United News of Bangladesh

King Felipe VI of Spain on Monday inaugurated the Mobile World Congress (MWC)-2023, an annual get-together of the big players of the telecom industry.  Some 80,000 delegates are expected at the four-day get-together of all the industrial titans, which is back to near full strength following years of pandemic-related disruption.  The Spanish King inaugurated the congress in front of about one and a half million people in Barcelona. The country’s president Prado Sanchez also attended the opening ceremony. One of the aspects of this year’s event is the addition of ‘Velocity’, the outline of an upcoming smart world. Velocity is a global initiative by the telecom industries around the world which is the centre of focus in this year’s Mobile World Congress (MWC).  According to the velocity initiative, nearly one billion people will be connected to the 5G network by the end of 2023. Countries around the world are expected to come under smart technologies from next year.  The initiative was taken to ensure that no country is left behind on the way forward to digital transformation.  In a world divided by culture, ethnicity, and language, the velocity initiative also aims to bridge the gap among the people around the world.  Hundreds of thousands of tech enthusiasts from more than 200 countries attended the opening ceremony of the event. At the ceremony, King Felipe called on everyone to ensure the humane use of technology for the future.  “We will go further with technology. However, innovators and service providers need to be aware that their  technology doesn't dehumanize people and turn them into heartless machines,” he said.  The telecom industry giants have pledged to be at the forefront of the "tsunami of innovation." "We are at the doors of a new change of era driven by the intersection of Telco, Computing, Artificial Intelligence and Web3," said Jose Maria Alvarez-Pallete, boss of Spanish operator Telefonica and current chairman of industry body GSMA, which organizes the Barcelona event. He promised the telecoms industry would be at the forefront of the "tsunami of innovation", adding: "Without telcos there is no digital future." GSMA Chairman said, the purpose of this year's Mobile World Congress is a little different than before, which is reflected in the main theme. This year's main theme is to ensure the use of information technology to build a world free from poverty This year's Mobile World Congress has the exhibition center of ten thousand companies from almost two hundred countries. Industrial titans like Huawei, Nokia and Samsung are set to showcase their latest innovations, flanked by smartphone makers like Oppo and Xiaomi and network operators like Orange, Verizon, and China Mobile.  The world is now gripped by a fear that the machine is leading to the destruction of human civilization. Tech giants from around the world said they are working on humanizing the machines. They’re also showing people how technology is changing people's lives and the pattern of work. According to the innovators attending the conference, it is now necessary for people to learn about new technologies. Technology will not replace people’s jobs, rather it will make their work easier, they said.     

Energy Secretary Jennifer Granholm was set to announce a “major scientific breakthrough” Tuesday in the decades-long quest to harness fusion, the energy that powers the sun and stars. Researchers at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California for the first time produced more energy in a fusion reaction than was used to ignite it, something called net energy gain, according to one government official and one scientist familiar with the research. Both spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the breakthrough ahead of the announcement. Granholm was scheduled to appear alongside Livermore researchers at a morning event in Washington. The Department of Energy declined to give details ahead of time. The news was first reported by the Financial Times. Read: NASA’s newest moon rocket lifts off 50 years after Apollo Proponents of fusion hope that it could one day produce nearly limitless, carbon-free energy, displacing fossil fuels and other traditional energy sources. Producing energy that powers homes and businesses from fusion is still decades away. But researchers said it was a significant step nonetheless. “It’s almost like it’s a starting gun going off,” said Professor Dennis Whyte, director of the Plasma Science and Fusion Center at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a leader in fusion research. “We should be pushing towards making fusion energy systems available to tackle climate change and energy security.” Net energy gain has been an elusive goal because fusion happens at such high temperatures and pressures that it is incredibly difficult to control. Fusion works by pressing hydrogen atoms into each other with such force that they combine into helium, releasing enormous amounts of energy and heat. Unlike other nuclear reactions, it doesn’t create radioactive waste. Billions of dollars and decades of work have gone into fusion research that has produced exhilarating results — for fractions of a second. Previously, researchers at the National Ignition Facility, the division of Lawrence Livermore where the success took place, used 192 lasers and temperatures multiple times hotter than the center of the sun to create an extremely brief fusion reaction. The lasers focus an enormous amount of heat on a small metal can. The result is a superheated plasma environment where fusion may occur. Read: Top 10 Health and Medicine Breakthroughs of 2021 Riccardo Betti, a professor at the University of Rochester and expert in laser fusion, said an announcement that net energy had been gained in a fusion reaction would be significant. But he said there’s a long road ahead before the result generates sustainable electricity. He likened the breakthrough to when humans first learned that refining oil into gasoline and igniting it could produce an explosion. “You still don’t have the engine and you still don’t have the tires,” Betti said. “You can’t say that you have a car.” The net energy gain achievement applied to the fusion reaction itself, not the total amount of power it took to operate the lasers and run the project. For fusion to be viable, it will need to produce significantly more power and for longer. It is incredibly difficult to control the physics of stars. Whyte said it has been challenging to reach this point because the fuel has to be hotter than the center of the sun. The fuel does not want to stay hot -- it wants to leak out and get cold. Containing it is an incredible challenge, he said. Net energy gain isn’t a huge surprise from the California lab because of progress it had already made, according to Jeremy Chittenden, a professor at Imperial College in London specializing in plasma physics. “That doesn’t take away from the fact that this is a significant milestone,” he said. It takes enormous resources and effort to advance fusion research. One approach turns hydrogen into plasma, an electrically charged gas, which is then controlled by humongous magnets. This method is being explored in France in a collaboration among 35 countries called the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor as well as by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a private company. Last year the teams working on those projects in two continents announced significant advancements in the vital magnets needed for their work.

NASA’s new moon rocket blasted off on its debut flight with three test dummies aboard early Wednesday, bringing the U.S. a big step closer to putting astronauts back on the lunar surface for the first time since the end of the Apollo program 50 years ago. If all goes well during the three-week, make-or-break shakedown flight, the rocket will propel an empty crew capsule into a wide orbit around the moon, and then the capsule will return to Earth with a splashdown in the Pacific in December. After years of delays and billions in cost overruns, the Space Launch System rocket thundered skyward, rising from Kennedy Space Center on 8.8 million pounds (4 million kilograms) of thrust and hitting 100 mph (160 kph) within seconds. The Orion capsule was perched on top, ready to bust out of Earth orbit toward the moon not quite two hours into the flight. The moonshot follows nearly three months of vexing fuel leaks that kept the rocket bouncing between its hangar and the pad. Forced back indoors by Hurricane Ian at the end of September, the rocket stood its ground outside as Nicole swept through last week with gusts of more than 80 mph (130 kph). Although the wind peeled away a 10-foot (3-meter) strip of caulking high up near the capsule, managers gave the green light for the launch. NASA expected 15,000 to jam the launch site, with thousands more lining the beaches and roads outside the gates, to witness NASA’s long-awaited sequel to Project Apollo, when 12 astronauts walked on the moon from 1969 and 1972. Crowds also gathered outside NASA centers in Houston and Huntsville, Alabama, to watch the spectacle on giant screens. Cheers accompanied the rocket as it rode a huge trail of flame toward space, with a half-moon glowing brightly and buildings shaking as though hit by a major quake. “For the Artemis generation, this is for you,” launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson called out, referring to all those born after Apollo. The liftoff marked the start of NASA’s Artemis lunar-exploration program, named after Apollo’s mythological twin sister. The space agency is aiming to send four astronauts around the moon on the next flight, in 2024, and land humans there as early as 2025. “You have earned your place in history,” Blackwell-Thompson told her team following liftoff. “You’re part of a first. Doesn’t come along very often. Once in a career maybe. But we are all part of something incredibly special: the first launch of Artemis. The first step in returning our country to the moon and on to Mars.” The 322-foot (98-meter) SLS is the most powerful rocket ever built by NASA, with more thrust than either the space shuttle or the mighty Saturn V that carried men to the moon. A series of hydrogen fuel leaks plagued the summertime launch attempts as well as countdown tests. A fresh leak erupted at a new location during Tuesday night’s fueling, but an emergency team managed to tighten the faulty valve on the pad. Then a U.S. Space Force radar station went down, resulting in another scramble, this time to replace an ethernet switch. Orion should reach the moon by Monday, more than 230,000 miles (370,000 kilometers) from Earth. After coming within 80 miles (130 kilometers) of the moon, the capsule will enter a far-flung orbit stretching about 40,000 miles (64,000 kilometers) beyond. The $4.1 billion test flight is set to last 25 days, roughly the same as when crews will be aboard. The space agency intends to push the spacecraft to its limits and uncover any problems before astronauts strap in. The mannequins — NASA calls them moonequins — are fitted with sensors to measure such things as vibration, acceleration and cosmic radiation. “There’s a fair amount of risk with this particular initial flight test,” said mission manager Mike Sarafin. The rocket was supposed to have made its dry run by 2017. Government watchdogs estimate NASA will have spent $93 billion on the project by 2025. Ultimately, NASA hopes to establish a base on the moon and send astronauts to Mars by the late 2030s or early 2040s. But many hurdles still need to be cleared. The Orion capsule will take astronauts only to lunar orbit, not the surface. NASA has hired Elon Musk’s SpaceX to develop Starship, the 21st-century answer to Apollo’s lunar lander. Starship will carry astronauts back and forth between Orion and the lunar surface, at least on the first trip in 2025. The plan is to station Starship and eventually other companies’ landers in orbit around the moon, ready for use whenever new Orion crews pull up. Reprising an argument that was made during the 1960s, Duke University historian Alex Roland questions the value of human spaceflight, saying robots and remote-controlled spacecraft could get the job done more cheaply, efficiently and safely. “In all these years, no evidence has emerged to justify the investment we have made in human spaceflight — save the prestige involved in this conspicuous consumption,” he said. NASA is waiting until this test flight is over before introducing the astronauts who will be on the next one and those who will follow in the bootsteps of Apollo 11′s Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. Most of NASA’s corps of 42 active astronauts and 10 trainees were not even born yet when Apollo 17 moonwalkers Gene Cernan and Harrison Schmitt closed out the era, 50 years ago next month. “We are jumping out of our spacesuits with excitement,” astronaut Christina Koch said Tuesday. After a nearly yearlong space station mission and all-female spacewalk, Koch, 43, is on NASA’s short list for a lunar flight. So is astronaut Kayla Barron, 35, who finally got to witness her first rocket launch, not counting her own a year ago. “It took my breath away, and I was tearing up,” Barron said. “What an amazing acccomplishment for this team.”

A NASA spacecraft rammed an asteroid at blistering speed Monday in an unprecedented dress rehearsal for the day a killer rock menaces Earth. The galactic slam occurred at a harmless asteroid 7 million miles (11.3 million kilometers) away, with the spacecraft named Dart plowing into the space rock at 14,000 mph (22,500 kph). Scientists expected the impact to carve out a crater, hurl streams of rocks and dirt into space and, most importantly, alter the asteroid’s orbit. “We have impact!” Mission Control's Elena Adams announced, jumping up and down and thrusting her arms skyward. Telescopes around the world and in space aimed at the same point in the sky to capture the spectacle. Though the impact was immediately obvious — Dart’s radio signal abruptly ceased — it will take as long as a couple of months to determine how much the asteroid’s path was changed. The $325 million mission was the first attempt to shift the position of an asteroid or any other natural object in space. “As far as we can tell, our first planetary defense test was a success,” Adams later told a news conference, the room filling with applause. “I think Earthlings should sleep better. Definitely, I will.” NASA Administrator Bill Nelson reminded people earlier in the day via Twitter that, “No, this is not a movie plot.” He added in a prerecorded video: ”We’ve all seen it on movies like ‘Armageddon,’ but the real-life stakes are high." Monday’s target: a 525-foot (160-meter) asteroid named Dimorphos. It’s a moonlet of Didymos, Greek for twin, a fast-spinning asteroid five times bigger that flung off the material that formed the junior partner. The pair have been orbiting the sun for eons without threatening Earth, making them ideal save-the-world test candidates. Launched last November, the vending machine-size Dart — short for Double Asteroid Redirection Test — navigated to its target using new technology developed by Johns Hopkins University’s Applied Physics Laboratory, the spacecraft builder and mission manager. Dart’s on-board camera, a key part of this smart navigation system, caught sight of Dimorphos barely an hour before impact. “Woo hoo!” exclaimed Adams, a mission systems engineer at Johns Hopkins. With an image beaming back to Earth every second, Adams and other ground controllers in Laurel, Maryland, watched with growing excitement as Dimorphos loomed larger and larger in the field of view alongside its bigger companion. Within minutes, Dimorphos was alone in the pictures; it looked like a giant gray lemon, but with boulders and rubble on the surface. The last image froze on the screen as the radio transmission ended. Flight controllers cheered, hugged one another and exchanged high fives. Their mission complete, the Dart team went straight into celebration mode. There was little sorrow over the spacecraft's demise. “Normally, losing signal from a spacecraft is a very bad thing. But in this case, it was the ideal outcome,” said NASA program scientist Tom Statler. Johns Hopkins scientist Carolyn Ernst said the spacecraft was definitely “kaput," with remnants possibly in the fresh crater or cascading into space with the asteroid's ejected material. Scientists insisted Dart would not shatter Dimorphos. The spacecraft packed a scant 1,260 pounds (570 kilograms), compared with the asteroid’s 11 billion pounds (5 billion kilograms). But that should be plenty to shrink its 11-hour, 55-minute orbit around Didymos. The impact should pare 10 minutes off that. The anticipated orbital shift of 1% might not sound like much, scientists noted. But they stressed it would amount to a significant change over years. “Now is when the science starts,” said NASA’s Lori Glaze, planetary science division director. “Now we’re going to see for real how effective we were.” Planetary defense experts prefer nudging a threatening asteroid or comet out of the way, given enough lead time, rather than blowing it up and creating multiple pieces that could rain down on Earth. Multiple impactors might be needed for big space rocks or a combination of impactors and so-called gravity tractors, not-yet-invented devices that would use their own gravity to pull an asteroid into a safer orbit. “The dinosaurs didn’t have a space program to help them know what was coming, but we do,” NASA’s senior climate adviser Katherine Calvin said, referring to the mass extinction 66 million years ago believed to have been caused by a major asteroid impact, volcanic eruptions or both. The non-profit B612 Foundation, dedicated to protecting Earth from asteroid strikes, has been pushing for impact tests like Dart since its founding by astronauts and physicists 20 years ago. Monday’s feat aside, the world must do a better job of identifying the countless space rocks lurking out there, warned the foundation’s executive director, Ed Lu, a former astronaut. Significantly less than half of the estimated 25,000 near-Earth objects in the deadly 460-foot (140-meter) range have been discovered, according to NASA. And fewer than 1% of the millions of smaller asteroids, capable of widespread injuries, are known. The Vera Rubin Observatory, nearing completion in Chile by the National Science Foundation and U.S. Energy Department, promises to revolutionize the field of asteroid discovery, Lu noted. Finding and tracking asteroids, “That’s still the name of the game here. That’s the thing that has to happen in order to protect the Earth,” he said.

NASA’s new moon rocket sprang another dangerous fuel leak Saturday, forcing launch controllers to call off their second attempt this week to send a crew capsule into lunar orbit with test dummies. The inaugural flight is now off for weeks, if not months. The previous try on Monday at launching the 322-foot (98-meter) Space Launch System rocket, the most powerful ever built by NASA, was also troubled by hydrogen leaks, though they were smaller. That was on top of leaks detected during countdown drills earlier in the year. After the latest setback, mission managers decided to haul the rocket off the pad and into the hangar for further repairs and system updates. Some of the work and testing may be performed at the pad before the rocket is moved. Either way, several weeks of work will be needed, according to officials. With a two-week launch blackout period looming in just a few days, the rocket is now grounded until late September or October. NASA will work around a high-priority SpaceX astronaut flight to the International Space Station scheduled for early October. Read: Fuel leak ruins NASA's 2nd shot at launching moon rocket NASA Administrator Bill Nelson stressed that safety is the top priority, especially on a test flight like this where everyone wants to verify the rocket's systems “before we put four humans up on the top of it.” "Just remember: We’re not going to launch until it’s right," he said. NASA already has been waiting years to send the crew capsule atop the rocket around the moon. If the six-week demo succeeds, astronauts could fly around the moon in 2024 and land on it in 2025. People last walked on the moon 50 years ago. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and her team had barely started loading nearly 1 million gallons of fuel into the Space Launch System rocket at daybreak when the large leak cropped up in the engine section at the bottom. Ground controllers tried to plug it the way they handled previous, smaller leaks: stopping and restarting the flow of super-cold liquid hydrogen in hopes of closing the gap around a seal in the supply line. They tried that twice, in fact, and also flushed helium through the line. But the leak persisted. Blackwell-Thompson finally halted the countdown after three to four hours of futile efforts. Mission manager Mike Sarafin told journalists it was too early to tell what caused the leak, but it may have been due to inadvertent over-pressurization of the hydrogen line earlier in the morning when someone sent commands to the wrong valve. Read: NASA aims for Saturday launch of new moon rocket after fixes “This was not a manageable leak,” Sarafin said, adding that the escaping hydrogen exceeded flammability limits by two or three times. During Monday's attempt, a series of small hydrogen leaks popped up there and elsewhere on the rocket. Technicians tightened up the fittings over the following days, but Blackwell-Thompson had cautioned that she wouldn't know whether everything was tight until Saturday's fueling. Hydrogen molecules are exceedingly small — the smallest in existence — and even the tiniest gap or crevice can provide a way out. NASA's space shuttles, now retired, were plagued by hydrogen leaks. The new moon rocket uses the same type of main engines. Even more of a problem Monday was that a sensor indicated one of the rocket's four engines was too warm, though engineers later verified it actually was cool enough. The launch team planned to ignore the faulty sensor this time around and rely on other instruments to ensure each main engine was properly chilled. But the countdown never got that far. Thousands of people who jammed the coast over the long Labor Day weekend, hoping to see the Space Launch System rocket soar, left disappointed. The $4.1 billion test flight is the first step in NASA's Artemis program of renewed lunar exploration, named after the twin sister of Apollo in Greek mythology. Years behind schedule and billions over budget, Artemis aims to establish a sustained human presence on the moon, with crews eventually spending weeks at a time there. It’s considered a training ground for Mars. Twelve astronauts walked on the moon during the Apollo program, the last time in 1972.

A fuel leak interrupted NASA's launch countdown for its new moon rocket early Monday, reappearing in the same place that saw seepage during a dress rehearsal back in the spring. Launch controllers halted the tanking operation, which already was running an hour late because of thunderstorms offshore. They slowly resumed the process to confirm that it was, indeed, a hydrogen fuel leak and not faulty sensors, but alarms forced another temporary pause as precious minutes in the countdown ticked away. The 322-foot (98-meter) rocket is the most powerful ever built my NASA, out-muscling even the Saturn V that carried astronauts to the moon a half-century ago. This test flight, if successful, would put a crew capsule into lunar orbit for the first time in 50 years. No astronauts were inside the Orion capsule atop the rocket at NASA's Kennedy Space Center. Instead, three test dummies were strapped in for the lunar-orbiting mission, expected to last six weeks. Even with no one on board, thousands of people jammed the coast to see the Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket soar. Vice President Kamala Harris flew into Orlando with her husband, but had yet to make the hourlong drive to Cape Canaveral for the planned liftoff. The next launch attempt wouldn’t be until Friday at the earliest. Read: NASA tests new moon rocket, 50 years after Apollo Hydrogen fuel leaks marred NASA's countdown test back in April, prompting a slew of repairs. The demo was repeated with more success in June, but that, too, experienced some leakage. Managers said they would not know for certain whether the fixes were good until attempting to load the rocket's tanks with nearly 1 million gallons of super-cold fuel on Monday. Launch director Charlie Blackwell-Thompson and her team also had to deal with a communication issue involving the Orion capsule. Engineers scrambled to understand an 11-minute delay in the communication lines between Launch Control and Orion that cropped up late Sunday. Although the problem had cleared by Monday morning, NASA needed to know why it occurred before committing to launch. This first flight of NASA's 21st-century moon-exploration program, named Artemis after Apollo's mythological twin sister, is years overdue. Repeated delays have led to billions in budget overruns; this demo alone costs $4.1 billion. Assuming the test goes well, astronauts would climb aboard for the second flight and fly around the moon and back as soon as 2024. A two-person lunar landing could follow by the end of 2025. NASA is targeting the moon's south pole. During Apollo, 12 astronauts landed on the moon from 1969 through 1972, with stays of no more than a few days. NASA is looking to establish a lunar base during Artemis, with astronauts rotating in and out for weeks at a time. The next step would be Mars, possibly in the late 2030s or early 2040s.

Chinese phone maker Xiaomi has unveiled a full-sized humanoid robot named CyberOne. Fitted with advanced legs and arms, the robot supports bipedal-motion posture balancing and has a peak torque of 300Nm. Xiaomi claims CyberOne can detect human emotions and even create 3D visual representations of the world. Read: Humanoid robot made by Cumilla students turns heads "CyberOne's AI and mechanical capabilities are all self-developed by Xiaomi Robotics Lab. We have invested heavily in research and development spanning various areas, including software, hardware, and algorithms innovation," Lei Jun, the founder, chairman and CEO of Xiaomi Group, said. The company revealed that CyberOne weighs 52kg and has a height of 177cm and an arm span of 168cm. Compared to a quadruped robot, this humanoid robot is more mechanically complex, requiring more powerful motors, more degrees of freedom, and complex humanoid biped control algorithms.   Read Robot artist sells art for $688,888, now eyeing music career Xiaomi's humanoid robot CyberOne reportedly has 21 degrees of freedom in motion with a real-time response speed of 0.5ms for each degree, allowing it to easily simulate human movements.

Chinese telecom giant Huawei recently launched a new suite of green development solutions at the online programme Win-Win Huawei Innovation Week. The solutions are aimed at helping operators systematically improve network energy efficiency as ICT infrastructure continues to evolve from 5G and F5G to 5.5G and F5.5G, green networks. Read Huawei partners with Golden Harvest Also, it will help operators systematically build green networks that simultaneously address traffic growth and carbon emission reduction, according to a media statement. "Technological innovation is required at three levels," Huawei Carrier Business Group Chief Marketing Officer Philip Song said. Read: Huawei Bangladesh to recruit 60 fresh graduates "Firstly, to move sites fully outdoors, and increase equipment energy efficiency and the efficiency of using renewable energy; secondly, to maximise energy efficiency and make networks all-optical, simplified, and intelligent; and thirdly to achieve green O&M, new O&M and energy-saving policies more easily."

SpaceX launched four astronauts to the International Space Station for NASA on Wednesday, less than two days after completing a flight chartered by millionaires. It’s the first NASA crew comprised equally of men and women, including the first Black woman making a long-term spaceflight, Jessica Watkins. “This is one of the most diversified, I think, crews that we’ve had in a really, really long time,” NASA’s space operations mission chief Kathy Lueders said on the eve of launch. The astronauts were due to arrive at the space station Wednesday night, 16 hours after their predawn liftoff from Kennedy Space Center. They will spend five months at the orbiting lab. SpaceX has now launched five crews for NASA and two private trips in just under two years. Elon Musk’s company is having an especially busy few weeks: It just finished taking three businessmen to and from the space station as NASA’s first private guests. Also read: SpaceX’s Elon Musk: 1st orbital Starship flight maybe March A week after the new crew arrives, the three Americans and German they’re replacing will return to Earth in their own SpaceX capsule. Three Russians also live at the space station. Both SpaceX and NASA officials stressed they’re taking it one step at a time to ensure safety. The private mission that concluded Monday encountered no major problems, they said, although high wind delayed the splashdown for a week. SpaceX Launch Control wished the astronauts good luck and Godspeed moments before the Falcon rocket blasted off with the capsule, named Freedom by its crew. “Our heartfelt thank you to every one of you that made this possible. Now let Falcon roar and Freedom ring,” radioed NASA astronaut Kjell Lindgren, the commander. Minutes later, their recycled booster had landed on an ocean platform and their capsule was safely orbiting Earth. “It was a great ride,” he said. The SpaceX capsules are fully automated — which opens the space gates to a broader clientele — and they’re designed to accommodate a wider range of body sizes. At the same time, NASA and the European Space Agency have been pushing for more female astronauts. While two Black women visited the space station during the shuttle era, neither moved in for a lengthy stay. Watkins, a geologist who is on NASA’s short list for a moon-landing mission in the years ahead, sees her mission as “an important milestone, I think, both for the agency and for the country.” She credits supportive family and mentors — including Mae Jemison, the first Black woman in space in 1992 — for “ultimately being able to live my dream.” Also cheering Watkins on was another geologist: Apollo 17′s Harrison Schmitt, who walked on the moon in 1972. She invited the retired astronaut to the launch, along with his wife. “We sort of consider ourselves the Jessica team,” he said, chuckling “Those of us who rode the Saturn V into space are a little bit jaded about the smaller rockets,” Schmitt said after the SpaceX liftoff. “But still, it really was something and on board was a geologist ... I hope it will stand her in good stead for being part of one of the Artemis crews that go to the moon.” Also read: SpaceX’s Musk: 1st Starship test flight to orbit in January Like Watkins, NASA astronaut and test pilot Bob Hines is making his first spaceflight. It’s the second visit for the European Space Agency’s lone female astronaut, Samantha Cristoforetti, a former Italian Air Force fighter pilot, and Lindgren, a physician. The just-completed private flight was NASA’s first dip into space tourism after years of opposition. The space agency said the three people who paid $55 million each to visit the space station blended in while doing experiments and educational outreach. They were accompanied by a former NASA astronaut employed by Houston-based Axiom Space, which arranged the flight. “The International Space Station is not a vacation spot. It’s not an amusement park. It is an international laboratory, and they absolutely understood and respected that purpose,” said NASA flight director Zeb Scoville. NASA also hired Boeing to ferry astronauts after retiring the shuttles. The company will take another shot next month at getting an empty crew capsule to the space station, after software and other problems fouled a 2019 test flight and prevented a redo last summer.

Never before has the world been so captivated by the most ordinary steps of scientific research. But, over the last two years, each incremental step forward in science—from lab research to better understand COVID-19's development and build a vaccine to combat it, to clinical trials, to pharmaceutical approval—has meant one thing: hope. That's what our list of the finest health breakthroughs of 2021 focuses on. Best Innovations of 2021 in Medical Science Here are the top ten innovations that the world has seen in the field of health and medicine. Gene Therapy to Cure Haemoglobinopathies Hemoglobinopathies are hereditary illnesses that impair the structure or synthesis of the hemoglobin molecule, which is the red protein that transports oxygen throughout the body. Sickle cell disease and thalassemia are two of the most prevalent hemoglobinopathies. Each year, more than 330,000 infants are born throughout the globe with these illnesses. In the United States alone, more than 100,000 people have sickle cell disease. As a consequence of the most recent study into hemoglobinopathies, experimental gene treatment has been produced. This treatment should allow persons with thalassemia to produce functional hemoglobin molecules, reducing the presence of sickle blood cells or inefficient red blood cells. It will be able to avoid the difficulties linked with these conditions in this manner. Read Top 10 Greatest Science Breakthroughs of 2021 Cure for Primary Progressive Sclerosis Multiple sclerosis is an autoimmune illness in which the immune system assaults the nerve fibers' protective fatty myelin layer. This assault causes issues with communication between the brain and the rest of the body, which may lead to irreversible damage, degeneration, and death. Approximately 15% of MS patients acquire a main progressive form of the illness. This subcategory of the illness is characterized by a consistent progression of signs and symptoms and a gradual development. The first and only therapy for MS in the primary-progressive MS population is a new therapeutic monoclonal antibody authorized by the FDA with a unique target. Easier Cancer Detection Process The key to battling cancer is early diagnosis, yet just a few procedures (Pap smears, mammograms, lung exams, and colonoscopies) can identify cancer at its most treatable stages. That's why a new technique that scans a blood sample for DNA fragments from more than 50 different cancers is causing such a stir. Read Top 10 Free Image Editor Apps in 2022 The Galleri test notifies a clinician whether a patient has a sickness signal and which organ it originates from. The test helped detect 29 individuals who didn't realize they had malignancies of the lung, ovary, rectum, neck, breast, and pancreatic, among other cancers, according to preliminary data from a clinical study involving 6,000 people over 50. Fertility Testing Innovation Home fertility tests have been available for a while, but most only test for one hormone in the urine. The new OVA tool, which is endorsed by Mount Sinai Hospital in New York, measures two to better define your "do it now" timeframe. The first, luteinizing hormone, is produced before the release of an egg, whereas the second, progesterone, is released shortly after ovulation. The precision of tracking both of them increases to the point where it approaches that of blood testing. Smart pacemakers Pacemakers give electrical impulses to the chambers of the heart muscle to contract and pump blood to the body in order to prevent or correct arrhythmias. Traditionally, these implanted devices have allowed for remote monitoring through a console at the bedside that sends data to the doctor in charge of the patient's care. Read Top 10 In-demand Tech Skills Freshers Should Learn in 2022 Despite the fact that millions of people utilize these devices, many still don't comprehend how they operate. Connecting these devices to a smartphone app would help patients to acquire a better knowledge of their cardiac therapy while also sending important data to their physicians. PARP Inhibitors Pharmacological inhibitors disrupt proteins called PARPs that help repair damaged tumor DNA in persons with mutations in the BRCA1 and BRCA2 genes and are well-known for their effectiveness in women's cancer. Two of them have been found to slow the growth of prostate cancer in individuals with refractory disease and DNA repair pathway abnormalities. Trachea Transplant Several surgeons led a huge team to execute the world's first successful trachea transplant, offering hope to patients throughout the globe and future therapies for people on ventilators. Although it seemed to be a simple object at first glance, since it looks like a tube, it turns out to be a very complicated organ system. Read Game-based Programming: Best Coding Games for Children Hepatitis C Cure Hepatitis C, dubbed a "hidden epidemic" by the CDC, is one of the most serious public health issues in the United States. Cirrhosis, liver failure, and liver cancer are all severe concerns for anyone infected with the virus, and they may all be fatal. There are medications available to treat the disorder. However, they have been shown to be ineffective in certain genotypes of the disease or to have unfavorable side effects in others. A new FDA-approved treatment option, a fixed-dose combination of medications, has been demonstrated to be more than 90% successful in treating hepatitis C, making it a viable choice for a broader number of patients. Artificial Intelligence for Human Health The Mount Sinai Health System has launched the first-of-its-kind Artificial Intelligence in the Human Health Department, led by Thomas Fuchs, DSc, and Dennis Charney, MD, Dean of the Icahn School of Medicine. According to Dr. Fuchs, "If you're serious about this, you'll need computer scientists to collaborate with doctors on the front lines. One of the critical reasons why big tech has failed in health care is that you can't simply toss artificial intelligence over the fence into a hospital and expect it to function. It must emerge from systems like ours." Read Best Flagship Smartphones Released in 2021 COVID Impact Reduction The impact of COVID on everyday functioning lasted at least a year in those who had it for a long time. "Our study, as well as those of others, has shown that this has an effect on people's capacity to organize, process information, and do their daily work obligations," Dr. Putrino continued. "They suffer significant memory loss and an inability to form new memories, as well as speaking problems." Bottom Line With the pandemic still looming, a spate of major and modest health achievements occurred in 2021, including the use of ground-breaking CRISPR gene-editing technology, the World Health Organization's approval of the first malaria vaccine, and novel cardiac therapies. In the medical area, there are many more inventions to unbox in the next year. Read Why You Don’t Need an Expensive Flagship Phone Anymore?