‘Extinction-level cuts’ to space agency’s spending means labs will close and deep-space missions will be abandoned

Some of the greatest mysteries of the universe, such as the possibility of life on Mars or Venus, may never be solved because of Donald Trump’s proposed “extinction-level” cuts to Nasa spending, scientists are warning.

The Trump administration revealed last month its plan to slash the space agency’s overall budget by 24% to $18.8bn, the lowest figure since 2015. Space and Earth science missions would bear the brunt of the cutbacks, losing more than 53% of what was allocated to them in 2024.

If the budget is approved by Congress, opponents say, longstanding Nasa labs will close, deep-space missions, including many already under way, will be abandoned, and a new generation of exploration and discovery will never reach the launchpad.

This sort of time flip has been described as looking into a mirror and spotting your back instead of your face...By carefully adjusting electronic components on a strip of metal, they introduced a sudden jump that reversed the direction of incoming signals...The outcome was a time-reversed copy of the original wave, appearing just as predicted but never before seen with clarity...A wave that can jump to a new frequency and then rewind might open new possibilities for data transmission at different ranges of the spectrum. It could also reshape how certain sensors and imaging systems are designed.

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=lawJ6xIAAAAJ&hl=en

In biology, enzymes have evolved over millions of years to drive chemical reactions. Scientists from the Max Planck Institute for Dynamics and Self-Organization (MPI-DS) now derived universal rules to enable the de novo design of optimal enzymes. As an example, they considered the enzymatic reaction of breaking a dimer into two monomer molecules. Considering the geometry of such an enzyme-substrate-complex, they identified three golden rules that should be considered to build a functional enzyme.

TLDR: Sentinel-2 detects up to 35% more vegetation in forests than Landsat

There is so much discussion and uncertainty on species when its really very simple. We can add categories under species for more specificity but the definition of species must be objective and true. A species is any group of creatures that can reproduce and produce fertile off spring. This is a clear line that objectively determines where 1 species ends and where 1 species begins.

Now we can use another term either subspecies or breed, which can be described as a population within a species that predominantly reproduces within their subgroup. Problem solved? This allows for cases where 2 subgroups of animals can reproduce with each other but rarely do and completes the tree/pyramid of life.

A new method for diagnosing brain tumours could cut the time patients wait for treatments by weeks to hours and raise the possibility of novel types of therapy, researchers have said.

According to the Brain Tumour Charity, about 740,000 people around the world are diagnosed with a brain tumour each year, around half of which are non-cancerous. Once a brain tumour is found, a sample is taken during surgery and cells are immediately studied under a microscope by pathologists, who can often identify the type of tumour. However, genetic testing helps to make or confirm the diagnosis.

“Almost all of the samples will go for further testing anyway. But for some of them it will be absolutely crucial, because you won’t know what you’re looking at,” said Prof Matthew Loose, a co-author of the research from the University of Nottingham.

The approach is based on devices that contain membranes featuring hundreds to thousands of tiny pores, each of which has an electric current passing through it. When DNA approaches a pore it is “unzipped” into single strands; as a strand passes through the pore it disrupts the electric current.

NASA is also looking at massive science cuts.

https://www.space.com/space-exploration/trump-administration-proposes-slashing-nasa-budget-by-24-percent

WHAT?!

Original paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-025-08944-w

In physics, gauge theory helps scientists take all the measurable things they know and align them in order to find commonalities or definitions...In this paper, physicists Mikko Partanen and Jukka Tulkki turn the universe at large into a bunch of overlapping, finite relationships of symmetry...their goal was to find the mathematically smallest model that could still hold up to all the rules required of a theory of unified gravity.

I'm been trying to expanding to my scientific literacy and that has involved looking at articles in scientific journals; i.e. the peer-reviewed literature. However, not all journals are trust-worthy. I would like to believe that academic search engines like Google Scholar would filter out "junk science" articles that I can't rely on that always happening. So how do I spot "predatory" or "pseudo-journals"?

Sometimes, it's quite obvious: "Answers Research Journal" makes it clear that they exist for creationist confirmation bias. This, however, isn't always the case.

I also can't always rely on a publication's reputation. In that oh-so famous example, Andrew Wakefield exploited The Lancet's venerable reputation to publish a fraudulent study with consequences that still reverberate to this day.

Thanks in advance.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/29981554

cross-posted from: https://metawire.eu/post/105642

A study found that people who had suffered the herpes virus had an 80% increased risk of Alzheimer’s disease.