Maryam Shanechi

Alexander Wells

Maryam Shanechi used to study wireless communications systems. Now she investigates a far more complex network: the billions of neurons that make up the human brain. Shanechi, a neuroengineer at the University of Southern California, is trying to crack the neural code to develop better brain-machine interfaces.

Existing devices simply translate the brain’s electrical signals into movement, enabling paralyzed people to move a computer cursor or a robotic arm. Shanechi applies control theory. In other words, she decodes neural activity from many parts of the brain to provide more-precise control. Next, she wants to translate those algorithms into signals the spinal cord can understand so paralyzed patients can move their own limbs.

Her team is already making headway. Last year, they processed the neural activity of a monkey and translated it into spinal stimulation that moved a second, sedated monkey’s hand. The system doesn’t work perfectly yet, but Shanechi has recently developed a more accurate model that tracks the brain’s activity by the millisecond. She’s also working on algorithms to help the brain self-regulate, providing stimulation that alleviates depression or post-traumatic stress disorder. Decoding mood is even more difficult than deciphering movement, but Shanechi says, “That’s what makes it interesting.”

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

David Kipping

Alexander Wells

In graduate school, David Kipping was hiking in the Himalayas when, staring up at the sky, he thought about how exoplanets are found—by detecting the change in brightness as it passes in front of a star. How would an exoplanet be affected if it had a moon, he wondered? His quest for an answer led him to pioneer a new field of study.

Kipping, now an astrophysicist at Columbia University, has developed a novel method to seek out exomoons. He and his colleagues sift through data from the Kepler telescope, and when they spot a promising exoplanet, they develop a mathematical model of what its orbit would look like if it had a moon pulling on it. They then compare that to orbital data. The sensitivity of the method should reveal satellites big enough to have an atmosphere and warm enough to support life. It could be that Earth-like moons are more common than Earth-like planets, which have turned out to be surprisingly rare. “It’s actually quite plausible that we are the freaks of the universe living on a planet, and that most life lives on a moon,” Kipping says.

At first, colleagues were skeptical that searching for exomoons was a good use of time. But since his first paper on the subject, others have joined the hunt. No exomoons have been found yet—Kipping’s group ruled out 60 planets so far, and he hopes to look at 300 more in 2016. But if one of those candidates pans out, it could answer important questions about where moons come from and how planets form—and even inform the search for life beyond our solar system.

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

Alper Bozkurt

Alexander Wells

In 2009, Alper Bozkurt went to see Up, an animated movie that features a talking dog. An electrical engineer at North Carolina State University, he had been developing instruments to control cockroaches for search-and-rescue missions. But the movie gave him a new idea: What if he adapted his work for dogs?

Canines have long been used for search-and-rescue, but disaster zones can hamper their abilities. Because handlers rely on audio and visual cues, dogs must remain nearby, limiting the area they can cover. Bozkurt decided to build a cross-species communications system that defies distance. It enables humans and dogs to work together to save lives, even when separated by rubble.

The system consists of a harness fitted with sensors. Some track the dog’s vital signs and others monitor its movement, conveying the poses a dog strikes when it picks up a particular scent. The animal can hear cues through a speaker on the harness; it can also feel them through a series of vibrating motors near its skin.

Ultimately, Bozkurt sees these cyberdogs as just one part of a more efficient search-and-rescue team, one that could include drones, robots, and cybercockroaches. “We are at the dawn of a new era, where everything that can be interfaced electronically has started to interact,” he says. “My vision is to fuse biological organisms with synthetic electronic systems.”

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

Alex Halderman

Alexander Wells

In 2010, the District of Columbia decided to test its online absentee voter system. So officials held a mock election and challenged the public to do their best to hack it. It was an invitation that Alex Halderman, a computer-security expert at the University of Michigan, couldn’t resist. “It’s not every day that you’re invited to hack into government computers without going to jail,” he says.

“This is the foundation of democracy we’re talking about.”

In less than 48 hours, Halderman and his students gained complete control of the system and rigged it to play the Michigan fight song each time a vote was cast. The students were ecstatic, but Halderman, who has a long history of exposing cybersecurity weaknesses, takes a more sober view. “This is the foundation of democracy we’re talking about,” he says. Since then, Halderman has been working with governments that allow e-voting to make those systems more secure. At the request of a government whistleblower, he took part in the first independent examination of India’s electronic voting system. “India’s machines were fairly easy to tamper with,” Halderman says. This past year, he and his students replicated the system in Estonia, where 25 percent of votes are cast online, in their laboratory. They were able to introduce malware onto voters’ computers and tamper with the server that produces the official count, proof that elections could be fixed.

Recently, Halderman has been developing software that exploits digital vulnerabilities for a different reason: It would allow citizens of countries like China and Iran to bypass government censors and access blocked sites. He released the newest version, called TapDance, last year and is talking with the U.S. Department of State about working together to further advance it. The Internet can be leveraged to strengthen democracy, Halderman says. But to do so, “we’re going to have to solve some of the hardest problems in computer security.”

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

Arianne Cease

Alexander Wells

In 2005, Arianne Cease was a Peace Corps volunteer in Senegal when disaster struck: Her small rural village was attacked by locusts and other grasshoppers, destroying a year’s harvest and the villagers’ food supply. “The whole village was covered with them,” she recalls. “They had eaten even the bark off the trees.” Insect swarms regularly sweep across the globe, causing billions of dollars in crop loss. Cease saw that pesticides didn’t seem to help. So when she left Senegal, she set out to find something that would.

Now a biologist at Arizona State University, Cease investigates what transforms individual locusts, which are harmless, into ravenous swarms that threaten the livelihoods of one in 10 people on the planet. She leads a research network that includes biologists, economists, and geographers who study a diverse range of possible factors, from the metabolism of a single locust to the international agreements that govern livestock markets.

In China, her team made a surprising discovery: Overgrazing land can cause locusts to swarm by depleting the nitrogen level in the soil and grass. Locusts, it turns out, prefer a low-nitrogen diet, and in crowded conditions, that flips a switch in the insect’s behavior. They also found that reducing farmers’ herds—from nine sheep per hectare to six—prevented swarms from forming. Another benefit: The lower grazing density boosted the farmers’ bottom lines by yielding heftier animals.

Cease is now working with government agencies in all three countries where she has projects—Senegal, China, and Australia—to identify practices that might help stop swarming, such as paying farmers not to overgraze. Traditional locust management involves attacking swarms as they form—a stop-gap solution at best. “We are trying to keep locusts at bay in the long term,” she says.

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

Jonathan Pruitt

Alexander Wells

Jonathan Pruitt’s typical workday involves hours spent crouched in deserts and forests, observing the social lives of colony-building spiders. Like people, certain arachnids have different personalities—some are docile, some are aggressive—and Pruitt, a behavioral ecologist at the University of Pittsburgh, studies how these social traits affect survival. His findings provide the first evidence that individuals in the wild sometimes sacrifice their own genetic survival for the sake of the group—a topic of hot contention among biologists for 40 years.

Though evolutionary models suggested that such group selection must be occurring, no one had found solid proof.

Life as a spider is risky. Each year 60 to 90 percent of colonies collapse. “It’s death, death, death—little carcasses blowing in the wind,” Pruitt says. But he found that a colony’s survival isn’t purely a crapshoot: It depends on the ratio of docile to aggressive spiders. Colonies that have ample resources require more aggressive spiders to protect them, while colonies with few resources fare better with more docile spiders that don’t waste energy fighting each other. If the ratio isn’t optimal, individual spiders will adjust it by sabotaging their own offspring. Those spiders with an undesirable trait will lay fewer eggs—ensuring that the group endures even at the expense of their progeny.

Though evolutionary models suggested that such group selection must be occurring, no one had found solid proof. Many claimed looking for it was a waste of time. Having proved the skeptics wrong, Pruitt is now looking for other situations where group selection matters. The search has implications far beyond a single species. “If we can show that this is a robust result that we get in other systems,” he says, “we can improve our understanding of how societies work.”

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

Kathryn Whitehead

Alexander Wells

The human body is difficult territory to conquer, even for medicine: Many drugs have to enter the bloodstream, bypass the immune system, and arrive at a precise location within a designated cell. That’s why Kathryn Whitehead, a chemical engineer at Carnegie Mellon University, is searching for the perfect vehicle: a nanoparticle that can shuttle new therapies directly to where they’re most needed.

Whitehead is focused on double-stranded bits of nucleic acid called small interfering RNAs (siRNAs). These molecules can block the production of many proteins that cause disease, and so can potentially treat everything from genetic disorders to viral infections. But siRNAs are unstable and difficult to deliver. While many researchers have tried encapsulating them with nanoparticles, they’ve struggled to find one that works successfully.

"People look at me like I’m crazy when I say I tested thousands of materials."

To identify the ideal delivery system, Whitehead employed a labor-intensive approach: Rather than tweaking the structure of a single nanoparticle bit by bit, she and her colleagues generated 5,000 novel ones, then tested the most promising in mice. “It sounds like a lot of work, and I suppose it was,” she says. But the strategy enabled Whitehead to find nanoparticles she might have otherwise missed. “You just never know what’s going to work well,” she says.

By comparing the successes and failures, the team developed a model to predict the best particles. And they’re now using their top candidate to develop therapies for non-Hodgkin lymphoma—drugs that target only cancer cells with specific mutations, hopefully ridding the body of disease with fewer harmful side effects.

Whitehead credits much of her scientific success to plain old perseverance; her lab’s mascot is the honey badger, an animal known for its determination. “People look at me like I’m crazy when I say I tested thousands of materials,” she says. “I think some others would have given up.”

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

Zev Gartner

Alexander Wells

As a chemistry graduate student, Zev Gartner attended a biology class that changed his career. That’s where he learned that the way cells are physically arranged in tissue can change how they behave­—and whether they become malignant. “That concept was fascinating,” he says. Gartner now builds tissue in his lab at the University of California at San Francisco, where he’s a chemical biologist. By more accurately reproducing how cells grow in the body, he hopes to learn why the structure of tissue is so important to human health.

Most methods for creating lab-grown tissue are imprecise, generating tiny samples that are all a bit different. Gartner developed a more elegant strategy: He exposes cells to pieces of sticky DNA that insert themselves into the cell membrane. Each of these DNA links attaches only to others that complement its particular sequence. By varying the links, Gartner can assemble tissue layer by layer like Legos, in exact structures. This allows him to make thousands of samples that are nearly identical, down to the specific arrangement of cells.

As a result, Gartner can control experiments to a degree previously impossible, exposing identical tissues to different therapies. He can also study how tissue changes with disease. Gartner suspects that when cells become cancerous, the way they attach to each other morphs. So recently he built breast tissue with two cell types to study how they interact. “If we understand how cells assemble,” Gartner says, “we can understand what it is that lets a tissue break down and become metastatic”—a new understanding of cancer itself.

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

Jack Gilbert

Alexander Wells

Jack Gilbert wound up in microbiology because of ice cream. A food company hired him to look for substances to make frozen desserts smoother, a task that involved studying Antarctic bacteria. “It was a really noble cause!” he jokes. Now a microbiologist at Argonne National Laboratory and the University of Chicago, Gilbert samples bacteria from all kinds of ecosystems—both indoor and out—in order to better understand the unique roles they play. “I want the research I do to impact the way we manage the planet,” Gilbert says.

In the pursuit of that goal, Gilbert’s projects tackle problems as diverse as water treatment, crop productivity, and human disease. For example, he recently figured out why gut bacteria become more virulent after surgery—they lack phosphate, so giving patients phosphate can prevent post-surgical infections. Gilbert also found that people’s homes take on the microbial signature of their bodies within 24 hours. He has a hunch those microbes can help repopulate the gut after a person has taken antibiotics.

To glean how microbes influence whole ecosystems, Gilbert’s lab collects and models vast amounts of data—from homes, hospitals, rivers, and air. Gilbert and his colleagues have even set out to characterize all of the microbes on the planet. For the Earth Micro­biome Project, his team has so far identified some 22 million species from samples sent in by hundreds of people. They’ll analyze the resulting database to learn how these bacteria might be harnessed to improve people’s lives.

Gilbert is quick to point out that he makes such potentially powerful discoveries because of his collaborations. He regularly works with more than 500 scientists. “If you’re willing to put energy and enthusiasm into actually talking with people and understanding what their problems are,” he says, “man! Everyone wants to work with you.”

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

Kills of the future

lt.cdjby.net via errymath

This 2014 CGI shows a J-31 stealth fighter launching a long range PL-15 missile. Given USAF concerns about the high performance PL-15, it could indeed feature high performance technologies like range and maneuverability enhancing ramjets, and a jam resistant AESA radar seeker.

Beyond visual range air to air missiles (BVRAAM) are long range missiles used by fighters to knock out enemy fighters, bombers, tankers, drones and other aircraft from ranges beyond 30km. On September 15, 2015, China successfully test fired its latest iteration, the PL-15, firing from a fighter to destroy a target drone.

PL-15 Different Angles

club.mil.news.sina.com.cn

These set of photos from 2013 show the PL-15 during captive flight testing (carried by fighters like this J-11B). The PL-15 is shown to be about four meters long and 200mm in diameter, about the same size as the older PL-12 BVRAAM. The PL-15 uses improved propulsion, such as advanced rocket motors and possibly ramjet engines, to achieve a greater range.

The PL-15 is developed by the 607 Institute. It is the replacement for China's current, BVRAAM, the radar guided, PL-12, which reportedly has a range of approximately 100KM. Compared to the PL-12, the PL-15 has an improved active radar seeker and jam resistant datalinks, along with a dual pulse rocket motor to extend its range.

The Flanker's New Missile

Andreas Rupprecht

The J-11B Flanker, a Chinese modification of the Russian Su-27 heavy fighter, is shown here with a PL-15 on a payload pylon under the left wing. While the J-11B's radar may not have the range to use the PL-15 to its maximum range, it can receive the location of distant enemy fighters from a KJ-2000 airborne early warning control (AEWC) aircraft, fire the PL-15 and let the PL-15's advanced radar guide the missile, with course corrections from the KJ-2000 AEWC, all without turning on the J-11B's radar (and giving away its position).

Even in the prototype stage, the PL-15 is already an international star. Speaking at the 2015 Air Force Association conference the same week as the test, USAF Air Combatant Commander General Hawk Carlisle cited the PL-15 as the reason for Congress to fund a new missile to replace the American AMRAAM. His reasons for concern is the PL-15's range. By incorporating a ramjet engine, its range could reach 150-200km, was well as its terminal maneuverability. That would out-range existing American air to air missiles, making the PL-15 not just a threat to fighters like the F-35, but also to US bombers and aerial tankers critical to American air operations across the vast Pacific. General Carlisle called "out-sticking" the PL-15 a high priority for the USAF.

PL-15 Future Home

China Military Review Blogspot

The early 2002 (now 2004) J-20 stealth fighter prototype flies a test, carrying simulated BVRAAM loadouts (two in its main left weapons bay). Production J-20s are expected to be able to carry three BVRAAMs in each main weapons bay, making for 6 long range missiles, like the PL-15.

As the PL-15 moves to deployment stage, it will equip Chinese stealth fighter jets, such as the J-20 and J-31, as well as the older J-10, J-11, J-15 and J-16 fighters. This makes keeping up with the PL-15 an important part of American efforts to keep up with an innovative and improving Chinese military system.

You may also be interested in:

Stealthier Stealth? Seventh Upgraded Chinese Stealth Fighter Prototype Aims to Take Flight

The J-11D Surprise: China Upgrades Russian Flanker Fighters on Its Own

Chinese Fighter Jets Fly South for Spring Break

The Missiles of Zhuhai: China Displays New Strike Arsenal

Bhaskar Krishnamachari

Alexander Wells

When Bhaskar Krishnamachari moved to Los Angeles, he hadn’t spent much time thinking about cars. But one gloomy day, he caught a news report about a 194-car pileup. The fog hung so thick, drivers couldn’t see the impending accident until it was too late. That disaster could have been avoided, Krishnamachari thought, if only cars could talk to one another.

A network engineer at the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, Krishnamachari envisions a future in which cars are bilingual—able to converse with cell towers, as some can today, but also with other vehicles through digital short-range radios. A car slamming on its brakes could send a warning to any vehicle within half a block in milliseconds. Such a system could also be used to disseminate data that needs to reach many vehicles, such as software updates. Once a subset of cars downloads it through the cellular network, the data would spread to others nearby.

Krishnamachari has been collaborating with General Motors since 2007 to develop vehicle-to-vehicle communication, and he has already tested it in a handful of cars. Last year, the team used GPS data from more than 600 taxis in Beijing to simulate how the system might work in a larger fleet. The U.S. Department of Transportation also considers vehicle-to-vehicle communication the future: It recently announced plans to require such devices in new cars. The technology could help pave the way for self-driving cars, or even teams of robots doing remote exploration or disaster response. Krishnamachari is designing a system that’s flexible. “When you build a network,” he says, “you don’t want to build it for specific applications.”

Every year, Popular Science honors the 10 brightest young minds who are reshaping science, engineering, and the world. Check out the rest of this year’s Brilliant 10 here.

LM-6 Maiden Flight

=GT at China Defense Forum

The LM-6's first flight on September 19, in Taiyuan, north central China, was a complete success, with the deployment of all 20 satellites.

On September 19, 2015, the Long March 6 (LM-6) space launch rocket blasted off from the Taiyuan Satellite Launch Center. Built as a rapid response, light launcher, the LM-6 uses a single 120 ton thrust YF-100 liquid oxygen and kerosene rocket engine (the same booster as the heavy Long March 5's booster rockets) as its first stage to loft a one ton payload into low earth orbit. The LM-6's second stage is a YF-115 engine that also burns liquid oxygen and kerosene.

XY-2

Gunther's Space Page

The XY-2 Xinjishu Yanzheng-2 has two experimental electronic propulsion systems on board, as efficient engines for future Chinese satellites and space probes.

The LM-6's maiden flight launch manifest consisted of 20 small satellites from Chinese universities and research institutes like Tsinghua University and the Harbin Institute of Technology, for purposes ranging from communications, earth observation and atmospheric physics. Notably, one of the satellites carried an experimental ion drive, an electrical propulsion drive that would improve the efficiency of Chinese satellites and space exploration vehicles.

A Little Long March

=GT at China Defense Forum

The Long March 6 might look huge when loaded onto its transport vehicle, but at 100 tons, its a rapid response cousin to the gigantic Long March 5.

In addition to providing China with a new light space launch capacity, the LM-6's successful launch validates the YF-100 engine, of which four are used in the boosters for the LM-5 rocket. In terms of its security impact, the LM-6 could quickly deploy space surveillance and co-orbital anti-satellite satellites to protect spy satellites and space stations launched by the LM-5.

You may also be interested in:

China's Long March 5 Space Rocket Stretches Its Legs

China's Space Station gets a 'Super Eye'

China's Largest Ever Space Rocket Takes a Another Big Step Forward

China Showcases Plan to Become the Leading Space Power

Next Generation of Chinese Space Vehicle Begins Its Long March (By Standing Up)

New, Better Chinese Satellite Hits Orbit

CHEOS- China's New Eye in Space?

The Little Space Tug that Can

Asteroid mining concept art

Deep Space Industries

Robotic asteroid mining might look like this.

If mankind is ever to become an interplanetary species, our outward expansion across the solar system probably can’t be fueled by NASA funding alone. Why did the first humans venture out of Africa? What made the Europeans sail into the unknown? What drove Americans to expand across the continent? Curiosity and an adventurous spirit, yes, but more importantly: resources--be they riches, food, or fertile farmland.

Similarly, resources may be the only thing that can lure us from the comforts of Earth. Mining for lunar water could make it up to 90 percent cheaper to colonize the moon. And extracting platinum and other minerals from asteroids could propel mankind to travel beyond low Earth orbit.

At least two companies—Planetary Resources and Deep Space Industries—are openly planning to mine asteroids. The former has already launched a simple test vehicle into low Earth orbit, with more planned.

Planetary Resource's Arkyd-6 test vehicle is expected to launch in 2015 or 2016

Planetary Resources

It's younger sibling, Arkyd-3, launched from the International Space Station in July 2015, to test out some asteroid mining hardware.

Both companies have a long way to go before their technologies will be able to visit an asteroid, assess what valuable resources it contains, and then extract those resources and deliver them back to Earth. First the companies need to clear a major legal obstacle.

The Outer Space Treaty, which the U.S., Russia, and a number of other countries have signed, specifically states that nations can’t own territory in space. “Outer space shall be free for exploration and use by all States,” the treaty says. “Outer space is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.”

But what does that mean for a private company?

“There is no clear-cut answer as to whether [private mining in space] is legal or not,” says Frans von der Dunk, a space law professor at the University of Nebraska. “It depends on your interpretation of certain rather broad statements in the Outer Space Treaty, and it depends on your particular interests.”

In May, the House of Representatives passed a bill that would give asteroid mining companies property rights to the minerals they extract from space. Called the Space Act of 2015, the bill now awaits the Senate's decision.

If the decision isn't made by the end of September or shortly thereafter, an expiring moratorium will give the Federal Aviation Administration permission to begin regulating commercial spaceflight—something conservatives have wanted to postpone so that the fledgling industry could have some time to grow.

Von der Dunk predicts the Senate will pass the bill by the end of October. After that, President Obama will have the opportunity to sign it into law or veto it.

The Space Act Of 2015

Harvesting materials from an asteroid

Concept drawing from Deep Space Industries

The bill (which is similar to last year's stalled ASTEROIDS Act) says that resources extracted from asteroids and other objects in space belong to the person or company who extracts them. It also would require space mining companies to “avoid causing harmful interference in outer space,” and allows a company to sue others who cause “harmful interference” to space mining ventures.

“It's a very succinct act,” says Von der Dunk. “That is one reason why I don't foresee many complications.”

Nonetheless, it’s causing a bit of an uproar in the international community, says Michael Listner, lawyer and founder of the consulting firm Space Law and Policy Solutions.

International Concerns

Planetary Resources is pleased with the bill. “The SPACE Act of 2015 is a very good foundation for future asteroid resource activities,” a spokesperson told Popular Science. “If the bill passed tomorrow it would explicitly state a government position that has been implied for decades. The law would provide clarity and move this entire industry ahead very quickly.”

But not everyone is enthusiastic about it. In an article in the journal Space Policy, Fabio Tronchetti, a lawyer at the Harbin Institute of Technology in China, argues that the Space Act of 2015 would violate the Outer Space Treaty. He writes:

States are forbidden from extending their territorial sovereignty over outer space or any parts of it. Despite arguments claiming otherwise this prohibition also extends to private entities.

In essence, Tronchetti argues that if the U.S. passes this bill, it will confer rights to space companies that the U.S. doesn’t have the power to give.

“There is no clear-cut answer as to whether mining in space is legal or not.”

Tronchetti also points out that the bill’s concept of ‘harmful interference’ isn’t defined, and could potentially be used to create exclusion zones around mining operations. That would go against the nature of the treaty, whose goal was to make sure space remains the “province of all mankind,” open for exploration by everyone.

Although von der Dunk says that even though he doesn’t see anything in the current version that clearly violates international law, it could still cause concerns overseas.

“Russia and China might consider using this as another example of the economic aggression of the U.S. and going ahead of the international law,” he says.

The space mining debate probably should have started with international discussions, Tronchetti and von der Dunk agree, before going to the House and Senate.

But international consensus has been hard to come by in the past. The 1979 Moon Agreement, for example, would have limited mining in space to international governing bodies. Over the years, 16 nations have signed on to the treaty, but none of the major space-faring nations have agreed to it.

Von der Dunk says it’s too late for those discussions now. “It would take years and lead to a watered-down version. We're probably going to go ahead with this.”

Space Mining

Kevin Hand

Scientists and businesses are exploring a variety of methods to extract minerals from asteroids. Here's one way.

What’s The Rush?

Michael Listner has some major qualms with the bill in its current form. It requires the President to assess the international impacts of space mining and set up a regulatory structure for it within 180 days of signing the bill into law, but has no vision beyond those 180 days. “It’s a short-term bill,” says Listner. “I don’t think it goes far enough.”

For example, what is the licensing process for a company that wants to mine asteroids? Although issues such as this could be addressed in the President’s 180-day report, that report, Tronchetti writes, “might not be a sufficient step to fill in the gap resulting from a near-absolute absence of a national regulatory framework governing private mining activities on asteroids.” He goes on:

rather than rushing the adoption of controversial legislation dealing with extraterrestrial property rights, [the United States] should gradually develop a national regulatory framework to manage (non-governmental) activities on celestial bodies, including the establishment of technical and safety standards as well as of licensing procedures.

“There are just too many questions,” says Listner. “It conjures rights out of thin air, and has no supporting infrastructure.”

Moon Colony

Artist concept via NASA

Mining lunar water could pave the way to human colonies on the moon and Mars. But is the Space Act of 2015 up to the task?

If the bill does get through the Senate, there’s no guarantee that President Obama will sign it into law. Although he’s supported SpaceX’s commercial spaceflight ventures, the international ramifications plus Democrats’ calls to discuss the implications of space mining in a committee could lead the President to veto this part of the bill. If that happens, Congress would need to drum up a two-thirds majority to override the veto.

Tronchetti notes that the bill has proceeded “in a rather sudden and unexpected fashion.” Despite strong opposition from Democrats, the Republican-led House pushed it through without any hearings or expert testimony.

But the bill may be more about gauging the reaction from the legal community than anything else, Listner says. “They could just be throwing mud at walls to see if anything sticks.”

Fish got your teeth?

Benson Kua/FlickrCC by SA 2.0

Your pearly-white smile has a fishy origin story. And no, we're not referring to your overuse of tooth whitening products. Actual fish were involved, millions of years ago.

Tooth enamel is the hardest substance in the human body, protecting your teeth from damage. Enamel is only found on vertebrate teeth, but how it came to armor our mouths remained a bit of a mystery. Now, scientists think they might have found an answer in 400 million-year-old fish scales.

In a paper published today in Nature, researchers found that a shiny substance in fish scales called ganoine is related to enamel. The researchers took samples of scales containing ganoine from living armored fish like the spotted gar, which looks like this:

Spotted Gar

Elma/FlickrCC by 2.0

The researchers found that proteins in the spotted gar's skin were identical to proteins linked to enamel development in human teeth. The gar has ganoine in its scales and on parts of its teeth. Looking back through the fossil record, the scientists found that early fish, like Psarolepis romeri from 400 million years ago, had the same substance, ganoine, in their scales but not their teeth. This suggests that at some point between the two, ganoine production moved from just the scales to encompass the teeth as well.

Psarolepis romeri

Nobu TamuraCC by SA 3.0

Artist's interpretation of what Psarolepis romeri would have looked like.

"We hypothesize that enamel originated on the scales, before colonizing the dermal bones and finally the teeth," the authors write. They think that the enamel-like ganoine started just protecting scales of ancient bony fish, creating armored plates like the spotted gar still has today. The teeth of these fish were simply unprotected, "naked dentine". Dentine is the hard, white part of the tooth just under our enamel--still sturdy, but not as tough as enamel. Somewhere along the evolutionary line, some of these ancient fish began to incorporate ganoine/enamel into other hard surfaces of their bodies, including the tooth-like structures called odontodes which they had on the outside of their mouths. Eventually, this theory says that fish began evolving with ganoine/enamel on their actual teeth, a trait that has been passed down the evolutionary line to almost all toothed creatures today, from humans to crocodiles.

How and precisely when the change happened remains a subject for future research.

Who controls our microbial population? Bacteria or our immunity?

Source: Wikipedia; Modifications: Jason Tetro

It’s become something of a catchphrase: bacteria outnumber us ten to one. That in itself is a bit of a misnomer as it’s only about three-to-one; your body has about 37 trillion cells while there are estimated to be about 100 trillion microbes. Even with the correction, we are without a doubt outnumbered by these invisible microorganisms.

Taking a look at the makeup of the microbial population, an even more fascinating revelation can be found. We all have a completely different census of species. Much like a fingerprint, no two people have the exact same types of microbes. The reasons for this difference have been examined and several factors have been unveiled including age, gender, diet, and lifestyle.

There’s also another player when it comes to our microbial uniqueness. It’s the immune system. Tasked with defending the human landscape, this collection of cells and molecules are constantly surveilling our bodies looking for any threats, whether chemical, biological, or microbial. Much like the microbes, each of us has a separate immune system and function.

But the immune system isn’t always about defense as it’s also involved in maintaining health. It’s involved in various other biological processes including wound healing, weight control, and mental health, to name a few. It most certainly would not be a stretch to propose immune function might be involved in determining what constitutes for us a healthy microbial population.

However, the evidence to suggest this has been less than convincing. Most of the time, studies have focused on how the microbes either cross-talk with the immune system or end up affecting immune activities by promoting traditional activities such as inflammation and autoimmunity.

Based on these studies and countless others, the picture suggests microbes may be in full control. We may be nothing more than serfs for a microbial liege. In essence, microbes are the masters and we are simply living and breathing to support them. If we and our immunities do not do as they command, we are sent into a variety of health consequences that reduce our quality of life and may inevitably kill us.

But this rather glum perspective may soon change thanks to the work of American researchers. Last week, they proffered a counterargument to the microbial master postulate. They found the microbes living in and on us may not be masters but instead migrants, given a pass to stay on our human grounds and co-exist with us.

The team worked with data already available from the Human Microbiome Project. They collected over fifteen hundred samples containing genetic information from 98 individuals. Using software, the mixed human and microbial genetic sequences were filtered and aligned such that they could identify what they called “human contamination reads.” These sequences, which came from humans and not microbes, were not useful at the time but for this study, they were genetic gold.

At the end of the work, sequences from 93 individuals were recovered and analyzed to determine any association with function. When this was complete, they had a collection of genes all linked in one way or another to the immune system. They were associated with a variety of functions from cytokine and chemokine response, to microbial recognition, and even fat regulation in the form of leptin signaling.

The next step was to determine whether there were any links between the immune factors and the nature of the microbiome. They found 83 such associations, far more than expected. As for which came first, the authors suggested this link had to be driven from the human as it was based in genetics. This meant the human condition laid the groundwork for the microbial migration.

An explanation and possible mechanism was presented using the link between the concentration of a probiotic bacterium, Bifidobacterium, and a host enzyme encoding for lactase. Although the immune system is not directly involved in milk digestion, it does play a role. For people carrying the enzyme, milk consumption is possible; for those that don’t, immunity may lead to symptoms of intolerance. Not surprisingly then, the bacteria, which do enjoy milk due to the lactose, end up in higher numbers in those expressing the enzyme.

Unfortunately, the authors didn’t go as far as saying we are indeed the masters of our microbial domain. Because this was an association rather than a “chicken-or-egg” study, they could not say whether microbial input over time contributed to changes in human genes. But they did suggest the results provide insight into the role of our immune system (at least genetically) in our microbial makeup and could motivate future research to answer the question once and for all.

The results also provide insight into how our own actions such as diet and lifestyle could contribute to health problems. For example, we can modify the microbial content through dietary changes, allowing even the most unwanted bacteria a chance to find a home. This in turn can work against the actions of the immune system and end up causing stress and chaos. If a poor diet is continuous, we could negate this genetic control and allow the microbes to dictate the conditions.

Facebook 360 Video

Facebook

More immersive video is coming to Facebook

Facebook bought virtual reality company Oculus in March of 2014. Now the world's largest social network is finally putting their VR acquisition to use directly on its main product. Today, Facebook announced 360-degree video, including initial videos from Star Wars, Vice News and even Mountain Dew.

The Star Wars Episode VII: Force Awakens video lets viewers speed the giant fallen Imperial Super Star Destroyer, while Vice's takes viewers to current-day Afghanistan. Both contain environments that play just as important a role as the subject of the videos themselves. As virtual reality becomes more prominent in our everyday lives, we may see 360 videos play a larger part in consuming media on the web.

With 360-degree video, Facebook users are able to put themselves in the center of the action. On a desktop computer, you can click around the video with your cursor. On mobile, you can move your phone in real space to shift perspective in the video, or drag the onscreen footage with your finger. With your phone or computer acting as a makeshift viewfinder, the solution is more affordable than investing in full-on virtual reality hardware like the upcoming Oculus Rift.

Facebook's 360 video in the timeline may not convince users to go out and buy a Gear VR or other similar headset. But those who already own a virtual reality headset like the Playstation VR or Oculus Rift can load up Facebook for the effect on certain videos. And with all Facebook users able to upload 360 video — not just brands — we may soon see an influx of moveable video content.

Videos that support the immersive video format are marked with a 360 video logo. Those interested in the nitty gritty specs can find Facebook's officially supported formats here. The videos that enable you to pan around can be had currently only on Android and desktop. iOS support of Facebook's 360 degree videos will arrive later on.

You can zip around a Super Star Destroyer in the Star Wars 360 video below:

Dava Newman NASA's New Deputy Director

NASA/Douglas Sonders

Aerospace engineer Dava Newman has devoted her career to figuring out how we might live in space—suspending subjects from the rafters of her MIT lab to study reduced gravity and designing a flexible, self-mending space suit. As NASA’s new deputy director, she is now tasked with the planning and policy that will make greater human space exploration possible. That means leading the agency’s 18,000 employees and 40,000 contractors toward a successful crewed mission to Mars by the 2030s.

In her own words

Right now, we have five rovers and orbiters exploring Mars. A human mission is a different ballgame. You have to think about stuff like access to water, psychological impact, radiation, and what happens to your muscles and bones in three-eighths of Earth’s gravity. Those are the kinds of things we’re trying to figure out on the International Space Station. The twins experiment, for example, will compare the vital signs of the Kelly brothers—one in space and one on Earth—to see physiological and genetic differences.

After the ISS, the next phase will be to go beyond low-Earth orbit into cislunar space, the region between Earth and the moon. That will be a proving ground in the 2020s. Then, we’ll move into the neighborhood of Mars. Before we go to the Red Planet itself, we might want to go to one of its two moons. There’s plenty to learn from landing there since the physics is different from here.

Because of orbital mechanics and the way Mars and Earth revolve around the sun, the two planets are nearest to one another for about 30 days, once every 26 months. That means the four- to six-member crew could stay on Mars a month, or they could stay until the next window, two years later. I think it makes sense to spend a lot of time on the surface because the trip is so long—seven months and 350 million miles, give or take.

We have 15 different tech road maps to get there. Because of the budget cycle, we can’t afford big breakthroughs in all of them, so we’re focusing on eight, including propulsion, entry, descent and landing, and life-support systems. And, of course, there’s education. For students today, Apollo is ancient history, yet they all want a selfie with the astronauts. The magic of NASA is that it still has a cool factor for young people. That’s important because they’re going to be the ones who actually set foot on Mars.”

This article was originally published in the September 2015 issue of Popular Science, under the title "Dava Newman on Getting People to Mars in One Piece.”

Avenger In Flight

General Atomics

How do you sell the drone of the future? Build a laser into the dang thing. General Atomics, whose iconic Predator and Reaper drones are probably the first thing that come to mind when someone thinks “drone,” is independently funding the integration of a 150-kilowatt laser weapon into its Avenger (or Predator-C) drone. The Avenger is the younger, jet-powered sibling to the iconic "War on Terror" drones, but it still hasn’t yet found its niche. Carrying a freakin’ laser may change that, and make it an attractive tool for the Pentagon.

It helps that the laser is particularly powerful. The American military is developing several laser weapons, like the Army’s truck-carried HEL MD, but that one was first tested with a 10kW laser, with plans to increase it to 50kW and then 100 kW. Last year the U.S. Navy actually deployed a laser weapon to the Persian Gulf, but the Laser Weapon System mounted on the USS Ponce is only 30kW. Power matters, though it’s not the only factor. For a laser to burn through a target, it needs both time and power. Ground- or ship-mounted lasers can afford to be a little weaker since, unlike fast-moving planes, it’s likely they can keep their beam on target longer.

The Avenger flies at up to 460 mph, so its more powerful 150kW laser is one way to ensure it destroys what it hits, whether it’s another drone or an incoming missile. Targeting computers help too.

Defense One notes that the company has its work cut out for it:

Bringing these two technologies together involves a lot more than strapping a laser cannon under the drone’s wings. Hitting a target with a laser mounted on a vibrating platform moving quickly through air laden with dust and water vapor is tougher than launching a Hellfire at a moving vehicle.

“Before you spend any money on a laser you better darn well show that you can acquire, ID, and track the objects of interest so that you could put a laser on them,” said [General Atomics Vice President for Mission Systems Michael] Perry. “You have to be able to compensate for aero-optic distortion.”

The company is currently testing their laser at White Sands in New Mexico. They hope to have a laser on a drone by 2017.

[Defense One]

Skull

Ben Francis/FlickrCC by 2.0

What do Henry VIII, George R.R. Martin, the Red Queen, and people who lived in South America 9,000 years ago all have in common? Big fans of decapitation. For history buffs and literature lovers, those first three are no surprise, but the discovery of a decapitated head in a South American grave was a bit of a shock, mostly due to its extreme age.

In a study published today in PLOS One, researchers announced the discovery of the oldest known decapitation in the Americas. Found in the lowlands of Brazil at a site called Lapa do Santo, the body belonged to someone who lived more than 9,000 years ago.

While older decapitations have been unearthed in other areas of the world, this is the oldest found in the Americas, and it was discovered in a pretty unusual place. Plenty of decapitated remains were unearthed in excavations of sites in or near the Andes mountains, where heads were taken as trophies or lopped off as a part of sacrificial rituals, but those date to only a few thousand years ago (and in some cases within the past 1000 years). But this find beats all of the other potential decapitations in South America by roughly 4,500 years, and outpaces the oldest known decapitation in North America by a millennium.

The decapitated body was part of a period of burial traditions that took place at the site between 9,600 and 9,400 years ago, which archaeologists call Lapa do Santo Mortuary Pattern 2 (LSMP2). Lapa do Santo Mortuary Pattern 1, which took place right before LSMP2, was what we would consider fairly normal burials. People died, they got buried in the ground and covered with a limestone block. Not all that different from what people do in cemeteries today.

Then, things started getting a little...weird. The authors write that LSMP2 "was characterized by an emphasis on the reduction of the body by means of mutilation, defleshing, tooth removal and exposure to fire followed by the secondary burial of the remains..." You know, the usual. The authors speculate that instead of burying precious items with the deceased, or building them tombs (think Egypt's pyramids), this ritual was used to place additional importance on burials.

Apparently, this decapitation was part of that same group. But unlike other decapitations that happened later in South America, it doesn't seem to be a trophy. The body appears to belong to a man who lived in the area, though how he died remains a mystery. His skull and hands were buried under a limestone slab, with his hands pointing in opposite directions over his face.

Details Of Decapitated Remains

Gil Tokyo

The discovery of a ritually decapitated head in such an unexpected area opens up a new area of inquiry for archaeologists in South America--including whether or not this was an isolated incident or part of a broader (and as-yet unexplored) pattern of mortuary practice.