Okian Warrior shares a report from Science Magazine: Hopes for an easier regulatory road for genetic engineering in European agriculture were dashed by the Court of Justice of the European Union. In a closely watched decision, the court ruled that plants created with new gene-editing techniques that don't involve transferring genes between organisms -- such as CRISPR -- must go through the same lengthy approval process as traditional transgenic plants. Many researchers had argued that regulators should take a lighter touch when evaluating products created with the new technologies, but environmental groups and their allies successfully argued that they should be subject to the same EU rules that apply to other genetically modified organisms.

The case focused on crops that have been made resistant to herbicides without transferring genes from other species. The French government had passed a law exempting these new gene-edited crops from regulation under the European Union's directive on genetically modified organisms (GMOs), which requires an assessment of risks to health and the environment, as well as labeling, tracking, and monitoring of the products. Confederation Paysanne, a French union in Bagnolet representing small farms, and eight other groups, sued and charged that the plants modified with gene-editing techniques should be regulated under the GMO directive, because they could cause significant harm. The court decided that gene-editing techniques are covered by the GMO directive because they "alter the genetic material of an organism in a way that does not occur naturally." (The court exempted conventional mutagenesis -- the unnatural use of chemicals or radiation to create mutations for plant breeding -- because it has "a long safety record.") It also said the new gene-editing techniques have risks that could be similar to those of transgenic engineering.

According to two complementary studies, sperm change their cargo as they travel the reproductive tract, which can have consequences on the viability of future offspring. Smithsonian reports: The legacy of a dad's behavior can even live on in his child if his epigenetic elements enter an embryo. For instance, mice born to fathers that experience stress can inherit the behavioral consequences of traumatic memories. Additionally, mouse dads with less-than-desirable diets can pass a wonky metabolism onto their kids. Upasna Sharma and Colin Conine, both working under Oliver Rando, a professor of biochemistry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, were some of the researchers to report such findings in 2016. In their work, Sharma and Conine noted that, in mice, while immature testicular sperm contain DNA identical to that of mature sperm, immature sperm relay different epigenetic information. It turns out that sperm small RNAs undergo post-testes turnover, picking up intel on the father's physical health (or lack thereof) after they're manufactured, but before they exit the body. However, the exact pit stop at which these additional small RNAs hitch a ride remained unknown.

To solve the mystery, Sharma, who led the first of the two new studies, decided to track the composition of small RNAs within mouse sperm as they fled the testes and cruised through the epididymis. She and her colleagues isolated sperm of several different ages from mice, including those about to emerge from the testes, those entering the early part of the epididymis and those in the late part of the epididymis. Sharma was surprised to find that many small RNAs seemed to be discarded or destroyed upon entering the early epididymis; then, the newly vacated sperm reacquired epigenetic intel that reflected the father's state of being, boasting a full set by the time they left the late epididymis. There was only one possible source for the small RNA reacquisition: the cells of the epididymis -- which meant that cells outside of the sperm were transmitting information into future generations. [...] Colin Conine, who led the second of the two new studies, next tested if using immature sperm would have noticeable effects on the offspring of mice. He and his colleagues extracted sperm from the testes, early epididymis and late epididymis and injected them into eggs. All three types of sperm were able to fertilize eggs. However, when Conine transferred the resulting embryos into mouse surrogates, none derived from early epididymal sperm -- the intermediate stage devoid of most small RNAs -- implanted in the uterus. The least and most mature sperm of the bunch were winners -- but somehow, those in the middle were burning out, even though all their genes were intact. The only other explanation was that the defect was temporary. If this was the case, then perhaps, if fed the right small RNAs, the early epididymal sperm could be rescued.

schwit1 shares a report from Ars Technica: The conference report from the U.S. House and Senate calls for the Evolved Expendable Launch Vehicle program of the Department of Defense, commonly known as the EELV program, to be named the "National Security Space Launch program" as of March 1, 2019. No longer will the military rely solely on expendable rockets. Moreover, the report says the U.S. Air Force must consider both expendable and reusable launch vehicles as part of its solicitation for military launch contracts. And in the event that a contract is solicited for a mission that a reusable launch vehicle is not eligible to compete for, the Air Force should report back to Congress with the reason why. The U.S. House has already agreed to the conference report, and it should be taken up in the Senate next week. After that, it will need the president's signature to become law. [...] It is quite a change from the state of play just 13 years ago, when ULA was dominant and SpaceX was roundly dismissed by the courts and the broader aerospace community.

Scientists have discovered a new shape called the scutoid (SCOO-toid) while studying epithelial cells, the building blocks of embryos that eventually end up forming our skin and lining our organs and blood vessels. The new "twisted prism" shape is "extremely efficient at keeping cells tightly-packed and organized in the literal twists and turns of development," reports Gizmodo. From the report: As embryos grow, their tissues curve and bend as they start to form into organs. Scientists thought the cells could stay tightly packed if they were bottle- or column-shaped, but computer modeling suggested that a more complex shape would be more likely. First, a computer model set out to predict which cell shapes would be most efficient at staying in contact with one another in both flat or curved layers. That shape ended up being prism-like, with six sides one end, five on the other, and a strange triangular face on one of the long edges of the prism. Using microscopy and computer imaging, the team confirmed that cells found in fruit fly salivary glands and cells in zebrafish were indeed scutoid-shaped. As noted in their paper published Friday in Nature Communications, the researchers believe these scutoid-shaped cells exist in any curved sheet of epithelial cells -- even in humans.

pacopico writes: First World View hung Google SVP Alan Eustace at the end of a balloon and then dropped him 135,908 feet back to Earth. Then, it sent a KFC chicken sandwich to the edge of space. Now, World View has figured out how to get high-altitude balloons to sail winds in the stratosphere and travel for thousands of miles. They're being used to take detailed pictures of the Earth, send communications to far off places and learn more about the weather.

This strange company was founded by two people who lived in Biosphere 2, and they say they're doing all this balloon work to get people to think differently about the planet. In a few years, they plan to send people up to the edge of space in a capsule and let them hang out for a couple hours, while they sip cocktails and reflect on life or something like that.
The flights would cost $75,000 per person -- the money from KFC is already being used to build new software (along with sensors, and of course, durable balloons). Bloomberg Businessweek reports: Since the Zinger, it's conducted more than 50 flights, primarily for the U.S. government, and kept its balloons up in the air for many days at a time. "People want us to do things like sit over the Red Sea and Indian Ocean and look for pirates," says Taber MacCallum, co-founder and chief technology officer. The company plans to start flying for commercial clients early next year. "Basically, our mission is to take over the stratosphere," he says.
Interestingly, Elon Musk also asked MacCallum's first company to design a greenhouse for Mars.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Scientists have now created their own Richter-like scale [for measuring alien signals] to explain whether a finding is a damp squib or has truly seismic implications. The new scale allows scientists to rate interesting signals detected in searches for extraterrestrial intelligence from 0 to 10, where 0 is nothing to get excited about and 10 is equivalent to "an alien space probe orbiting the Earth or an alien shaking your hand," said Duncan Forgan, who worked on the project, at the University of St Andrews Centre for Exoplanet Science. Known as Rio 2.0, the scale is a proposed upgrade of an existing Rio scale that is already used by the alien-hunting community. It assigns scores to Seti ("search for extraterrestrial intelligence") signals by taking into account both the potential implications of the signal and the likelihood that it is genuine, rather than down to natural or human-made phenomena. Under the proposals, scientists could issue their own Rio scale number for any interesting signals they detect, but so could fellow academics who review their work for publication. The rating system is also being made available to the public. The scientists detailed the new Rio scale in the International Journal of Astrobiology.

dmoberhaus writes: Pacific Spaceflight is a small group of volunteers that has spent the last decade developing an open source, DIY spacesuit in their members' living rooms. This fall its creator will fly to over 60,000 feet in a hot air balloon, known as the Armstrong Limit, the point at which exposed body fluids will boil away if not protected in a pressured vessel. [A post on Medium provides a] deep dive into the story of Pacific Spaceflight and how to build your own spacesuit. Here is an excerpt from the report: There are two main types of spacesuits: Intravehicular activity (IVA) suits worn inside spacecraft, and those worn outside for extravehicular activities (EVA). IVA spacesuits are mostly there as a backup in case of an emergency, like the sudden loss of pressure in a spacecraft. This makes them inherently simpler since they don't have to account for things like radiation exposure and the gloves can just be rubber gloves similar to those you might use to wash your dishes. [...] Smith's first suits were made by modifying old scuba diving suits to fit his needs. Yet as he became more familiar with pressure suit design and his own requirements, he started to assemble everything from scratch. These days, he and the other Pacific Spaceflight volunteers cut their own fabric and pretty much make everything on their own or repurpose common household items as necessary (Smith said one of the few things the group can't make on its own is the suit's zippers). Smith will release the designs of the spacesuit as an open source blueprint once the suit is perfected and properly tested. The final version will reportedly cost less than $1,000 of materials to build.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Earlier this month, in the journal Doklady Biological Sciences, a team of Russian scientists announced they had apparently discovered ancient nematode worms that were able to resurrect themselves after spending at least 32,000 years buried in permafrost. The discovery, if legitimate, would represent the longest-surviving return from the cold ever seen in a complex, multi-celled organism, dwarfing even the tardigrade. The worms were found among more than 300 samples of frozen soil pulled from the Kolyma River Lowlands in Northeastern Siberia by the researchers. Two of the samples held the worms, with one from a buried squirrel burrow dating back 32,000 years and one from a glacier dating back 40,000 years. After isolating intact nematodes, the scientists kept the samples at 68 degrees Fahrenheit and left them surrounded by food in a petri dish, just to see what would happen. Over the next few weeks, they gradually spotted flickers of life as the worms ate the food and even cloned new family members. These cloned worms were then cultured separately, and they too thrived.

Skywatchers are being treated to the longest "blood moon" eclipse of the 21st Century. From a report: As it rises, during this total eclipse, Earth's natural satellite turns a striking shade of red or ruddy brown. The "totality" period, when light from the Moon is totally obscured, will last for one hour, 43 minutes. At least part of the eclipse is visible from Europe, the Middle East, Africa, Australia, most of Asia and South America. On the same night and over the coming days, Mars will be at its closest point to Earth since 2003 - visible as a "bright red star" where skies are clear. Here's a live feed, provided by NASA.

xanthos writes: A fascinating article in Quanta magazine introduces us to Cohl Furey and the eight dimensional mathematics called octonions that she is using to model the interactions of strong and electromagnetic forces.

"Proof surfaced in 1898 that the reals, complex numbers, quaternions and octonions are the only kinds of numbers that can be added, subtracted, multiplied and divided. The first three of these "division algebras" would soon lay the mathematical foundation for 20th-century physics, with real numbers appearing ubiquitously, complex numbers providing the math of quantum mechanics, and quaternions underlying Albert Einstein's special theory of relativity. This has led many researchers to wonder about the last and least-understood division algebra. Might the octonions hold secrets of the universe?"

"In her most recent published paper she consolidated several findings to construct the full Standard Model symmetry group for a single generation of particles, with the math producing the correct array of electric charges and other attributes for an electron, neutrino, three up quarks, three down quarks and their anti-particles. The math also suggests a reason why electric charge is quantized in discrete units -- essentially, because whole numbers are."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Science Magazine: For more than 20 years, a team of astronomers has tracked a single star whipping around the supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy at up to 25 million kilometers per hour, or 3% of the speed of light. Now, the team says the close encounter has put Albert Einstein's theory of gravity to its most rigorous test yet for massive objects, with the light from the star stretched in a way not prescribed by Newtonian gravity. In a study announced today, the team says it has detected a distinctive indicator of Einstein's general theory of relativity called "gravitational redshift," in which the star's light loses energy because of the black hole's intense gravity. The star, called S2, is unremarkable apart from a highly elliptical orbit that takes it within 20 billion kilometers, or 17 light-hours, of the Milky Way's central black hole -- closer than any other known star. A team led by Reinhard Genzel at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany, has been tracking S2 since the 1990s, first with the European Southern Observatory's (ESO's) 3.6-meter New Technology Telescope in Chile's Atacama Desert and later with ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT), made up of four 8-meter instruments. Ghez's team at UCLA also began to observe the star around the same time with the twin 10-meter Keck telescopes in Hawaii. In a paper published today in Astronomy & Astrophysics, Genzel's group reports seeing the combined action of the relativistic effects, with the black hole's gravity redshifting S2's radial velocity by 200 kilometers per second, a small fraction of its overall speed. The results match closely with the predictions of relativity and are inconsistent with Newtonian gravity.

Researchers from Georgia Tech and the UK's University of Surrey have developed a new predictive policing algorithm that aims to better manage police resources and gain an upper hand in the war on crime. It reportedly uses technology that's been previously used in weather forecasting and the Apollo space missions. Digital Trends reports: The new algorithm built on previous work carried out by researchers from the University of California and police forces in both the U.S. and U.K. Their 2015 research showed how a predictive policing algorithm could accurately predict between 1.4 and 2.2 times more urban crime than specialist crime analysts. By making recommendations about where to patrol, the algorithm led to a 7.4 percent reduction in crime. However, while effective, this approach has also been criticized due to concerns about possible racial profiling and the underreporting of crime. The new algorithm has so far been demonstrated on a data set of more than 1,000 violent gang crimes in Los Angeles carried out between 1999 and 2002. Early conclusions suggest that the upgraded predictive tool could prove superior for coping with the constantly fluctuating world of real-time crime prediction. The researchers published their paper in the journal Computational Statistics & Data Analysis.

Astronomers have observed a star speeding close to the massive black hole at the centre of the Milky Way for the first time. From a report: The observations, made using the Very Large Telescope in Chile, tracked a star called S2 as it passed through the extreme gravitational field at the heart of our galaxy. As the star approached its nearest point to the black hole on 19 May, it was accelerated to mind-boggling speeds, causing it to be subject to effects predicted by Einstein's theory of general relativity. Astronomers had been tracking the star and preparing to make the observations for the past 16 years -- the time taken for the star to complete a single elliptical orbit of the black hole. "We have been preparing intensely for this event over several years, as we wanted to make the most of this unique opportunity to observe general relativistic effects," said Reinhard Genzel of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE) in Garching, Germany, who led the international team. The findings can be found here.

Cyrus Farivar writes via Ars Technica: In a unanimous decision, an appellate court has resoundingly rejected the legal claim that sovereign immunity, as argued by a Native American tribe, can act as a shield for a patent review process. On July 20, the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit found in a 3-0 decision that the inter partes review (IPR) process (a process that allows anyone to challenge a patent's validity at the United States Patent and Trademark Office) is closer to an "agency enforcement action" -- like a complaint brought by the FTC or the FCC -- than a regular lawsuit.

This case really began in September 2015. That was when Allergan, a pharma company, sued rival Mylan, claiming that Mylan's generics infringed on Allergan's dry eye treatment known as Restasis. Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe was initially filed in the Eastern District of Texas, known as a judicial region that is particularly friendly to entities that are often dubbed patent trolls. By 2016, Mylan initiated the IPR. But Allergan, in an attempt to stave it off, struck a strange deal, transferring ownership of the six Restasis-related patents to the Saint Regis Mohawk Tribe, based in Upstate New York, near the Canadian border. As part of that deal, Allergan paid $13.75 million to the tribe, with a promise of $15 million in annual payments -- if the patents were upheld, that is. The Mohawk Tribe attempted to end the IPR, citing sovereign immunity, which was denied. The tribe struck at least one other similar deal with a firm known as SRC Labs, which sued Amazon and Microsoft.

On July 27, the moon is set to glide through Earth's shadow to create a red total lunar eclipse for one hour and 43 minutes -- the longest such eclipse of the young century. Viewers in the United States will have to watch the eclipse online as they're on the wrong side of the world. "Folks in western Africa, part of Europe, the Middle East and India will only have to look up to the sky to catch the deep-copper-toned totality in person," reports The Washington Post. From the report: "What makes the upcoming one special is that it occurs at nearly the same time as the year's second-most-distant lunar apogee (the monthly moment when the moon is most distant from Earth) and the moon passes almost smack through the center of Earth's shadow," astronomer Geoff Chester of the Naval Observatory said. He continued: "This will make it the longest-duration total lunar eclipse of the century. It's also cool that [the eclipse] occurs on the night that Mars reaches opposition, so (for people on the other side of the world) you'll have a red moon six degrees north of the Red Planet." All eclipses belong to eclipse families called saros. In this case, this eclipse is part of Saros 139, and it is No. 38 in a family of 71 that started June 10, 1351. This saros will last until July 24, 2613, per NASA. While technically this will be the longest eclipse of the century, the two previous lunar eclipses in this series -- July 16, 2000 (No. 37, Saros 139) and July 6, 1982 (No. 36, Saros 139) -- lasted longer than this one. In fact, the July 16, 2000, lunar eclipse lasted about three minutes longer. But remember, astronomers count the year 2000 as part of the last century.

Throughout the Eastern time zone, according to NASA and the U.S. Naval Observatory, the lunar eclipse (penumbral phase) starts at 1:14 p.m. and partiality occurs at 2:24 p.m. Totality starts at 3:30 p.m., with the maximum totality at 4:21 p.m. Totality will end at 5:13 p.m., and the partial eclipse ends at 6:19 p.m. Everything is over by 7:28 p.m. Unfortunately, the moon will not have risen anywhere in the United States for viewing during this window. If you're not able to watch it locally, you can tune to the Weather Channel app, the website Slooh, or TimeandDate.com. The NBC News streaming network is also showing the eclipse at 4 p.m. on July 27.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Gizmodo: Internal company documents from IBM show that medical experts working with the company's Watson supercomputer found "multiple examples of unsafe and incorrect treatment recommendations" when using the software, according to a report from Stat News. According to Stat, those documents provided strong criticism of the Watson for Oncology system, and stated that the "often inaccurate" suggestions made by the product bring up "serious questions about the process for building content and the underlying technology." One example in the documents is the case of a 65-year-old man diagnosed with lung cancer, who also seemed to have severe bleeding. Watson reportedly suggested the man be administered both chemotherapy and the drug "Bevacizumab." But the drug can lead to "severe or fatal hemorrhage," according to a warning on the medication, and therefore shouldn't be given to people with severe bleeding, as Stat points out. A Memorial Sloan Kettering (MSK) Cancer Center spokesperson told Stat that they believed this recommendation was not given to a real patient, and was just a part of system testing.

According to the report, the documents blame the training provided by IBM engineers and on doctors at MSK, which partnered with IBM in 2012 to train Watson to "think" more like a doctor. The documents state that -- instead of feeding real patient data into the software -- the doctors were reportedly feeding Watson hypothetical patients data, or "synthetic" case data. This would mean it's possible that when other hospitals used the MSK-trained Watson for Oncology, doctors were receiving treatment recommendations guided by MSK doctors' treatment preferences, instead of an AI interpretation of actual patient data. And the results seem to be less than desirable for some doctors.

Arianespace and SpaceX both launched rockets this morning between 7:25am ET (11:25 UTC) and 7:39am ET (11:39 UTC). The Ariane 5 ES rocket sent four Galileo satellites into medium Earth orbit (at an altitude of 22,922km) for the European Commission. "These satellites will form part of Europe's own global navigation system constellation," reports Ars Technica. As for SpaceX's Falcon 9 rocket, it launched from the West Cost to deliver 10 Iridium NEXT satellites into a polar orbit 625km above the Earth. Ars reports on how the launches went: Both rockets hit their instantaneous launch windows on Wednesday morning, with the Ariane 5 booster lifting off from Kourou, French Guiana under mostly sunny skies and the Falcon 9 rocket ascending from California through a thick fog layer. The upper stages of both rockets are now in their coast phases before deployment of their satellite payloads.

After the launches, attention turned toward SpaceX's attempt to recover its first stage and payload fairing. The atmosphere offshore, where the Just Read the Instructions droneship was stationed 235km away from the launch pad, had high wind shear. This means wind speeds and directions varied at different altitudes, making it a challenge to come back to the ground in a more or less straight path. This, combined with high seas, made for the "worst" conditions SpaceX has ever tried to land a rocket in, said launch commentator John Insprucker. The cameras on board didn't capture the landing clearly, but afterward SpaceX said the rocket did, in fact, make a safe landing on the droneship. Less certain was the fate of the payload fairing amid the poor weather conditions. "This is an experimental attempt; we're still learning how to catch a fairing out of the air," Insprucker said.

For decades Mars has teased scientists with whispers of water's presence. Now they have some solid evidence. From a report: The Italian Space Agency announced Wednesday that researchers have detected signs of a large, stable body of liquid water locked away beneath a mile of ice near Mars' south pole. The observations were recorded by the Mars Advanced Radar for Subsurface and Ionosphere Sounding instrument -- Marsis for short. "Marsis was born to make this kind of discovery, and now it has," says Roberto Orosei, a radioastronomer at the National Institute for Astrophysics, who led the investigation. His team's findings, which appear in this week's issue of Science, raise tantalizing questions about the planet's geology -- and its potential for harboring life. CNN elaborates: Between May 2012 and December 2015, MARSIS was used to survey the Planum Australe region, which is in the southern ice cap of Mars. It sent radar pulses through the surface and polar ice caps and measured how the radio waves reflected back to Mars Express. Those pulses reflected 29 sets of radar samples that created a map of drastic change in signal almost a mile below the surface. It stretched about 12.5 miles across and looked very similar to lakes that are found beneath Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets on Earth. The radar reflected the feature's brightness, signaling that it's water. "We interpret this feature as a stable body of liquid water on Mars," the authors wrote in the study.

The FDA has approved the key ingredient used in the vegetarian-friendly Impossible Burger. "The ingredient, soy leghemoglobin, releases a protein called heme that gives the meat substitute its distinctive blood-like color and taste," reports CNBC. The burger comes from a company aptly named Impossible Foods, which started raising millions of dollars in 2015 to pursue a plant-based burger that truly tastes like meat. From the report: In a letter to Impossible Foods released Monday, the FDA deemed soy leghemoglobin GRAS, or generally recognized as safe, in its most recent review. "Getting a no-questions letter goes above and beyond our strict compliance to all federal food-safety regulations," Impossible Foods founder and CEO Patrick O. Brown said in a statement. "We have prioritized safety and transparency from day one, and they will always be core elements of our company culture."

Scientists from Birkbeck, University of London speculate that recent results show that the moon is wetter than scientists have previously thought, increasing the possibility for it to have the necessary conditions for life. "Whether life ever arose on the Moon, or was transported to it from elsewhere, is of course highly speculative and can only be addressed by an aggressive future program of lunar exploration," they write in the article, published in the journal Astrobiology. Gizmodo summarizes: This habitability period, if it really occurred, might have happened either just after the Moon's formation from a massive collision with Earth 4.5 billion years ago, or 3.5 billion years ago, after a period of volcanism which may have resulted in a thin lunar atmosphere. Such an atmosphere would have lasted perhaps tens of millions of years. Maybe water existed on the Moon at this point. Maybe 10 million years was enough time for some rudimentary life to evolve on the Moon. Maybe Earthly life traveled over to the Moon on asteroids. Who knows.

The researchers stress that "habitability requires much more than just the presence of a significant atmosphere and liquid water." One such requirement would be the presence of organic compounds. And there are obviously not the same water-created features on the Moon that we see here on Earth or on Mars, like drainage channels -- though maybe these existed and were eroded by small meteors and solar winds. While the paper doesn't present new data, it's an interesting synthesis of lots of existing research demonstrating that, since the Moon is wetter than was initially thought, maybe it's worth wondering whether it was once habitable.