An anonymous reader quotes a report from Phys.Org: In a paper published Sept. 3 in Molecular Cell, [Stanley Qi, assistant professor of bioengineering at Stanford University] and his collaborators announce what they believe is a major step forward for CRISPR: An efficient, multi-purpose, mini CRISPR system. Whereas the commonly used CRISPR systems -- with names like Cas9 and Cas12a denoting various versions of CRISPR-associated (Cas) proteins -- are made of about 1000 to 1500 amino acids, their "CasMINI" has 529. The researchers confirmed in experiments that CasMINI could delete, activate and edit genetic code just like its beefier counterparts. Its smaller size means it should be easier to deliver into human cells and the human body, making it a potential tool for treating diverse ailments, including eye disease, organ degeneration and genetic diseases generally. The findings have been published in the journal Molecular Cell.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Berkeley News: Wearing face masks, particularly surgical masks, is truly effective in reducing the spread of COVID-19 in community settings, finds a new study led by researchers from Yale University, Stanford Medical School, the University of California, Berkeley, and the nonprofit Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). The study, which was carried out among more than 340,000 adults living in 600 rural communities in Bangladesh, is the first randomized trial to examine the effectiveness of face masks at reducing COVID-19 in a real-world setting, where mask use may be imperfect and inconsistent.

The results show that increased mask-wearing -- the result of a community-level mask distribution and in-person promotion campaign -- led to a significant reduction in the percentage of people with COVID-19, based on symptom reporting and SARS-CoV-2 antibody testing. The team tested both cloth and surgical masks and found especially strong evidence that surgical masks are effective in preventing COVID-19. In the study, surgical masks prevented one in three symptomatic infections among community members 60 years and older. The findings come at a crucial time in the U.S., when many in-person events have resumed and children -- including those who are under 12 and do not yet qualify for vaccination -- are returning to in-person school. The full press release and study can be found at their respective links.

A new study shows that increases in extreme winter weather in parts of the US are linked to accelerated warming of the Arctic. From a report: The scientists found that heating in the region ultimately disturbed the circular pattern of winds known as the polar vortex. This allowed colder winter weather to flow down to the US, notably in the Texas cold wave in February. The authors say that warming will see more cold winters in some locations. Over the past four decades, satellite records have shown how increasing global temperatures have had a profound effect on the Arctic.

Warming in the region is far more pronounced than in the rest of the world, and has caused a rapid shrinkage of summer sea ice. Scientists have long been concerned about the implications of this amplification of global change for the rest of the planet. This new study indicates that the warming in the Arctic is having a significant impact on winter weather in both North America and East Asia. The researchers detail a complex meteorological chain that connects this warmer region to a rotating pattern of cold air known as the polar vortex. The authors show that the melting of ice in the Barents and Kara seas leads to increased snowfall over Siberia and a transfer of excess energy that impacts the swirling winds in the stratosphere above the North Pole. The heat ultimately causes a stretching of the vortex which then enables extremely cold weather to flow down to the US. There has been an increase in these stretching events since satellite observations began in 1979. The scientists believe this vortex stretching process led to the deadly Texas cold wave in February this year.

John Charap, Emeritus professor of theoretical physics, Queen Mary University of London and Norman Dombey Emeritus, professor of theoretical physics, University of Sussex, writing at The Guardian: Your editorial on quantum physics starts with a quote from Richard Feynman -- "nobody understands quantum mechanics" -- and then says "that is no longer true." One of us (Norman Dombey) was taught quantum theory by Feynman at Caltech; the other (John Charap) was taught by Paul Dirac at Cambridge. Quantum theory was devised by several physicists including Dirac, Erwin Schrodinger and Werner Heisenberg in the 1920s and 1930s, and Dirac made their work relativistic.

It is absurd to say that quantum mechanics is now understood whereas it was not 50 years ago. There have of course been advances in our understanding of quantum phenomena, but the conceptual framework of quantum physics remains as it was. The examples you give of nuclear plants, medical scans and lasers involve straightforward applications of quantum mechanics that were understood 50 years ago. The major advance in the understanding of quantum physics in this period is a theorem of John Bell from Cern, which states that quantum physics cannot be local -- that is to say that it permits phenomena to be correlated at arbitrarily large distances from each other.

This has now been demonstrated experimentally and leads to what is known as quantum entanglement, which is important in the development of quantum computers. But even these ideas were discussed by Albert Einstein and coworkers in 1935. The editorial goes on to say that "subatomic particles do not travel a path that can be plotted." If that were so, how can protons travel at the Large Hadron Collider at Cern and hit their target so that experiments can be performed? We agree with Phillip Ball, who wrote in Physics World that "quantum mechanics is still, a century after it was conceived, making us scratch our heads." There are many speculative proposals in contention but none have consensus support.

India has approved a new COVID vaccine that uses circular strands of DNA to prime the immune system against the virus SARS-CoV-2. Researchers have welcomed news of the first DNA vaccine for people to receive approval anywhere in the world, and say many other DNA vaccines may soon be hot on its heels. From a report: ZyCoV-D, which is administered into the skin without an injection, has been found to be 67% protective against symptomatic COVID-19 in clinical trials, and will likely start to be administered in India this month. Although the efficacy is not particularly high compared to that of many other COVID-19 vaccines, the fact that it is a DNA vaccine is significant, say researchers. It is proof of the principle that DNA vaccines work and can help in controlling the pandemic, says Peter Richmond, a paediatric immunologist at the University of Western Australia in Perth. "This is a really important step forward in the fight to defeat COVID-19 globally, because it demonstrates that we have another class of vaccines that we can use."

Close to a dozen DNA vaccines against COVID-19 are in clinical trials globally, and at least as many again are in earlier stages of development. DNA vaccines are also being developed for many other diseases. "If DNA vaccines prove to be successful, this is really the future of vaccinology" because they are easy to manufacture, says Shahid Jameel, a virologist at Ashoka University in Sonipat, India. The urgency of combating COVID-19 has fast-tracked the development of vaccines that use genetic technology, such as messenger RNA and DNA vaccines, says David Weiner, director of the Vaccine & Immunotherapy Center at the Wistar Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. RNA vaccines were quicker to show strong immune responses in clinical trials; they have now been delivered to hundreds of millions of people around the world. But DNA vaccines have a number of benefits, because they are easy to produce and the finished products are more stable than mRNA vaccines, which typically require storage at very low temperatures.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from CNN: The Perseverance rover successfully drilled into a Martian rock on Thursday, creating an intact core sample that could one day be returned to Earth. But NASA wants better images to make sure the sample is safely in the tube before it's sealed up and stowed on the rover. So far, data sent back by the rover and initial images suggest an intact sample was inside the tube after Perseverance drilled into a rock selected by the mission's science team. After the initial images were taken, the rover vibrated the drill bit and tube for five one-second bursts to clear both of any residual material from outside of the tube. It's possible that this caused the sample to slide down further inside the tube.

The next images taken after this were "inconclusive due to poor sunlight conditions," according to the agency. Perseverance will use its cameras to take more images under better lighting conditions before conducting the next steps of the sampling process. The extra step of taking additional images before sealing and stowing the sample tube was added after Perseverance attempted to drill into another rock target on August 5. During that attempt, the rock crumbled and there was no sample present in the tube once it was stowed.

Perseverance is currently exploring the Citadelle location in Jezero Crater, which -- billions of years ago -- was once the site of an ancient lake. The rover's specific target was a rock called Rochette, which is about the size of a briefcase and is part of a half-mile ridgeline of rock outcrops and boulders. The mission team should receive more images of what's inside the sample tube by September 4. If images taken while the sun is at a better angle don't help the team determine whether a sample is present, the tube will be sealed and the rover will measure its volume. If Perseverance is able to successfully collect samples from Mars, they will be returned to Earth by future missions -- and they could reveal if microbial life ever existed on Mars.

Some scientists believe there is a ninth planet lurking out there in the inky blackness at the edge of the solar system. A new analysis (PDF) supports the notion that there's something out there, and it also narrows the region we need to search if we want to find the contentious Planet Nine. ExtremeTech reports: Astronomers started talking seriously about a ninth planet in 2016 when Caltech's Mike Brown and Konstantin Batygin published a study detailing the unusual orbital behavior of Kuiper Belt Objects (KBOs). These icy chunks of rock orbit the sun out beyond the orbit of Neptune. Pluto might not be a planet anymore, but it was the first KBO ever discovered. According to the original study, the uneven distribution of orbits among KBOs points to the presence of a massive object in the outer solar system. All searches for this planet have come up empty, though. While some astronomers believe Planet Nine is a good explanation for KBO orbits, there has also been intense criticism of the study. Now, Brown and Batygin are back with a new analysis that aims to address some of those complaints. Chiefly, other scientists noted that it's difficult to observe KBOs, so many searches focus on the more convenient regions of the sky. Thus, we could simply be looking a biased data.

The Planet Nine duo kept some of the original KBOs in the new data set, but it also includes new space rocks. They also discarded any object that appeared to be influenced by Neptune's gravity. The updated set of 11 KBOs still shows an unusual orbital distribution. The study claims there is just a 0.4 percent chance that these orbits are a coincidence. A greater than 99 percent chance that there is a massive object affecting KBOs sounds high, but it's actually lower than the chance assigned to Planet Nine in the original 2016 study. You could argue, of course, that this is a much more realistic number.

Based on the new simulations, Batygin has created a "treasure map" of sorts that points the way to Planet Nine's most likely orbital arc. That expansive area crosses the luminous plane of the Milky Way, which might have helped Planet Nine hide from previous searches. This includes a chance in the expected orbit, bringing Planet Nine in closer to Earth. The original analysis estimated it has an orbital period of 18,500 Earth years, but now it's believed to be in the neighborhood of 7,400 Earth years. The pair believe we are only a few years away from spotting Planet Nine, and it may be the upcoming Vera Rubin Observatory in Chile.

"The US Federal Aviation Administration has grounded Virgin Galactic flights as it investigates how Sir Richard Branson's recent space flight drifted off course during its climb skyward," reports the BBC. The New Yorker first broke the news about Branson's flight veering off course in a piece published yesterday. Virgin Galactic has strongly disputed the article. From the BBC: The rocket plane Unity which carried Sir Richard into space landed safely and Virgin Galactic says it is co-operating with the FAA. In a short statement, the FAA said it was overseeing the Virgin Galactic investigation of its "July 11 SpaceShipTwo mishap that occurred over Spaceport America, New Mexico." "Virgin Galactic may not return the SpaceShipTwo vehicle to flight until the FAA approves the final mishap investigation report or determines the issues related to the mishap do not affect public safety," it added. In its statement issued before the FAA announcement, Virgin Galactic spoke of "misleading characterizations and conclusions" in the New Yorker article and vowed to push ahead with its flight program.

Thursday saw it announce details of its next mission -- a research flight for the Italian Air Force. This was likely to be conducted at the end of September or in early October, a Virgin Galactic spokesperson told BBC News. And it now looks like the Unity's next mission is to be put on hold. [...] This is meant to take aloft three Italian nationals - Walter Villadei and Angelo Landolfi from the Italian Air Force; and Pantaleone Carlucci, an Italian national research council engineer. The three men plan to conduct 13 experiments during the flight, and in particular during those few minutes of weightlessness they'll experience at the top of Unity's climb.

Under the plan, the Italians are to be supervised in the back of the rocket plane by Virgin Galactic's chief astronaut instructor, Beth Moses. If and when it happens, it will be her third mission to the edge of space. After this mission, Virgin Galactic is expected to enter an extended period of maintenance and upgrades for both Unity and its carrier/launch plane, known as Eve. If the schedule is not disrupted by the latest FAA ban, these vehicles are expected to resume space missions by the middle of next year. The company said one further test outing would be conducted before full commercial service began, probably in the second half of 2022. Some 600 individuals put down deposits a number of years ago to buy seat tickets costing $200,000-250,000. Tickets sales resumed last month with prices from $450,000 per seat.

Nicholas Schmidle writes via the New Yorker: On July 11th, nearly a minute into the rocket trip carrying Richard Branson, the British billionaire, to space, a yellow caution light appeared on the ship's console. The craft was about twenty miles in the air above the White Sands Missile Range, in New Mexico, and climbing, traveling more than twice the speed of sound. But it was veering off course, and the light was a warning to the pilots that their flight path was too shallow and the nose of the ship was insufficiently vertical. If they didn't fix it, they risked a perilous emergency landing in the desert on their descent. [...] Virgin Galactic's space vehicle is unique among its competitors. Whereas SpaceX and Blue Origin operate traditional, vertical-launch rockets that are automated by engineers, Virgin Galactic uses a piloted, winged rocket ship. Every test flight is crewed, which makes each one a matter of life and death. The success of Virgin Galactic's program, therefore, will ultimately depend on its pilots, high-calibre but nonetheless fallible, making the right decisions and adjustments in specific moments -- like when a yellow caution light comes on.

Alerts on the console can be triggered by any number of issues. On the July 11th flight, with Branson on board, it was a trajectory problem, or what's known as the "entry glide cone." The ship uses rocket power to get into space, but glides back to Earth and lands on a runway, like the space shuttle would do. This method, mimicking water circling a drain, enables a controlled descent. But the ship must begin its descent within a specified, imaginary "cone" to have enough glide energy to reach its destination. The pilots basically weren't flying steeply enough. Not only was the ship's trajectory endangering the mission, it was also imperiling the ship's chances of staying inside its mandated airspace.

The rocket motor on Virgin Galactic's ship is programmed to burn for a minute. On July 11th, it had a few more seconds to go when a red light also appeared on the console: an entry glide-cone warning. This was a big deal. I once sat in on a meeting, in 2015, during which the pilots on the July 11th mission -- Dave Mackay, a former Virgin Atlantic pilot and veteran of the U.K.'s Royal Air Force, and Mike Masucci, a retired Air Force pilot -- and others discussed procedures for responding to an entry glide-cone warning. C. J. Sturckow, a former marine and nasa astronaut, said that a yellow light should "scare the shit out of you," because "when it turns red it's gonna be too late." Masucci was less concerned about the yellow light but said, "Red should scare the crap out of you." Based on pilot procedures, Mackay and Masucci had basically two options: implement immediate corrective action, or abort the rocket motor. According to multiple sources in the company, the safest way to respond to the warning would have been to abort. (A Virgin Galactic spokesperson disputed this contention.)

Aborting at that moment, however, would have dashed Branson's hopes of beating his rival Bezos, whose flight was scheduled for later in the month, into space. Mackay and Masucci did not abort. Whether or not their decision was motivated by programmatic pressures and the hopes of their billionaire bankroller sitting in the back remains unclear. Virgin Galactic officials told me that the firm's top priority is the safety of its crew and passengers. Branson, however, is known for his flamboyance and showmanship. [...] Fortunately for Branson and the three other crew members in the back, the pilots got the ship into space and landed safely. But data retrieved from Flightradar24 shows the vehicle flying outside its designated airspace. An F.A.A. spokesperson confirmed that Virgin Galactic "deviated from its Air Traffic Control clearance" and that an "investigation is ongoing." Virgin Galactic described the July 11th flight as "a safe and successful test flight that adhered to our flight procedures and training protocols." The statement added, "When the vehicle encountered high altitude winds which changed the trajectory, the pilots and systems monitored the trajectory to ensure it remained within mission parameters. Our pilots responded appropriately to these changing flight conditions exactly as they have been trained and in strict accordance with our established procedures."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Live Science: A 23-year-old student in Germany can shrink and enlarge his pupils on demand, according to a new case report -- a feat that was previously thought to be impossible. Two tiny opposing muscles in the eye act as puppeteers of each pupil (the dark center of the eye), dilating or enlarging them in a dark environment to let in more light and constricting them in a bright environment to limit the amount of light that flows in. This process was thought to be completely automatic; when you step into a dark room, you don't have to consciously tell your pupils to change size. Pupils can also change size in response to other factors, such as increases in arousal. It was previously known that some people can change their pupil size at will, but by using indirect methods.

[N]o one thought it was possible to change pupil size by directly controlling it like a muscle -- that is, until a student of psychology at Ulm University in Germany contacted Strauch after taking one of his courses. (Strauch was previously a doctoral student at Ulm University). When he was about 15 or 16 years old, the young man -- identified in the case report by his initials, D.W. -- realized that he could change the size of his pupils. "I showed a friend that I can 'tremble' with my eyeballs, and he noticed that my pupils became small," D.W. told Strauch and his colleagues at Ulm University. But D.W. didn't notice that he had this ability until he played computer games for long periods of time. "Constricting the pupil feels like gripping, tensing something; making it larger feels like fully releasing, relaxing the eye," D.W. told the researchers.

Through a series of tests, the researchers confirmed that D.W. indeed had this ability -- and they found no indication that he was changing the size of his pupils indirectly. In one test, the researchers measured the electrical properties of the skin by applying voltage to test whether he was aroused by increased mental effort, which also might have increased his pupil size indirectly. Without using any indirect method, D.W. could dilate his pupils up to 0.09 inches (2.4 millimeters) in diameter and constrict them to 0.03 inches (0.88 mm) in diameter. What's more, even at the closest point an object can be for the eye to still see it in focus, in which the pupil is already "maximally" constricted, D.W. could voluntarily constrict his pupil even more. By doing this, D.W. improved his focus and could see objects clearly nearly two times closer to his face than he could if he wasn't controlling his pupil size. Using a type of brain scan known as functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), the researchers found increased activation of certain parts of the brain involved in volition, or the ability to decide and do something out of free will. The researchers can't say for sure that D.W. was directly controlling his pupils, but from their many tests, they did not find any evidence that he was using indirect strategies. The findings were published in the International Journal of Psychophysiology.

Ivermectin is making the rounds again online after Joe Rogan casually mentioned he took the drug after testing positive for COVID-19. Some researchers claim it helps treat symptoms of the virus; others, including the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have yet to make that determination. "While there are approved uses for ivermectin in people and animals, it is not approved for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19," the FDA says in a FAQ.

So where did this drug come from and why have people been using it to try and treat COVID-19? WFAA, an ABC-affiliated television station licensed to Dallas, Texas, helps answer those questions: In the 1970s, Japanese biochemist Satoshi Omura discovered the avermectin family of compounds, which are a series of drugs used to treat parasites and insect pests. Ivermectin is one of these drugs. Ivermectin has a mixture of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen. It was modified and first introduced as medicine in 1981. It soon became registered around the world to treat parasitic worms in cattle, sheep, and other animals. It can be taken as a pill or applied to the skin depending on why it's needed.

By 1988, ivermectin was approved as a medical treatment in humans. This "wonder drug," as many called it, was prescribed to treat illnesses, which include head lice, scabies, river blindness (onchocerciasis), strongyloidiasis, trichuriasis, ascariasis, and lymphatic filariasis. Since its discovery, ivermectin has been used by more than 700 million people in the world specifically to treat river blindness and lymphatic filariasis, according to a National Institutes of Health study.

A medical study led by Dr. Ahmed Elgazzar in Egypt was published in November 2020. It said that hospitalized patients with COVID-19 who received this antiparasitic drug improved more quickly and had a better chance of staying alive. It was retracted in July. Multiple medical agencies -- including the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and National Institutes of Health (NIH) -- have been unable to find any evidence this drug helps with COVID-19. The CDC put out a press release in August, making clear that ivermectin is not authorized or approved by the FDA for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19. In that same CDC press release, health experts also warned about the dangers that can come from taking ivermectin incorrectly.

Studies of the simplest possible clocks have revealed their fundamental limitations -- as well as insights into the nature of time itself. Natalie Wolchover, writing for Quanta Magazine: [...] Over the past five years, through studies of the simplest conceivable clocks, the researchers have discovered the fundamental limits of timekeeping. They've mapped out new relationships between accuracy, information, complexity, energy and entropy -- the quantity whose incessant rise in the universe is closely associated with the arrow of time. These relationships were purely theoretical until this spring, when the experimental physicist Natalia Ares and her team at the University of Oxford reported measurements of a nanoscale clock that strongly support the new thermodynamic theory.

Nicole Yunger Halpern, a quantum thermodynamicist at Harvard University who was not involved in the recent clock work, called it "foundational." She thinks the findings could lead to the design of optimally efficient, autonomous quantum clocks for controlling operations in future quantum computers and nanorobots. The new perspective on clocks has already provided fresh fodder for discussions of time itself. "This line of work does grapple, in a fundamental way, with the role of time in quantum theory," Yunger Halpern said. Gerard Milburn, a quantum theorist at the University of Queensland in Australia who wrote a review paper last year about the research on clock thermodynamics, said, "I don't think people appreciate just how fundamental it is."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Jon Brodkin: Over 135 subreddits have gone dark this week in protest of Reddit's refusal to ban communities that spread misinformation about the COVID pandemic and vaccines. Subreddits that went private include two with 10 million or more subscribers, namely r/Futurology and r/TIFU. The PokemonGo community is one of 15 other subreddits with at least 1 million subscribers that went private; another 15 subreddits with at least 500,000 subscribers also went private. They're all listed in a post on "r/VaxxHappened" which has been coordinating opposition to Reddit management's stance on pandemic misinformation. More subreddits are being added as they join the protest.

Last week, the moderators of over 450 subreddits joined an open letter urging Reddit to "take action against the rampant Coronavirus misinformation on their website," saying that subreddits existing "solely to spread medical disinformation and undermine efforts to combat the global pandemic should be banned." Reddit published a response defending its stance, saying it will continue to allow "debate" and "dissent" on vaccines and other COVID-related matters even when it "challenge[s] consensus views."

"We appreciate that not everyone agrees with the current approach to getting us all through the pandemic, and some are still wary of vaccinations. Dissent is a part of Reddit and the foundation of democracy," the company said. Reddit does draw a line somewhere, as it said it will continue to take action against communities "dedicated to fraud (e.g. fake vaccine cards) or encouraging harm (e.g. consuming bleach)." But in general, Reddit said, "we believe it is best to enable communities to engage in debate and dissent, and for us to link to the CDC wherever appropriate."

Researchers from the University of South Wales found that over just one season a team of professional rugby players saw a decline in blood flow to the brain and cognitive function -- the ability to reason, remember, formulate ideas and perform mental gymnastics. The paper also suggests that rather than only concussions, repetitive contacts, or sub concussions, sustained through rugby have caused the declines seen in the players. The BBC reports: Some studies suggest professional rugby players may be exposed to 11,000 contact events per season, and more research is beginning to show evidence that it may not be concussions alone that could impact the brain, but the cumulative effect and volume of contact events too. The peer reviewed University of South Wales study, which is funded by the Royal Society Wolfson Research Fellowship, recorded six concussion incidents among all the players that took part over the course of the year. However, all of those involved in the study saw a decline in blood flow to the brain and cognitive function between pre and post-season results.

Further findings include a correlation between an increase in contact amount, playing position and rate of decline on the main measures tested. The university team are also working on a similar study, comparing current players and retired players against a control group to determine whether there is a faster rate of decline in brain function in rugby players. They say more research is needed on the long term effects of such a decline. In a statement responding to the University of South Wales research, the sport's governing body World Rugby said: "World Rugby welcomes all research that can inform and support our recently launched strategy to cement rugby as the most progressive sport on player welfare. It is at the heart of everything that we say and do as a sport. World Rugby recently committed to double our investment in player welfare and new concussion research and initiatives. We are currently undertaking a wide-ranging evaluation of contact training volume across the game and look forward to the results of the ongoing Otago Rugby Community Head Impact Detection study using instrumented mouthguards, which is the largest study of playing and training head impacts in men's and women's community rugby."

An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica, written by Tim De Chant: Nearly a decade ago, Theranos touted a revolutionary diagnostic device that could run myriad medical tests without having to draw blood through a needle. Today, the startup's founder, Elizabeth Holmes, goes to court, where she's facing 12 criminal counts for statements she made to investors and consumers about her company's technology. Holmes founded Theranos in 2003 after dropping out of Stanford University at the age of 19. Driven by her phobia of needles, Holmes wanted to create diagnostic tests that use blood from finger pricks rather than from needles. The idea caught on, attracting well-connected board members like Henry Kissinger and James Mattis, drawing over $400 million in investments from wealthy investors including Larry Ellison and Rupert Murdoch, and securing lucrative partnerships with Walgreens and Safeway. At its peak, Theranos was worth over $9 billion. But Theranos' myth started unwinding in 2015 when a Wall Street Journal investigation revealed that the company had been performing most of its tests on traditional blood diagnostic machines rather than its own "Einstein" device. The company's own employees doubted the machine's accuracy.

Holmes and [Ramesh "Sunny" Balwani, Theranos' president and chief operating officer] were indicted in June 2018, and soon Theranos was facing mounting civil and criminal investigations. The company settled a Securities and Exchange Commission probe and shut down shortly thereafter. The end of Theranos didn't halt the scrutiny of Holmes' and Balwani's behavior, though. Three rounds of indictments have brought the total to 10 counts of wire fraud and two counts of conspiracy to commit wire fraud. The latest indictment, which supersedes the previous two, was filed in June 2020. Both Holmes and Balwani have pleaded not guilty, and Balwani's trial will begin next year. The indictments aren't limited to claims about the company's proprietary diagnostic machine but also include what Holmes and Balwani allegedly said to investors about revenue and business deals. The prosecution says the pair told investors that Theranos would bring in over $100 million in revenue in 2014, helping the company break even, and hit $1 billion in 2015, amounts that exceeded the executives' actual expectations. Prosecutors also say that the pair falsely told investors that the company landed contracts with the Pentagon.

The road to trial has been filled with delays, first due to the COVID-19 pandemic and then again when Holmes became pregnant. Her child was born in July, around the time the trial was supposed to begin. If convicted, Holmes faces up to 20 years in prison. Today's proceedings kick off jury selection, in which prosecutors and defense attorneys will begin questioning over 100 potential jurors. [...] Opening statements are scheduled to begin on September 8, and the trial may run through mid-December. Holmes is expected to claim that Balwani, who was her boyfriend for much of Theranos' existence, was an abusive and controlling partner. A court filing released on Saturday revealed that Holmes is expected to take the stand during the trial and allege that he monitored her calls, texts, and emails and was physically violent, claims that Balwani denies. Her attorneys say these actions affected her "state of mind" when the alleged fraud took place.

A new generation of detectors let scientists identify a dozen large episodes of bioluminescence, one a hundred times larger than Manhattan -- and that's the smallest. From a report: The ocean has always glowed. The Greeks and Romans knew of luminous sea creatures as well as the more general phenomenon of seawater that can light up in bluish-green colors. Charles Darwin, as he sailed near South America on a dark night aboard the H.M.S. Beagle, encountered luminescent waves. He called it "a wonderful and most beautiful spectacle." As far as the eye could see, he added, "the crest of every wave was bright" -- so much so that the "livid flames" lit the sky. Now, scientists report that ocean bioluminescence can be so intense and massive in scale that satellites orbiting five hundred miles high can see glowing mats of microorganisms as they materialize in the seas. Last month in the journal Scientific Reports, eight investigators told of finding a luminous patch south of Java in 2019 that grew to be larger than the combined areas of Vermont, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Connecticut.

"It was an epiphany," said Steven D. Miller, lead author on the bioluminescence study and a specialist in satellite observations at Colorado State University. When a hidden wonder of nature comes to light, he added, "it captures your imagination." The scientists said the close examination of images gathered between December 2012 and March 2021 from a pair of satellites let them identify a dozen extremely large events -- approximately one every eight months. Even the smallest was a hundred times larger than Manhattan. The imagery is opening a new window on the world's oceans, scientists say, and promises to aid the tracking and study of the glowing seas, whose origins are poorly understood. Kenneth H. Nealson, a pioneer of bioluminescence research at the University of Southern California, called the discovery "a big step toward being able to understand" how an enduring mystery of the sea "actually comes to be."

Toxic PFAS compounds are contaminating the air inside homes, classrooms and stores at alarming levels, a new study has found. From a report: Researchers with the University of Rhode Island and Green Science Policy Institute tested indoor air at 20 sites and detected the "forever chemicals" in 17 locations. The airborne compounds are thought to break off of PFAS-treated products such as carpeting and clothing and attach to dust or freely float through the indoor environment. Experts previously considered food and water to be the two main routes by which humans are exposed to PFAS, but the study's authors note that many humans spend about 90% of their time indoors, and the findings suggest that breathing in the chemicals probably represents a third significant exposure route. "It's an underestimated and potentially important source of exposure to PFAS," said Tom Bruton, a co-author and senior scientist at Green Science.

PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, are a class of about 9,000 compounds used to make products water-, stain- or heat-resistant. Because they are so effective, the chemicals are used across dozens of industries and are in thousands of everyday consumer products such as stain guards, carpeting and shoes. Textile manufacturers use them to produce waterproof clothing, and they are used in floor waxes, nonstick cookware, food packaging, cosmetics, firefighting foam and much more. PFAS are dubbed "forever chemicals" because they do not naturally break down. They accumulate in animals, including humans, and are linked to cancer, birth defects, liver disease, thyroid disease, decreased immunity, hormone disruption and a range of other serious health problems. A February Guardian analysis of household products found fluorine, an indicator of PFAS, present in 15 items. The chemicals are so widely used that it is difficult to say with precision where all the airborne PFAS are coming from, though the new study also detected their presence in carpets and clothing at some sites.

sciencehabit shares a report from Science Magazine, written by Adam Mann: Like the Greek god Chronos, a good number of stars devour their children. As many as one-third of them have swallowed one or more of their own planets, a new study suggests. The findings could help astronomers rule out stellar systems unlikely to contain Earth-like worlds. The team investigated how often this happens by looking at 107 binary systems containing two Sun-like stars -- akin to the fictional two-sunned world Tatooine in Star Wars. In 33 of these pairs, one of the companions showed elevated levels of iron compared with the other, a sign of planetary cannibalism. These same partners were also rich in lithium, giving further credence to the world-munching hypothesis. Although Sun-like stars are born with substantial amounts of lithium, they burn it away within the first 100 million years of their lives, so seeing it in the older stars in the study sample indicated it likely came from a planet. Using these different lines of evidence, the team was able to model that between 20% and 35% of Sun-like stars consume a few Earths' worth of their offspring. Such events could happen in systems where gravitational interactions among the planets would either fling one into the central star or bring it close enough for the star to slowly vaporize and devour it. The findings have been published in the journal Nature Astronomy.

Mr.Fork shares a report from Live Science: Russian cosmonauts discovered cracks on the Zarya module of the International Space Station (ISS) and are concerned that the fissures could spread over time, a senior space official reported on Monday. "Superficial fissures have been found in some places on the Zarya module," Vladimir Solovyov, chief engineer of rocket and space corporation Energia, told RIA news agency, according to Reuters. "This is bad and suggests that the fissures will begin to spread over time." The Zarya module, also called the Functional Cargo Block, was the first component of the ISS ever launched, having blasted into orbit on Nov. 20, 1998, according to NASA. Solovyov recently stated that the ISS is beginning to show its age and warned that there could potentially be an "avalanche" of broken equipment after 2025, according to Reuters.

Tens of millions of older Americans who cannot afford dental care -- with severe consequences for their overall health, what they eat and even when they smile -- may soon get help as Democrats maneuver to add dental benefits to Medicare for the first time in its history. From a report: The proposal, part of the large budget bill moving through Congress, would be among the largest changes to Medicare since its creation in 1965 but would require overcoming resistance from dentists themselves, who are worried that it would pay them too little.