NASA Closes Chief Scientist’s Office

NASA Cuts and Job Losses, Gene Therapy Breakthroughs, and More: The Week in Science and Tech

NASA Closed Three Offices, Laying Off 23 Employees

NASA’s Chief Scientist, Katherine Calvin, was laid off this week, and the agency closed three offices, including the office of the Chief Scientist, which advised NASA leadership on science programs and strategic planning. This is a prelude to plans for a greater reduction in force to comply with President Trump’s executive orders. The agency has not yet announced how many people might be affected.

Gene Therapy Breakthrough: Bioengineered Blood Cells

Immusoft, a Seattle-based startup, is using bioengineered blood cells to deliver gene therapies. The company’s B cells can be programmed to produce specific proteins that treat diseases, eliminating the need for a "preconditioning regime" of drugs that can have harmful side effects. In a recent clinical trial, patients with a genetic disorder called mucopolysaccharidosis type I showed significant improvement in their condition without experiencing any side effects.

Quantum Supremacy: A New Milestone?

D-Wave, a quantum computing company, claims to have achieved "quantum supremacy" by solving a complex physics problem that would take a conventional computer hundreds of years to solve. However, two separate research groups published findings that used conventional computers to solve subsets of the same problem, suggesting that there may not be an advantage to using quantum computers.

NASA’s New Space Telescope

NASA launched its SPHEREx space telescope into Earth orbit, which will survey the sky at infrared wavelengths, enabling astronomers to collect data about the chemistries of asteroids, galaxies, and other astronomical objects. This includes information about oxygen, carbon dioxide, and other chemicals that could indicate the presence of life.

Other News and Trends

• Graphitic Energy has developed a way to generate hydrogen that is clean and affordable, producing valuable graphite in the process.
• Greenhouse gas emissions not only warm the Earth, but they are also shrinking the upper atmosphere, which could reduce the number of satellites that can safely operate in low Earth orbit by as much as 66%.
• Recycling plastic can be made less expensive by taking advantage of the moisture in the air, new research shows.
• Scientists at MIT successfully turned mice skin cells into neurons, without having to convert them into stem cells first, which could be used to scale treatment of neurodegenerative diseases or spinal cord injuries.

Pro Science Tip: Good Sleep Protects You from Conspiracy Theories

New research suggests that not getting enough sleep can make people more likely to believe in conspiracy theories. Researchers from the University of Nottingham found that those with recent poor sleep quality and insomnia were more likely to endorse new conspiracy theories.

Entertainment and More

• Marvel has reunited the original cast of its Netflix series Daredevil and launched a new show, Daredevil: Born Again, on Disney+.
• The federal government is making massive cuts to the National Weather Service, and companies might be forced to fill the gaps.
• Cognixion, a startup, has developed a brain-computer interface that doesn’t require anything to be implanted in your head and is starting clinical trials with ALS patients.

Conclusion

This week’s news highlights significant developments in the fields of space exploration, gene therapy, and quantum computing. NASA’s plans for a greater reduction in force are a cause for concern, while Immusoft’s breakthrough in gene therapy shows promise for treating a range of diseases. The achievement of quantum supremacy by D-Wave is a milestone in the field of quantum computing, and NASA’s new space telescope is set to expand our understanding of the universe.

FAQs

• What is the impact of NASA’s layoffs on the space agency’s research efforts?
• How does Immusoft’s gene therapy approach differ from traditional methods?
• What are the implications of D-Wave’s achievement of quantum supremacy for the field of quantum computing?
• What is the purpose of NASA’s new space telescope, SPHEREx?