SpaceX's $17 billion deal to buy spectrum licenses from EchoStar should help Starlink satellites deliver better service to smartphones, and it might give a few large corporations second thoughts about their current partnerships with Starlink competitors.

The spectrum, combined with a SpaceX plan to launch up to 15,000 new and improved satellites for cellular service, could cause AT&T and Verizon to question their reliance on satellite company AST SpaceMobile. Apple, which was reportedly already facing internal dissent over its deal with Globalstar, now has another reason to wonder if it made the right choice in rejecting an offer from Elon Musk.

Pending regulatory approval, SpaceX will acquire EchoStar's AWS-4 and H-block spectrum licenses, giving Musk's space company the rights to 50 MHz of spectrum in the 1.9 and lower 2 GHz spectrum bands. SpaceX plans to acquire EchoStar's rights to the spectrum in the US and globally.

Read full article

Comments

In 1915, intrepid British explorer Sir Ernest Shackleton and his crew were stranded for months in the Antarctic after their ship, Endurance , was trapped by pack ice, eventually sinking into the freezing depths of the Weddell Sea. Miraculously, the entire crew survived. The prevailing popular narrative surrounding the famous voyage features two key assumptions: that Endurance was the strongest polar ship of its time, and that the ship ultimately sank after ice tore away the rudder.

However, a fresh analysis reveals that Endurance would have sunk even with an intact rudder; it was crushed by the cumulative compressive forces of the Arctic ice with no single cause for the sinking. Furthermore, the ship wasn't designed to withstand those forces and Shackleton was likely well aware of that fact, according to a new paper published in the journal Polar Record. Yet he chose to embark on the risky voyage anyway.

Author Jukka Tuhkuri of Aalto University is a polar explorer and one of the leading researchers on ice worldwide. He was among the scientists on the Endurance22 mission that discovered the Endurance shipwreck in 2022, documented in a 2024 National Geographic documentary . The ship was in pristine condition partly because of the lack of wood-eating microbes in those waters. In fact, the Endurance22 expedition's exploration director, Mensun Bound, told The New York Times at the time that the shipwreck was the finest example he's ever seen; Endurance was "in a brilliant state of preservation."

Read full article

Comments

Around this time each year, the US Space Force convenes a Mission Assignment Board to dole out contracts to launch the nation's most critical national security satellites. The military announced this year's launch orders Friday, and SpaceX was the big winner.

Space Systems Command, the unit responsible for awarding military launch contracts, selected SpaceX to launch five of the seven missions up for assignment this year. United Launch Alliance (ULA), a 50-50 joint venture between Boeing and Lockheed Martin, won contracts for the other two. These missions for the Space Force and the National Reconnaissance Office are still at least a couple of years away from flying.

SpaceX and ULA are the only companies with rockets certified by the Space Force to launch the Pentagon's big-ticket satellites. ULA's Vulcan rocket, which replaces the company's Atlas V, debuted nearly two years ago and successfully launched its first national security mission in August . SpaceX's Falcon 9 and Falcon Heavy rockets each have long track records of success.

Read full article

Comments

United States immigration authorities are moving to dramatically expand their social media surveillance , with plans to hire nearly 30 contractors to sift through posts, photos, and messages—raw material to be transformed into intelligence for deportation raids and arrests.

Federal contracting records reviewed by WIRED show that the agency is seeking private vendors to run a multiyear surveillance program out of two of its little-known targeting centers. The program envisions stationing nearly 30 private analysts at Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facilities in Vermont and Southern California. Their job: Scour Facebook , TikTok , Instagram , YouTube , and other platforms, converting posts and profiles into fresh leads for enforcement raids.

The initiative is still at the request-for-information stage, a step agencies use to gauge interest from contractors before an official bidding process. But draft planning documents show the scheme is ambitious: ICE wants a contractor capable of staffing the centers around the clock, constantly processing cases on tight deadlines, and supplying the agency with the latest and greatest subscription-based surveillance software.

Read full article

Comments

Magic mushrooms have been used in traditional ceremonies and for recreational purposes for thousands of years. However, a new study has found that mushrooms evolved the ability to make the same psychoactive substance twice. The discovery has important implications for both our understanding of these mushrooms’ role in nature and their medical potential.

Magic mushrooms produce psilocybin, which your body converts into its active form, psilocin, when you ingest it. Psilocybin rose in popularity in the 1960s and was eventually classed as a Schedule 1 drug in the US in 1970, and as a Class A drug in 1971 in the UK, the designations given to drugs that have high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use. This put a stop to research on the medical use of psilocybin for decades.

But recent clinical trials have shown that psilocybin can reduce depression severity, suicidal thoughts, and chronic anxiety. Given its potential for medical treatments, there is renewed interest in understanding how psilocybin is made in nature and how we can produce it sustainably.

Read full article

Comments

According to new polling data , nearly 80 percent of Americans support extending Affordable Care Act (ACA) enhanced premium tax credits, which are set to expire at the end of this year—and are at the center of a funding dispute that led to a shutdown of the federal government this week.

The poll, conducted by KFF and released Friday, found that 78 percent of Americans want the tax credits extended, including 92 percent of Democrats, 59 percent of Republicans—and even a majority (57 percent) of Republicans who identify as Donald Trump-aligned MAGA (Make America Great Again) supporters.

A separate analysis published by KFF earlier this week found that if the credits are not extended, monthly premiums for ACA Marketplace plans would more than double on average. Specifically, the current average premium of $888 would jump to $1,904 in 2026, a 114 percent increase.

Read full article

Comments

A new listing of the 50 most concerning pieces of space debris in low-Earth orbit is dominated by relics more than a quarter-century old, primarily dead rockets left to hurtle through space at the end of their missions.

"The things left before 2000 are still the majority of the problem," said Darren McKnight, lead author of a paper presented Friday at the International Astronautical Congress in Sydney. "Seventy-six percent of the objects in the top 50 were deposited last century, and 88 percent of the objects are rocket bodies. That's important to note, especially with some disturbing trends right now."

The 50 objects identified by McKnight and his coauthors are the ones most likely to drive the creation of more space junk in low-Earth orbit (LEO) through collisions with other debris fragments. The objects are whizzing around the Earth at nearly 5 miles per second, flying in a heavily trafficked part of LEO between 700 and 1,000 kilometers (435 to 621 miles) above the Earth.

Read full article

Comments

On Thursday, a team of researchers led by Microsoft announced that they had discovered, and possibly patched, what they're terming a biological zero-day—an unrecognized security hole in a system that protects us from biological threats. The system at risk screens purchases of DNA sequences to determine when someone's ordering DNA that encodes a toxin or dangerous virus. But, the researchers argue, it has become increasingly vulnerable to missing a new threat: AI-designed toxins.

How big of a threat is this? To understand, you have to know a bit more about both existing biosurveillance programs and the capabilities of AI-designed proteins.

Catching the bad ones

Biological threats come in a variety of forms. Some are pathogens, such as viruses and bacteria. Others are protein-based toxins, like the ricin that was sent to the White House in 2003. Still others are chemical toxins that are produced through enzymatic reactions, like the molecules associated with red tide . All of them get their start through the same fundamental biological process: DNA is transcribed into RNA, which is then used to make proteins.

Read full article

Comments

As we careen toward a future in which Google has final say over what apps you can run , the company has sought to assuage the community's fears with a blog post and a casual "backstage" video. Google has said again and again since announcing the change that sideloading isn't going anywhere, but it's definitely not going to be as easy. The new information confirms app installs will be more reliant on the cloud, and devs can expect new fees, but there will be an escape hatch for hobbyists.

Confirming app verification status will be the job of a new system component called the Android Developer Verifier, which will be rolled out to devices in the next major release of Android 16. Google explains that phones must ensure each app has a package name and signing keys that have been registered with Google at the time of installation. This process may break the popular FOSS storefront F-Droid .

It would be impossible for your phone to carry a database of all verified apps, so this process may require Internet access. Google plans to have a local cache of the most common sideloaded apps on devices, but for anything else, an Internet connection is required. Google suggests alternative app stores will be able to use a pre-auth token to bypass network calls, but it's still deciding how that will work.

Read full article

Comments