological growth for its ears. It might not have made the individual deaf after all.
The cochlea evolution of the Simea de los Huesos Hominins gets examined.
Australopithecines seem to have breast fed longer than their contemporaries.
A. anamensis:
A nearly complete skull of A. anamensis gives a face to the species and shows evolution is messy showing even in hominins species often overlap in time.
META:
The trabecular boot gets examined in 4 different hominins.
NASA hopes to put humans back on the moon by 2024, starting with an orbiting space station dubbed Lunar Gateway. And the space agency is already showing signs of prepping for the upcoming missions. Recently, the organization announced it will partner with Advance Space, an aerospace company from Colorado, to develop a small CubeSat mission to answer questions before the upcoming missions.
The CubeSat, named CAPSTONE, will be a tiny satellite with the same orbital path that Gateway could eventually take. This path will rotate together with the moon as it orbits Earth, brining it as close to the moon’s surface as 1,000 miles. CAPSTONE could launch as early as December 2020, and with it, could demonstrate how to enter and operate in this lunar orbit before the much larger spacecraft for Gateway are ready.
The USAF is working on a plan to fix the maintenance capability of the F-22's stealth tech.
The F-22 has some stunning images from its flights in Chicago.
Upgrades needed to the facilities in Germany so F-22s can be deployed there for long term have been cancelled as part of the funds transferred for Trump's stupid border wall.
The F-22 will not reach the readiness rates ordered by ex SecDef Mattis.
The F-22s from Tyndall are now active and integrated in Alaska.
F-35:
F-35s struggle with readiness rates. Parts availability and the oldest aircraft are the biggest issues.
The telescope for a major NASA astrophysics mission has passed a key review that the agency says keeps it on track for launch in the mid-2020s despite uncertainty about its funding for 2020 and beyond.
NASA announced Aug. 28 that the telescope assembly for the Wide Field Infrared Survey Telescope (WFIRST) mission passed its preliminary design review (PDR), allowing the project to continue work to finalize its design.
WFIRST, scheduled for launch in the mid-2020s, is NASA’s next flagship astrophysics mission after the James Webb Space Telescope. The mission will use a 2.4-meter mirror provided to NASA by the National Reconnaissance Office. That mirror is currently being modified by L3 Harris Technologies for use on WFIRST.
The telescope will later be equipped with both a wide-field imager instrument and a coronagraph, which blocks light from stars to allow direct imaging of planets and dust disks orbiting them. Both will have their own preliminary design reviews, along with one for the entire mission.
Russia’s Progress Rocket Space Centre plans to start preparations for manufacturing a super-heavy rocket no earlier than in 2020, a company spokesperson told TASS on Friday.
"Once the stage of detail design is over, the process of drafting work design documents and preparations for launch of production will follow. Preparations for production will begin no earlier than in 2020," the source said.
The project’s overall volume of financing will be known later, once other companies taking part in the project submit their technical and economic feasibility documents, he added.
Palaeopascichnus jiumenensis can be used to determine the Ediacaran/Cambrian boundary.
There's a new way to determine oxygen levels during paleo time periods. It seems to check out in the Neoproterozoic-Cambrian transition based on comparison to other methods.
A bilateralan metazoan (animal) fossil and trackway was found in China dating from the Ediacaran.
The rise of siliceous sponges helped shift the Ediacaran ecosystems to the modern Cambrian.
The differences between the Weng'an and Kuanchuanpu biotas is largely due to how they were preserved.
Acritarchs from the Ediacaran Doushantuo Formation allow for biostratigraphic correlation with the Tanarium conoideum–Cavaspina basiconica Assemblage Zone.
There appears to have been long term denudation of the continents from the middle Ediarcaran based on Nd isotope traces in carbonates.
A new formation has been found dating from the Cryogenian with evidence of bacterial and algae life in South China.
How much hydrothermal activity was there during the Marinoan Glaciation (snowball earth episode) during the Cryogenian?
There is evidence of a large igneous province in the Tonian.
MesoProterozoic:
Horodyski moniliformis, regarded by some as a eukaryote fossil from the Calymmian, has been declared a pseudofossil.
PaleoProterozoic:
Plate tectonics have evolved over the last 2.5 billion years.
Is there evidence for the oxygen overshoot hypothesis from the Orosirian?
There was a paleocontinent named 'Atlantica' proposed. Recent research suggests it was configured rather differently than proposed.
Evidence has arisen supporting a snowball earth scenario during the Huronian glaciation.
An asteroid impact has been IDed from the Rhyacian in Australia.
Did the supercontinental cycle begin in the PaleoProterozoic?
A prototype of SpaceX’s next-generation launch system performed a brief test flight Aug. 27, a key step in the system’s development.
The “Starhopper” vehicle lifted off from a pad at SpaceX’s test site near Brownsville, Texas, at 6:02 p.m. Eastern. The vehicle took off vertically, translated a short distance, then landed vertically on a different pad a little less than a minute after takeoff.
The long-awaited test was intended to go to an altitude of 150 meters, although it was not immediately clear from the webcast of the flight exactly what altitude the vehicle achieved. The company provided no commentary for the webcast, and ended it shortly after the vehicle made what appeared to be a successful landing.
SpaceX attempted to fly Starhopper Aug. 26, but the attempt was scrubbed after the Raptor engine failed to ignite. SpaceX Chief Executive Elon Musk later tweeted that “dual redundant torch igniters” in the engine appeared to have malfunctioned and needed to be inspected before trying again.
The vehicle, powered by a single Raptor engine that uses methane and liquid oxygen propellants, made its first free flight July 25, rising several meters off the pad before landing about 10 to 15 seconds later. At the time, Musk said he expected a “hop” to an altitude of 200 meters in “a week or two.”
