Science

Dreaming of Suitcases in Space

Published

3 years ago

March 7, 2022

LAKE ELSINORE, Calif. — The mission to show house into the following frontier for categorical deliveries took off from a modest propeller aircraft above a distant airstrip within the shadow of the Santa Ana mountains.

Shortly after dawn on a latest Saturday, an engineer for Inversion Area, a start-up that’s barely a 12 months outdated, tossed a capsule resembling a flying saucer out the open door of an plane flying at 3,000 toes. The capsule, 20 inches in diameter, somersaulted within the air for a couple of seconds earlier than a parachute deployed and snapped the container upright for a gradual descent.

“It was gradual to open,” mentioned Justin Fiaschetti, Inversion’s 23-year-old chief govt, who anxiously watched the parachute via the viewfinder of a digital camera with an extended lens.

The train seemed just like the work of newbie rocketry lovers. However, actually, it was a check run for one thing extra fantastical. Inversion is constructing earth-orbiting capsules to ship items anyplace on the planet from outer house. To make {that a} actuality, Inversion’s capsule will come via the earth’s environment at about 25 instances as quick because the velocity of sound, making the parachute important for a tender touchdown and undisturbed cargo.

Inversion is betting that because it turns into cheaper to fly to house, authorities businesses and firms will need to not solely ship issues to orbit but additionally deliver objects again to earth.

Inversion goals to develop a four-foot-diameter capsule carrying a payload equal to the dimensions of some carry-on suitcases by 2025. As soon as in orbit, the capsule might, the corporate hopes, navigate itself to a non-public business house station or keep in orbit with photo voltaic panels till summoned again to earth. When it was time to return, the capsule might drop out of orbit and re-enter the environment.

The capsule would deploy a parachute to gradual its descent and land inside a radius of tens of miles from its goal location. The corporate has deliberate a smaller demonstration capsule with a 20-inch diameter to be prepared by 2023.

If Inversion is profitable, it’s attainable to think about a whole bunch or hundreds of containers floating round house for as much as 5 years — like some (actually) distant storage lockers.

The corporate’s founders think about the capsules might retailer synthetic organs which can be delivered to the working room inside a couple of hours or function cellular area hospitals floating in orbit that might be dispatched to distant areas of the planet. And in the future, a shortcut via house might enable for unimaginably quick deliveries — like delivering a New York pizza to San Francisco in 45 minutes.

Inversion’s founders suppose what looks like a pipe dream might change into extra life like as launch prices drop from present costs, which begin at $1 million (and enhance relying on weight) to share house on a SpaceX rocket. Inversion declined to supply an estimate of how a lot its capsules will value.

“The massive impediment that everybody within the sector is making an attempt to beat is that at present prices, there simply isn’t that a lot demand to do a lot in house,” mentioned Matthew C. Weinzierl, a professor at Harvard Enterprise Faculty who has printed analysis concerning the financial potential of house.

For many years, individuals have imagined dwelling and dealing in house as an extension of life on Earth. That imaginative and prescient appeared like a Hollywood fantasy till an inflow of personal rocket firms vastly diminished the prices of attending to house, making business exercise past Earth extra possible.

The price of launching one kilogram, about 2.2 kilos, of payload to outer house has fallen roughly 90 p.c within the final 30 years. SpaceX is anticipated to push prices even decrease with Starship, its next-generation rocket nonetheless in growth. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s chief govt, has mentioned he expects launch prices for the large rocket to be lower than $10 million inside three years — in contrast with the $62 million marketed value for launching the Falcon 9, the corporate’s broadly used rocket.

For house to be extra accessible than it’s in the present day, inexpensively launching rockets is just one a part of the equation.

One other necessary issue is services in house. Final 12 months, NASA chosen three firms to obtain funding for business house stations as a part of a plan to ultimately substitute the Worldwide Area Station. A fourth firm, Axiom Area, was awarded a $140 million contract in 2020 to construct a liveable module connected to the ISS.

Mr. Fiaschetti, who interned for SpaceX earlier than dropping out of faculty final 12 months to pursue his personal start-up goals, thinks bodily items — not simply satellite tv for pc knowledge — might be despatched again from house.

At this time, the primary cargo for rockets is satellites that keep in house. The autos carrying people or experiments from house are massive, value greater than $100 million and normally work in tandem with a selected rocket. Inversion mentioned it designed its smaller capsules to suit into any business rocket to allow them to catch a experience to house steadily and inexpensively.

What Inversion is making an attempt to do isn’t straightforward. Designing a car for re-entry is a special engineering problem than sending issues as much as house. When a capsule enters the environment from house, it’s touring at such excessive speeds that there’s the hazard of burning up — an enormous threat for human vacationers and valuable nonhuman cargo alike.

Seetha Raghavan, a professor within the College of Central Florida’s mechanical and aerospace engineering division, mentioned it might be much more tough to deal with the warmth, vibration and deceleration of the capsule when the car dimension shrank.

“All of it turns into more durable when you’ve a smaller merchandise to manage,” Ms. Raghavan mentioned.

Inversion’s plan for capsules in orbit raises questions on whether or not it’s going to contribute to congestion in house, already an issue with the megaconstellations of satellites. And the abundance of satellites interfering with observations of planets, stars and different celestial our bodies has been a standard grievance amongst astronomers.

However Inversion mentioned it was utilizing supplies to make its capsules considerably much less reflective to lower visible air pollution. As well as, the corporate mentioned its capsule would include methods to keep away from particles and collisions in orbit.

Mr. Briggs, 23, and Mr. Fiaschetti met once they sat subsequent to one another at a matriculation ceremony for freshmen at Boston College. They turned lively within the college’s Rocket Propulsion Group engaged on rocket designs. They moved to Los Angeles through the pandemic. One night time, they have been discussing the way forward for the house trade — “We’re nerds. That is what we do,” Mr. Fiaschetti mentioned — and so they homed in on creating inexpensive re-entry autos to hold cargo from house.

They moved right into a guesthouse within the San Pedro neighborhood of Los Angeles, paying $1,250 a month every, together with for the usage of a storage that turned the corporate’s workshop. Utilizing Mr. Fiaschetti’s woodworking gear, they designed and made a working rocket engine out of aluminum in an effort to show to potential traders that they’d the mandatory technical chops.

In June, Inversion Area joined Y Combinator, a Silicon Valley start-up incubator identified for early investments in Airbnb and Stripe. 5 months later, it mentioned it had raised $10 million primarily based partly on letters of intent price $225 million from potential prospects enthusiastic about reserving house on Inversion’s capsules. Mr. Fiaschetti declined to establish the purchasers.

Enterprise capital has began to see the potential of house. Globally, enterprise capital corporations invested $7.7 billion in space-related expertise final 12 months, up practically 50 p.c from a 12 months earlier, based on knowledge compiled by PitchBook.

Inversion moved right into a 5,000-square-foot warehouse in an workplace park in Torrance. It’s a tinkerer’s dream workshop, with machining instruments for making components, welding gear and a 20-ton hydraulic store press to pack parachutes as densely as oak.

Tucked away on the far finish of the warehouse — subsequent to a floor-to-ceiling American flag and a basketball hoop — is a black, 10-foot delivery container for testing rocket engines and parachute deployment mechanisms. The construction options steel-reinforced concrete partitions, ceiling sprinklers and a system to interchange oxygen with nitrogen within the case of a fireplace.

On a latest go to, Inversion was making ready to check a brand new parachute design. Parachutes are tough. They need to unfurl completely to verify a capsule will decelerate and never rock an excessive amount of. Many components, like together with material alternative and seam design, can have an effect on a parachute’s effectiveness.

Whereas most rocket firms outsource parachute design and manufacturing, Inversion sees constructing their very own as a bonus.

In an earlier check, Inversion had observed that the capsule oscillated rather a lot. On that day, Mr. Fiaschetti, Mr. Briggs, and two engineers had arrived earlier than dawn on a latest Saturday at an airstrip largely utilized by sky divers to check a brand new design.

Connor Kelsay, an engineer who oversees Inversion’s parachute design, climbed into the aircraft with the check capsule, which was affixed with a GoPro digital camera and an inertial measurement unit to gauge its actions. After he tossed the capsule out of the aircraft, he waited a couple of seconds and jumped out after it. An skilled sky diver, Mr. Kelsay circled the capsule, taking pictures video of its actions from one other digital camera on his helmet.

When he landed, he shared the identical commentary as everybody else: The parachute had been gradual to deploy. The workforce rapidly scanned the video and ran down an inventory of attainable components. Did Mr. Kelsay toss the capsule too roughly? Was there quite a lot of turbulence when the drop occurred? Was it as a result of they used a otherwise formed capsule final time?

Within the second check, the parachute opened as anticipated. Nonetheless, the GoPro digital camera taped to the capsule fell off within the descent — prompting a frantic search. (They ultimately discovered it.) After the second check, the workforce thought it had pinpointed the issue: An adhesive material tape used to patch a gap had prompted the parachute to stay.

Afterward, Mr. Fiaschetti mentioned he wasn’t disillusioned by the gradual parachute opening as a result of it was a part of the method.

“Early in growth, you anticipate issues to not go as completely as you wished,” he mentioned. “I suppose that’s why they name {hardware} ‘exhausting tech.’”

Science

Panama Canal’s Expansion Opened Routes for Fish to Relocate

Published

12 hours ago

January 7, 2025

Press Room

Panama Canal’s Expansion Opened Routes for Fish to Relocate

Night fell as the two scientists got to work, unfurling long nets off the end of their boat. The jungle struck up its evening symphony: the sweet chittering of insects, the distant bellowing of monkeys, the occasional screech of a kite. Crocodiles lounged in the shallows, their eyes glinting when headlamps were shined their way.

Across the water, cargo ships made dark shapes as they slid between the seas.

The Panama Canal has for more than a century connected far-flung peoples and economies, making it an essential artery for global trade — and, in recent weeks, a target of President-elect Donald J. Trump’s expansionist designs.

But of late the canal has been linking something else, too: the immense ecosystems of the Atlantic and the Pacific.

The two oceans have been separated for some three million years, ever since the isthmus of Panama rose out of the water and split them. The canal cut a path through the continent, yet for decades only a handful of marine fish species managed to migrate through the waterway and the freshwater reservoir, Lake Gatún, that feeds its locks.

Then, in 2016, Panama expanded the canal to allow supersize ships, and all that started to change.

In less than a decade, fish from both oceans — snooks, jacks, snappers and more — have almost entirely displaced the freshwater species that were in the canal system before, scientists with the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama have found. Fishermen around Lake Gatún who rely on those species, chiefly peacock bass and tilapia, say their catches are growing scarce.

Researchers now worry that more fish could start making their way through from one ocean to the other. And no potential invader causes more concern than the venomous, candy-striped lionfish. They are known to inhabit Panama’s Caribbean coast, but not the eastern Pacific. If they made it there through the canal, they could ravage the defenseless local fish, just as they’ve done in the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean.

Already, marine species are more than occasional visitors in Lake Gatún, said Phillip Sanchez, a fisheries ecologist with the Smithsonian. They’re “becoming the dominant community,” he said. They’re “pushing everything else out.”

Science

Sitting hurts. Train for your desk job with these 5 easy exercises for your head and neck

Published

13 hours ago

January 7, 2025

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Sitting hurts. Train for your desk job with these 5 easy exercises for your head and neck

It’s Monday morning, the start of your work week. You’ve put the finishing touches on that big report, prepared for that imminent presentation. But it’s likely that there’s one aspect of the job you’re not ready for: the marathon of sitting at your desk all day.

Time to start training. Because while it might not be earthshaking news, it bears repeating: Prolonged desk work can lead to a host of musculoskeletal issues, from annoying aches and pains to injuries.

Even if your work space is ergonomically correct — and even if you exercise regularly in your free time — excessive desk work (considered three or four continuous hours) can lead to weakened, tight muscles, joint stiffness, inflammation in the muscles and tendons and tight fascia (connective tissue). Add it all up, and the result is typically some level of discomfort.

Left untreated, muscles that are stressed and deconditioned can lead to painful soft tissue problems, such as tendonitis and carpal tunnel syndrome, as well as chronic lower back pain. You can also become at risk for bulging or herniated discs, pinched nerves and other issues.

Desk work can also lead to biomechanical imbalances. Weakened glutes from sitting, for example, can lead to stress on the knees and lower back; tired hip flexors can alter pelvic movement, leading to lower back pain.

Which is concerning seeing as sitting for work is both on the rise and can put us at risk for other serious health issues, says Stella Volpe, president of the American College of Sports Medicine.

“We know that there are more Americans now that have sedentary jobs than ever in the past,” Volpe says. “The more we sit, the greater risk we have of diabetes, obesity and cardiovascular disease.”

Blame our sitting-related woes on the advent of furniture, says David Raichlen, a USC evolutionary biologist who studies sedentary behavior and exercise.

Before chairs with a back and arm rests debuted as a status symbol among ancient Egyptians about 5,000 years ago, he says that humans mostly kneeled or squatted for about 2 million years. Those resting postures require light muscle activity, but when the body is fully supported by a chair or a couch, it turns off that activity in the body parts being supported by the furniture, Raichlen says. Prolonged inactivity can then lead to muscle atrophy and other problems.

“From an evolutionary standpoint, the human body hasn’t yet adapted to furniture,” Raichlen says. “It never had to deal with completely inactive muscles for long periods of time until very recently.”

But the good news is you can train for long-distance sessions at your desk by working out your neck, your wrists, your lower back, even your feet and toes. These “exercise snacks,” as trainers call them, don’t require a trip to the gym, or equipment, or even much time.

They’re not meant to replace regular exercise, but they will — if done regularly — prepare your body for the challenge that is desk work by stretching and strengthening your muscles, taking pressure off your joints and reducing stiffness and inflammation in the area — all of which may alleviate pain and prevent new injuries.

“We’re designed to be hunter-gatherers, not to wiggle our fingers on a keyboard for eight hours straight,” says Dr. Joshua T. Goldman, a UCLA sports medicine physician. “We need to build up strength, for endurance purposes, to help those body parts tolerate that activity.”

“The human body hasn’t yet adapted to furniture. It never had to deal with completely inactive muscles for long periods of time until very recently.”

— David Raichlen, USC evolutionary biologist

We spoke to exercise physiologists, sports medicine physicians, personal trainers, physical therapists and others to devise a short, five-minute exercise routine for six key regions of the body. We’ll roll out one routine a week — starting with the head and neck area — for six weeks, until you have a complete full-body workout.

Each exercise is purposefully simple, meant to take 30-60 seconds. And each routine lasts about five minutes or less in total. They’re ideally done throughout the day, so as to promote mobility and circulation, bringing blood flow and nutrients to the muscles and tendons, and increasing lubrication in the joints. Set a timer. Take a five-minute break to execute one routine. Then get back to work.

Still too busy? Do just one exercise, for 30-60 seconds, then continue working. If you get through one routine by day’s end, consider it a win. Focus on a different routine the next day.

“It all adds up,” Volpe says. “Our society often thinks that if you’re not running a marathon, you’re not doing enough. But the additive effect is still good for you.”

A routine for your head and neck

The neck is a common area in which to develop pain from desk work. Looking at a computer monitor, we often jut our neck forward rather than tucking in our chin, as we should. That pushes our cervical column out of alignment and creates excess stress on the bones and discs of the cervical spine. It shortens and tightens muscles in the neck, which can lead to pain and cause tension headaches.

Do these exercises to help stretch and strengthen the muscles that support your head and neck. They’re demonstrated by trainer Melissa Gunn, of Pure Strength LA, whose team trains desk workers on how to protect their bodies through exercise.

Clasp your hands behind your head and gently tuck your chin down toward your chest. Hold 10 seconds. Do five times.

Slowly tilt your head to the left, bringing your ear toward your shoulder. Hold for 10 seconds, then raise it slowly back up to the starting point. Switch sides. Do three times on each side. To increase the stretch, after bringing your ear to your shoulder and holding, turn your head and look down toward your armpit on the same side, then return to starting position.

Place your back flat against a wall and stand with your feet about eight inches from the wall, with knees slightly bent. Your arms should be flush against the wall, with palms facing outward. Tuck your chin slightly and push your head gently against the wall. Slide your arms up the wall, as if doing a snow angel. Go as far as you can with your arms and hands flush against wall. Stop when they begin to pull away from the wall — typically when palms are between shoulder height and head height. Do 10 times.

Stand up straight and align your head, shoulders, hips and ankles — most people jut their neck forward without knowing it, creating static tension there, so consciously move your head back so it’s above your shoulders. Slowly roll your head in a circle, first to the left, clockwise, all the way around; then to the right, counter-clockwise. Do 3 times on each side.

Stand up straight and align your head, shoulders, hips and ankles. Your arms should be beside you and your palms facing outward. Then pull your arms back but no further than the back pockets of your pants — without lifting your shoulders — and draw your shoulder blades together. Hold for 2-5 seconds. Do 5-10 times.

(Exercises came from Dr. Joshua T. Goldman, UCLA sports medicine; Melissa Gunn, Pure Strength LA; Tom Hendrickx, Pivot Physical Therapy; Vanessa Martinez Kercher, Indiana University-Bloomington, School of Public Health; Nico Pronk, Health Partners Institute; Niki Saccareccia, Light Inside Yoga.)

Science

Lead Poisoning May Have Made Ancient Romans a Bit Less Intelligent

Published

20 hours ago

January 7, 2025

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Lead Poisoning May Have Made Ancient Romans a Bit Less Intelligent

Roughly 2,000 years ago, the Roman Empire was flourishing. But something sinister was in the air. Literally.

Widespread pollution in the form of airborne lead was taking a toll on health and intelligence, researchers reported on Monday in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

During the roughly two centuries starting in 27 B.C., a period of relative stability and prosperity known as the Pax Romana, the empire extended throughout Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. Its economy relied on silver coinage, which required huge mining operations.

But extracting silver from the Earth creates a whole lot of lead, said Joseph McConnell, an environmental scientist at the Desert Research Institute, a nonprofit group based in Nevada, and the lead author of the new research. “If you produce an ounce of silver, you’d have produced something like 10,000 ounces of lead.”

And lead has a host of negative effects on the human body. “There is no such thing as any safe level of lead exposure,” said Deborah Cory-Slechta, a neurotoxicologist at the University of Rochester Medical Center who was not involved in the research.

Dr. McConnell and his colleagues have now detected lead in layers of ice collected in Russia and Greenland that date to the time of the Roman Empire. Lead entered the atmosphere from Roman mining operations, hitched a ride on air currents and eventually fell out of the atmosphere as snow in the Arctic, the team surmised.

The levels of lead that Dr. McConnell and his collaborators measured were extremely low, roughly one lead-containing molecule per trillion molecules of water. But the ice samples were collected thousands of miles from southern Europe, and lead concentrations would have been highly dispersed after such a long journey.

In order to estimate the amount of lead originally emitted by Roman mining operations, the researchers worked backward: Using powerful computer models of the planet’s atmosphere and making assumptions about the location of the mining sites, the team varied the amount of lead emitted to match the concentrations they measured in the ice. In one case, they assumed that all silver production took place at a historically important mining site in southwestern Spain known as Rio Tinto. In another case, they presumed that silver mining was equally spread out across dozens of sites.

The team calculated that anywhere from 3,300 to 4,600 tons of lead were being emitted into the atmosphere each year by Roman silver-mining operations. The researchers then estimated how all that lead would be scattered across the Roman Empire.

“We ran the model in the forward direction to see how those emissions would be distributed,” Dr. McConnell said.

With those atmospheric-lead concentrations in hand, the researchers next used modern-day data to estimate how much lead would have entered the bloodstreams of people in ancient Rome.

Dr. McConnell and his colleagues focused on infants and children. Young people are particularly susceptible to taking up lead from their environment via ingestion and inhalation, said Dr. Bruce Lanphear, a public heath physician at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia who was not involved in the research. “Pound for pound, children, particularly infants, eat more and breathe more.”

In recent decades, lead levels in children’s blood have been correlated with a slew of physical and mental health metrics, including I.Q., Dr. Cory-Slechta said. “We have actual data on I.Q. scores in kids with different blood-lead concentrations.”

Using those modern-day relationships, Dr. McConnell and his team estimated that children across much of the Roman Empire would have had around 2 to 5 additional micrograms of lead, per deciliter of blood. Such levels correspond to I.Q. declines of roughly 2 or 3 points.

For comparison, American children in the 1970s had average blood-lead-level enhancements of around 15 micrograms more lead per deciliter of blood before the phasing out of leaded gasoline and leaded paints. Their corresponding average I.Q. decline was about 9 points.

But lead exposure would have had other negative effects on Romans as well. Higher levels of lead in the blood have also been linked to higher incidences of preterm births and reduced cognitive functioning in old age. “It follows you throughout life,” Dr. Lanphear said.

Some scholars have hypothesized that lead poisoning played an important role in the decline of the Roman Empire. But that idea has been called into question, at least when it comes to water contaminated by lead pipes. A 2014 study showed that, while the pipes used to distribute water in Rome increased lead levels, the water was unlikely to be truly harmful.

These new findings make sense, said Hugo Delile, a geoarchaeologist at the French National Centre for Scientific Research, who was not involved in the research. “They confirm the extent of lead pollution resulting from Roman mining and metallurgical activities.”

According to Dr. McConnell, the research also confers a dubious honor on Roman mining. “To my knowledge, it’s the earliest example of widespread industrial pollution,” he said.