DTN 031: India on the Moon

The Big Picture

India Becomes Fourth Country Ever to Land on the Moon, First to Lunar South Pole

“Two visitors from India — a lander named Vikram and a rover named Pragyan — landed in the southern polar region of the moon on Wednesday. The two robots, from a mission named Chandrayaan-3, make India the first country to ever reach this part of the lunar surface in one piece — and only the fourth country ever to land on the moon. Chandrayaan-3 out-endured its Russian counterpart, Luna-25, which was scheduled to land on the moon on Monday in the same general vicinity as the Indian craft but crashed on Saturday following an engine malfunction. That India managed to outdo Russia, which as the Soviet Union put the first satellite, man and woman in space, speaks to the diverging fortunes of the two nations’ space programs.” (New York Times)

Complexity Theory’s 50-Year Journey to the Limits of Knowledge

“Even seasoned researchers find understanding in short supply when they confront the central open question in theoretical computer science, known as the P versus NP problem. In essence, that question asks whether many computational problems long considered extremely difficult can actually be solved easily (via a secret shortcut we haven’t discovered yet), or whether, as most researchers suspect, they truly are hard. Meta-complexity theorists have been asking questions like this for decades. A string of recent results has started to deliver answers. At stake is nothing less than the nature of what’s knowable.” (Quanta Magazine)

Why the vagus nerve is so exciting to scientists

“The vagus nerve is, in fact, a pair of nerves that serve as a two-way communication channel between the brain and the heart, lungs and abdominal organs, plus structures such as the oesophagus and voice box, helping to control involuntary processes, including breathing, heart rate, digestion and immune responses. They are also an important part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which governs the “rest and digest” processes, and relaxes the body after periods of stress or danger that activate our sympathetic “fight or flight” responses. Scientific interest in the vagus nerve is exploding. Could stimulating it transform physical and mental health?” (The Guardian)

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Deep Tech News

• Wind turbine blades made from mycelium could solve wind energy’s growing waste problem
• The 2024 Defense Bill Threatens The Future Of 3D-Printed Firearms And Basic Gun Rights
• Three security teams just hacked a US Air Force satellite in space
• Growing share of Americans favor more nuclear power
• Space debris cleanup satellite struck by space debris
• SETI Deploys New Instruments in Search for Alien Intelligence
• AI Helps a Stroke Patient Speak Again, a Milestone for Tech and Neuroscience
• The race to build the world's smallest atomic clock, again
• True Anomaly gets regulatory greenlight for first spacecraft reconnaissance mission
• Cruise told by regulators to ‘immediately’ reduce robotaxi fleet 50% following crash

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Peer Review

• Quantum entanglement wave detected for the first time using real-space measurements
• Israeli Researchers Produce Green Hydrogen with 90% Efficiency
• A 100GW phased laser array for interstellar lightsail propulsion
• Electrical detection of RNA cancer biomarkers at the single-molecule level
• Scientists trap light inside a magnet
• CRISPR shows preclinical promise in treating Alzheimer’s but challenges persist
• Floating seismometers could help peer into the core of Venus
• A maglev system on the moon could make lunar logistics a breeze
• New approach shows hydrogen can be combined with electricity to make pharmaceutical drugs
• Thinking about God makes people more likely to trust AI recommendations
• Scientists develop fermionic quantum processor
• Nanoneedle breakthrough gives hope for cheaper cancer treatment

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Funding x M&A

• Advanced Ionics nets $12.5M Series A to inject green hydrogen into heavy industry
• NorSun secures $8.5M in recent funding round for monocrystalline silicon wafer supplier and ingot manufacturing
• ZeroEyes, a creator of AI-based gun detection video analytics platform, raised a $23M round
• Cellares, a San Francisco-based integrated development and manufacturing organization dedicated to clinical and industrial-scale cell therapy manufacturing, raised a $255M Series C
• Axiom Space, a Houston-based provider of human spaceflight services, raised a $350M Series C
• Cascade Biocatalysts, a biomanufacturing startup focused on green chemistry, raised a $2.6M pre-seed round
• Genesis Therapeutics, an AI tech company that specializes in medicines for patients with severe diseases, raised a $200M Series B
• Mycoprotein producer Enough raised a $51.13M
• Viome, a microbiome startup, raised an $86.5M Series C

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Miscellanea

There’s a new accent developing in Antarctica / The ancient technology keeping space missions alive / We Spent $1.5M on Ads Without Getting a Single Customer / Microsoft retracts AI-written article advising tourists to visit a food bank / UCLA floor tiles decoded, pay homage to first internet message / President of the Moon Committee / Baghdad closes LED advert screens after hacker shows porn film on a screen / Airport Pianos / What does it mean when an LLM “hallucinates” / Apparatus for facilitating the birth of a child by centrifugal force / Will Scientists Ever Find a Theory of Everything? / If AI becomes conscious, how will we know? / The Myth of ‘Open Source’ AI

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