Daily Archives: June 30, 2019

ISS is home to super-tough molds that laugh in the face of deadly radiation

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Mold spores commonly found aboard the International Space Station (ISS) turn out to be radiation resistant enough to survive 200 times the X-ray dose needed to kill a human being. Based on experiments by a team of researchers led by Marta Cortesão, a microbiologist at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Cologne, the new study indicates that sterilizing interplanetary spacecraft may be much more difficult than previously thought.

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The ISS is a collection of sealed cans inhabited by people who spend every minute of the day sweating, touching things, and exhaling moist air. Even with regular cleaning and a life support system designed to keep things under control, the result is a constant battle against mold and bacteria.

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The researchers exposed samples of Aspergillus and Pennicillium spores to X-rays, heavy ions, and high-frequency ultraviolet light of the kinds and intensities found in space. Such radiation damages DNA and breaks down cell structures, but the spores survived X-rays up to 1,000 gray, heavy ions at 500 gray, and UV rays up to 3,000 joules per meter squared.

Gray is a measurement of radiation exposure based on the absorption of one joule of radiation energy per kilogram of matter. To place the results into perspective, five gray will kill a person and 0.7 gray is how much radiation the crew of a Mars mission would receive on a 180-day mission.

Since mold spores can already survive heat, cold, chemicals, and drying out, being able to take on radiation as well poses new challenges. It means that not only will manned missions have to put a lot of effort into keeping the ship clean and healthy, it also means that unmanned planetary missions, which must be free of terrestrial organisms to prevent contaminating other worlds, will be harder to sterilize.

But according to Cortesão there is a positive side to this resiliency. Since fungal spores are hard to kill, they’d be easier to carry along and grow under controlled conditions in space, so they can be used as raw materials or act as biological factories.

“Mold can be used to produce important things, compounds like antibiotics and vitamins, says Cortesão. “It’s not only bad, a human pathogen and a food spoiler, it also can be used to produce antibiotics or other things needed on long missions.”

Since the present study only looked at radiation, orbital experiments are scheduled for later this year that will test their ability to withstand the combination of radiation, vacuum, cold, and low gravity found in space.

The results of the team’s study were presented at the 2019 Astrobiology Science Conference.

Source: ISS is home to super-tough molds that laugh in the face of deadly radiation

And of course, it would be nice if we could figure out how this works and genetically enhance people to be so resilient as well…

Boeing falsified records for 787 jet sold to Air Canada. It developed a fuel leak

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Boeing staff falsified records for a 787 jet built for Air Canada which developed a fuel leak ten months into service in 2015.

In a statement to CBC News, Boeing said it self-disclosed the problem to the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration after Air Canada notified them of the fuel leak.

The records stated that manufacturing work had been completed when it had not.

Boeing said an audit concluded it was an isolated event and “immediate corrective action was initiated for both the Boeing mechanic and the Boeing inspector involved.”

Boeing is under increasing scrutiny in the U.S. and abroad following two deadly crashes that claimed 346 lives and the global grounding of its 737 Max jets.

On the latest revelations related to falsifying records for the Air Canada jet, Mike Doiron of Moncton-based Doiron Aviation Consulting said: “Any falsification of those documents which could basically cover up a safety issue is a major problem.”

In the aviation industry, these sorts of documents are crucial for ensuring the safety of aircraft and the passengers onboard, he said.

Source: Boeing falsified records for 787 jet sold to Air Canada. It developed a fuel leak | CBC News

Does this mean we need to avoid 787s too?

Germany and the Netherlands to build the first ever joint military internet, some contractor wins huge and achieves massive vendor lock in

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Government officials from Germany and the Netherlands have signed an agreement this week to build the first-ever joint military internet.

The accord was signed on Wednesday in Brussels, Belgium, where NATO defense ministers met this week.

The name of this new Dutch-German military internet is the Tactical Edge Networking, or TEN, for short.

This is the first time when two nations merge parts of their military network, and the project is viewed as a test for unifying other NATO members’ military networks in the future.

The grand master plan is to have NATO members share military networks, so new and improved joint standards can be developed and deployed across all NATO states.

TEN will be headquartered in Koblenz, Germany, and there will also be a design and prototype center at the Bernard Barracks in Amersfoort, the Netherlands.

For starters, TEN will merge communications between the German army’s (Bundeswehr) land-based operations (D-LBO) and the Dutch Ministry of Defence’s ‘FOXTROT’ tactical communications program, used by the Dutch military.

Troops operating on top of the TEN network will use identical computers, radios, tablets, and telephones, regardless of the country of origin.

TEN’s deployment is expected to cost the two countries millions of euros in costs to re-equip tens of thousands of soldiers and vehicles with new compatible equipment.

Source: Germany and the Netherlands to build the first ever joint military internet | ZDNet

Wow, I thought we didn’t do that kind of thing any more!

This weekend all Microsoft e-books will stop working. A gentle reminder that through DRM you don’t own what you think you own.

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If you bought an ebook through Microsoft’s online store, now’s the time to give it a read, or reread, because it will stop working early July.

That’s right, the books you paid for will be literally removed from your electronic bookshelf because, um, Microsoft decided in April it no longer wanted to sell books. It will turn off the servers that check whether your copy was bought legitimately – using the usual anti-piracy digital-rights-management (DRM) tech – and that means your book can’t be verified as being in the hands of its purchaser, and so won’t be displayed.

Even the free-to-download ebooks will fail. According to Redmond, “You can continue to read free books you’ve downloaded until July 2019 when they will no longer be accessible.” And the paid-for ones? “You can continue to read books you’ve purchased until July 2019 when they will no longer be available, and you will receive a full refund of the original purchase price.”

Why has Microsoft done this? We don’t know. All the Windows giant said was that it was “streamlining the strategic focus” of its store. But how much can a DRM server possibly cost? And why is that cost too high for an American corporation with $110bn in annual revenue that makes $16.5bn in profit?

Source: This weekend you better read those ebooks you bought from Microsoft – because they’ll be dead come next week • The Register