Science
JPL to lay off roughly 5% of its workforce
NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory is preparing to lay off hundreds of employees this week, director Laurie Leshin said in a memo to staff sent Tuesday afternoon.
The La Cañada Flintridge research institution will let go of approximately 325 employees across the organization on Wednesday, or roughly 5% of its total staff, the memo stated.
“With lower budgets and based on the forecasted work ahead, we had to tighten our belts across the board,” Leshin wrote. “This is a message I had hoped not to have to write.”
This is the third round of layoffs at JPL this year, a reduction spurred primarily by major budgetary cuts to the Mars Sample Return mission, which is managed by JPL.
NASA directed $310 million this year to the effort to bring Mars rocks back to Earth, a steep drop from the $822.3 million it spent on the program the previous year.
In January, 100 on-site contractors at JPL were let go after NASA instructed the lab to reduce spending in anticipation of a much tighter budget. In February, the lab laid off 530 employees — approximately 8% of its workforce — and another 40 contractors.
This week’s staff reduction will bring JPL’s total workforce to about 5,500 employees, a number that managers expect will remain stable “for the foreseeable future,” Leshin told staff.
The reduction had been in the works prior to the U.S. presidential election, she wrote, and “would be happening regardless of the recent election outcome.”
The memo instructed staff to work from home on Wednesday. Employees will be notified of their job status by email.
Last year was a crisis point for Mars Sample Return, whose goal is to fetch rocks from the Red Planet’s Jezero crater and bring them back to Earth for study.
In July 2023, the U.S. Senate presented NASA with an ultimatum in its proposed budget: Either present a plan for completing the mission within the $5.3 billion budgeted, or risk cancellation.
A sobering independent review two months later determined there was “near zero probability” of Mars Sample Return making its proposed 2028 launch date, and “no credible” way to fulfill the mission within its current budget. As designed, the review board found, the mission would probably cost up to $11 billion and not return samples to Earth until at least 2040.
In response, NASA put out a request for alternative proposals to all of its centers and the private sector, essentially putting JPL in a position of having to compete for its own project.
Lawmakers lobbied to preserve JPL’s funding, citing the need to protect jobs and keep the U.S. space program competitive. China has announced a sample return mission of its own to launch in 2028 or 2030.
But funding across NASA, adjusted for inflation, has plummeted from its Apollo-era high and remained essentially flat for decades.
NASA’s budget for years has hovered around 0.1% of total U.S. gross domestic product — less than one-eighth of its allowance during the mid-1960s.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine said earlier this year that the agency is suffering under budgets that fall far short of what’s needed to support its ambitions.
In a September report commissioned by Congress, experts from the National Academies identified a number of the agency’s technological resources in decline from a lack of funds, including the Deep Space Network — an international collection of giant radio antennas overseen by JPL.
Either the U.S. must increase funding for NASA, or the agency must cut some missions, the authors concluded.
“For NASA, this is not a time for business as usual,” lead author Norman Augustine, a former executive at Lockheed Martin, said in September. “The concerns it faces are ones that have built up over decades.”
Science
Cluster of farmworkers diagnosed with rare animal-borne disease in Ventura County
A cluster of workers at Ventura County berry farms have been diagnosed with a rare disease often transmitted through sick animals’ urine, according to a public health advisory distributed to local doctors by county health officials Tuesday.
The bacterial infection, leptospirosis, has resulted in severe symptoms for some workers, including meningitis, an inflammation of the brain lining and spinal cord. Symptoms for mild cases included headaches and fevers.
The disease, which can be fatal, rarely spreads from human to human, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Ventura County Public Health has not given an official case count but said it had not identified any cases outside of the agriculture sector. The county’s agriculture commissioner was aware of 18 cases, the Ventura County Star reported.
The health department said it was first contacted by a local physician in October, who reported an unusual trend in symptoms among hospital patients.
After launching an investigation, the department identified leptospirosis as a probable cause of the illness and found most patients worked on caneberry farms that utilize hoop houses — greenhouse structures to shelter the crops.
As the investigation to identify any additional cases and the exact sources of exposure continues, Ventura County Public Health has asked healthcare providers to consider a leptospirosis diagnosis for sick agricultural workers, particularly berry harvesters.
Rodents are a common source and transmitter of disease, though other mammals — including livestock, cats and dogs — can transmit it as well.
The disease is spread through bodily fluids, such as urine, and is often contracted through cuts and abrasions that contact contaminated water and soil, where the bacteria can survive for months.
Humans can also contract the illness through contaminated food; however, the county health agency has found no known health risks to the general public, including through the contact or consumption of caneberries such as raspberries and blackberries.
Symptom onset typically occurs between two and 30 days after exposure, and symptoms can last for months if untreated, according to the CDC.
The illness often begins with mild symptoms, with fevers, chills, vomiting and headaches. Some cases can then enter a second, more severe phase that can result in kidney or liver failure.
Ventura County Public Health recommends agriculture and berry harvesters regularly rinse any cuts with soap and water and cover them with bandages. They also recommend wearing waterproof clothing and protection while working outdoors, including gloves and long-sleeve shirts and pants.
While there is no evidence of spread to the larger community, according to the department, residents should wash hands frequently and work to control rodents around their property if possible.
Pet owners can consult a veterinarian about leptospirosis vaccinations and should keep pets away from ponds, lakes and other natural bodies of water.
Science
Political stress: Can you stay engaged without sacrificing your mental health?
It’s been two weeks since Donald Trump won the presidential election, but Stacey Lamirand’s brain hasn’t stopped churning.
“I still think about the election all the time,” said the 60-year-old Bay Area resident, who wanted a Kamala Harris victory so badly that she flew to Pennsylvania and knocked on voters’ doors in the final days of the campaign. “I honestly don’t know what to do about that.”
Neither do the psychologists and political scientists who have been tracking the country’s slide toward toxic levels of partisanship.
Fully 69% of U.S. adults found the presidential election a significant source of stress in their lives, the American Psychological Assn. said in its latest Stress in America report.
The distress was present across the political spectrum, with 80% of Republicans, 79% of Democrats and 73% of independents surveyed saying they were stressed about the country’s future.
That’s unhealthy for the body politic — and for voters themselves. Stress can cause muscle tension, headaches, sleep problems and loss of appetite. Chronic stress can inflict more serious damage to the immune system and make people more vulnerable to heart attacks, strokes, diabetes, infertility, clinical anxiety, depression and other ailments.
In most circumstances, the sound medical advice is to disengage from the source of stress, therapists said. But when stress is coming from politics, that prescription pits the health of the individual against the health of the nation.
“I’m worried about people totally withdrawing from politics because it’s unpleasant,” said Aaron Weinschenk, a political scientist at the University of Wisconsin–Green Bay who studies political behavior and elections. “We don’t want them to do that. But we also don’t want them to feel sick.”
Modern life is full of stressors of all kinds: paying bills, pleasing difficult bosses, getting along with frenemies, caring for children or aging parents (or both).
The stress that stems from politics isn’t fundamentally different from other kinds of stress. What’s unique about it is the way it encompasses and enhances other sources of stress, said Brett Ford, a social psychologist at the University of Toronto who studies the link between emotions and political engagement.
For instance, she said, elections have the potential to make everyday stressors like money and health concerns more difficult to manage as candidates debate policies that could raise the price of gas or cut off access to certain kinds of medical care.
Layered on top of that is the fact that political disagreements have morphed into moral conflicts that are perceived as pitting good against evil.
“When someone comes into power who is not on the same page as you morally, that can hit very deeply,” Ford said.
Partisanship and polarization have raised the stakes as well. Voters who feel a strong connection to a political party become more invested in its success. That can make a loss at the ballot box feel like a personal defeat, she said.
There’s also the fact that we have limited control over the outcome of an election. A patient with heart disease can improve their prognosis by taking medicine, changing their diet, getting more exercise or quitting smoking. But a person with political stress is largely at the mercy of others.
“Politics is many forms of stress all rolled into one,” Ford said.
Weinschenk observed this firsthand the day after the election.
“I could feel it when I went into my classroom,” said the professor, whose research has found that people with political anxiety aren’t necessarily anxious in general. “I have a student who’s transgender and a couple of students who are gay. Their emotional state was so closed down.”
That’s almost to be expected in a place like Wisconsin, whose swing-state status caused residents to be bombarded with political messages. The more campaign ads a person is exposed to, the greater the risk of being diagnosed with anxiety, depression or another psychological ailment, according to a 2022 study in the journal PLOS One.
Political messages seem designed to keep voters “emotionally on edge,” said Vaile Wright, a licensed psychologist in Villa Park, Ill., and a member of the APA’s Stress in America team.
“It encourages emotion to drive our decision-making behavior, as opposed to logic,” Wright said. “When we’re really emotionally stimulated, it makes it so much more challenging to have civil conversation. For politicians, I think that’s powerful, because emotions can be very easily manipulated.”
Making voters feel anxious is a tried-and-true way to grab their attention, said Christopher Ojeda, a political scientist at UC Merced who studies mental health and politics.
“Feelings of anxiety can be mobilizing, definitely,” he said. “That’s why politicians make fear appeals — they want people to get engaged.”
On the other hand, “feelings of depression are demobilizing and take you out of the political system,” said Ojeda, author of “The Sad Citizen: How Politics is Depressing and Why it Matters.”
“What [these feelings] can tell you is, ‘Things aren’t going the way I want them to. Maybe I need to step back,’” he said.
Genessa Krasnow has been seeing a lot of that since the election.
The Seattle entrepreneur, who also campaigned for Harris, said it grates on her to see people laughing in restaurants “as if nothing had happened.” At a recent book club meeting, her fellow group members were willing to let her vent about politics for five minutes, but they weren’t interested in discussing ways they could counteract the incoming president.
“They’re in a state of disengagement,” said Krasnow, who is 56. She, meanwhile, is looking for new ways to reach young voters.
“I am exhausted. I am so sad,” she said. “But I don’t believe that disengaging is the answer.”
That’s the fundamental trade-off, Ojeda said, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution.
“Everyone has to make a decision about how much engagement they can tolerate without undermining their psychological well-being,” he said.
Lamirand took steps to protect her mental health by cutting social media ties with people whose values aren’t aligned with hers. But she will remain politically active and expects to volunteer for phone-banking duty soon.
“Doing something is the only thing that allows me to feel better,” Lamirand said. “It allows me to feel some level of control.”
Ideally, Ford said, people would not have to choose between being politically active and preserving their mental health. She is investigating ways to help people feel hopeful, inspired and compassionate about political challenges, since these emotions can motivate action without triggering stress and anxiety.
“We want to counteract this pattern where the more involved you are, the worse you are,” Ford said.
The benefits would be felt across the political spectrum. In the APA survey, similar shares of Democrats, Republicans and independents agreed with statements like, “It causes me stress that politicians aren’t talking about the things that are most important to me,” and, “The political climate has caused strain between my family members and me.”
“Both sides are very invested in this country, and that is a good thing,” Wright said. “Antipathy and hopelessness really doesn’t serve us in the long run.”
Science
Video: SpaceX Unable to Recover Booster Stage During Sixth Test Flight
President-elect Donald Trump joined Elon Musk in Texas and watched the launch from a nearby location on Tuesday. While the Starship’s giant booster stage was unable to repeat a “chopsticks” landing, the vehicle’s upper stage successfully splashed down in the Indian Ocean.
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