A foreign hacker obtained an old copy of the U.S. government’s Terrorist Screening Database and “no fly” list from an unsecured server belonging to a commercial airline.
The Swiss hacker known as “maia arson crimew” blogged Thursday that she discovered the Transportation Security Administration “no fly” list from 2019 and a trove of data belonging to CommuteAir on an unsecured Amazon Web Services cloud server used by the airline.
The hacker told The Daily Dot the list appeared to have more than 1.5 million entries. The data reportedly included names and birthdates of various individuals who have been barred from air travel by the government due to suspected or known ties to terrorist organizations. The Daily Dot reported that the list contains multiple aliases, so the number of unique individuals on the list is far less at 1.5 million.
Noteworthy individuals reported to be on the list include Russian arms dealer Viktor Bout, who was recently freed by the Biden administration in exchange for WNBA star Brittney Griner, and suspected members of the IRA and others, according to The Daily Dot.
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ID requirement signs at the entrance to the passenger TSA security area in West Palm Beach, Fla. (Lindsey Nicholson/UCG/Universal Images Group via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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“It’s just crazy to me how big that terrorism screening database is, and yet there is still very clear trends towards almost exclusively Arabic and Russian sounding names throughout the million entries,” crimew told the outlet.
Reached for comment, a TSA spokesman said the agency is “aware of a potential cybersecurity incident, and we are investigating in coordination with our federal partners.”
In a statement to FOX Business, CommuteAir confirmed the legitimacy of the hacked “no fly” list and data that contained private information about the company’s employees.
A Transportation Security Administration pre-check sign stands at Dulles International Airport in Dulles, Va., Aug. 19, 2015. ( Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images / Getty Images)
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“CommuteAir was notified by a member of the security research community who identified a misconfigured development server,” said Erik Kane, corporate communications manager for CommuteAir. “The researcher accessed files, including an outdated 2019 version of the federal no-fly list that included first and last name and date of birth. Additionally, through information found on the server, the researcher discovered access to a database containing personal identifiable information of CommuteAir employees.
“Based on our initial investigation, no customer data was exposed,” Kane added. “CommuteAir immediately took the affected server offline and started an investigation to determine the extent of data access. CommuteAir has reported the data exposure to the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and also notified its employees.”
An Embraer ERJ-145XR aircraft operated by CommuteAir. (CommuteAir / Fox News)
CommuteAir is a regional airline founded in 1989 and based in Ohio. The company operates with hubs in Denver, Houston and Washington Dulles and operates more than 1,600 weekly flights to over 75 U.S. destinations and three in Mexico.
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According to crimew’s Wikipedia page, which the hacker maintains is accurate, she was indicted by a grand jury in the United States in March 2021 on criminal charges related to her alleged hacking activity between 2019 and 2021. Her Twitter bio describes her as “indicted hacktivist/security researcher, artist, mentally ill enby polyam trans lesbian anarchist kitten (θΔ), 23 years old.”
(CNN) — Greener commercial flight technology may be on the horizon.
NASA and Boeing will work together on the Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project to build, test and fly an emission-reducing single-aisle aircraft this decade, according to an announcement from the agency on Wednesday.
“Since the beginning, NASA has been with you when you fly. NASA has dared to go farther, faster, higher. And in doing so, NASA has made aviation more sustainable and dependable. It is in our DNA,” said NASA Administrator Bill Nelson in a statement.
“It’s our goal that NASA’s partnership with Boeing to produce and test a full-scale demonstrator will help lead to future commercial airliners that are more fuel efficient, with benefits to the environment, the commercial aviation industry, and to passengers worldwide. If we are successful, we may see these technologies in planes that the public takes to the skies in the 2030s.”
The WEF’s Lauren Uppink Calderwood discusses the “Clean Skies For Tomorrow” coalition which has pledged to replace 10% of global jet fuel supply with sustainable aviation fuel by 2030.
The first test flight of this experimental aircraft is setto take place in 2028. The goal is for the technology to serve approximately 50% of the commercial market through short- to medium-haul single-aisle aircraft, Nelson said.
Airlines largely rely on single-aisle aircraft, which account for nearly half of aviation emissions worldwide, according to NASA. Developing new technology to reduce fuel use can support the Biden administration’s goal of achieving net-zero aviation carbon emissions by 2050, as laid out in the US Aviation Climate Action Plan.
Boeing estimates that the demand for the new single-aisle aircraft will increase by 40,000 planes between 2035 and 2050.
NASA Administrator Bill Nelson holds a model of an aircraft with a Transonic Truss-Braced Wing.
Joel Kowsky/NASA
The design that NASA and Boeing are working on could reduce fuel consumption and emissions by up to 30% compared with today’s most efficient aircraft, according to the agency.
It’s called the Transonic Truss-Braced Wing concept, which relies on elongated, thin wings stabilized by diagonal struts that connect the wings to the aircraft. The design’s shape creates less drag, which means burning less fuel.
The Sustainable Flight Demonstrator will also incorporate other green aviation technologies.
CNN’s Pete Muntean reports on United Airlines’ first successful flight completed by 100 percent sustainable fuel.
“NASA is working toward an ambitious goal of developing game-changing technologies to reduce aviation energy use and emissions over the coming decades toward an aviation community goal of net-zero carbon emissions by 2050,” said Bob Pearce, NASA associate administrator for the Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate, in a statement.
“The Transonic Truss-Braced Wing is the kind of transformative concept and investment we will need to meet those challenges and, critically, the technologies demonstrated in this project have a clear and viable path to informing the next generation of single-aisle aircraft, benefiting everyone that uses the air transportation system.”
The benefits of increasing the aspect ratio of the wing have been known for a long time, but the challenge of structuring the design has required advancements in materials and construction to reach this point of development, Pearce said.
By partnering on the project, NASA and Boeing can take on more risks than the aviation industry can do onits own, he said.
“This is an experimental aircraft,” he said. “This is not a commercial development of an aircraft that passengers are going to fly in today. And the reason we need to do this is because this is high-risk technology. We’re trying to validate technology.”
The partnership, supported by the Funded Space Act Agreement, will rely on technical expertise and facilities and $425 million from NASA over seven years. Meanwhile, Boeing and its partners will contribute the remaining $725 million and the technical plan.
“We’re honored to continue our partnership with NASA and to demonstrate technology that significantly improves aerodynamic efficiency resulting in substantially lower fuel burn and emissions,” said Todd Citron, Boeing chief technology officer.
The aviation sector is preparing to ramp up production of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAFs) made from cooking oil, clothing, steel production emissions and other renewable sources.
Top photo: An artist’s concept shows commercial aircraft featuring the Transonic Truss-Braced Wing configuration from NASA and Boeing’s Sustainable Flight Demonstrator project.
KATHMANDU, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Searchers used drones and rappelled down a 200 metres (656 feet) deep gorge in Nepal’s second-biggest city on Tuesday to search for two people unaccounted for after the country’s deadliest plane crash in 30 years killed at least 70 people.
Difficult terrain and inclement weather was hampering rescue efforts near the tourist city of Pokhara, where the Yeti Airlines ATR 72 turboprop carrying 72 people crashed in clear weather on Sunday just before landing.
“There is thick fog here now. We are sending search and rescue personnel using ropes into the gorge where parts of the plane fell and was in flames,” Ajay K.C., a police official in Pokhara who is part of the rescue efforts, told Reuters.
Searchers found two more bodies on Monday before the search was called off because of fading light.
“There were small children among the passengers. Some might have been burnt and died, and may not be found out. We will continue to look for them,” K.C. said.
An airport official said 48 bodies were brought to the capital Kathmandu on Tuesday and sent to a hospital for autopsies, while 22 bodies were being handed over to families in Pokhara.
Medical personnel in personal protective equipment and masks helped transport shrouded bodies from stretchers to a vehicle before they were flown to Kathmandu, Reuters pictures showed.
Television channels showed weeping relatives waiting for the bodies of their loved ones outside a hospital in Pokhara.
On Monday, searchers found the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder from the flight, both in good condition, a discovery that is likely to help investigators determine what caused the crash.
Reuters Graphics
Under international aviation rules, the crash investigation agencies of the countries where the plane and engines were designed and built are automatically part of the inquiry.
ATR is based in France and the plane’s engines were manufactured in Canada by Pratt & Whitney Canada (RTX.N).
French and Canadian air accident investigators have said they plan to participate in the probe.
Reporting by Gopal Sharma, writing by Shilpa Jamkhandikar; Editing by Jamie Freed
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
A third year of pandemic holiday travel is upon us, but this year instead of just thinking about how to stay safe from the coronavirus, people are also worrying about how to avoid the flu and respiratory syncytial virus, or RSV, the so-called tripledemic.
What’s also different this year is that there is no federal mandate to wear masks on public transportation. And even though cases of the coronavirus have been ticking up, there is no suggestion that mandates will be reinstated.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Transportation Security Administration suggest that it’s a good idea to mask up, but are not requiring travelers to do so.
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“CDC recommends properly wearing a high-quality mask or respirator over the nose and mouth in indoor areas of public transportation (such as airplanes, trains, buses, ferries) and transportation hubs (such as airports, stations and seaports),” the CDC says on its website.
With the number of people flying tracking close to 2019 levels — the TSA screened more than 4.5 million people over the past weekend — here are some steps you can take to stay safer as you travel during the holidays.
Should I wear a mask on the plane, even though it’s not required?
You should “absolutely” be wearing masks while traveling, public health researchers, infectious disease doctors and air-filtration experts said. Even though planes have great filtration systems, you’ll likely be on crowded planes with other travelers for extended periods of time, increasing the chances of exposure, said Saskia Popescu, an infectious disease public health researcher and assistant professor at the Schar School of Policy and Government at George Mason University.
“Now compound this with rapidly rising numbers of COVID, influenza, RSV and seasonal respiratory viruses,” she said. “I would highly recommend if you’re traveling in a plane, train, bus or boat, you wear a mask.”
Do I need to keep a mask on elsewhere?
Dr. Linsey Marr, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Virginia Tech and an expert on airborne transmission of viruses said: “If you have a vacation coming up, and it’s really important to you that you want to be well and you want to be able to spend time with your loved ones or do some activity that you’ve been looking forward to all year, and you don’t want to be laid up in bed sick or potentially getting other people sick, then definitely wear a mask when you’re traveling.” She added: “Not just on the plane, but in the airports, on buses, transit and everywhere else that you’re going in between.”
Even if you’re not traveling, experts say that while it’s no longer required, it’s a good idea to mask up anywhere you will be around a lot of people in a confined space.
Popescu said she recently began to develop nonspecific symptoms, including a sore throat. It turned out that she had COVID and she had caught it while flying home from a work trip.
“I can personally say that it’s those moments you perceive as lower risk or let your guard down that can result in exposure,” she said.
I know masking avoids spreading the coronavirus, but what about the flu and RSV?
Masking prevents the spread of all kinds of germs and is “the best tool we have to prevent the spread of those surging respiratory viruses, from COVID to influenza to RSV,” Popescu said.
Marr said that the flu and RSV transmit “at least partly” in the same way as COVID-19.
Traveling over the holidays is a good time to remember the “three C’s” we first started hearing about in 2020 — closed spaces with poor ventilation, crowded places and close-contact situations — and to wear a mask in each of these situations.
Should I wear a specific kind of mask when traveling?
Even though wearing a mask is most effective at stopping the spread of a virus when the infected person is wearing it, masking to protect yourself from disease is still beneficial, especially if you’re using a high-quality mask.
“If you’re going to bother wearing a mask at this point, I think you should get a high-quality one,” said Marr. That generally means an N95, KN95 or KF94, she added. “Those are going to be much more effective than a cloth mask or surgical mask.”
These are widely available, affordable and you can wear the same one until you notice that it’s dirty, the straps are getting loose or if it is damaged.
Do I have to take a COVID test before and after I travel?
If you’re traveling within the U.S. or to the U.S. from abroad, you’re not required to take a test, but the CDC and medical authorities say it’s a good idea. “Consider getting tested with a viral test as close to the time of departure as possible (no more than three days) before travel,” the CDC says. If you test positive, they say, you should delay your travel.
“If you’re traveling and plan to interact with people without a mask, even more reason to test before your flight and for a few days after you land,” Popescu said. “How much you test is really about your risk profile and preference.”
You should consider things like how much you’re interacting with others, whether you’ll be with vulnerable people and if you’ll be unmasked.
“Overall, I recommend testing before you leave and a couple of times during your trip,” Popescu said.
What about being vaccinated?
U.S. citizens and immigrants do not need to be vaccinated to fly within the U.S. or to the U.S. from abroad. Non-U.S. citizens and non-U.S. immigrants traveling to the U.S. by air are required to show proof of being fully vaccinated against COVID-19. Only limited exceptions apply. If you are not fully vaccinated and are allowed to travel to the United States by air through an exception, you will be required to sign an attestation before you board your flight stating you meet the exception. Depending on the type of exception, you may also have to state you have arranged to take certain protective measures.
Also, all travelers have to give their contact information to airlines to help with contact tracing, if necessary.
Is it too late to get a booster?
Bernard Camins, the medical director for infection prevention at the Mount Sinai Health System, and Aaron Milstone, a pediatric infectious diseases specialist at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, both said that it is “never too late” to get an updated COVID booster.
“Most data suggest that a full immune response to a vaccine dose can take 14 days, but some of our early data showed that people can generate an antibody response in a few days,” said Milstone. “You might be more protected in a few weeks, but there can be some benefit as soon as a few days after, so get an early holiday present by getting the boost.”
Camins said that because there isn’t great data on this aspect of boosters, it’s possible that the booster could reach efficacy before the 14-day mark. And, he said, with vaccines in plentiful supply it’s easy to get jabbed quickly. “If you make an appointment today it would work,” he said.
Is there anything else I can do to prepare safely for my trip?
The experts suggest thinking about why you’re traveling and perhaps taking extra precautions. “We’re at the point where for most people these diseases are not a personal threat if you’re healthy. At the same time, at the holidays we’re often gathering with family, and visiting with more vulnerable people and older family members in particular,” said Marr.
Marr’s nuclear family will be spending the holidays with her elderly parents, so in an effort to minimize the chances of spreading any illness to them, her family unit will be taking more precautions, like not visiting crowded indoor spaces before their trip.
“We probably won’t go out to any restaurants in that week leading up to it just to make sure to minimize our chances of picking up a virus and bringing it to them,” she said.
The flu and seasonal respiratory viruses like RSV are also spread more easily through contaminated items and hands, “so hand hygiene and cleaning/disinfection of high-touch surfaces is an important strategy,” Popescu said. “Also, a good reminder to avoid touching your face.”
Summary: Researchers shed light on how different SSRI antidepressants may work to help fight symptoms of depression in the brain.
Source: University of Virginia
This is a fruit fly.
This is a fruit fly on drugs.
Any questions?
OK, you probably have at least two: First, why would anyone give a fruit fly drugs? And, as a follow up, how would you know if the drugs were working?
The answers to questions like these can be found in Jill Venton’s lab at University of Virginia. She chairs the Department of Chemistry and is an expert in the juices that get brains flowing.
Ten years ago, her group was the first to insert tiny sensors into fruit fly brains to track the work of individual chemical molecules. Now, the research she oversees is illuminating how certain drugs might work to fight depression in the darkness of the human brain.
Among other molecules, the lab has begun studying the path of serotonin. The chemical is an important messenger within the brain and throughout the body. Vital functions such as mood, sleep and appetite (both for food and amore) are thought to rely heavily on our ability to self-regulate the stuff.
When our brains don’t seem to be able, doctors often turn to selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, or SSRIs. The drugs go by brand names such as Prozac and Lexapro, and they’re most often prescribed for anxiety and depression.
“The protein in the brain that the SSRI works on is called ‘the serotonin transporter,’” Venton said. “The transporter’s basic job is to take serotonin back up into the nerve cell. The way the SSRI works is, it says, ‘Don’t clear the serotonin anymore. Let it stay out there.’ Because when it’s out there in the brain, it can do more signaling.”
Upward of 13% of the adult population, or more than 30 million Americans, take SSRIs.
“There’s a lot of controversy right now in the field over serotonin,” Venton said. “For years, we’ve been giving these drugs that attack the serotonin system in hopes that they raise your levels. But is the serotonin level really low in depressed patients? We don’t know, and we don’t have a really good way to measure that for a human.”
In the search for answers, enter the once pesky fruit fly.
‘Step into my parlor,’ said the scientist
From Venton’s perspective, there’s much to larvae—err, love—about Drosophila melanogaster, the common fruit fly.
“Believe it or not, the fruit fly brain and the human brain have a lot of similarity,” she said.
Originating from only four pairs of chromosomes (versus 23 in humans), the brains of these invertebrates are far removed from our own processing capacity. Yet about 75% of the fly’s genes are the same as ours, and their chemical pathways largely duplicate.
The result is a research model that’s both simple to study and highly useful for making predictions about humans.
Drosophila melanogaster has had a long history in scientific experiments since Thomas Hunt Morgan first won the Nobel Prize in 1923 for demonstrating how parents pass along traits to their offspring. Fruit flies have the benefit, for researchers at least, of living relatively short lives, while reproducing quickly and plentifully. That means experiments can be performed in rapid variation. Scientists can form reliable conclusions over a matter of weeks, rather than months or years.
Venton knew that neuroscience could also benefit from what flies can tell us—if scientists could find a way in.
“We’re chemists, but we work in neuroscience, so that automatically makes us just a little bit weird, but exciting, too,” she said. “Our lab develops these tiny little electrochemical sensors, and our purpose in putting them in the brain is to understand basic mechanisms of how the brain works and how it goes wrong during disease.”
Highly sensitive research
The first measurements were made here in collaboration with UVA biologists Jay Hirsh and Barry Condron.
These days, however, the University partners with Oak Ridge National Laboratories to laser-print the polymerized sensors to the exact size and shape needed. At about 7 microns in diameter, the tip is small—smaller than a human hair. The electrode is super-heated after fabrication, forming carbon fiber that allows the sensors to conduct electricity.
Meanwhile, UVA researchers breed the fruit flies in Venton’s lab.
They use what’s called “optogenetics,” a technology that can make certain neurochemicals, such as serotonin, transmit when exposed to red light. The light activates a yeast-associated protein in the fly.
That helps the postdoctoral researchers and graduate students (and, in some cases, advanced undergraduates who may be assisting) put the electrode in the right place.
But first, they have to remove the ventral nerve cord of the fly—often in larvae form—to gain access to the neuron-specific tissue. The surgery is performed under a high-powered microscope.
In preparation for studies, the researchers typically feed the flies the drug being studied by adding droplets to their food.
Once the studies are underway, the researchers stimulate the drug-affected neurons by introducing electrical charge to the probe, which is encapsulated in a glass sheath for insulation. Fast-scanning equipment then translates the changes in voltage and current into useful graphs.
Over time, the lab has explored everything from the role of dopamine in fly-simulated Parkinson’s disease to how adenosine may be helpful during a stroke.
“We are still about the only people who know how to put these sensors into a fruit fly brain,” Venton said. “I think most people would have thought it was impossible to take a fruit fly and make any measurement.
“Recently, we took flies that were still alive and awake, and we looked at their dopamine levels as we fed them sugar. Even I’m impressed we could do that.”
Getting flies buzzed
How do you make fruit flies depressed? You could tell them they only have six to 15 days to live … or you could, like Jefferson Fellow and doctoral student Kelly Dunham did, alter their feeding habits and monitor how they move.
That’s how Dunham prepped her larvae specimens for the lab’s recent, first-of-its-kind SSRI study. She was the lead author of the research, published with Venton this summer in the Journal of Neurochemistry.
In particular, the study looked at the reuptake and release characteristics of four popularly used SSRIs.
“Though they’re a collective group called SSRIs, they all have different mechanisms of action,” she noted.
Regardless, one of two things are probably going on overall: “For depressed patients, the biggest thing doctors think is either the serotonin is going through reuptake too quickly, and it’s not staying in the brain, or there’s just too low of levels,” Dunham said.
So which SSRI did the best job of addressing these issues?
Two drugs, escitalopram and citalopram, both increased the release of serotonin and slowed reuptake.
But those results come with some nuance, Dunham and Venton said—prohibiting any of the drugs from being declared the clear “winner.”
Comparing SSRIs
From the public’s perspective, it might appear that SSRIs all act in roughly the same way. But that’s not what Dunham and Venton observed.
Escitalopram, better known by the trade name Lexapro, and paroxetine, better known by the brand name Paxil, increased the brain’s serotonin concentrations at all doses, yet apparently did so much differently.
“Paxil has a faster reuptake compared to Lexapro,” Dunham said. “Paxil binds to the serotonin transmitter with really high affinity, and the concentrations were huge. We think there’s a different molecular mechanism for how it works compared to Lexapro.”
In contrast to these two drugs, citalopram (Celexa) showed relatively lower serotonin concentration increases during the study, despite also slowing reuptake.
Finally, the first-ever SSRI approved in the U.S., fluoxetine (Prozac), did not increase concentrations of serotonin, at least during the limited duration of the study.
“We think Prozac has more of an effect just on reuptake,” Dunham said. “It might be one you have to take it over long periods of time to change the brain chemistry.”
Based on this study alone, she said, it’s not possible to rank the desirability of the drugs. People’s genetics and individual conditions differ. They experience differing levels of improvement on the drugs and, in some cases, suffer differing side effects.
More research is needed, but it’s a start.
Subsequent students in Venton’s lab will test SSRIs against mutations of the serotonin transporter that Dunham and Venton hope will effectively mimic some of the basic genetic variations of humans.
See also
Dunham said the mechanisms of how these and other antidepressant drugs work matter because current prescribing can be hit or miss.
The goal, of course, is to move toward matching each unique patient with the most safe and effective pharmaceutical.
“I hope this research starts a conversation on antidepressant treatments,” she said. “The most common thing is doctors prescribe a drug, and there’s no way to understand what they think works best for the patient. The patient may have to try two or three drugs to find out.”
The future of research
Dunham is a Cookeville, Tennessee, native who performed her undergraduate study at Tennessee Tech University. She is currently investigating the effects of ketamine on fruit flies. The psychedelic alternate to SSRIs is thought to help people with treatment-resistant depression—often in one dose, rather than in continuing doses over long periods of time.
She said that among her non-scientist friends, she has heard many a joking reference to the horror film “The Fly.”
Though she will be graduating UVA in the spring, Dunham will continue on at the University. She will serve as a postdoctoral researcher next year and teach an undergraduate course about empirical research and the history of antidepressants as part of the new Engagements curriculum. An influence for the course was a UVA sociology course, “Prozac Culture,” taught by Joseph Davis.
The drugs go by brand names such as Prozac and Lexapro, and they’re most often prescribed for anxiety and depression. Credit: Emily Faith Morgan, University Communications
Dunham is just one of the lab’s many success stories. The students who work for Venton often move on to successful careers in academia and private industry.
A third-year undergraduate student, Leah Weizman of Reston, worked a previous summer at Merck and has lined up a project with Eli Lilly for next summer due, in part, to experience she has gained in the lab.
As to her own path, Venton has spent the entirety of her career at UVA, which fostered her development as the type of chemist she wanted to be, she said. Her mission is to continue that, by serving as a resource for students as they pursue their own discoveries.
“I chose UVA as an assistant professor because they were willing to allow me as a chemist to do interdisciplinary research,” she said. “Man, I love research. And the best part of my job by far is working with students in my research lab. To see them develop personally and professionally is really fulfilling.”
For Venton, who was recognized in an October ceremony with the 2022 Advances in Measurement Science Lectureship Award, an international honor which few scientists receive, the future of fly research doesn’t stop with just one sensor.
“The brain puts out a concoction of molecules, and we do not currently know how to study multianalytes,” she said. “In the next five or 10 years, I’m going to shift my lab to do multiple things at a time. That will require new tools and a new direction. We will track one or two molecules with a sensor, and one or two with microscopy and light.”
“When we get there,” she said, “I think we’re going to find certain drugs like SSRIs are affecting way more than we ever knew. Then the drug companies are going to get really interested.”
About this psychopharmacology research news
Author: Eric Williamson Source: University of Virginia Contact: Eric Williamson – University of Washington Image: The image is credited to Emily Faith Morgan, University Communications
Original Research: Closed access. “SSRI antidepressants differentially modulate serotonin reuptake and release in Drosophila” by Kelly E. Dunham et al. Journal of Neurochemistry
Abstract
SSRI antidepressants differentially modulate serotonin reuptake and release in Drosophila
Selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) antidepressants are commonly prescribed treatments for depression, but their effects on serotonin reuptake and release are not well understood.
Drosophila melanogaster, the fruit fly, expresses the serotonin transporter (dSERT), the major target of SSRIs, but real-time serotonin changes after SSRIs have not been characterized in this model.
The goal of this study was to characterize effects of SSRIs on serotonin concentration and reuptake in Drosophila larvae.
We applied various doses (0.1–100 μM) of fluoxetine (Prozac), escitalopram (Lexapro), citalopram (Celexa), and paroxetine (Paxil), to ventral nerve cord (VNC) tissue and measured optogenetically-stimulated serotonin release with fast-scan cyclic voltammetry (FSCV).
Fluoxetine increased reuptake from 1 to 100 μM, but serotonin concentration only increased at 100 μM. Thus, fluoxetine occupies dSERT and slows clearance but does not affect concentration.
Escitalopram and paroxetine increased serotonin concentrations at all doses, but escitalopram increased reuptake more. Citalopram showed lower concentration changes and faster reuptake profiles compared with escitalopram, so the racemic mixture of citalopram does not change reuptake as much as the S-isomer.
Dose response curves were constructed to compare dSERT affinities and paroxetine showed the highest affinity and fluoxetine the lowest. These data demonstrate SSRI mechanisms are complex, with separate effects on reuptake or release. Furthermore, dynamic serotonin changes in Drosophila are similar to previous studies in mammals.
This work establishes how antidepressants affect serotonin in real-time, which is useful for future studies that will investigate pharmacological effects of SSRIs with different genetic mutations in Drosophila.
Enlarge / The CAPSTONE payload is seen here, atop an Electron rocket in New Zealand.
Rocket Lab
After a journey of nearly five months, taking it far beyond the Moon and back, the little CAPSTONE spacecraft has successfully entered into lunar orbit.
“We received confirmation that CAPSTONE arrived in near-rectilinear halo orbit, and that is a huge, huge step for the agency,” said NASA’s chief of exploration systems development, Jim Free, on Sunday evening. “It just completed its first insertion burn a few minutes ago. And over the next few days they’ll continue to refine its orbit, and be the first cubesat to fly and operate at the Moon.”
This is an important orbit for NASA, and a special one, because it is really stable, requiring just a tiny amount of propellant to hold position. At its closest point to the Moon, this roughly week-long orbit passes within 3,000 km of the lunar surface, and at other points it is 70,000 km away. NASA plans to build a small space station, called the Lunar Gateway, here later this decade.
But before then, the agency is starting small. CAPSTONE is a scrappy, commercial mission that was supported financially, in part, by a $13.7 million grant from NASA. Developed by a Colorado-based company named Advanced Space, with help from Terran Orbital, the spacecraft itself is modestly sized, just a 12U cubesat with a mass of around 25 kg. It could fit comfortably inside a mini-refrigerator.
The spacecraft launched at the end of June on an Electron rocket from New Zealand. Electron is the smallest rocket to launch a payload to the Moon, and its manufacturer, Rocket Lab, stressed the capabilities of the booster and its Photon upper stage to the maximum to send CAPSTONE on its long journey to the Moon. This was Rocket Lab’s first deep space mission.
After separating from its rocket, the spacecraft spent nearly five months traveling to the Moon, following what’s known as a ballistic lunar transfer that uses the Sun’s gravity to follow an expansive trajectory. Along the way, flight controllers managed to solve a spinning issue that otherwise could have led to loss of the spacecraft. This was a roundabout path, bringing the spacecraft to a distance of more than three times that between the Earth and Moon before arcing back, but required relatively little propellant to reach its destination.
For example, the burn executed by CAPSTONE on Sunday evening to transition into a near-rectilinear halo orbit was extremely tiny. According to Advanced Space, the vehicle burned its thruster for 16 minutes at about 0.44 Newtons, which is equivalent to the weight of about nine pieces of standard printer paper.
CAPSTONE will not only serve as a pathfinder in this new orbit—verifying the theoretical properties modeled by NASA engineers—it will also demonstrate a new system of autonomous navigation around and near the Moon. This Cislunar Autonomous Positioning System, or CAPS, is important because there is a lack of fixed tracking assets near the Moon, especially as the cislunar environment becomes more crowded during the coming decade.
The mission is planned to operate for at least six months in this orbit.
Following the release of the Leonardo Softhouse Fly the Maddog earlier this year, the team has been noticeably quiet. Outside of some updates here and there, the team hasn’t really provided information on what they have been working on. However, that changes today with the latest forum post from the team.
In Stefano’s post, he recognised how quite they have been, but this has been for a good reason. Over the past few months, the team has been working on a new ’bridge’ application that will allow more features and functionality to overcome some of the limitations of working within MSFS. This new bridge, known as the ’MDClient’ allows ACARS pages to be added, CPDLC functionality, full integration with GSX Pro and much more.
The new update for the Fly the Maddog on Microsoft Flight Simulator is currently in beta testing and the release is expected in the next few weeks.
What is also exciting about this new information is the fact that the team can refocus its efforts on bringing the MD-88 and the MD-83 to the simulator. There isn’t any additional information on those right now, but we will be sure to keep our eyes peeled.
Upcoming Update Changelog
Added tray application ‘MDClient’ to overcome limitation of the sandboxed environment;
Added back all missing ACARS pages;
Added back wx clients for METAR/ATIS (VATSIM/IVAO) and CPDLC;
Added back ‘printing’ of ACARS message to Pushover app;
Added automatic retrieval of latest OFP from SimBrief;
Touching safely down on Mars is a true, nail biting event. Those terror gripping, heart-stopping moments of entry, descent, and landing (EDL) after months of cruising to the Red Planet are indeed frightening affairs.
The EDL community is busy at work on fresh ideas on how to breach Mars’ atmosphere, put on the speed brakes, and plop down payloads. One big and new assignment is NASA’s Mars Sample Return project and the challenges that initiative faces.
In the near and far-term, Mars is on tap to be on the receiving end of a load of landed hardware, not only to support further robotic investigations, but to reinforce a human presence on that world. But getting down, dirty and securely on Mars remains a delicate balance of technical skill, mixed in with hard-earned luck.
Related: Mars rover Perseverance spots shiny silver litter on the Red Planet (photo)
Less expensive payloads
“I see two big challenges,” said Zachary Putnam, assistant professor in the Department of Aerospace Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. “Landing really big things on the surface, for more advanced robotic missions and human exploration, and landing lots of smaller, less expensive things at relatively low cost,” Putnam said.
What’s ahead for Mars is clear, Putnam said.
Being able to send lots of smaller payloads to the Martian surface less expensively, Putnam added, would leverage excess payload capacity on launch vehicles used to send larger payloads and take advantage of the improving abilities of small satellite technology.
“It would allow us to accept more risk, since a few failures is less of an issue if there are a lot of landers, which could help us improve all our landing technology over time,” said Putnam. “Also, there’s the engagement of a larger, more diverse community of scientists and engineers, such as universities.”
Tallest tent pole
Alike in view is Bethany Ehlmann, a professor of planetary science at the California Institute of Technology and associate director of the Keck Institute for Space Studies in Pasadena, California.
“I think what is exciting is that Mars surface access technology is gaining new interest from companies and government technology programs,” Ehlmann told Space.com. “Mars landing is the tallest tent pole in translating all of the commercial space systems investment at the moon to Mars, enabling lower cost and more frequent Mars exploration.”
Ehlmann said that there is need for development at both the small size and the large size payloads. “This includes developing more cost-efficient means than sky cranes to deliver small science missions. At the large size, payloads that are human-rated also require different approaches,” she said.
To Ehlmann’s point, six companies received seven contracts from NASA in September to build inflatable aerodynamic decelerator systems for spacecraft entry, descent and landing operations and aerocapture missions. Potential NASA and commercial mission applications will benefit from this advanced technology.
An artist’s view of a Hypersonic Inflatable Aerodynamic Decelerator (HIAD) as it cuts through the atmosphere of Mars. (Image credit: NASA)
Twice the mass
For today, it all comes back to JPL’s focus for the last 20 years, said JPL’s Allen Chen, Mars Sample Return (MSR) program system engineering and integration manager. “And that is to land more on Mars … and land it even more precisely than before.”
In front of EDL experts is a key element of the MSR undertaking; A Sample Retrieval Lander totes with it a NASA-led Mars ascent rocket and a pair of Mars helicopters.
That lander would touch down close to the then location of Perseverance in Jezero Crater, load up with Mars collectibles and then rocket those bits and pieces (and atmospheric sample) back to Earth for detailed study.
“The Sample Retrieval Lander now weighs a little over two metric tons. That’s almost twice the mass of what we put down with the Perseverance rover,” Chen told Space.com. “That’s a huge difference in terms of what we need to get to the ground. It’s so much bigger than what we’ve landed before,” he said.
Read more: Ingenuity helicopter on Mars heads toward ancient river delta on 31st flight
An illustration depicting a concept for NASA’s Sample Retrieval Lander. This heavy-class lander, built for precision landing, will tote the Mars Ascent Vehicle and two mini-helicopters. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Parking space
The sky crane concept — used for the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars landings – is not in play this go-round for the Sample Retrieval Lander. Rather, the craft is to power itself down using built-in retro rockets.
As for the precise part of the MSR mission, Chen said that there’s a “doubling-down” on the use of Terrain Relative Navigation (TRN), a capability that provides a map-relative position fix that can be used to accurately target specific landing points on the surface of Mars while steering clear of hazards.
Using TRN, and adding a lot of fuel to the Sample Retrieval Lander, will allow the craft to land within 60 meters or better of a target. “We have to land an even bigger vehicle in a particular parking lot … in a particular parking space,” Chen said.
Additionally, an adaptive range trigger is to enable an even smarter self-decision about when the lander deploys its parachute.
And there’s more. The lander’s parachute itself is growing to an 80-foot (24-meter) design. “We want to beef up the parachute to be able to handle the load of a much bigger vehicle,” said Chen.
Both the Curiosity and Perseverance Mars rovers made safe landfall via Sky Crane technology. (Image credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech)
Rocket plume ruckus
The Mars Perseverance rover is already pre-scouting the landscape to help ascertain that primo parking space for a touch down. “For the first time we can see everything that’s of a concern to the lander,” Chen said. “We’ll know exactly what’s there and that’s a huge advantage.”
The goal is to land within a couple hundred meters of where the Perseverance rover will be, or a locale where the wheeled robot can easily drive up to deliver Mars specimens to the Sample Retrieval Lander. Care will be taken not to land directly near Perseverance, Chen said, due to concern about the ruckus created when the lander’s rocket plume pitches out surface rock and sand.
“Given what we have right now, and the need to land a huge amount of mass very precisely, what you’re seeing for us is a big step, but really an evolution of what we have been doing in the past. We’re excited for the opportunity to show what we can do,” Chen concluded.
Successful entry, descent and landing on Mars by Perseverance rover sparked euphoria at JPL’s mission control. (Image credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls)
Kink in the curve
Since the early 1990s, Rob Manning, now chief engineer at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, has been actively engaged in plotting out EDL at Mars.
As for the MSR effort ahead, “I won’t say the word is risk because I don’t know how to quantify the risks, but there are a lot of developmental challenges,” Manning said. “I hope we don’t bump into new physics.”
In looking beyond MSR, Manning said there’s a “kink in the curve” for EDL.
“Supersonic Retro Propulsion is a whole new game,” Manning said. Supersonic retro propulsion, SRP for short, is a method to decelerate a vehicle using retrorockets in the supersonic regime.
“I think the big step function in the future is taking a stab and try SRP on Mars, and actually get that to work. I think it will work. Everyone agrees that it could work. It’s just that we’re all kind of chicken,” said Manning.
Complicated phenomenon
SRP work at JPL has benefited by cooperation with SpaceX and Elon Musk, the company’s chief. “They’ve allowed us to monitor the quality of their booster returns which fly exactly in the right domain,” Manning said, noting complicated phenomenon, like the interaction of rocket plume with the supersonic wake that’s being generated around the re-entering booster.
“It’s so hard to get your arms around it computationally … very hard to analyze,” Manning said.
For the EDL community there’s much work ahead in terms of new research, new know-how and hardware to showcase new capabilities.
“Especially the push by MSR, the Sample Retrieval Lander fits squarely between where we’ve going with the large landing system and where we are going after that, in human scale,” Manning said.
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SEOUL, Oct 14 (Reuters) – South Korea scrambled fighter jets after a group of about 10 North Korean military aircraft flew close to the border dividing the two countries, South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff said, amid heightened tensions over repeated North Korean missiles tests.
The statement said the North Korean aircraft were detected flying about 25 km (15 miles) north of the Military Demarcation Line in the central region of the Korea border area and about 12 km (7 miles) north of the Northern Limit Line, a de facto inter-Korean border in the Yellow Sea. The incident happened between 10:30 p.m. Thursday (1330 GMT) and 0:20 a.m. (1530 GMT) local time Friday.
North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un attends the opening ceremony of the Ryonpho Greenhouse Farm to mark the anniversary of the founding of the ruling Workers’ Party, in North Korea, in this undated photo released on October 11, 2022 by North Korea’s Korean Central News Agency (KCNA). KCNA via REUTERS/File Photo
It said the aircraft were also seen near the eastern part of the inter-Korean border.
The statement said the South Korean air force “conducted an emergency sortie with its superior air force, including the F-35A, and maintained a response posture, while carrying out a proportional response maneuver corresponding to the flight of a North Korean military aircraft.”
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Reporting by Josh Smith and David Brunnstrom; Editing by Lisa Shumaker
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
Albert Einstein’s “happiest thought” has been proven again by four international astronauts and a small doll made in his likeness (opens in new tab).
Upon entering Earth orbit on Wednesday (Oct. 5), the crew members onboard SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft “Endurance” (opens in new tab) revealed their chosen “zero-g indicator,” a plush toy of the late theoretical physicist. Floating at the end of a tether, the doll not only confirmed that the Crew-5 astronauts were safely on their way to the International Space Station, but that one of Einstein’s ponderings was indeed true.
“A couple of years after he came up with his groundbreaking theory of special relativity, Einstein, in his mind, still had a couple of loose ends to tie up,” Crew-5 pilot Josh Cassada, a NASA astronaut, U.S. Navy captain and physicist, radioed back to SpaceX’s mission control in Hawthorne, California. “While he was sitting [at his job] in the patent office because he wasn’t famous yet — [though he] definitely should have been — Einstein had what he said was one of his happiest thoughts of his entire life … that a person in free fall could not feel his own weight.”
“That thought, along with some others that he built upon, led to the general relativity and our understanding of gravitation and the curvature of space-time,” said Cassada.
Related: SpaceX launches Crew-5 astronauts on historic flight to space station for NASA
A tradition first started by Soviet-era cosmonauts and later adopted for SpaceX crewed spaceflights, zero-g indicators signal to the still strapped-into-their-seats crew members that they have entered orbit — or are in free fall around Earth — such that they experience weightlessness. Einstein had his “happiest thought” in 1907, more than 50 years before the first human launched into space.
“We’re experiencing Einstein’s happiest thought continuously, as the International Space Station has been doing for over 20 years,” said Cassada. “On Crew-5, we call this little guy our ‘free-fall indicator.’ We’re here to tell you that there’s plenty of gravity up here. In fact, that is what keeping us in orbit right now and preventing this trip on Crew Dragon from being a one-way trip.”
Crew-5’s free-fall indicator was made by The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, a specialty shop offering “thoughtful gifts for thinking people,” as part of its “Little Thinker” line of dolls (opens in new tab). The 11-inch-tall (28-cm) Albert Einstein plush, dressed in a gray sweater and black pants, features the physicist’s trademark unruly white hair.
The Albert Einstein Little Thinker plush doll, from The Unemployed Philosophers Guild, was flown by the SpaceX Crew-5 astronauts as their zero-g indicator. (Image credit: The Unemployed Philosophers Guild)
Einstein has now joined a small but growing collection of dolls that have flown on SpaceX missions to the space station. Previous zero-g indicators have included a plush Earth globe (opens in new tab), a sequined dinosaur (opens in new tab), a toy Grogu (“Star Wars”‘ “baby Yoda (opens in new tab)“), a baby penguin (opens in new tab), a couple of turtles (opens in new tab), a stuffed dog (opens in new tab) and a monkey (opens in new tab).
The Einstein doll, together with Cassada, Crew-5 commander and first Native American woman in space Nicole Mann, Japanese astronaut Koichi Wakata and Anna Kikina, Russia’s only active female cosmonaut, are scheduled to arrive at the space station on Thursday evening.
“A little bit like life, we live in the same world, we live in the same universe,” said Cassada. “Sometimes we experience it in a very different way from our neighbors. If we can all keep that in mind, we can all continue to do absolutely amazing things and do it together.”
SpaceX’s flight controllers thanked Cassada for sharing his sentiments, as well as the meaning behind the Crew-5 “stowaway.”
“My crewmates are just happy that we didn’t break out a dry erase board and get into more detail,” replied Cassada with a smile.
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