Science

1. The first fully private mission reached the International Space Station early Saturday with a four-member crew from startup company Axiom Space.

NASA has hailed the three-way partnership with Axiom and SpaceX as a key step towards commercializing the region of space known as "Low Earth Orbit," leaving the agency to focus on more ambitious voyages deeper into the cosmos.

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon capsule Endeavor docked at 1229 GMT Saturday and the crew entered the space station nearly two hours later, after launching from the Kennedy Space Center in Florida on Friday.

To its many detractors, space tourism amounts to nothing more than joy-rides for the global super rich that will worsen the planet's climate crisis.

But the nascent sector also has supporters, who, while not rejecting the criticism outright, argue the industry can bring humanity benefits too.

Sharks used to figure prominently in my nightmares: coming after me in the ocean, rivers, swimming pools. But after spending some time with these elusive creatures in 2015, a more compelling question started to keep me up at night — do the very creatures that invade my dreams engage in sleep themselves?

As the world’s leading — and only — authority in sleep in elasmobranchs (sharks and rays), my research team and I have begun to unravel this enigma, and our latest findings of physiological evidence of sleep in sharks are the most conclusive on the topic yet.

A recently proposed aquaculture octopus farm in the Canary Islands would raise 3,000 tonnes of octopus a year, which means almost 275,000 individual octopuses will be killed annually.

My research examines animal minds and ethics, and to me, the phrase “octopus culture” brings to mind Octopolis and Octlantis, two communities of wild octopuses in Jarvis Bay, Australia.

The research will increase our understanding of what causes mental illness and may help to identify new treatments.

Healthy body, healthy mind

People often consider mental health as separate from the health of the rest of the body. This is far from true: there is clear evidence many biochemical substances involved in diseases such as diabetes and autoimmune conditions directly impact the function of our brain.

The blobs have their roots 2,900km below the surface, almost halfway to the centre of the Earth. They are thought to be the birthplace of rising columns of hot rock called “deep mantle plumes” that reach Earth’s surface.

When these plumes first reach the surface, giant volcanic eruptions occur – the kind that contributed to the extinction of the dinosaurs 65.5 million years ago. The blobs may also control the eruption of a kind of rock called kimberlite, which brings diamonds from depths 120-150km (and in some cases up to around 800km) to Earth’s surface.

It was 1914 when the English explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton set sail on his Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition aboard a ship called Endurance. It was an ill-fated journey: the ship got trapped in the ice and eventually crushed by pack ice in 1915. It sank to the bottom of Antarctica’s Weddell Sea. (Shackleton and his entire crew survived the ordeal by escaping in smaller boats.

It was difficult to believe that the Endurance might ever be found. The icy Weddell Sea is inhospitable and the wreck lay in more than 3000 metres of water. But thanks to a South African vessel, the SA Agulhas II, Endurance was found in March 2022. It was the second time the polar icebreaker reached the coordinates that Endurance’s Captain Frank Worsley recorded as the ship went down. The first was in 2019; the ship was not located on that occasion.

The first fully private mission to the International Space Station is set to blast off Friday with a four-member crew from startup company Axiom Space.

The partnership has been hailed by NASA, which sees it as a key step in its goal to commercialize the region of space known as "low Earth orbit," leaving the agency to focus on more ambitious endeavors deeper into the cosmos.

An analysis of the genetic material in the ocean has identified thousands of previously unknown RNA viruses and doubled the number of phyla, or biological groups, of viruses thought to exist, according to a new study our team of researchers has published in the journal Science.

RNA viruses are best known for the diseases they cause in people, ranging from the common cold to COVID-19. They also infect plants and animals important to people.

For the second year running, US scientists observed record increases in the atmospheric concentration of the potent greenhouse gas methane, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said Thursday.

Methane, the second biggest contributor to global warming after carbon dioxide, is generated by the production, transport and use of fossil fuels, but also from the decay of organic matter in wetlands, and as a byproduct of ruminant digestion in agriculture.

It is easy to forget that clouds — yes, those big, cottonball-resembling things in the sky — are comprised of thousands of tiny particles, so small that they float through the air instead of settling on the ground. These are known as aerosols, and for scientists like geoengineering expert Dr. Hannele Korhonen — who has ambitions to control the weather — they are a lifelong passion.

That passion is at the heart of "How to Kill a Cloud," a new documentary that premieres on VICE's The Short List on Thursday, April 7th on VICE.com. The title is apt both literally and for figurative reasons: It chronicles Korhonen's doomed pie-in-the-sky dream — which takes her from her native Finland to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) on a $1.5 million grant — to make it possible for people to create rainclouds in the desert. As Korhonen hobnobs with one percenters and wrestles with the ethical implications of manipulating the weather, "How to Kill a Cloud" uses a light touch to cut between Korhonen's obviously sincere and brilliant fascination with science and the grubby networking that is required as she pursues her dream.