Nyx is a new reusable space capsule that "safely and affordably carries cargo to and from space stations," according to the web page of its European-based manufacturer, The Exploration Company, "launching from any heavy launcher worldwide."

And the company "just closed a large funding round to further its mission of building Europe's first reusable space capsule," reports TechCrunch — pointing out that right now, "Only two companies currently provide cargo delivery to and from the International Space Station, and both are based in the United States." The $160 million Series B round will fund the continued development of the Nyx spacecraft, which will be capable of carrying 3,000 kilograms of cargo to and from Earth. The company, which was founded three years ago by aerospace engineers Hélène Huby, Sebastien Reichstat, and Pierre Vine, is aiming to conduct Nyx's maiden flight to and from the International Space Station in 2028.

"We are the first company in the world where this is for the first time mainly funded by private investors," Huby said in a recent interview. This is in contrast to SpaceX's Dragon capsule, which she said was "mainly funded by NASA." The new funding, which was led by Balderton Capital and Plural, brings the startup's total funding to date to over $208 million. The Series B also included participation from Bessemer Venture Partners, NGP Capital, and two sovereign European funds, French Tech Souveraineté and DeepTech & Climate Fonds. "We've been able to deliver on promises in the past three years," Huby said. "We've been able to meet our cash target ever quarter ... The investors, they could see that we basically can deliver on time, on cost, on quality."

The startup has made traction with the European Space Agency, which has recognized the need to foster native space launch and transportation capabilities... It's a promising start, but equally promising is the traction The Exploration Company is seeing on the commercial side. Around 90% of the startup's $770 million contract backlog has come from private station developers Vast, Axiom Space, and Starlab, according to recent reporting...

The second sub-scale demonstrator mission, called Mission Possible, is scheduled to launch on a SpaceX Falcon 9 next year.
TechCrunch quotes Huby as saying "I highly respect what SpaceX has been able to achieve.We are trying to learn as much as possible from that, we are inspired by what they have achieved."

In a CNBC interview, Huby says "It's a big market, and it's growing about a bit more than 10% per year because more nations want to fly their astronauts and more nations want to go to the moon. So there is an increased demand for sending people to stations, sending cargo to stations."

"Join us on our mission to democratize access to space," says a home-page link to the company's recruiting page — with a link further down titled "Book a mission."

A reusable uncrewed spaceplane was unveiled this week for delivering and returning cargo from the Chinese Tiangong space station. It was built by the Chengdu Aircraft Design and Research Institute (part of the state-owned Aviation Industry Corporation of China). (See YouTube footage here...)

Long-time Slashdot reader Geoffrey.landis writes: Like the Sierra Space "Dream Chaser" [still under development], the vehicle is to be launched as a payload on a separate launch vehicle, and land horizontally on Earth on a runway. The design is aerodynamically a hybrid, incorporating features of both winged and lifting-body designs. A model of the Haolong will make its debut at the 15th "Airshow China", November 12 to 17 in Zhuhai.
"The China Manned Space Agency shortlisted the spacecraft as one of two proposed affordable cargo spacecraft designs," reports Aviation Week.

Chances of intelligent life emerging in our Universe "and in any hypothetical ones beyond it" can be estimated by a new theoretical model, reports the Royal Astronomical Society.

Since stars are a precondition for the emergence of life, the new research predicts that a typical observer [i.e., intelligent life] should experience a substantially larger density of dark energy than is seen in our own Universe... The approach presented in the paper involves calculating the fraction of ordinary matter converted into stars over the entire history of the Universe, for different dark energy densities. The model predicts this fraction would be approximately 27% in a universe that is most efficient at forming stars, compared to 23% in our own Universe. Dark energy makes the Universe expand faster, balancing gravity's pull and creating a universe where both expansion and structure formation are possible. However, for life to develop, there would need to be regions where matter can clump together to form stars and planets, and it would need to remain stable for billions of years to allow life to evolve.

Crucially, the research suggests that the astrophysics of star formation and the evolution of the large-scale structure of the Universe combine in a subtle way to determine the optimal value of the dark energy density needed for the generation of intelligent life. Professor Lucas Lombriser, Université de Genève and co-author of the study, added: "It will be exciting to employ the model to explore the emergence of life across different universes and see whether some fundamental questions we ask ourselves about our own Universe must be reinterpreted."
The study was funded by the EU's European Research Council, and published in Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader schwit1 for sharing the news.

Remember those 43 monkeys that escaped from a U.S. research lab? They've caught 35 of them — but haven't yet caught the other eight.

But even worse... The Independent reports that now another animal escape has led to "reports of two large emus running riot..." The birds' owner, Sam Morace, took to social media to plead with locals for their patience, saying: "For everyone that keeps seeing an emu, yes it is mine. There are 2 of them out." Morace said their two flightless birds broke loose three months ago.... "They are feral and not trained like the ones we have at the house."
This provoked some discussion on Facebook. ("Does nobody learn to lasso anymore?") But Morace responded that you "can't lasso a bird you have to grab them by their feet. Their necks are super long and fragile." In another post Morace detailed efforts to capture their birds. "Local law enforcement has already been at my house, we are trying to get a tranquilizer approved so we can bring them home.

"Thank you for all the concerns and questions. But if the emus were that easy to catch they would be home already.

If you're wondering how the escaped monkeys are doing out in the wild, someone who photographed them earlier this week said they appeared "playful, curious and jumping from tree to tree." The Guardian reports local officials have now "requested that the public avoid using drones near the facility. Earlier in the week, they reported that a drone incident 'spooked' the monkeys, increasing their stress levels and complicating efforts to recapture them."

Their article also notes reports that the facility houses 7,000 monkeys. And this isn't the first time some have escaped... In 2016, 19 monkeys escaped from the same facility, according to the Post and Courier newspaper, but were returned after six hours. Earlier, in 2014, 26 macaques reportedly escaped and were captured within two days. Documents from federal regulators from previous years revealed other incidents at the facility, as reported by the New York Times. One involved a primate escaping while being transported to the medical clinic and subsequently disappearing into the woods. Another involved two monkeys breaking out of their outdoor chain-link enclosure, which reportedly resulted in one monkey being lured back inside and the other dying shortly after being recaptured. In 2017, the Department of Agriculture fined the company more than $12,000 partly due to failures to contain the animals, according to the New York Times.
The Guardian also links to a related read from February: "Plan for US 'mini-city' of 30,000 monkeys for medical research faces backlash." Over the next 20 years, the facility will assemble a mega-troop of about 30,000 long-tailed macaques, a species native to south-east Asia, in vast barn-like structures in Bainbridge, Georgia, which has a human population of just 14,000... But the plan faces fierce opposition, with some Bainbridge residents calling on local authorities to block the construction of the proposed primate manse. "They're an invasive species and 30,000 of them, we'd just be overrun with monkeys," claimed Ted Lee, a local man. "I don't think anybody would want 30,000 monkeys next door," added David Barber, who would live just 400ft from the new facility.

"NASA has emphasized the ISS crew is in no immediate danger," reports Space.com. "The leaking area in the Russian segment of the orbital complex has been ongoing for five years," and "there was a temporary increase in the leak rate that was patched earlier this year..."

Former astronaut Bob Cabana emphasized that troubleshooting is ongoing during a brief livestreamed meeting on Wednesday. But NASA and Roscosmos "don't have a common understanding of what the likely root causes or the severity of the consequences of these leaks." "The Russian position is that the most probable cause of the cracks is high cycling caused by micro-vibrations," Cabana said, referring to flexing of metal and similar components that heat and cool as the ISS orbits in and out of sunlight. "NASA believes the PrK cracks are likely multi-causal — including pressure and mechanical stress, residual stress, material properties and environmental exposures," Cabana continued.

NASA and Russia disagree about whether "continued operations are safe", he added, but the remedy for now is to keep the hatch closed between the U.S. and Russian side as investigations continue.

The two agencies will continue meeting to seek "common understanding of the structural integrity", Cabana pledged, but he did not provide a timeline. Academic and industry experts will also be consulted.

Slashdot reader jjslash brings word that Casio "has reintroduced its iconic calculator watch featuring a retro design with green text on a negative LCD and a classic keypad layout."

TechSpot reports that the watch was based on the Casio Mini personal calculator first released in the early 1970s — even offering a keypad using the original fonts (with numbers separated by grid lines): Even the mode button, colored red, is a nod to the calculator's power indicator. The watches' calculator function can add, subtract, multiply, and divide up to eight digits. As for watch functions, you get dual time, an alarm, stopwatch functionality, and more...

Casio's original personal calculator debuted in 1972, and cost $59.95. It featured a six-digit display, was a quarter the size of its competitors, and cost just a third of rival products. The calculator was an instant hit for Casio, selling a million units in the first 10 months on the market and more than six million units over the span of the series.
Long-time Slashdot reader antdude says "I still wear one! Casio Data Bank 150 model...!"

Share your own vintage calculator memories in the comments...

China's Chang'e-6 mission made history by retrieving the first surface samples from the moon's far side, revealing evidence of volcanic activity spanning 1.4 billion years. Reuters reports: Researchers said on Friday the soil brought back from the Chang'e-6 landing site contained fragments of volcanic rock - basalt - dating to 4.2 billion years ago and to 2.8 billion years ago. This points to a long period of volcanic activity - at least 1.4 billion years - on the far side during the first half of the moon's history, when it was a more dynamic world than it is today. The moon, like Earth, formed about 4.5 billion years ago. Volcanism on the moon, Earth and other planetary bodies involves the eruption of molten rock from the mantle - the layer just under the outer crust - onto the surface. The landing site in the South Pole-Aitken Basin, an impact crater, is an area with the thinnest crust on the moon, helpful for finding evidence of volcanism.

The samples contained various volcanic rock fragments, and the researchers used a method called radioisotope dating to determine their age. Lunar basalt samples previously were obtained from the moon's near side, which perpetually faces Earth, during U.S. Apollo, Soviet Luna and Chinese Chang'e-5 missions. These showed that volcanism on the near side had occurred as long ago as 4.0 billion years ago and continued for at least two billion years, Li said. "The exact timing and duration of lunar volcanism is elusive and maybe varied across different regions. Some small-scale volcanism may have also occurred on the near side as late as about 120 million years ago as recorded by volcanic glass beads from Chang'e-5 samples" collected in 2020, Li said.

The new study also found that the basalt dating to 4.2 billion years ago differed in composition from the basalt dating to 2.8 billion years ago, meaning they originated from different sources of molten rock - magma - in the mantle, Li said. The Chang'e-6 samples, Li said, also differ in composition compared with previously collected lunar samples from the near side.

"NASA has squandered $27 billion on the SLS moon rocket -- $6 billion over budget and 5 years late," writes longtime Slashdot reader schwit1. "The SLS isn't reusable so even if they finished it -- it is already obsolete. It is clear to everyone that the boondoggle has failed but the newest plan is to find a way to blame Trump. There is a big desire for big changes." Futurism reports: According to Ars Technica senior space reporter Eric Berger's insider sources, there's an "at least 50-50" chance that the rocket "will be canceled." "Not Block 1B. Not Block 2," he added, referring to the variant that was used during NASA's uncrewed Artemis I test flight in 2022 and a more powerful design with a much higher translunar injection payload capacity, respectively. "All of it." To be clear, as Berger himself points out, we're still far "from anything being settled." Nonetheless, the reporter's sources have historically been highly reliable, suggesting the space agency may indeed be getting cold feet about continuing to pour billions of dollars into the non-reusable rocket. [...] "Honestly the people who will ultimately make this decision aren't even in place yet," Berger wrote in a followup tweet, likely referring to the incoming Trump administration. "But there is a big desire for big changes."

Rocket Lab says it has signed the first customer for its Neutron launch vehicle, with a launch planned for mid-2025. SpaceNews reports: The company announced Nov. 12 that it signed a contract with an undisclosed "commercial satellite constellation operator" for two launches of Neutron, one in mid-2026 and the other in 2027, a deal that could lead to additional launches for the same customer. "We see this agreement as an important opportunity that signifies the beginning of a productive collaboration that could see Neutron deploy this particular customer's entire constellation," Peter Beck, chief executive of Rocket Lab, said in an earnings call Nov. 12 to discuss the company's third quarter financial results. [...]

Beck said Rocket Lab is "deep into the qualification testing" of flight hardware, including vehicle structures and the Archimedes engine, which was hotfired for the first time in August at the Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. "Our engine test cadence in Mississippi has doubled over the quarter, and we've bought multiple engines to the test stand," he said. Neutron is a key part of the company's ambitions to deploy its own constellation, something that Beck has hinted at in some previous earnings calls. His presentation called that constellation the third pillar for Rocket Lab, after launch services and spacecraft production, both of which support the constellation.

"We're not ready to reveal details on what this constellation or application may be," he said, "but I think it's important to understand the strong foundation we've built up across launch and space systems to enable it in due course." That includes Neutron, with Beck citing SpaceX's use of Falcon 9 to deploy its Starlink constellation. "Everything is irrelevant without a reusable high cadence launch. So, Neutron is really the key to unlocking that."

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine: What if, rather than scouring the internet, ChatGPT could search all of the DNA on Earth? That future just got a bit closer with Evo, an AI model reported today in Science. The program -- trained on billions of lines of genetic sequences -- can design new proteins and even whole genomes. Previous AIs could only interpret and predict relatively short sections of DNA, and they could only work with groups of nucleotides -- the A, C, G, T alphabet of DNA -- not individual nucleotides. To take things to the next level, researchers trained Evo on 300 billion nucleotides of sequence information.

In a first test, Evo bested other AI models on predicting the impact of mutations on protein performance. The team then had Evo design new versions of the CRISPR genome editor; the best designs were as good at cutting DNA as a commercial version. And in what study author Brian Hie, a computational biologist at Stanford University, calls the "most futuristic and crazy" part of the study, the researchers asked Evo to generate DNA sequences that are long enough to serve as genomes for bacteria -- a step toward AI-designed synthetic genomes.

Much of the work on AI occurs in secret at companies. But the researchers have released Evo publicly so that other researchers can use it, and Hie says the team has no plans to commercialize its creation. "For now, I see this as a research project."

An academic journal has retracted two papers because it determined their authors used unlicensed software. The Register: Elsevier's Ain Shams Engineering Journal withdrew two papers exploring dam failures after complaints from Flow Science, the Santa Fe, New Mexico-based maker of a computational fluid dynamics application called FLOW-3D.

"Following an editorial investigation as a result of a complaint from the software distributor, the authors admitted that the use of professional software, FLOW-3D program for the results published in the article, was made without a license from the developer," a note from the journal's editor-in-chief explains.

"One of the conditions of submission of a paper for publication is that the article does not violate any intellectual property rights of any person or entity and that the use of any software is made under a license or permission from the software owner."

South Korean researchers have developed a "morphing" wheel that can navigate stairs and obstacles up to 1.3 times its radius, potentially revolutionizing mobility devices and robotics.

The wheel, created by the Korea Institute of Machinery and Materials (KIMM), features a chain-based outer hoop and sensor-controlled spoke wires that adjust stiffness based on terrain. Inspired by water droplet mechanics, it transitions between solid and fluid states when encountering impediments.

Public trust in scientists is showing signs of recovery, according to a new Pew Research Center survey, though levels remain below pre-pandemic highs. The October 2024 study, which surveyed 9,593 U.S. adults, reveals that 76% of Americans have "a great deal" or "a fair amount" of confidence in scientists' commitment to public interests -- a modest increase from 73% in 2023, but still short of the 87% recorded in early 2020.

The survey -- whose results were released Thursday [PDF] -- also highlights persistent partisan differences, with 88% of Democrats expressing trust in scientists compared to 66% of Republicans. However, Republican trust increased by 5% points since 2023, marking the first uptick since the pandemic's onset. On scientists' policy engagement, Americans remain divided: 51% support scientists' active participation in policy debates concerning scientific matters, while 48% prefer they maintain focus on research and empirical findings.

An anonymous reader writes: JPL in California announced this week a layoff of 325 workers, about 5% of its workforce, the third major layoff imposed this year.

The JPL press release indicates the layoffs are because of NASA budget cutbacks, but does not provide any specificity. The cause centers mostly around NASA's decision to pause its Mars Sample Return project, which JPL was leading. From this report:

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.

A new study reveals that late work is judged more negatively than on-time submissions, even if delays are minimal or pre-communicated. "The findings suggest that, while you might be tempted to take the maximum allotted time to put the finishing touches to a report, submission or piece of work, the extra effort might not be appreciated by colleagues if it comes at the expense of punctual delivery," reports The Guardian. From the report: The study surveyed thousands of people in the US and UK, including managers, executives, human resources personnel and others whose jobs included an element of evaluating others. Participants were asked to rate pieces of work, such as advertising flyers, art, business proposals, product pitches, photography and news articles. But first, they were told it was either submitted early, on deadline or late. "Late" work was consistently rated as worse in quality than when people were told the same work was completed early or on time. The difference was equivalent to including an objective shortcoming such as not meeting a word count.

A missed deadline led evaluators to believe an employee had less integrity, and they reported they would be less willing to work with or assign tasks to that person in the future. "Everyone saw the exact same art contest entry, school submission or business proposal, but they couldn't help but use their knowledge of when it came in to guide their evaluation of how good it was," said Maglio, who co-authored the study with David Fang of Stanford University.

Those who eagerly submit work early should be advised that this does not appear to earn a boost in opinion, according to the report in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. It also didn't matter how late the work was submitted, with one day or one week delays viewed just as negatively -- and that remained the case if the employee gave their manager advance warning. The latest study suggests that it is this inability to plan realistically that is frowned on, with factors beyond an employee's control, such as jury duty, not viewed as negatively. "If the reason why you missed the deadline was beyond your control, you as the employee should let your manager know," said Maglio. "That seems to be one of the few instances in which people cut you a break."

Amazon has discontinued its secretive "Encore" project to develop an at-home fertility tracker, resulting in layoffs for around 100 employees. The project, part of Amazon's Grand Challenge division, aimed to launch a device and app that would predict fertility through saliva testing but was ultimately terminated to control costs. CNBC reports: The project was born out of the company's 2020 acquisition of Wisconsin-based startup bluDiagnostics, the sources said. BluDiagnostics was founded in 2015 by Weibel, Katie Brenner and Jodi Schroll, all of whom joined Grand Challenge. The startup had developed a thermometer-like device, called FertilityFinder, to help women track their fertility from home by testing their saliva and measuring two key hormones, estradiol and progesterone. The results of the test were viewable through a corresponding app. Business Insider reported on aspects of the fertility device in 2022, when its codename was Project Tiberius.

The team was working to develop its own saliva collection device and mobile app, which could predict when a user might be in the fertile window. Users could also log their period symptoms, sexual activity and other data to assist with tracking their fertility. There are similar offerings on the market from companies including Inne, Oova, Ava and Mira, along with fertility and ovulation tracking apps such as Flo, Clue and Max Levchin's Glow. Amazon initially aimed to release the product this year, but the timing was pushed out after the team encountered technical issues with the device, one of the people said. It was a costly endeavor and required significant upfront investments for lab research and development, in addition to the high salaries for scientists and engineers, the sources said, adding that the team's weekly overhead was roughly $1.5 million. Amazon didn't comment on the figure. Only one project now remains active within Grand Challenge. Its focus is on health tech, the people said. "We regularly review our businesses to ensure we focus on areas where we can make the biggest difference for customers," said Amazon spokesperson Margaret Callahan. "Following a recent review, we've decided to discontinue this project within Grand Challenge, and we're working directly with employees whose roles are impacted to support them through the transition and help them find other opportunities within Amazon."

Leading AI systems are solving less than 2% of problems in a new advanced mathematics benchmark, revealing significant limitations in their reasoning capabilities, research group Epoch AI reported this week.

The benchmark, called FrontierMath, consists of hundreds of original research-level mathematics problems developed in collaboration with over 60 mathematicians, including Fields Medalists Terence Tao and Timothy Gowers. While top AI models like GPT-4 and Gemini 1.5 Pro achieve over 90% accuracy on traditional math tests, they struggle with FrontierMath's problems, which span computational number theory to algebraic geometry and require complex reasoning.

"These are extremely challenging. [...] The only way to solve them is by a combination of a semi-expert like a graduate student in a related field, maybe paired with some combination of a modern AI and lots of other algebra packages," Tao said. The problems are designed to be "guessproof," with large numerical answers or complex mathematical objects as solutions, making it nearly impossible to solve without proper mathematical reasoning.

Further reading: New secret math benchmark stumps AI models and PhDs alike.

AmiMoJo writes: The climate-damaging vapors left behind by jet planes could be easily tackled, aviation experts say, with a new study suggesting they could be eliminated for a few pounds per flight. Jet condensation trails, or contrails, have spawned wild conspiracy theories alleging mind control and the spreading of disease, but scientists say the real problem is their warming effect.

"They create an artificial layer of clouds, which traps the heat from the Earth that's trying to escape to outer space," said Carlos Lopez de la Osa, from the Transport & Environment campaign group, which has carried out a new study on the solutions to contrails. "The scale of the warming that's associated with them is roughly having a similar impact to that of aviation carbon emissions."

Tweaking the flight paths of a handful of aircraft could reduce contrail warming by more than half by 2040, at a cost of less than $5.1 per flight. Geography and a flight's latitude have a strong influence on whether a contrail is warming. Time of day also influences the climate effects of contrails. Those formed by evening and night flights have the largest warming contribution. Seasonality is also important -- the most warming contrails tend to occur in winter. "Planes are already flying around thunderstorms and turbulence areas," Mr Lopez de la Osa said. "We will need to add one more constraint to flight planning, which is avoiding areas of contrail formation."

A new analysis of data from NASA's Voyager 2 mission reveals that the planet Uranus and its five largest moons might harbor subsurface oceans and potential conditions for life. The BBC reports: Much of what we know about them was gathered by Nasa's Voyager 2 spacecraft which visited nearly 40 years ago. But a new analysis shows that Voyager's visit coincided with a powerful solar storm, which led to a misleading idea of what the Uranian system is really like. [...] So, for 40 years we have had an incorrect view of what Uranus and its five largest moons are normally like, according to Dr William Dunn of University College London. "These results suggest that the Uranian system could be much more exciting than previously thought. There could be moons there that could have the conditions that are necessary for life, they might have oceans below the surface that could be teeming with fish!".

It has been nearly 40 years since Voyager 2 last flew past the icy world and its moons. Nasa has plans to launch a new mission, the Uranus Orbiter and Probe, to go back for a closer look in 10 years' time. According to Nasa's Dr Jamie Jasinski, whose idea it was to re-examine the Voyager 2 data, the mission will need to take his results into account when designing its instruments and planning the scientific survey. "Some of the instruments for the future spacecraft are very much being designed with ideas from what we learned from Voyager 2 when it flew past the system when it was experiencing an abnormal event. So we need to rethink how exactly we are going to design the instruments on the new mission so that we can best capture the science we need to make discoveries." Nasa's Uranus probe is expected to arrive by 2045, which is when scientists hope to find out whether these far-flung icy moons, once thought of as being dead worlds, might have the possibility of being home to life. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

The genetic testing company 23andMe announced it will cut 40% of its workforce, or 200 jobs, and halt the work on therapies it was developing. As the BBC notes, the company is fighting for survival after hackers gained access to personal information of millions of its users, causing the stock to crater by more than 70%. All seven of its independent directors also resigned in September, following a protracted negotiation with founder and Chief Executive Anne Wojcicki over her plan to take the company private. The BBC reports: On Tuesday, the company warned investors of "substantial doubt" about its ability to continue operating, as it reported that revenue had fallen to $44 million between July and September compared to $50 million in the same period last year. Losses fell to $59 million from $75 million. The job cuts are expected to lead to one-off costs of $12 million, including severance pay, for the plan that will result in savings of $35 million. "We are taking these difficult but necessary actions as we restructure 23andMe and focus on the long-term success of our core consumer business and research partnerships," Ms Wojcicki said.

The company also said it is considering what to do with the therapies it had in development, including licensing or selling them. 23andMe is a giant of the growing ancestor-tracing industry. It offers genetic testing from DNA, with ancestry breakdown and personalised health insights. Its customers include famous names, from rapper Snoop Dogg to multi-billionaire investor Warren Buffett. The company was valued at roughly $3.5 billion when it listed on the Nasdaq stock exchange in 2021 and its share price peaked at $17.65. But they have since tumbled and are currently trading at less than $5.