Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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ISS study to examine whether space is a cultural wasteland
 In space, no one can hear you scream — unless you're cheering for your favourite hockey team.

Life on the International Space Station (ISS) bears a lot of similarities to life on Earth. There's Wi-Fi, cable, and even Halloween costume parties. It's all meant to help astronauts feel at home while they're floating 400 kilometres above sea level.

But for the first time, Canadian researchers are examining how rocket men and women adapt to life in the cosmos during long-term space missions — and it could have wider implications for space travel beyond the moon.

"We're looking at how astronauts from a variety of cultures and nationalities live together on the space station and possibly create a shared culture," said Dr. Phyllis Johnson, a UBC-based researcher and principal investigator of the study.

"A space culture might develop."

Welcome to the spookiest space station. Spiderman has no problem scaling the walls in space. Happy Halloween pic.twitter.com/V7JXKsbjxl —@Space_Station

At Home in Space

The project is called At Home in Space, and it's billed as the first ever psychosocial study of astronauts on the International Space Station.

Researchers aim to figure out how astronauts make themselves feel at home while aboard the space station, and uncover the cultural norms that emerge within the confines of an isolated spacecraft.

"We're also interested in seeing how living in space has changed their particular lives," said Johnson.

Astronauts complete a series of questionnaires before, during and after their months-long stay in the great beyond, and are also encouraged to take photos that accurately depict 'life in space'.

.@Astro_Paolo ‘s “Spidey-sense” is definitely tingling as he perches on the ceiling of the @Space_Station Russian segment Service Module. pic.twitter.com/SGm5iDyfvS —@AstroKomrade

Space culture

Johnson expects that a unique 'space culture' might exist on the space station — a way of life that many astronauts come to identify with during their time in orbit.

"Maybe there are things like space traditions that are important to them," said Johnson.

Johnson points to Yuri Gagarin Day, an annual celebration held on the ISS every April 12 that honours the first manned trip to outer space, as a notable cultural event that's unique to astronauts.

Soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin, the first man to travel into space, hits the headline of the US paper "The Huntsville Times" on April 12, 1961 after oribiting Earth aboard the Vostok I spaceship. AFP PHOTO (Photo credit should read /AFP/Getty Images) (AFP/Getty)

"They could have space traditions that they celebrate. Do they mount mission patches? Change of command ceremonies? Those would be certain kinds of things that would relate to space — but we don't know how important they are to them."

Long-term implications

Johnson says understanding how astronauts adjust to the new living environment could be the key to planning for longer-term manned missions like the seemingly inevitable voyage to Mars.

"How are they adjusting to this new environment? How do people cope with potential isolation? How do they make it interesting in their lives? How do they keep carrying out their work, and enjoying their work?"

NASA currently plans on sending humans to Mars in the 2030s. The journey would take years for travellers, with very limited contact to the outside world.

Johnson hopes the results of her study could enhance travel conditions for those voyagers.

"If you're going to to go somewhere and be somewhere for a long period of time, and not have as much contact with your normal experiences on Earth, then we need to know how people do it, and what makes it a good experience for them."

Researchers hope to complete the study by 2020.

Output: Canadian scientists are researching the way astronauts interact with each other on the international space station (ISS) to see if a shared "space culture" is emerging. The study is being led by Dr Phyllis Johnson of the University of British Columbia, and is the first psychosocial study of the subject. Participating astronauts give their views before, during and after their missions, during which they are also encouraged to take photographs to illustrate their daily lives. The research could help understand the challenges that will face space travellers on future long missions away from Earth.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Ads.txt seen defeating domain fraud but exposing new problems
 “ The Sell Sider” is a column written for the sell side of the digital media community.

Today’s column is written by Ian Hewetson, vice president of client services at Eyereturn Marketing.

Forget this summer’s solar eclipse. We’re witnessing something far more unusual right now: the universal endorsement of a single system in the ad tech world, the adoption of Ads.txt.

Ads.txt truly is an elegantly simple, universally accessible solution to a problem that’s bedeviled the industry for far too long. But in the rollout excitement, a few subtle issues are emerging that may have outsize effects on buyers and sellers without the right level of oversight.

Ads.txt solves a single problem: domain spoofing. This is where someone creates a fraudulent site and passes the false domain to the supply-side platform (SSP), which sends the false domain to a demand-side platform (DSP), which bids on it.

Advertisers suffer because they’re not buying New York Times inventory. The New York Times suffers because the fake NYT inventory undercuts its pricing. And the reputation of ad tech suffers for allowing this to continue.

On the surface, Ads.txt is very simple. Publishers place a text file on their site, which only they can do. The text file states which sellers represent that site. DSPs create databases matching buyers and sellers. When a DSP sees an impression being offered by a seller not listed on the site’s Ads.txt file, it can reject that bid. If DSPs only buy Ads.txt inventory, they’re inoculating themselves against buying spoofed domains.

Though this is simple, the devil can be in the details. In the course of an Ads.txt rollout, it became clear that a lack of communication between publishers and SSPs could break the system. Critically, the only party that can really identify these breakdowns is the DSP.

For example, we saw one instance where a publisher had implemented its Ads.txt file for two major sellers. It contacted both sellers to ensure that it was done correctly so that its inventory would be surfaced by those sellers as Ads.txt-verified. Both sellers confirmed that all was good, which the publisher took at face value.

Except all was not good. In both cases, the publisher’s inventory was not being seen by buyers as Ads.txt-compliant.

For the first seller, the Ads.txt protocol was outside the general standard. This seller uses multiple legitimate paths to sale, and the Ads.txt setup is rather convoluted, requiring distinct domains for different types of inventory. Strike 1: The publisher failed to interpret the specs correctly and implemented Ads.txt incorrectly. Strike 2: The seller looked at the implementation and declared it to be valid when it was not.

In the case of the second seller, the Ads.txt setup was very straightforward, and the publisher implemented it correctly. But it appears the seller was not passing the publisher ID on the bid request, resulting in a mismatch, which stops any bidding on this inventory. In this case too, the publisher reached out to the seller, but the last I heard, the issue was still unresolved.

Both issues only came to light during Ads.txt testing of my company’s DSP when we checked Ads.txt compliance on our top 1,000 domains. Having a relationship with this publisher and not seeing its inventory as approved, we contacted it and helped with the investigation.

When we first raised the flag, the publisher initially assured us that its implementation was golden because both of its sellers had verified that it was. It took some actual investigation and collaboration to figure out the issue.

What we’ve taken away from the experience is that Ads.txt is a great solution to the problem of spoofed domains. What we’ve also discovered is that it’s subject to a wide variety of missteps on the implementation side, and these missteps can slip through multiple hands unless verification is done on the demand side.

If you’re a publisher reading this and you’ve noticed any decline in demand since implementing Ads.txt, you should check with your DSP to make sure your implementation is correct. And if you’re on the demand side and not seeing specific inventory sources, give those publishers a call.

We’re all in this together, and while it’s a programmatic world, sometimes it takes some real-world collaboration to get the job done right.

Follow Eyereturn (@EyereturnMktg) and AdExchanger (@adexchanger) on Twitter.

Output: The near-universal adoption of the Interactive Advertising Bureau's Ads.txt may have tackled the issue of domain spoofing, but other problems have emerged, Ian Hewetson, VP of client services at Eyereturn Marketing wrote. Hewetson pointed to examples of mishandled implementation and ID errors that had exposed a host of new issues. Demand-side verification and good-old-fashioned communication had been required in the cases to avoid similar problems, he said.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Google moon-shot competitors seek funding to stay in contention
 WASHINGTON — With less than four months remaining in the competition, two of the remaining teams in the Google Lunar X Prize are seeking to raise tens of millions of dollars to complete their spacecraft.

In a Nov. 29 statement, Israeli team SpaceIL said it needed to raise $20 million by the end of the year, from both the public as well as the Israeli government, or else it would be forced to cancel the entire mission.

“We are at a critical turning point in the project’s life cycle. Within approximately two weeks we will complete the construction of the spacecraft and will be able to proceed to the testing phase,” Eran Privman, chief executive of SpaceIL, said in a statement. “Regretfully, if we fail to raise $20 million immediately, we will be unable to continue, and seven years of pioneering Israeli development and much hard work will be wasted.”

The total SpaceIL needs to raise is $30 million, Privman said in the statement. Morris Kahn, a former chairman of the board of SpaceIL who has previously contributed $18 million to the project, said he will provide $10 million if the team can raise the other $20 million.

SpaceIL, a non-profit organization, has relied on a philanthropic model to fund its entry into the competition. SpaceIL has raised $55 million to date, including contributions by Kahn as well as the Miriam and Sheldon Adelson Foundation. The organization has sought to develop a lunar lander as part of an educational outreach effort to encourage the country’s students to pursue careers in science and engineering.

The lander is being built and tested by Israel Aerospace Industries. SpaceIL has a launch contract through Spaceflight Industries to fly the lander on a SpaceX Falcon 9 mission, which SpaceIL said in its statement “is expected in the coming year.”

However, SpaceIL and the four other finalists in the Google Lunar X Prize competition have only a few months left to send their spacecraft to the moon in order to win the $20 million grand prize. The competition has set a deadline of March 31, 2018, for teams to complete their missions, which includes landing on the moon, traveling at least 500 meters across its surface, and returning high-resolution video and other data.

SpaceIL is not the only team making a last-ditch fundraising effort. An Indian team, Team Indus, is reportedly seeking to raise $35 million — half the mission’s total cost — to cover its final development and launch costs. A team official told the Indian newspaper The Hindu Dec. 4 that it would start a crowdfunding effort “in the next couple of weeks,” along with sponsorship and other efforts, to raise that funding.

Team Indus plans to launch its lander, which will carry a rover for another team, Japan’s Team Hakuto, on an Indian Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle. That rocket’s return to flight from an August launch failure has been delayed until early January, and the team has not specified where in the queue of missions they are after that launch. Complicating matters are plans by India’s space agency, ISRO, to launch its own lunar orbiter and lander mission, Chandrayaan-2, in March 2018 on a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.

Team Hakuto, run by Japanese space resources company ispace, has completed its rover and does not require additional funding. Moon Express, a U.S. company that is also a finalist, said earlier this year a $20 million funding round gave the company enough money to complete and launch its entry in the competition. Moon Express has not announced a launch date for that lander, which will fly on Rocket Lab’s Electron rocket. That rocket will make a second test flight as soon as Dec. 7 from the company’s New Zealand launch site, and if successful will be ready to enter commercial service.

Moon Express, which plans a series of commercial lunar landers in the next several years, has more recently downplayed the importance of winning the prize. The company states on its website that on its first mission “we will attempt to win the $20M Google Lunar XPRIZE, if available,” but only after completing operations for paying customers on that mission.

The fifth finalist in the competition, Synergy Moon, has released few details about the status of its funding efforts, development of its lander or the untried launch vehicle it intends to use to launch the mission.

Output: Two teams competing in the Google Lunar X Prize moon-shot challenge face the prospect of pulling the plug on their projects due to a lack of funding. Israeli non-profit SpaceIL, which is developing a lunar lander, has already raised $55m but needs $30m more to complete the project. Indian outfit Team Indus, whose lander supports a Japanese entrant's rover, is said to require $35m, half its mission's total costs, and plans to start crowdfunding in the coming weeks.


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Ad industry groups passing buck on data protection responsibility
 When it comes to the General Data Protection Regulation, it’s a dog-eat-dog world.

For many in digital media, that will mean a giant game of hot potato, as clients want agencies to assume risks, while agencies insist publishers assume them, and publishers then do the same to tech vendors. It’s hard to blame everyone from running away from responsibility: Maximum fines of €20 million ($24 million) or 4 percent of annual revenue are at stake.

In an effort to dodge the GDPR-fine hot potato, agency groups are tweaking contracts to ensure any risk gets passed back down the supply chain to the data source, putting ad tech vendors and publishers closer to the line of fire. Publishers themselves aren’t standing still either, calling their biggest ad tech suppliers and demanding they agree to compensate them if the publisher is fined for something that happens on the ad tech vendor’s watch.

Under the GDPR, businesses that are defined as “data controllers” are most liable for fines, as they are the source of the consumer data. That means publishers in particular are in the line of fire, as are advertisers that operate websites with first-party customer data. Ad tech vendors can be a mix of data controllers and data processors, but either way, they’ll also be expected to gain consumer consent for using both publishers’ and advertisers’ data.

Publishers on either side of the Atlantic are renegotiating contracts with ad tech vendors that guarantee the publisher will get compensation should it be fined for something the vendor has caused, while also demanding the vendor prove they’re GDPR-ready. They’d be crazy not to. “Ad tech vendors can’t hide in the herd anymore but must get their houses in GDPR order fast,” said Todd Ruback, chief privacy officer and vp of legal affairs at marketing analytics company Evidon.

But the buck doesn’t stop there. The biggest ad tech vendors are in turn pushing their own GDPR-specific contracts further downstream to their own subcontractors. “Indemnification and liability is becoming the hot potato, getting passed from company to company,” Ruback said. “It’s getting very complex.” Smaller ad tech vendors won’t necessarily have the funds to cope with paying compensation to publishers should they be found in breach, which will lead to consolidation in the ad tech market, he added.

Meanwhile, agency groups are also trying to cover their backs, updating contracts to push the liability back to the data source, which ultimately is the publisher. Sequential liability has long been a standard part of agency-client contracts. It’s there as a backstop for agencies, so if a client fails to pay up, the agency can then refuse to pay the media owner that supplied the inventory. It’s only recently that they’ve started writing in GDPR sequential liability — an approach that’s angered some in the market, who believe agencies should take more responsibility for isolating how and where data is shared in their own supply chain in preparation for the GDPR, not just push back on the publishers. Others believe agencies will try to bury the new terms in 2018 trading deals with publishers.

“This is just another example of the buy side raping and pillaging the sell side,” said an ad tech exec who spoke on condition of anonymity. “The smart publishers will be savvy to it, but most will be resigned to it because agencies have the buying power, and publishers need the money.”

While agencies with the most leverage and buying power can more easily dictate GDPR contractual terms with publishers, publishers with the most clout will be able to make indemnification demands of vendors, and the biggest vendors will be able to do the same with smaller vendors. When it comes to GDPR readiness, size will likely matter a lot.

But the skirting of liability from either end of the supply chain can’t last. “There is a collision happening. But the market will eventually right itself,” Ruback said. “If agencies want to do business with publishers and publishers want to do business with agencies, they’ll have to come to some kind of middle ground about liability.”

Output: Smaller companies within the advertising industry face collapse as ad agencies, publishers and tech vendors try to pass the buck on compliance with forthcoming data-protection laws. Anonymous insiders have warned the bigger firms with more clout will be able to impose their indemnification demands, but smaller outlets may struggle if they're slapped with stiff fines under the General Data Protection Regulation. That could lead to consolidation within the industry. Todd Ruback, chief privacy officer at Evidon, said: "Indemnification and liability is becoming the hot potato, getting passed from company to company."


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Super-telescope ESPRESSO begins search for new stellar bodies
 eso1739 — Organisation Release

First Light for ESPRESSO — the Next Generation Planet Hunter

The Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) has successfully made its first observations. Installed on ESO’s Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile, ESPRESSO will search for exoplanets with unprecedented precision by looking at the minuscule changes in the light of their host stars. For the first time ever, an instrument will be able to sum up the light from all four VLT telescopes and achieve the light collecting power of a 16-metre telescope.

ESPRESSO has achieved first light on ESO’s Very Large Telescope at the Paranal Observatory in northern Chile [1]. This new, third-generation echelle spectrograph is the successor to ESO’s hugely successful HARPS instrument at the La Silla Observatory. HARPS can attain a precision of around one metre per second in velocity measurements, whereas ESPRESSO aims to achieve a precision of just a few centimetres per second, due to advances in technology and its placement on a much bigger telescope.

The lead scientist for ESPRESSO, Francesco Pepe from the University of Geneva in Switzerland, explains its significance: “This success is the result of the work of many people over 10 years. ESPRESSO isn’t just the evolution of our previous instruments like HARPS, but it will be transformational, with its higher resolution and higher precision. And unlike earlier instruments it can exploit the VLT’s full collecting power — it can be used with all four of the VLT Unit Telescopes at the same time to simulate a 16-metre telescope. ESPRESSO will be unsurpassed for at least a decade — now I am just impatient to find our first rocky planet!”

ESPRESSO can detect tiny changes in the spectra of stars as a planet orbits. This radial velocity method works because a planet’s gravitational pull influences its host star, causing it to “wobble” slightly. The less massive the planet, the smaller the wobble, and so for rocky and possibly life-bearing exoplanets to be detected, an instrument with very high precision is required. With this method, ESPRESSO will be able to detect some of the lightest planets ever found [2].

The test observations included observations of stars and known planetary systems. Comparisons with existing HARPS data showed that ESPRESSO can obtain similar quality data with dramatically less exposure time.

Instrument scientist Gaspare Lo Curto (ESO) is delighted: “Bringing ESPRESSO this far has been a great accomplishment, with contributions from an international consortium as well as many different groups within ESO: engineers, astronomers and administration. They had to not just install the spectrograph itself, but also the very complex optics that bring the light together from the four VLT Unit Telescopes.”

Although the main goal of ESPRESSO is to push planet hunting to the next level, finding and characterising less massive planets and their atmospheres, it also has many other applications. ESPRESSO will also be the world’s most powerful tool to test whether the physical constants of nature have changed since the Universe was young. Such tiny changes are predicted by some theories of fundamental physics, but have never been convincingly observed.

When ESO’s Extremely Large Telescope comes on line, the instrument HIRES, which is currently under conceptual design, will enable the detection and characterisation of even smaller and lighter exoplanets, down to Earth-like planets, as well as the study of exoplanet atmospheres with the prospect of the detection of signatures of life on rocky planets.

Notes

[1] ESPRESSO was designed and built by a consortium consisting of: the Astronomical Observatory of the University of Geneva and University of Bern, Switzerland; INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste and INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Brera, Italy; Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias, Spain; Instituto de Astrofisica e Ciências do Espaço, Universidade do Porto and Universidade de Lisboa, Portugal; and ESO. The co-principal investigators are Francesco Pepe (University of Geneva, Switzerland), Stefano Cristiani (INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste, Italy), Rafael Rebolo (IAC, Tenerife, Spain) and Nuno Santos (Instituto de Astrofisica e Ciencias do Espaco, Universidade do Porto, Portugal).

[2] The radial velocity method allows astronomers to measure the mass and orbit of the planet. Combined with other methods such as the transit method, more information can be inferred — for example, the size and density of the exoplanet. The Next-Generation Transit Survey (NGTS) at ESO’s Paranal Observatory hunts for exoplanets in this way.

More information

ESO is the foremost intergovernmental astronomy organisation in Europe and the world’s most productive ground-based astronomical observatory by far. It is supported by 16 countries: Austria, Belgium, Brazil, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Finland, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, along with the host state of Chile and by Australia as a strategic partner. ESO carries out an ambitious programme focused on the design, construction and operation of powerful ground-based observing facilities enabling astronomers to make important scientific discoveries. ESO also plays a leading role in promoting and organising cooperation in astronomical research. ESO operates three unique world-class observing sites in Chile: La Silla, Paranal and Chajnantor. At Paranal, ESO operates the Very Large Telescope and its world-leading Very Large Telescope Interferometer as well as two survey telescopes, VISTA working in the infrared and the visible-light VLT Survey Telescope. ESO is also a major partner in two facilities on Chajnantor, APEX and ALMA, the largest astronomical project in existence. And on Cerro Armazones, close to Paranal, ESO is building the 39-metre Extremely Large Telescope, the ELT, which will become “the world’s biggest eye on the sky”.

Links

Contacts

Francesco Pepe

University of Geneva

Geneva, Switzerland

Email: Francesco.Pepe@unige.ch

Stefano Cristiani

INAF–Osservatorio Astronomico di Trieste

Trieste, Italy

Email: cristiani@oats.inaf.it

Nuno Santos

Instituto de Astrofísica e Ciências do Espaço and Universidade do Porto

Porto, Portugal

Email: Nuno.Santos@astro.up.pt

Rafael Rebolo

Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias

Tenerife, Spain

Email: rrl@iac.es

Gaspare Lo Curto

ESO

Garching, Germany

Email: glocurto@eso.org

Richard Hook

ESO Public Information Officer

Garching bei München, Germany

Tel: +49 89 3200 6655

Cell: +49 151 1537 3591

Email: rhook@eso.org

Connect with ESO on social media

Output: The first observations have been made using a groundbreaking new telescope that's hoped to detect the tiniest of distant planets. The Echelle SPectrograph for Rocky Exoplanet and Stable Spectroscopic Observations (ESPRESSO) lens, installed on the European Southern Observatory's (ESO) Very Large Telescope (VLT) in Chile will, for the first time, enable scientists to study the light detected by multiple observatories. It can measure velocities of light up to the precision of a few centimetres per second, making it easier to search for new stellar bodies. ESPRESSO will also be able to test whether nature's physical constants have changed.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

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Relativity Space uses 3D printing to manufacture launch vehicles
 This article originally appeared as “A relativistic shift in launch vehicle manufacturing” in the Nov. 20 issue of SpaceNews Magazine

There’s no question that additive manufacturing, or 3D printing, has become an important technology in the aerospace industry. A growing number of companies are using the technology to make components for satellites and launch vehicles that are lighter or less expensive than if they were made with conventional techniques, if they could be made at all.

One company is taking that technology to an extreme — or, in its view, to a logical conclusion. Relativity Space, a startup based in Los Angeles that only recently emerged from stealth mode, plans to use 3D printing to produce entire launch vehicles, an approach it claims can be more cost effective than traditional manufacturing techniques.

For Tim Ellis, the mid-20s chief executive and co-founder of the company, printing an entire rocket simply makes sense. “It was really just looking at what was the inevitable conclusion of that technology,” he said in a recent interview. “Looking further into the future, it became obvious to us. We view it as autonomous manufacturing.”

By being able to manufacture a rocket with 3D printing, vehicles can be built faster and less expensively because far less human labor is needed. It also allows the company to revise vehicle designs quickly, without sunk costs in tooling tied to certain designs.

That requires advances in 3D-printing technology. Relativity has developed Stargate, which it claims is the largest 3D printer in the world that uses metals, in this case a proprietary alloy. “We have to develop this new process ourselves from scratch,” he said. “We have to make the technology itself. But, we believe that once it actually exists, it will be much faster to scale up and produce rockets at scale.” The company’s goal is to go from raw material to a rocket ready for flight within 60 days.

In other fields, 3D printing enables the creation of parts that would be difficult, if not impossible, to manufacture with ordinary techniques. The same will be true with launch vehicles, Relativity believes.

“The launch vehicle that we’re going to be flying is going to look totally different from those that are traditionally manufactured,” Ellis claimed. “You get much more organic structures than you normally get. The shapes and forms of what comes out of the printer, and what the launch vehicles look like, will be significantly different.”

Relativity’s 3D-printed Aeon 1 engine, shown on the test stand at NASA Stennis Space Center in Mississippi, is designed to produce 15,000 pounds of thrust. (Relativity Space)

He gave few specifics about how that would work, but did give one example. “A far fewer part count is a real advantage,” he said. “You get more highly integrated components that look very, very complex, but there are fewer of them. The complexity is driven by software, so you end up with these more organic-looking shapes that are more efficient.”

While the company has been developing technologies to 3D print launch vehicles, it has also been working on an engine for it. The Aeon 1 engine, powered by methane and liquid oxygen and producing more than 15,000 pounds-force of thrust, has undergone tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center in Mississippi. The Space Act Agreement between NASA and Relativity for those tests was one of the few hints of the company’s activities while the company was in stealth.

“It simplifies a lot of the vehicle architecture,” Ellis said of the choice of propellants. That combination allows for what’s known as “autogenous” pressurization, where the propellants in effect self-pressurize, eliminating the need for helium bottles and plumbing to pressurize the tanks.

The company plans to initially put those technologies together into a rocket called Terran 1. The two-stage rocket will have nine Aeon 1 engines in its first stage and one in its second. It will be capable of placing up to 1,250 kilograms into low Earth orbit.

That payload capacity falls into a gap in the market. It’s much larger than the crop of small launch vehicles under development designed for payloads of no more than a few hundred kilograms, such as Rocket Lab’s Electron or Virgin Orbit’s LauncherOne. But it’s far smaller than the large vehicles in development or operation by companies like Blue Origin, SpaceX and United Launch Alliance.

Ellis said he sees Terran 1 as well suited to support the small satellite constellations under development. “We’ve had a lot of private conversations with potential customers who are showing a lot of interest in this payload class,” he said, not naming any specific companies. “We see that payload class being a sweet spot for constellation launch, whether it’s deployment or resupply of them.”

He added that, with the flexibility 3D printing provides to change designs, the company can resize the vehicle to meet market demands better than other vehicles. “Their plans change,” he said of constellation developers, “so we want to be a good partner with them while they’re defining their plans.”

Terran 1 is still several years away from its first flight. Relativity’s current schedule calls for a first launch in early 2021. That timeline, significantly longer than many other vehicles under development, is driven by the new technology needed to make the rocket, Ellis said.

Relativity is still a small, young company. It currently has 14 employees, many of whom are veterans of larger NewSpace companies including Virgin Galactic, SpaceX and Blue Origin, where Ellis worked before starting Relativity. The company is starting to hire more engineers — it expects to have 40 to 50 employees by the end of 2018 — which was one of the reasons why it decided now to open up about its technology and its plans.

That hiring is a mix of both aerospace engineers and those with 3D printing backgrounds, said Jordan Noone, Relativity’s chief technology officer and its other co-founder. “Aerospace engineers are some of the best cross-talent engineers out there,” he said, in terms of the broad range of issues they deal with.

The company has raised a little more than $10 million to date. That includes a seed round from Y Combinator, the Silicon Valley business incubator, and billionaire Mark Cuban. It later raised a Series A round led by venture capital firm Social Capital.

Ellis acknowledged the company will need to raise more money to fund both its technology development as well as the introduction of the Terran 1 rocket. “We’re always interested in talking with investors and partners to help with the financing,” he said, but wouldn’t say how much the company will need in the coming years.

Will all the emphasis on 3D printing technologies, though, it raises the question: is Relativity a space company using 3D printing as an enabling technology, or a 3D printing company that sees launch vehicles is the first of many markets?

“There’s no question that if you can fully automate and print a rocket, it’s applicable to a lot of the aerospace industry,” he said. The company is looking into other uses of those printers, although Ellis declined to discuss any specific examples. “But yes,” he said, “the technology is generalizable.”

However, Ellis made clear that Relativity is interested in 3D printing as a means to an end that involves a familiar destination for space enthusiasts. “We have a long-term vision of 3D printing a rocket on Mars,” he said. “That’s been part of the company since day one. It was actually the headline of our Y Combinator application.”

He said there was just one other company he knew of that had a core mission of going to Mars. He didn’t mention it by name, but SpaceX and its founder, Elon Musk, have long emphasized the goal of establishing a human presence on Mars. “We’re the second company saying this is want we want to go do this,” he said. “We’re building a part of the colonization process that no one else is really focusing on as their core technology.”

Could that mean rockets built — or, rather, printed — by Relativity will one day be launching people to Mars? “Not yet,” Ellis said. “How that ends up happening we’ll talk about later.

Output: A small California-based start-up plans to use 3D printing techniques to manufacture space launch vehicles. Relativity Space believes its Stargate 3D printer, which it claims is the world's largest, will facilitate a production cycle that would go from raw materials to flight-ready rocket within 60 days. The first will be the Terran 1, a two-stage rocket capable of placing up to 1,250 kg into low Earth orbit, launching tentatively in 2021. Relativity Space CEO Tim Ellis notes that printing an entire rocket makes sense long term as “the inevitable conclusion of that technology".


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Space Debris Sensor studies impact of small objects in low orbit
 The film Gravity dramatized the risks of space junk. But although flyaway wrenches and broken-off rocket parts may pose the deadliest threat to spacecraft, most orbital debris is actually much smaller—think flecks of paint and the splinters of shattered satellites. Now, NASA hopes to learn more about the dust-size microdebris orbiting Earth with the Space Debris Sensor (SDS), set to be attached to the International Space Station (ISS) following a 4 December cargo launch by SpaceX.

Using ground-based radars, the U.S. Air Force keeps track of about 23,000 objects larger than a baseball, so satellite operators can avoid collisions by maneuvering out of the way. But much less is known about smaller debris, says Brian Weeden, director of program planning for Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit focused on space sustainability, in Washington, D.C. The SDS will study objects smaller than a millimeter—and at high speeds they can still cause real damage, Weeden says. "If a satellite is in orbit for 10 or 15 years, those little abrasions can have an impact by degrading sensors or degrading materials on the satellite," he says.

NASA previously studied microdebris by inspecting the windows and radiators of space shuttles, which returned to Earth pockmarked with tiny impacts. "A detailed ground inspection could estimate what sizes the objects were that impacted it, but there's limited information you can get out of that," says Joseph Hamilton, an orbital debris scientist and SDS principal investigator at Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas.

After it's mounted to the ISS, the new sensor will offer a better handle on the true microdebris population. The 1-square-meter detector on the SDS contains layers of thin sensors embedded within a mesh of fine wires. When debris strikes the surface of the SDS, it will break a number of these wires, which correlate to the particle's size. Damage to layers beneath gives a sense of particle speeds and trajectories. The back plate will measure the intensity of the impact, helping scientists estimate the object's density.

With these data, scientists can determine the particles' orbits, which provide clues to their origins. An elliptical orbit, for instance, suggests that a particle is a natural micrometeoroid, whereas a circular orbit implies that it probably sloughed off a satellite. And by getting a more accurate estimate of the microdebris population, scientists can extrapolate and better predict the populations of objects larger than 1 millimeter, but smaller than 10 centimeters. These objects can cause more significant damage to spacecraft, but are still too small to be tracked by radar, Hamilton says.

The SDS, which will orbit at the ISS's altitude of about 400 kilometers, is considered a technology demonstration. If successful, future missions could study microdebris at altitudes in the 700- 1000–kilometer range, a more congested area of space where even less is known. The findings could help satellite designers develop better shielding, whereas improved models of the microdebris population could help them find an orbit where space dust is less of a problem.

Some companies have sensed opportunities in studying space junk. Astroscale, a private satellite services company based in Singapore, developed a 22-kilogram microsatellite called IDEA OSG 1 that was to study debris at these higher altitudes between 600 and 800 kilometers. On 28 November, it was one of many satellites launched on a Russian Soyuz rocket that failed to reach its target orbit, and is presumed to be lost. Before the launch, Astroscale Chief Operating Officer Chris Blackerby, based in Tokyo, said the company was seeking opportunities to share the data collected by the satellite through agreements with government agencies or private organizations. Astroscale did not respond to requests for comment about the Russian rocket failure.

Output: NASA scientists are set to learn more about the damage caused to the International Space Station by microdebris in Earth's low orbit with the deployment of the Space Debris Sensor (SDS). The one-metre-square device will measure the speed and density of particles between 1mm and 10cm, as well as the effects of their impact. Should the SDS perform well, scientists could extend their field of study to areas where there is even more debris.


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Space Debris Sensor studies impact of small objects in low orbit
 The International Space Station (ISS) is about to get a big upgrade to study very tiny bits of space junk floating in Earth orbit.

Called the Space Debris Sensor (SDS), the one-square-meter array has a series of microsensors to study what happens when it’s struck by objects the size of flecks of paint or other particles less than four inches (10 cm) in size.

It’s a first step in studying this virtually untrackable space debris population. As Science Magazine points out, there may be future missions at higher orbits, figuring out where the majority of small space junk and micrometeoroids reside and designing future spacecraft orbits based around that. It could also help figure out how best to shield a craft to avoid a fatal event if an errant screw strikes it at high speed.

Output: NASA scientists are set to learn more about the damage caused to the International Space Station by microdebris in Earth's low orbit with the deployment of the Space Debris Sensor (SDS). The one-metre-square device will measure the speed and density of particles between 1mm and 10cm, as well as the effects of their impact. Should the SDS perform well, scientists could extend their field of study to areas where there is even more debris.


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Worms bred in conditions simulating closed ecosystem on Mars
 An experiment that resulted in various flowering plants, especially in a Mars soil simulant. The pots were put in water to keep the soil containing the earthworms cool.

In what could be an important milestone for future farmers on Mars, two healthy baby worms were recently born in simulated Martian soil. The births took place in an experiment that is helping scientists understand how human settlers might one day grow crops on the Red Planet.

Wieger Wamelink, a biologist at Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands, is running plant growth experiments in a mixture of NASA-made Martian soil simulants — made from volcanic terrestrial rocks — and pig manure, to which he added live adult worms. University officials said in a statement that the infant worms are the first offspring of adult worms to be born in a Mars soil simulant.

Mars is not a naturally habitable environment for life as we know it, so if humans want to live there long term, Red Planet settlers will have to establish closed ecosystem models. (These are essentially large terrariums where factors like temperature and atmospheric moisture can be controlled.) According to the statement, those ecosystems will ideally utilize available waste materials, including human excrement and dead organic matter. That's where the worms come in.

Illustration of potential appearance of a closed agricultural ecosystem on Mars. (Image credit: Wageningen University and Research Centre)

Worms begin the breakdown of organic matter, which is continued by bacteria. That leads to the release into the soil of such vital plant nutrients as nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium, according to the statement from Wageningen University and Research.

The researchers also found that the holes that worms dig in the soil aerate the mixture and improve the soil's structure, making it easier for water to penetrate the soil and nourish plants.

The appearance of baby worms seems to indicate that at least in the short term, the worms are thriving in these closed ecosystems.

The goal of the experiment is to find out how well worms break down old waste to produce food for bacteria and plants in the mixture of soil simulant and pig slurry (or manure). Various flowering plants were allowed to germinate in several pots of this mix, and adult worms were then added.

Simulated "Martian gardens" allow NASA scientists to test which plants can be grown on Mars. This photo shows the results of a preliminary study on lettuce. From left to right: lettuce seeds grown in potting soil, the Martian simulant with added nutrients, and the simulant without nutrients. (Image credit: Dimitri Gerondidakis/NASA)

A crowdfunding campaign has been launched to continue experiments on these hardy worms. "Worms for Mars" has already raised more than half their funding goal of €10K, and with the public's help, Wageningen University and Research hopes to continue testing out different crops along with their crawling assistants.There is is the possibility that sharp edges in non-Earth soil could damage the guts of the critters, the researchers said in another statement.

When worms eat organic matter, they also eat the soil. Since there isn't much weathering of Martian terrain, sharp edges in its soil do not get worn down (the way they do on Earth) and may cause worms harm, according to the statement. The presence of heavy metals in Martian soil could also be a long-term problem for worms, which would require lengthier experiments to address properly, the researchers said.

Follow Doris Elin Salazar on Twitter@salazar_elin. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Output: Biologists at the Wageningen University and Research Centre in the Netherlands have successfully bred two worms in simulated Martian soil as part of plant growth experiments. In a statement, the university said the worms break up the soil and produce bacteria by breaking down organic matter, stimulating the release of essential plant nutrients, and suggesting the creatures could help support a closed ecosystem on the Red Planet. A crowdfunding campaign to continue monitoring the worms has already reached 50% of its €10,000 ($11,700) goal.


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WMAP team that worked out age of the universe wins $3m prize
 A team of researchers who helped shape our understanding of the origin, evolution and nature of the cosmos is now $3 million richer.

Those folks worked on NASA's WMAP space mission, which was awarded the 2018 Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics today (Dec. 3) during a ceremony in Palo Alto, California.

From 2001 to 2009, WMAP mapped the cosmic microwave background (CMB) — the light left over from the Big Bang — with unprecedented precision. This work allowed scientists to nail down the age of the universe (about 13.8 billion years), its rate of accelerating expansion (roughly 70 kilometers per second per megaparsec) and its basic composition (about 5 percent "normal" matter, 24 percent dark matter and 71 percent dark energy). [Dark Matter and Dark Energy: The Mystery Explained (Infographic)]

Astronomers had gotten pieces of this overall picture before, from a variety of different observations. But WMAP — which is short for Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe — allowed them to put everything together, said mission principal investigator Chuck Bennett, who's based at Johns Hopkins University in Maryland.

"I think the big impact of WMAP was to go from a kind of collection of miscellaneous facts and approximate numbers to a single theory or model that says, 'Here's exactly what's going on. Here are the numbers,'" Bennett told Space.com. "And everything agrees with them — all the different, diverse measurements."

Fellow WMAP team member David Spergel, an astrophysicist at Princeton University, voiced similar sentiments.

"I see the legacy as establishing the standard model and making cosmology quantitative," Spergel told Space.com. "There have been improvements in the measurements since WMAP, but I think we provided a very solid base that the field is building on."

Those improvements were provided largely by the European Space Agency's Planck spacecraft, which mapped the CMB from 2009 to 2013. Planck's data have reinforced and refined, rather than challenged, the WMAP results.

"It's impressive that these independent experiments get the same answer — that feels good," Spergel said. "And we get consistent measurements from the ground."

Bennett, Spergel and three other WMAP leaders — Gary Hinshaw of the University of British Columbia and Norman Jarosik and Lyman Page Jr. of Princeton — will get the largest slices of the $3 million award, Breakthrough Prize representatives said. The rest will be split among the other 22 members of the mission's experiment team.

This is not the first time WMAP has been recognized for its contributions to physics and cosmology. The mission team also won the prestigious Shaw Prize for Astronomy in 2010 and the Gruber Prize in Cosmology in 2012.

The Breakthrough Prize in science and math was founded in 2012 by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki and Yuri and Julia Milner. Every year, it awards $3 million prizes in the fields of Fundamental Physics, Life Sciences and Mathematics — the largest individual monetary awards in science. (For comparison: Each 2017 Nobel Prize was worth 9 million Swedish kronor, or about $1.1 million at current exchange rates.)

The WMAP researchers were therefore not the only people to be recognized at today's ceremony, which was hosted by Morgan Freeman and featured appearances by actors Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher and hip-hop artist Wiz Khalifa, among other celebrities. Also announced were five $3 million prizes in the Life Sciences field and one $3 million award in the Mathematics field, as well as several smaller purses in other categories. You can read about all the winners here: https://breakthroughprize.org/News/41

The total value of the newly announced awards tops $22 million, Breakthrough Prize representatives said.

"The idea that science is important, science is something that shapes our understanding of the universe that we live in, and that this is recognized — hopefully it motivates schoolkids and generates public interest in support of science," Bennett said.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

Output: The team behind the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), which accurately dated the age of the universe (13.8 billion years old), its composition and the speed of its expansion, has been awarded this year's $3m Breakthrough Prize in fundamental physics. The award, founded by Mark Zuckerberg and Priscilla Chan, among others, is the largest individual cash prize in science. The WMAP team previously won the Shaw Prize for astronomy in 2010 and the Gruber Prize in cosmology in 2012.


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Tokio Marine chatbot to be used for recruitment purposes
 Tokio Marine Life Insurance Singapore, the only Japanese life insurer in Singapore, launched the recruitment function in the latest phase of its TOMI chatbot (short for Tokio Marine Insurance).

This makes TOMI the first chatbot in Singapore to support an insurer’s recruitment process, on top of being the first self-learning AI chatbot in Singapore that makes life insurance more accessible to the public.

Aimed at enhancing the insurer’s engagement with today’s digitally savvy generation in recruitment, TOMI now answers more than 300 questions on how to pursue a career as a financial adviser. It also provides information that is typically not accessible to the public, including required qualifications, the training involved and even hiring preferences. The chatbot continues to be accessible at all times through commonly-used social media platform Facebook Messenger.

“Advisers play an important role in supporting Singaporeans in managing their financial planning and insurance coverage. We are always looking for talented individuals who are keen to help people plan the necessary coverage for themselves and their loved ones,”

said James Tan, Chief Executive Officer of TMLS.

“TOMI will help us reach out to these potential talents more quickly and easily, through familiar communication channel Facebook Messenger, and encourage them to join us as advisers.”

To help users who are uncertain about a career in insurance, TMLS introduced a short interactive quiz on TOMI that briefly evaluates the user’s interests and personality. TOMI also now provides information on upcoming recruitment events, organised multiple times a year, to encourage interested individuals to personally engage with TMLS.

To access TOMI’s recruitment function, users may go to TOMI’s main menu and select the tab “Ask Career”. Alternatively, the function can also be accessed via the “Ask Career” section on the main menu of TOMI.

Output: Tokio Marine Life Insurance Singapore is using its chatbot technology to help insurance companies with their recruiting efforts. The company's chatbot, dubbed TOMI, is also helping answer questions for prospective applicants looking to start a career in financial advice. Interested parties can ask TOMI about necessary qualifications, training and the preferences of employers. It will also provide a quiz for applicants who aren't sure about a career in insurance. The chatbot is accessible via Facebook Messenger.


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Redrow Andrew Farley named commercial director for Lancashire
 He replaces Phil Heaps, who is retiring from the role after 40 years with the company.

Andrew was formerly commercial director at Wainhomes (NW) Ltd, serving a total of 15 years with the company, and also had spells with PH Property Holdings and Crosby Homes.

He said: “My task at Redrow will be to maintain procurement availability, quality and cost levels, while building on and enhancing supplier and contractor relations, supported of course by the experienced commercial department at the Lancashire division.

"Phil has done an incredible job and it’s down to me now to build on that.”

Output: Andrew Farley has been appointed as commercial director for Lancashire at housebuilder Redrow. Farley, the former commercial director at Wainhomes, replaces Phil Heaps, who retired after 40 years at Redrow. He's tasked with "maintaining procurement availability, quality and cost levels, while building on and enhancing supplier and contractor relations".


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Insurtech SafetyNet launches offering for landlords
 Renter SafetyNet, a new insurance program from CUNA Mutual Group’s innovation lab, was launched today in Wisconsin. In a shifting housing market where more people than ever are renting rather than buying, Renter SafetyNet is a first-of-its-kind program created specifically for landlords to come out of the Madison-based insurance tech startup, SafetyNet.

“PEW research put out that renters are at a 50 year all-time high. The rental market is growing, but on top of that, rental prices are increasing,” said Danielle Sesko, Director of Innovation and Product Development. “The average living wage for a two-bedroom apartment is actually over $21 an hour. That’s over three times the federal minimum wage. It’s significant, and it’s putting financial stress on the average hardworking American.”

That stress means that nearly half of all Americans are unprepared for a financial emergency. Almost eight out of 10 workers are living paycheck to paycheck, and about seven out of 10 admit they have below $1,000 in savings. 46% of people say they couldn’t come up with $400 to cover a surprise expense, including rent should they lose their job.

“An income loss can throw a family’s financial security into jeopardy, making it difficult to pay rent and keep a roof overhead, and this impacts landlords’ ability to bring in rental income,” said Dan Murray, vice president of product development at Renter SafetyNet. “A program like Renter SafetyNet not only helps landlords protect their income, but also keeps tenants in their homes.”

Renter SafetyNet works by providing landlords with a lump-sum payment to cover a tenant’s rent after a no-fault job loss like a layoff, illness or injury. Proved claims are mailed out within two to three business days and cover rent for one to three months.

Coverage for landlords owning less than 40 rental units starts at $5 a month. Sesko said that the majority of landlords own one or two rental property units and they rely month-to-month on the payments from their tenants.

“A lot of folks are using single units or duplexes as a way to supplement their income or a way to get cash flow in their retirement years,” said Sesko. “This helps protect those folks. We found that if a tenant were to default on their rent, both parties really suffer.”

SafetyNet launched their first product a year and a half ago that aimed to increase the financial security of individuals in emergencies like disability or unemployment. That product did well, so they developed Renders SafetyNet so assist on the other end of the financial equation.

“We’re looking at solutions in the market to help other groups of people,” said Sesko. “[SafetyNet products help] the landlord and protects their rental income, but also help people stay in their homes. It’s a win-win for both sides of the business.”

As millennials specifically continue to delay home ownership in exchange for more flexibility in their housing, that change brings a necessary shift in how insurers provide products and services to them.

“The entire rental landscape has been changing over the last ten years due to growing generations, millennials specifically,” said Sesko. “That changes the business models of the landlords who have been renting to other generations. […] Our goal is to run an insurance business that is lean, efficient, cost-effective. We’re trying to build simple and affordable solutions for the everyday hardworking American.”

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Christine McGuigan is the Managing Editor of Silicon Prairie News.

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Output: Wisconsin-based insurtech start-up SafetyNet has introduced a new offering aimed at landlords. The product, dubbed Renter SafetyNet, allows landlords to guard against tenants being unable to pay rent due to loss of income. Coverage starts from $5 for landlords with less than 40 units. Claims can cover rent payments lost over a period of up to three months.


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Jupiter's moon, Europa, may have tectonic plates, say scientists
 The case for plate tectonics on Jupiter's ocean-harboring moon Europa keeps getting stronger.

Scientists had already spotted geological signs that plates within the moon's ice shell may be diving beneath one another toward the moon's buried ocean. Now, a new study suggests that such "subduction" is indeed possible on Europa and shows how the phenomenon might be happening.

The new results should intrigue astrobiologists and anyone else who hopes that Earth isn't the only inhabited world in the solar system. [Photos: Europa, Mysterious Icy Moon of Jupiter]

"If, indeed, there's life in that ocean, subduction offers a way to supply the nutrients it would need," study lead author Brandon Johnson, an assistant professor in the Department of Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences at Brown University in Rhode Island, said in a statement.

Such nutrients include oxidants, electron-stripping substances that are common on Europa's surface and that could help provide an energy source for life, the researchers said.

Here on Earth, subduction is driven primarily by temperature differences between relatively cool (and, therefore, dense) rocky plates and the superhot surrounding mantle. Thermal gradients can't be the prime mover on Europa, however: Ice plates would warm up as they dove, quickly equilibrating to the temperature of the ice below, study team members said.

But that doesn't mean subduction can't be happening on the Jovian moon, Johnson and his colleagues found. Their computer models suggest that Europan ice plates can indeed dive — if they're saltier than their surroundings.

"Adding salt to an ice slab would be like adding little weights to it, because salt is denser than ice," Johnson said in the same statement. "So, rather than temperature, we show that differences in the salt content of the ice could enable subduction to happen on Europa."

Such differences may indeed exist within the moon's ice shell, the researchers said. Upwelling from the underground ocean could deposit salt patchily on the surface, as could eruptions of cryovolcanoes, the scientists said.

The presence of plate tectonics on Europa could help us learn more about our own planet as well as the icy moon, Brown said.

"It's fascinating to think that we might have plate tectonics somewhere other than Earth," he said. "Thinking from the standpoint of comparative planetology, if we can now study plate tectonics in this very different place, it might be able to help us understand how plate tectonics got started on the Earth."

The new study has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets.

Follow Mike Wall on Twitter @michaeldwall and Google+. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook or Google+. Originally published on Space.com.

Output: Scientists at Brown University in Rhode Island believe tectonic activity could be taking place on Jupiter's moon, Europa. Computer models suggest that differing salt levels, rather than temperature fluctuations, are behind the movement, prompting astrobiologists to question whether subduction – planetary plates moving beneath each other – could be capable of supplying essential nutrients to any potential living organisms in the waters below the plates.


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Bacteria from Earth survives in space and on returning astronauts
 The International Space Station is not as squeaky clean as you might think, a new study finds.

The microbes living on the International Space Station (ISS) may be similar to the bacteria found in homes on Earth, a new study shows.

A joint team of professional scientists and citizen scientists from Project MERCCURI (or Microbial Ecology Research Combining Citizen and University Researchers) and the Human Microbiome Project studied swabs taken by astronauts on the orbiting lab. The types of bacteria found in the orbiting laboratory closely resembled those found in homes on Earth, study team members said. [Bacteria in Space Grows in Strange Ways]

David Coil, study author and a microbiologist at the University of California (UC), Davis, said in a statement that humans are "completely surrounded by mostly harmless microbes on Earth, and we see a broadly similar microbial community on the ISS. So [the station] is probably no more or less gross than your living room."

The swabs were collected from 15 locations inside the space station. The station's microbiome (the population of microbes living there) would not have originated in space, but are directly from the astronauts' bodies and anything else sent to the space station from Earth, because the orbiting lab is completely enclosed, the researchers said in the statement.

The study also revealed that the space station's microbiome is very diverse, according to the statement, which indicates that the microbes are healthy.

Microbe swabs from the International Space Station, shown here after returning to Earth in February 2015. The swabs were collected by project MERCCURI (Microbial Ecology Research Combining Citizen and University Researchers). (Image credit: Carl Carruthers)

"The microbiome on the surfaces on the ISS looks very much like the surfaces of its inhabitants, which is not surprising, given that they are the primary source," Jenna Lang, lead author of the study and a former postdoctoral scholar at UC Davis, said. "We were also pleased to see … that the diversity was fairly high, indicating that it did not look like a 'sick' microbial community."

Project MERCCURI involves the work of researchers from UC Davis and other organizations like Science Cheerleader, a group of current and former NFL and NBA cheerleaders pursuing careers in science and technology.

Project MERCCURI team members at Cape Canaveral just before the microbe swabs launched in April 2014. (Image credit: David Coil)

The swabs collected from the space station were compared to data from previous, Earth-based studies, including the Wild Life of Our Homes citizen science project, which examined the microbial diversity found within homes. Researchers also compared the samples from space to surveys of human body sites from the Human Microbiome Project, according to the study.

"Studying the microbial diversity on the ISS is not only of relevance to space exploration but also serves as an important comparison to buildings on Earth, because the ISS has many novel features such as [a] limited influx of microbes," said study author Jonathan Eisen, a professor of medical microbiology and immunology at UC Davis.

The findings were published today (Dec. 5) in the open-access journal PeerJ.

Follow Samantha Mathewson @Sam_Ashley13. Follow us @Spacedotcom, Facebook and Google+. Original article on Space.com.

Output: Scientists from Project Merccuri and the Human Microbiome Project have discovered the microbes on the International Space Station (ISS) are no different from those on Earth. Analysis of swabs taken from 15 locations on the ISS revealed a diverse, healthy microbe population, and study author David Coil said the space station was "probably no more or less gross than your living room".


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Researchers launch oil rig decommissioning simulator
 Aberdeen’s Robert Gordon University (RGU) has launched a state-of-the-art decommissioning simulator to service the growing sector.

The simulator and the associated software is a world-first and will be used to support decommissioning activities in the UK and other parts of the world.

RGU, in collaboration with funding partners The Oil & Gas Technology Centre, KCA Deutag and Drilling Systems, with technical support from Baker Hughes, a GE Company (BHGE), has established the simulator to focus on well-plugging and abandonment (P&A).

P&A is an area which is forecast to cost the UK more than £8 billion over the next decade, with around 2500 wells expected to be decommissioned across the UK, Danish, Dutch and Norwegian Continental Shelves.

The simulator can support both oil and gas operators and service companies with the planning and preparation for well P&A, in a similar way pilots get trained and tested on flight simulators.

The simulator is a truly unique capability for RGU and for the industry and it has the potential to significantly enhance the safety, improve the efficiency and reduce the cost associated with decommissioning oil and gas wells.

RGU’s partnership with The Oil & Gas Technology will also create new opportunities to develop and test technologies, accelerating new solutions in collaboration with the industry and technology providers.

Professor Paul de Leeuw, Director of RGU’s Oil and Gas Institute, believes the development of this unique decommissioning simulator will have numerous benefits for the industry.

He said: “By providing this facility at RGU to simulate well decommissioning, we will ultimately be able to enhance safety and reduce the cost of well P&A.

“Operators and drilling contractors will be able to use the simulator to develop the technical and non-technical skills and capabilities of their rig crews for decommissioning wells, while improving team performance.

“This has been a collaborative approach between RGU, The Oil & Gas Technology Centre, KCA Deutag, Drilling Systems and BHGE, all of whom we have worked extremely closely, which has ensured the smooth delivery of this truly innovative facility.”

Students will also benefit from training and development on the simulator.

Malcolm Banks, Well Construction Solution Centre Manager at the Oil & Gas Technology Centre said: “The Oil & Gas Technology Centre is delighted to be co-funding this exciting new facility that will help companies improve planning for the decommissioning of wells and accelerate technologies to drive efficiency and reduce costs in this growing area of the industry.

“The Centre is working in partnership with the industry and technology providers to develop new solutions that will revolutionise well construction, increase automation, improve integrity and transform plugging and abandonment.

“With 12 well-related projects and field trials ongoing, and many more in the pipeline, state-of-the-art facilities like this decommissioning simulator, are essential as we aim to unlock the full potential of the North Sea and anchor our supply chain in North East Scotland.”

Rune Lorentzen, KCA Deutag President of Offshore and RDS, said: “As a world leading drilling and engineering contractor we continually strive to enhance the skills not only of our own personnel, but those working across the industry. We are therefore delighted to be partnering with RGU as a centre of excellence to launch this innovative new training simulator.”

Clive Battisby, COO Drilling Systems, added: “Working once again with RGU, the new decommissioning simulator shows how our close collaborative partnership and expertise really works to create truly custom cutting edge real-time training simulations and systems.

“In this case using the physical tool data and CAD drawings taken from customer’s real-world downhole tools, has been added into the simulation to create a package of decommissioning tools to allow knowledge and skills to be learnt in a safe learning and very realistic environment.”

Output: Researchers at Robert Gordon University, located in Aberdeen, have developed the world's first oil rig decommissioning simulator. The project was funded by KCA Deutag in conjunction with Drilling Systems and the Oil & Gas Technology Centre and Baker Hughes. The simulator covers well-plugging and abandonment procedures, and will be used to train workers across the globe in the decommissioning field, as well as test theoretical new technologies.


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Bitcoin's huge carbon footprint raises fears as its value rockets
 If you’re like me, you’ve probably been ignoring the bitcoin phenomenon for years — because it seemed too complex, far-fetched, or maybe even too libertarian. But if you have any interest in a future where the world moves beyond fossil fuels, you and I should both start paying attention now.

Last week, the value of a single bitcoin broke the $10,000 barrier for the first time. Over the weekend, the price nearly hit $12,000. At the beginning of this year, it was less than $1,000.

If you had bought $100 in bitcoin back in 2011, your investment would be worth nearly $4 million today. All over the internet there are stories of people who treated their friends to lunch a few years ago and, as a novelty, paid with bitcoin. Those same people are now realizing that if they’d just paid in cash and held onto their digital currency, they’d now have enough money to buy a house.

That sort of precipitous rise is stunning, of course, but bitcoin wasn’t intended to be an investment instrument. Its creators envisioned it as a replacement for money itself — a decentralized, secure, anonymous method for transferring value between people.

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But what they might not have accounted for is how much of an energy suck the computer network behind bitcoin could one day become. Simply put, bitcoin is slowing the effort to achieve a rapid transition away from fossil fuels. What’s more, this is just the beginning. Given its rapidly growing climate footprint, bitcoin is a malignant development, and it’s getting worse.

Cryptocurrencies like bitcoin provide a unique service: Financial transactions that don’t require governments to issue currency or banks to process payments. Writing in the Atlantic, Derek Thompson calls bitcoin an “ingenious and potentially transformative technology” that the entire economy could be built on — the currency equivalent of the internet. Some are even speculating that bitcoin could someday make the U.S. dollar obsolete.

But the rise of bitcoin is also happening at a specific moment in history: Humanity is decades behind schedule on counteracting climate change, and every action in this era should be evaluated on its net impact on the climate. Increasingly, bitcoin is failing the test.

Digital financial transactions come with a real-world price: The tremendous growth of cryptocurrencies has created an exponential demand for computing power. As bitcoin grows, the math problems computers must solve to make more bitcoin (a process called “mining”) get more and more difficult — a wrinkle designed to control the currency’s supply.

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Today, each bitcoin transaction requires the same amount of energy used to power nine homes in the U.S. for one day. And miners are constantly installing more and faster computers. Already, the aggregate computing power of the bitcoin network is nearly 100,000 times larger than the world’s 500 fastest supercomputers combined.

The total energy use of this web of hardware is huge — an estimated 31 terawatt-hours per year. More than 150 individual countries in the world consume less energy annually. And that power-hungry network is currently increasing its energy use every day by about 450 gigawatt-hours, roughly the same amount of electricity the entire country of Haiti uses in a year.

That sort of electricity use is pulling energy from grids all over the world, where it could be charging electric vehicles and powering homes, to bitcoin-mining farms. In Venezuela, where rampant hyperinflation and subsidized electricity has led to a boom in bitcoin mining, rogue operations are now occasionally causing blackouts across the country. The world’s largest bitcoin mines are in China, where they siphon energy from huge hydroelectric dams, some of the cheapest sources of carbon-free energy in the world. One enterprising Tesla owner even attempted to rig up a mining operation in his car, to make use of free electricity at a public charging station.

In just a few months from now, at bitcoin’s current growth rate, the electricity demanded by the cryptocurrency network will start to outstrip what’s available, requiring new energy-generating plants. And with the climate conscious racing to replace fossil fuel-base plants with renewable energy sources, new stress on the grid means more facilities using dirty technologies. By July 2019, the bitcoin network will require more electricity than the entire United States currently uses. By February 2020, it will use as much electricity as the entire world does today.

This is an unsustainable trajectory. It simply can’t continue.

There are already several efforts underway to reform how the bitcoin network processes transactions, with the hope that it’ll one day require less electricity to make new coins. But as with other technological advances like irrigation in agriculture and outdoor LED lighting, more efficient systems for mining bitcoin could have the effect of attracting thousands of new miners.

It’s certain that the increasing energy burden of bitcoin transactions will divert progress from electrifying the world and reducing global carbon emissions. In fact, I’d guess it probably already has. The only question at this point is: by how much?

Output: The value of a bitcoin exceeded $12,000 this week, encouraging speculation that the use of futures will encourage digital currencies to be viewed as a mainstream asset class, as at least two US firms start trading in bitcoin futures this month. However, as Hannah Murphy in the Financial Times highlighted, the rise has hidden dramatic falls en route. Furthermore, a long-term concern about bitcoin is its huge power demands mean renewable energy sources on their own will not be able to supply the cryptocurrency network with sufficient power, meaning new power generation plants potentially using fossil fuels will be needed.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Worst-case predictions for global warming confirmed in new study
 Climate models are sophisticated software simulations that assess how the climate reacts to various influences. For this study, the scientists collected more than a decade’s worth of satellite observations concerning the amount of sunlight reflected back into space by things like clouds, snow, and ice; how much infrared radiation is escaping from Earth; and the net balance between the amount of energy entering and leaving the atmosphere. Then the researchers compared that “top-of-atmosphere” data with the results of earlier climate models to determine which ones most accurately predicted what the satellites actually observed.

The simulations that turned out to most closely match real-world observations of how energy flows in and out of the climate system were the ones that predicted the most warming this century. In particular, the study found, the models projecting that clouds will allow in more radiation over time, possibly because of decreased coverage or reflectivity, “are the ones that simulate the recent past the best,” says Patrick Brown, a postdoctoral research scientist at the Carnegie Institution and lead author of the study. This cloud feedback phenomenon remains one of the greatest areas of uncertainty in climate modeling.

The UN’s seminal IPCC report relies on an assortment of models from various research institutions to estimate the broad ranges of warming likely to occur under four main emissions scenarios. In another key finding, the scientists found that the second-lowest scenario would be more likely to result in the warming previously predicted under the second-highest by 2100. In fact, the world will have to cut another 800 gigatons of carbon dioxide emissions this century for the earlier warming estimates to hold. (By way of comparison, total greenhouse-gas emissions stood at about 49 gigatons last year.)

Various politicians, fossil-fuel interest groups, and commentators have seized on the uncertainty inherent in climate models as reasons to doubt the dangers of climate change, or to argue against strong policy and mitigation responses.

“This study undermines that logic,” Brown says. “There are problems with climate models, but the ones that are most accurate are the ones that produce the most warming in the future.”

In fact, the new paper is the latest in a growing series that project larger impacts than previously predicted or conclude that climate change is unfolding faster than once believed.

The goal of the research was to evaluate how well various climate models work, in hopes of “narrowing the range of model uncertainty and to assess whether the upper or low end of the range is more likely,” Brown wrote in an accompanying blog post.

Ken Caldeira, a climate researcher at Carnegie and coauthor of the paper, says the growing body of real-world evidence for climate change is helping to refine climate models while also guiding scientists toward those that increasingly appear more reliable for specific applications.

But an emerging challenge is that the climate is changing faster than the models are improving, as real-world events occur that the models didn’t predict. Notably, Arctic sea ice is melting more rapidly than the models can explain, suggesting that the simulations aren’t fully capturing certain processes.

“We’re increasingly shifting from a mode of predicting what’s going to happen to a mode of trying to explain what happened,” Caldeira says.

Output: The worst-case projections for global warming appear likely to be correct, according to research by the Carnegie Institution in California. The study compared climate models to real-world observations of how the atmosphere is behaving and concluded that the simulations that were closest to such observations were the ones which predicted the greatest warming. According to the United Nations’ highest prediction for greenhouse-gas concentrates, this could see temperatures rise by almost 5 °C by 2100, 15% hotter than earlier predictions. The research also found that the odds of temperatures rising by over 4 degrees by 2100 rose from 62% to 93%.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Worst-case predictions for global warming confirmed in new study
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Output: The worst-case projections for global warming appear likely to be correct, according to research by the Carnegie Institution in California. The study compared climate models to real-world observations of how the atmosphere is behaving and concluded that the simulations that were closest to such observations were the ones which predicted the greatest warming. According to the United Nations’ highest prediction for greenhouse-gas concentrates, this could see temperatures rise by almost 5 °C by 2100, 15% hotter than earlier predictions. The research also found that the odds of temperatures rising by over 4 degrees by 2100 rose from 62% to 93%.


Instruction: create a high quality summary of the given input

Input:
Vietnam's changing gambling laws could spur new investment
 Top 1: Scrap Mechanic The game begins with you waking up next to a spaceship that's on fire for...

Output: The Vietnamese government's changing attitude towards gambling could bring billions in revenue to the country in the form of casinos. Eight casinos are currently licensed for operation in the country, with six of those currently operational. New casinos will be levied with a luxury tax of 10% for a 10 year period, a preferential rate for both investors and tourists. At present, Vietnamese gamblers contribute $800m to casinos in the Cambodia, Singapore and Macau, which could be redistributed in-country.