Kitty Oppenheimer: Can you explain quantum mechanics to me?

J. Robert Oppenheimer: Well, this glass, this drink, this counter top, uhh.. our bodies, all of it. It's mostly empty space. Groupings of tiny energy waves bound together.

Kitty Oppenheimer: By what?

J. Robert Oppenheimer: Forces of attraction strong enough to convince us [that] matter is solid, to stop my body passing through yours.

— IMDB quote from Oppenheimer


Flash forward to 2023, where Mario Barbatti is a theoretical chemist and physicist researching light and molecule interactions. He's also a professor of chemistry at Aix Marseille University in France. Writing this week for Aeon, Barbatti argues that "there are no empty spaces within the atom.

"The empty atom picture is likely the most repeated mistake in popular science." It is unclear who created this myth, but it is sure that Carl Sagan, in his classic TV series Cosmos (1980), was crucial in popularising it. After wondering how small the nuclei are compared with the atom, Sagan concluded that "[M]ost of the mass of an atom is in its nucleus; the electrons are by comparison just clouds of moving fluff. Atoms are mainly empty space. Matter is composed chiefly of nothing." I still remember how deeply these words spoke to me when I heard them as a kid in the early 1980s. Today, as a professional theoretical chemist, I know that Sagan's statements failed to recognise some fundamental features of atoms and molecules...

Misconceptions feeding the idea of the empty atom can be dismantled by carefully interpreting quantum theory, which describes the physics of molecules, atoms and subatomic particles. According to quantum theory, the building blocks of matter — like electrons, nuclei and the molecules they form — can be portrayed either as waves or particles. Leave them to evolve by themselves without human interference, and they act like delocalised waves in the shape of continuous clouds. On the other hand, when we attempt to observe these systems, they appear to be localised particles, something like bullets in the classical realm. But accepting the quantum predictions that nuclei and electrons fill space as continuous clouds has a daring conceptual price: it implies that these particles do not vibrate, spin or orbit. They inhabit a motionless microcosmos where time only occasionally plays a role...

A molecule is a static object without any internal motion. The quantum clouds of all nuclei and electrons remain absolutely still for a molecule with a well-defined energy. Time is irrelevant... Time, however, comes into play when a molecule collides with another one, triggering a chemical reaction. Then, a storm strikes. The quantum steadiness bursts when the sections of the electronic cloud pour from one molecule upon another. The clouds mix, reshape, merge, and split. The nuclear clouds rearrange to accommodate themselves within the new electronic configuration, sometimes even migrating between molecules. For a fraction of a picosecond (10-12 seconds or a billionth of a millisecond), the tempest rages and reshapes the molecular landscape until stillness is restored in the newly formed compounds.

Long-time Slashdot reader SonicSpike shares a new perspective on sunspots (those dark, cool areas where the sun's magnetic field is particularly strong, and which often launch solar flares).

"NASA's Perseverance Mars rover has given us a sneak peek of an intriguing patch of the sun that's not yet visible from Earth," reports Space.com: Perseverance photographs the sun daily with its Mastcam-Z camera system to gauge the amount of dust in the Martian atmosphere. Such an effort captured a big sunspot moving across the solar disk late last week and over the weekend, as SpaceWeather.com reported. "Because Mars is orbiting over the far side of the sun, Perseverance can see approaching sunspots more than a week before we do," SpaceWeather.com wrote in a post highlighting the sunspot photos. "Consider this your one-week warning: A big sunspot is coming...."

Solar flares and coronal mass ejections that hit Earth can affect satellite navigation and disrupt power grids, among other things, so tracking the movement of sunspots is more than just of academic interest.

An anonymous reader shared this report from the Washington Post: Most research shows that over-the-counter fish oil supplements don't offer cardiovascular benefits, but that hasn't stopped marketers from touting them for heart health, a new study shows.

The sale of fish oil supplements is a multibillion-dollar industry, and many people take fish oil capsules daily, believing the omega-3 fatty acids they contain are good for their overall health, particularly for their heart. While it's true people who eat seafood regularly are less likely to die of heart disease, studies have not shown that taking fish oil as a supplement offers the same benefit. Even so, fish oil marketers continue to make health claims that imply a wide range of benefits, according to a study published Wednesday in JAMA Cardiology.

The researchers analyzed labels from more than 2,000 fish oil supplements that made health claims. They found more than 80 percent used what is known as a "structure and function claim," which is a general description that describes the role of omega-3 fatty acids in the body — such as "promotes heart health" or "supports heart, mind and mood." Cardiovascular health claims, which accounted for 62 percent, were most common.

Fish oil contains two omega-3 fatty acids, EPA and DHA, found naturally in fatty fish such as salmon. Higher levels of these omega-3s have been associated with a lower risk of cardiovascular disease, but the observational findings are based on omega-3 levels in the diet, not from supplement use, some experts say. Two recent large clinical trials showed that over-the-counter fish oil supplements do not improve cardiovascular outcomes. But the vagueness of the wording used by fish oil marketers could lead to misinformation about the role of the dietary supplement, said Ann Marie Navar, associate professor of cardiology at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, who was senior author of the study.
Navar says in the article "It is true that omega-3 fatty acids are present in the brain and are important for all sorts of brain functions.

"What has not been consistently shown with high-quality trials is that taking more of it in the form of a fish oil supplement leads to improved performance or prevention of disease."

A European study reveals that around 90% of eco-friendly paper straws contain "forever chemicals" called PFAS, which do not easily break down and can accumulate in the body, potentially causing health issues. New Atlas reports: "Forever chemicals" is the colloquial name given to a class of more than 12,000 chemicals, more formally known as poly- and perfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), that barely break down in the environment or in our bodies. Hence, the "forever" part. [...] The researchers tested 39 different brands of straws made from paper, glass, bamboo, stainless steel, and plastic, and analyzed them for 29 different PFAS compounds. The majority of brands tested (69%) contained PFAS, with 18 different PFAS detected in total. Paper straws were most likely to contain PFAS, with the chemicals detected in 90% of the brands tested, albeit in highly variable concentrations. Perfluorooctanoic acid (PFOA), a compound linked to high cholesterol, a reduced immune response, thyroid disease and increased kidney and testicular cancer, was most frequently detected. PFOA has been banned globally since 2020. Also detected were trifluoroacetic acid (TFA) and trifluoromethanesulfonic acid (TFMS), ultra-short-chain PFAS that are highly water-soluble and so might leach out of straws into drinks.

Bamboo straws fared only slightly better than paper ones, with PFAS found in 80% of brands tested. The chemicals were found in 75% of plastic straws and 40% of glass brands. PFAS were not detected in any of the steel straws tested. The PFAS concentrations were low and, the researchers say, pose a small risk to human health. However, the problem with PFAS is that they're bioaccumulative, meaning they can build up over time because they're absorbed but not excreted. The researchers say that while the study did not determine whether PFAS were added to the straws or were the result of contamination -- for example, from the soil in which the plant-based materials are grown -- the presence of the chemicals in almost every brand of paper straw means it's likely that, in some cases, PFAS were used as a water-repellent coating. The study also did not examine whether PFAS leached out of the straws into the liquid they were sitting in. To be safe, the researchers suggest people start using stainless steel straws, or ditch straws altogether. The study was published in the journal Food Additives and Contaminants.

SpaceX says it successfully test-fired the booster for its next Starship launch, although that liftoff may still be weeks away. SpaceNews reports: SpaceX fired the Raptor engines in the Super Heavy booster designated Booster 9 in a static-fire test at its Starbase test site in Boca Chica, Texas, at approximately 1:35 p.m. Eastern Aug. 25. SpaceX said it conducted a "full duration" firing, which appeared to last about five to six seconds. SpaceX later stated that all 33 engines successfully ignited, although two shut down prematurely. "Congratulations to the SpaceX team on this exciting milestone!"

The company did not state if that performance was sufficient for it to proceed with a launch attempt, but it was better than an earlier test of the same booster Aug. 6. That test ended early, after the engines fired for less than three seconds, with four of the Raptors shutting down prematurely. If SpaceX is satisfied with the outcome of the test, it is likely one of the final technical milestones before it is ready for a second integrated Starship/Super Heavy launch. The first, April 20, failed four minutes after liftoff when several Raptor engines in the Super Heavy booster shut down and vehicle later lost control and tumbled.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Conversation: The Y chromosome is a never-ending source of fascination (particularly to men) because it bears genes that determine maleness and make sperm. It's also small and seriously weird; it carries few genes and is full of junk DNA that makes it horrendous to sequence. However, new "long-read" sequencing techniques have finally provided a reliable sequence from one end of the Y to the other. The paper describing this Herculean effort has been published in Nature. The findings provide a solid base to explore how genes for sex and sperm work, how the Y chromosome evolved, and whether -- as predicted -- it will disappear in a few million years. [...]

Spoiler alert -- the Y turns out to be just as weird as we expected from decades of gene mapping and the previous sequencing. A few new genes have been discovered, but these are extra copies of genes that were already known to exist in multiple copies. The border of the pseudoautosomal region (which is shared with the X) has been pushed a bit further toward the tip of the Y chromosome. We now know the structure of the centromere (a region of the chromosome that pulls copies apart when the cell divides), and have a complete readout of the complex mixture of repetitive sequences in the fluorescent end of the Y.

But perhaps the most important outcome is how useful the findings will be for scientists all over the world. Some groups will now examine the details of Y genes. They will look for sequences that might control how SRY and the sperm genes are expressed, and to see whether genes that have X partners have retained the same functions or evolved new ones. Others will closely examine the repeated sequences to determine where and how they originated, and why they were amplified. Many groups will also analyze the Y chromosomes of men from different corners of the world to detect signs of degeneration, or recent evolution of function. It's a new era for the poor old Y.

echo123 shares a report from SciTechDaily: Researchers have discovered that graphene naturally allows proton transport, especially around its nanoscale wrinkles. This finding could revolutionize the hydrogen economy by offering sustainable alternatives to existing catalysts and membranes. [...] In a recent publication in the journal Nature, a joint effort between the University of Warwick, spearheaded by Prof. Patrick Unwin, and The University of Manchester, led by Dr. Marcelo Lozada-Hidalgo and Prof. Andre Geim, presented their findings on this matter. Using ultra-high spatial resolution measurements, they conclusively demonstrated that perfect graphene crystals indeed allow proton transport. In a surprising twist, they also found that protons are strongly accelerated around nanoscale wrinkles and ripples present in the graphene crystal.

This groundbreaking revelation carries immense significance for the hydrogen economy. The current mechanisms for generating and using hydrogen often rely on costly catalysts and membranes, some of which have notable environmental impacts. Replacing these with sustainable 2D crystals like graphene could play a pivotal role in advancing green hydrogen production, subsequently reducing carbon emissions and aiding the shift towards a Net Zero carbon environment. [...] The team is optimistic about how this discovery can pave the way for novel hydrogen technologies. Dr. Lozada-Hidalgo said, "Exploiting the catalytic activity of ripples and wrinkles in 2D crystals is a fundamentally new way to accelerate ion transport and chemical reactions. This could lead to the development of low-cost catalysts for hydrogen-related technologies."

One of the world's biggest scientific publishers has retracted a journal article that claimed to have found no evidence of a climate crisis. From a report: Springer Nature said it had retracted the article, by four Italian physicists, after an internal investigation found the conclusions were "not supported by available evidence or data provided by the authors." Climate sceptic groups widely publicised the article, which appeared in the European Physical Journal Plus in January 2022 -- a journal not known for publishing climate change science.

Nine months later the article was reported uncritically in a page one story in the Australian newspaper and promoted in two segments on Sky News Australia -- a channel that has been described as a global hub for climate science misinformation. The segments were viewed more than 500,000 times on YouTube. The article claimed to have analysed data to find no trend in rainfall extremes, floods, droughts and food productivity. "In conclusion on the basis of observational data, the climate crisis that, according to many sources, we are experiencing today, is not evident yet," the article said.

Several climate scientists told the Guardian and later the news agency AFP that the article had misrepresented some scientific articles, was "selective and biased" and had "cherrypicked" information. After those concerns were raised, Springer Nature announced in October it was investigating the article. In a statement Springer Nature said its editors had launched a "thorough investigation," which included a post-publication review by subject matter experts. The authors of the article also submitted an addendum to their original work during the course of the investigation, the statement said.

According to a team of researchers from RMIT University in Australia, coffee grounds can be used as a silica substitute in the concrete production process to yield a significantly stronger chemical bond than sand alone. Engadget reports: "The disposal of organic waste poses an environmental challenge as it emits large amounts of greenhouse gases including methane and carbon dioxide, which contribute to climate change," lead author of the study, Dr Rajeev Roychand of RMIT's School of Engineering, said in a recent release. He notes that Australia alone produces 75 million kilograms of used coffee grounds each year, most of which ends up in landfills. Coffee grounds can't simply be mixed in raw with standard concrete as they won't bind with the other materials due to their organic content, Dr. Roychand explained. In order to make the grounds more compatible, the team experimented with pyrolyzing the materials at 350 and 500 degrees C, then substituting them in for sand in 5, 10, 15 and 20 percentages (by volume) for standard concrete mixtures.

The team found that at 350 degrees is perfect temperature, producing a "29.3 percent enhancement in the compressive strength of the composite concrete blended with coffee biochar," per the team's study, published in the September issue of Journal of Cleaner Production. "In addition to reducing emissions and making a stronger concrete, we're reducing the impact of continuous mining of natural resources like sand," Dr. Roychand said.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A severely paralyzed woman has been able to speak through an avatar using technology that translated her brain signals into speech and facial expressions. The latest technology uses tiny electrodes implanted on the surface of the brain to detect electrical activity in the part of the brain that controls speech and face movements. These signals are translated directly into a digital avatar's speech and facial expressions including smiling, frowning or surprise. The patient, a 47-year-old woman, Ann, has been severely paralyzed since suffering a brainstem stroke more than 18 years ago. She cannot speak or type and normally communicates using movement-tracking technology that allows her to slowly select letters at up to 14 words a minute. She hopes the avatar technology could enable her to work as a counsellor in future.

The team implanted a paper-thin rectangle of 253 electrodes on to the surface of Ann's brain over a region critical for speech. The electrodes intercepted the brain signals that, if not for the stroke, would have controlled muscles in her tongue, jaw, larynx and face. After implantation, Ann worked with the team to train the system's AI algorithm to detect her unique brain signals for various speech sounds by repeating different phrases repeatedly. The computer learned 39 distinctive sounds and a Chat GPT-style language model was used to translate the signals into intelligible sentences. This was then used to control an avatar with a voice personalized to sound like Ann's voice before the injury, based on a recording of her speaking at her wedding.

The technology was not perfect, decoding words incorrectly 28% of the time in a test run involving more than 500 phrases, and it generated brain-to-text at a rate of 78 words a minute, compared with the 110-150 words typically spoken in natural conversation. However, scientists said the latest advances in accuracy, speed and sophistication suggest the technology is now at a point of being practically useful for patients. A crucial next step is to create a wireless version of the BCI that could be implanted beneath the skull. The findings have been published in the journal Nature.

India has become the first country to land a spacecraft on the moon's south pole. It launched Chandrayaan-3 in mid-July, with the spacecraft entering the moon's orbit on Aug. 5. Earlier this week, Russia crashed its Luna-25 rocket in the same lunar region. From a report: It's notoriously difficult to land a rover on the moon. Russia's Luna-25 crashed while making an attempt just this week, while Japanese company ispace failed to land an unmanned lander in April.â 1 Since the moon has no atmosphere, landers can't just softly touch down on the lunar surface. And, without GPS capabilities, scientists rely on the lander's computers to accurately identify where the spacecraft will touch down. India is only the fourth country to pull off a moon landing, behind the U.S., China, and Russia. The nation's lunar aspirations are part of a push by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to garner investments for private space exploration and satellite launches. Speaking at the rocket's launch in July, Modi heralded a "new chapter" in India's space program.

A two-year human trial conducted by James Cook University (JCU) has concluded, demonstrating positive results using low-dose human hookworm therapy to treat chronic conditions, particularly in relation to type 2 diabetes. New Atlas reports: [O]f the 24 participants who received worms, when offered a dewormer at the end of the second year of the trial, with the option to stay in the study for another 12 months, only one person chose to kill off their gut buddies -- and it was only because they had an impending planned medical procedure. "All trial participants had risk factors for developing cardiovascular disease and type 2 diabetes," said Dr Doris Pierce, from JCU's Australian Institute of Tropical Health and Medicine (AITHM). "The trial delivered some considerable metabolic benefits to the hookworm-treated recipients, particularly those infected with 20 larvae."

In this double-blinded trial, 40 participants aged 27 to 50, with early signs of metabolic diseases, took part. They received either 20 or 40 microscopic larvae of the human hookworm species Necator americanus; another group took a placebo. As an intestinal parasite, the best survival skill is to keep the host healthy, which will provide a long-term stable home with nutrients 'on tap.' In return, these hookworms pay the rent in the form of creating an environment that suppresses inflammation and other adverse conditions that can upset that stable home. While the small, round worms can live for a decade, they don't multiply unless outside the body, and good hygiene means transmission risk is very low.

As for the results, those with 20 hookworms saw a Homeostatic Model Assessment of Insulin Resistance (HOMA-IR) level drop from 3.0 units to 1.8 units within the first year, which restored their insulin resistance to a healthy range. The cohort with 40 hookworms still experienced a drop, from 2.4 to 2.0. Those who received the placebo saw their HOMA-IR levels increase from 2.2 to 2.9 during the same time frame. "These lowered HOMA-IR values indicated that people were experiencing considerable improvements in insulin sensitivity -- results that were both clinically and statistically significant," said Dr Pierce. Those with worms also had higher levels of cytokines, which play a vital role in triggering immune responses. The study was published in the journal Nature Communications.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Methane is a potent greenhouse gas emitted from energy (natural gas and petroleum systems), industry, agriculture, land use and waste management activities. Now a group of researchers from California University Long Beach are proposing a method of removing methane by using a group of bacteria known as methanotrophs to naturally convert methane to carbon dioxide and biomass. All the bacteria in this group "'eat' methane, removing it from air and converting part of it to cells as a source of sustainable protein," according to the lead researcher, Mary E Lidstrom. Lidstrom's team have found a strain of bacteria within this group called methylotuvimicrobium buryatense 5GB1C that can remove methane efficiently even when it is present in lower amounts. If it became widespread, the technology has the potential to help slow global heating, the researchers said.

Typically, this group of bacteria thrive in environments with high levels of methane (between 5,000 and 10,000 parts per million (ppm)). The normal concentrations in our atmosphere have much lower levels of only about 1.9 ppm of methane. But certain areas such as landfills, rice fields and oilwells emit higher concentrations of about 500 ppm. "Bacteria that rapidly eat methane at the higher concentrations found around cattle herds, etc could make a huge contribution to cutting methane emissions, especially from tropical agriculture," said Euan Nisbet, professor of Earth sciences at Royal Holloway, University of London, commenting on the findings of the study.

The strain's high methane consumption rate is probably due to a low energy requirement and greater attraction for methane – more than five times more than that of other bacteria, according to the study. "The bacteria oxidise the methane to CO2 (a much less powerful greenhouse gas) and so you can even use the exhaust to pump into greenhouses and grow tomatoes," said Nisbet. "The biggest barrier to implementation now is technical: we need to increase the methane treatment unit 20-fold. If we can achieve that, then the biggest barriers become investment capital and public acceptance. We believe we could have field pilots tested within three to four years, and scale up would then depend on investment capital and commercialization," said Lidstrom. The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS).

A piece of space debris being monitored by the European Space Agency as part of a mission to remove trash from space was hit by another piece of debris, splintering the object into more pieces. From a report: ESA confirmed Tuesday that the US's 18th Space Defense Squadron, which tracks objects in orbit, spotted a number of new pieces in the vicinity of a payload adapter named VESPA that the agency had planned to pluck from space. The most likely cause of those new fragments is "the hypervelocity impact of a small, untracked object" ramming into VESPA, according to ESA. VESPA was left over from the launch of a European Vega rocket that took off from South America in 2013. It was part of a cone-shaped attachment used to deploy the rocket's satellite into orbit, and has been in Earth's orbit ever since. ESA said its new fragments don't pose much of a risk to any other spacecraft at the moment.

Once tooth decay has set in, all a dentist can do is fill the gap with an artificial plug -- a filling. But in a paper published in Cell, Hannele Ruohola-Baker, a stem-cell biologist at the University of Washington, and her colleagues offer a possible alternative. Economist: Stem cells are those that have the capacity to turn themselves into any other type of cell in the body. It may soon be possible, the researchers argue, to use those protean cells to regrow a tooth's enamel naturally. The first step was to work out exactly how enamel is produced. That is tricky, because enamel-making cells, known as ameloblasts, disappear soon after a person's adult teeth have finished growing. To get round that problem, the researchers turned to samples of tissue from human foetuses that had been aborted, either medically or naturally. Such tissues contain plenty of functioning ameloblasts. The researchers then checked to see which genes were especially active in the enamel-producing cells. Tooth enamel is made mostly of calcium phosphate, and genes that code for proteins designed to bind to calcium were particularly busy. They also assessed another type of cell called odontoblasts. These express genes that produce dentine, another type of hard tissue that lies beneath the outer enamel. Armed with that information, Dr Ruohola-Baker and her colleagues next checked to see whether the stem cells could be persuaded to transform into ameloblasts.

The team devised a cocktail of drugs designed to activate the genes that they knew were expressed in functioning ameloblasts. That did the trick, with the engineered ameloblasts turning out the same proteins as the natural sort. A different cocktail pushed the stem cells to become odontoblasts instead. Culturing the cells together produced what researchers call an organoid -- a glob of tissue in a petri dish which mimics a biological organ. The organoids happily churned out the chemical components of enamel. Having both cell types seemed to be crucial: when odontoblasts were present alongside ameloblasts, genes coding for enamel proteins were more strongly expressed than with ameloblasts alone. For now, the work is more a proof of concept than a prototype of an imminent medical treatment. The next step, says Dr Ruohola-Baker, is to try to boost enamel production even further, with a view to eventually beginning clinical trials. The hope is that, one day, medical versions of the team's organoids could be used as biological implants, to regenerate a patient's decayed teeth.

Under a new initiative, named Bandwagon, SpaceX is expanding its rideshare program to cater to the demand for launches to mid-inclination orbits. TechCrunch reports: Orbital inclination refers to what part of the Earth is visible to a satellite as it rotates around the planet. A satellite in an equatorial orbit is at 0 degrees inclination; a satellite in a sun-synchronous orbit (SSO) is slightly higher than 90 degrees; and a mid-inclination orbit is around 45 degrees. Currently, SpaceX offers rideshare services on the Falcon 9 rocket to SSO through the Transporter program, which is in notoriously high demand. But mid-inclination orbits (MIOs) are appealing to a growing number of customers, especially to remote sensing companies that want to strengthen their coverage over areas like parts of Asia and the Middle East. Right now, companies must often purchase a dedicated launch from Rocket Lab if they want to position a satellite in MIO.

With the new rideshare program, called Bandwagon, SpaceX is going after this slice of the market. According to SpaceX's website, it currently has two Bandwagon missions booked for 2024 and two for 2025. If they become even close to the popularity of the Rideshare program, they could be a major threat to all other small launch providers: According to Jarrod McLachlan, director of rideshare sales at SpaceX, who spoke at the industry conference, SpaceX has delivered 682 spacecraft to orbit to date via rideshare missions.

The rapid rise of generative AI has stoked anxieties across disciplines. High school teachers and college professors are worried about the potential for cheating. News organizations have been caught with shoddy articles penned by AI. And now, peer-reviewed academic journals are grappling with submissions in which the authors may have used generative AI to write outlines, drafts, or even entire papers, but failed to make the AI use clear. Wired: Journals are taking a patchwork approach to the problem. The JAMA Network, which includes titles published by the American Medical Association, prohibits listing artificial intelligence generators as authors and requires disclosure of their use. The family of journals produced by Science does not allow text, figures, images, or data generated by AI to be used without editors' permission. PLOS ONE requires anyone who uses AI to detail what tool they used, how they used it, and ways they evaluated the validity of the generated information. Nature has banned images and videos that are generated by AI, and it requires the use of language models to be disclosed. Many journals' policies make authors responsible for the validity of any information generated by AI.

Experts say there's a balance to strike in the academic world when using generative AI -- it could make the writing process more efficient and help researchers more clearly convey their findings. But the tech -- when used in many kinds of writing -- has also dropped fake references into its responses, made things up, and reiterated sexist and racist content from the internet, all of which would be problematic if included in published scientific writing. If researchers use these generated responses in their work without strict vetting or disclosure, they raise major credibility issues. Not disclosing use of AI would mean authors are passing off generative AI content as their own, which could be considered plagiarism. They could also potentially be spreading AI's hallucinations, or its uncanny ability to make things up and state them as fact.

LiveScience brings an update on China's Chang'e-4 — the first spacecraft to ever land on the far side of the moon.

Its Lunar Penetrating Radar has now mapped the lunar subsurface "in finer detail than ever before" by bouncing radio signals deep underground: Their results, which were published Aug. 7 in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Planets, reveal billions of years of previously hidden lunar history. These new data suggest the top 130 feet of the lunar surface are made up of multiple layers of dust, soil, and broken rocks, said lead study author Jianqing Feng, an astrogeological researcher at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson, Arizona... Farther down, the scientists discovered five distinct layers of lunar lava that seeped across the landscape billions of years ago.

Scientists think our moon formed 4.51 billion years ago, not long after the solar system itself, when a Mars-size object slammed into Earth and broke off a chunk of our planet The moon then continued to be bombarded by objects from space for roughly 200 million years. Some impacts cracked the moon's surface. Like Earth, the moon's mantle at that time contained pockets of molten material called magma, which seeped out through the newly formed cracks in a series of volcanic eruptions, Feng said.

The new data from Chang'e-4 shows that process slowing down over time: Feng and his colleagues found that the layers of volcanic rock grew thinner the closer they were to the moon's surface. This suggests that less lava flowed in later eruptions compared with earlier ones. "[The moon] was slowly cooling down and running out of steam in its later volcanic stage," Feng said. "Its energy became weak over time...."

However, there could still be magma deep underneath the lunar surface, Feng said.

"Russia's first lunar mission in decades has ended in failure with its Luna 25 spacecraft crashing into the moon's surface," reports CNN: The incident, a blow to Russia's space ambitions, happened after communication with the robotic spacecraft was interrupted, a blow to Russia's space ambitions. Russia's space agency, Roscosmos, said it lost touch with Luna 25 on Saturday around 2:57 p.m. Moscow time... According to a "preliminary analysis," Luna-25 "switched to an off-design orbit" before the collision, Roscosmos said. It was not immediately clear what caused the crash... The news comes a day after the spacecraft reported an "emergency situation" as it was trying to enter a pre-landing orbit, according to Roscosmos...

The spacecraft was meant to complete Russia's first lunar landing mission in 47 years. The country's last lunar lander, Luna 24, landed on the surface of the moon on August 18, 1976... Luna 25 was seen as a proving ground for future robotic lunar exploration missions by Roscosmos. Several future Luna spacecraft were slated to make use of the same design. If it had been successful, Luna 25 would have marked a huge stride for the country's civil space program — which some experts say has faced issues for decades — and demonstrate that it could still perform in high-profile, high-stakes missions. "They were having a lot of problems with quality control, corruption, with funding," said Victoria Samson, the Washington office director for Secure World Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes the peaceful exploration of outer space, during an interview Friday.

News that Russia experienced issues with its spacecraft elicited sympathy that reverberated throughout the space community. Thomas Zurbuchen, NASA's former head of science, said in a social media post that no one in the industry "wishes bad onto other explorers... We are reminded that landing on any celestial object is anything but easy & straightforward," he said,
Thanks to long-time Slashdot reader Baron_Yam and TheNameOfNick for sharing the news.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: In May, the World Health Organization issued an alarming report that declared widely used non-sugar sweeteners like aspartame are likely ineffective for weight loss, and long term consumption may increase the risk of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and mortality in adults. A few months later, WHO declared aspartame, a key ingredient in Diet Coke, to be a "possible carcinogen," then quickly issued a third report that seemed to contradict its previous findings -- people could continue consuming the product at levels determined to be safe decades ago, before new science cited by WHO raised health concerns. That contradiction stems from beverage industry corruption of the review process by consultants tied to an alleged Coca-Cola front group, the public health advocacy group US Right-To-Know said in a recent report.

It uncovered eight WHO panelists involved with assessing safe levels of aspartame consumption who are beverage industry consultants who currently or previously worked with the alleged Coke front group, International Life Sciences Institute (Ilsi). Their involvement in developing intake guidelines represents "an obvious conflict of interest", said Gary Ruskin, US Right-To-Know's executive director. "Because of this conflict of interest, [the daily intake] conclusions about aspartame are not credible, and the public should not rely on them," he added. [...] Ilsi describes itself as a nonprofit that conducts "science for the public good", but it was founded in 1978 by a Coca-Cola executive who simultaneously worked for the company through 2021, US Right-To-Know found. Other Coca-Cola executives have worked with the group, and US Right-To-Know detailed tax returns that show millions in donations from Coca-Cola and other beverage industry players. Coke ended its official membership with the group in 2021.

Over the years, Ilsi representatives have sought to shape food policy worldwide, and Ruskin, who has written multiple peer-reviewed papers on the group, characterized the aspartame controversy as a "masterpiece in how Ilsi worms its way into these regulatory processes." US Right To Know identified six out of 13 Jefca panel members with ties to the industry group. After it released its report, the WHO acknowledged two more of its members with industry ties. In a statement to the Guardian, a WHO spokesperson defended the industry consultants' inclusion in the review process. "For the meeting on aspartame, Jefca selected the experts likely to make the best contributions to the debate," said spokesperson Fadela Chaib. She said WHO's guidelines only require disclosure of conflicts of interest within the last four years. "To our knowledge, the experts you listed by name have not participated in any Ilsi activities for at least 10 years," she said. But that partially contradicts a statement made by WHO just weeks before to the news outlet Le Parisien in which it acknowledged two people currently working with Ilsi were involved in the process. The Guardian had also asked about those two people identified in the Parisien story but were not listed "by name" in its email. The WHO told Le Parisien: "We regret that this interest was not declared by these two experts either in the written statement or orally at the opening of the meeting."