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UK Company Sends Factory With 1,000C Furnace Into Space

Slashdot.org - Thu, 01/01/2026 - 05:00
A UK-based company has successfully powered up a microwave-sized space factory in orbit, proving it can run a 1,000C furnace to manufacture ultra-pure semiconductor materials in microgravity. "The work that we're doing now is allowing us to create semiconductors up to 4,000 times purer in space than we can currently make here today," says Josh Western, CEO of Space Forge. "This sort of semiconductor would go on to be in the 5G tower in which you get your mobile phone signal, it's going to be in the car charger you plug an EV into, it's going to be in the latest planes." The BBC reports: Conditions in space are ideal for making semiconductors, which have the atoms they're made of arranged in a highly ordered 3D structure. When they are being manufactured in a weightless environment, those atoms line up absolutely perfectly. The vacuum of space also means that contaminants can't sneak in. The purer and more ordered a semiconductor is, the better it works. [...] The company's mini-factory launched on a SpaceX rocket in the summer. Since then the team has been testing its systems from their mission control in Cardiff. Veronica Viera, the company's payload operations lead, shows us an image that the satellite beamed back from space. It's taken from the inside of the furnace, and shows plasma - gas heated to about 1,000C -- glowing brightly. [...] The team is now planning to build a bigger space factory -- one that could make semiconductor material for 10,000 chips. They also need to test the technology to bring the material back to Earth. On a future mission, a heat shield named Pridwen after the legendary shield of King Arthur will be deployed to protect the spacecraft from the intense temperatures it will experience as it re-enters the Earth's atmosphere.

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NASA's Largest Library Is Closing Amid Staff and Lab Cuts

Slashdot.org - Thu, 01/01/2026 - 02:00
NASA is closing its largest research library at the Goddard Space Flight Center amid budget cuts and campus consolidation, putting tens of thousands of largely non-digitized historical and scientific documents at risk of being warehoused or discarded. The New York Times reports: Jacob Richmond, a NASA spokesman, said the agency would review the library holdings over the next 60 days and some material would be stored in a government warehouse while the rest would be tossed away. "This process is an established method that is used by federal agencies to properly dispose of federally owned property," Mr. Richmond said. The shutdown of the library at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md., is part of a larger reorganization under the Trump administration that includes the closure of 13 buildings and more than 100 science and engineering laboratories on the 1,270-acre campus by March 2026. "This is a consolidation not a closure," said NASA spokeswoman Bethany Stevens. The changes were part of a long-planned reorganization that began before the Trump administration took office, she said. She said that shutting down the facilities would save $10 million a year and avoid another $63.8 million in deferred maintenance. Goddard is the nation's premiere spaceflight complex. Its website calls it "the largest organization of scientists, engineers, and technologists who build spacecraft, instruments, and new technology to study Earth, the Sun, our solar system, and the universe." [...] The library closure on Friday follows the shutdown of seven other NASA libraries around the country since 2022, and included three libraries this year. As of next week, only three -- at the Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, the Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif., and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. -- will remain open.

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Heart Association Revives Theory That Light Drinking May Be Good For You

Slashdot.org - Wed, 12/31/2025 - 22:30
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the New York Times: For a while, it seemed the notion that light drinking was good for the heart had gone by the wayside, debunked by new studies and overshadowed by warnings that alcohol causes cancer. Now the American Heart Association has revived the idea in a scientific review that is drawing intense criticism, setting off a new round of debate about alcohol consumption. The paper, which sought to summarize the latest research and was aimed at practicing cardiologists, concluded that light drinking -- one to two drinks a day -- posed no risk for coronary disease, stroke, sudden death and possibly heart failure, and may even reduce the risk of developing these conditions. Controversy over the influential organization's review has been simmering since it was published in the association's journal Circulation in July. Public health groups and many doctors have warned on the basis of recent studies that alcohol can be harmful even in small amounts. Groups like the European Heart Network and the World Heart Federation have stressed that even modest drinking increases the odds of cardiovascular disease. "It says in all our guidelines right now, 'If you don't drink, don't start.' There's not enough evidence to suggest conclusively that it prevents heart disease," said Dr. Mariell Jessup, the chief science and medical officer at the heart association, adding that the review was not meant to serve as a guideline and that the group's advice to patients has not changed. Critics argue that suggesting any heart-health benefits from alcohol is dangerous given its well-documented risks, and they accuse the heart association of selectively weighing studies. They also say a past tie to the alcohol industry by one author should have disqualified him from participating. "The cardiovascular benefits of moderate drinking are questionable at best," said Dr. Elizabeth Farkouh, an internist and alcohol researcher. "But even if there was a benefit, there are so many other ways to reduce cardiovascular risk that don't come with an associated cancer risk." The new review's conclusion is also at odds with the CDC's guidance on alcohol, which notes that "even moderate drinking may increase your risk of death and other alcohol-related harms, compared to not drinking." It also seems to diverge from the heart association's diet and lifestyle recommendation to consume "limited or preferably no alcohol," along with its 2023 statement that recent research suggests there is "no safe level of alcohol use."

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