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Kayla Barron was selected by NASA to join the 2017 Astronaut Candidate Class. She reported for duty in August 2017 and completed two years of training as an Astronaut Candidate. The Washington native graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy with a bachelor’s degree in Systems Engineering. A Gates Cambridge Scholar, Barron earned a master’s degree in Nuclear Engineering from the University of Cambridge. As a Submarine Warfare Officer, Barron was a member of the first class of women commissioned into the submarine community....

With consent from Powhatan Tribal elders and representatives, NASA’s New Horizons team – whose spacecraft performed the record-breaking reconnaissance of Arrokoth four billion miles from Earth – proposed the name to the International Astronomical Union and Minor Planets Center, the international authority for naming Kuiper Belt objects. The name was announced at a ceremony today at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. “The name ‘Arrokoth’ reflects the inspiration of looking to the skies and wondering about the stars and worlds beyond our own,” said Alan Stern, New Horizons principal investigator from Southwest Research Institute, Boulder, Colorado....

“Traumatic microbleeds may represent injury to blood vessels that occur following even minor head injury,” said Lawrence Latour, Ph.D., NINDS researcher and senior author of the study. “While we know that damage to brain cells can be devastating, the exact impact of this vascular injury following head trauma is uncertain and requires further study.” This study, which involved researchers from Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York and the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences in Bethesda, Maryland, included 439 adults who experienced head injuries and were treated in the emergency department....

A new, large mosaic from NASA’s Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) showcases a vast stretch of cosmic clouds bubbling with new star birth. The region — a 1,000-square-degree chunk of our Milky Way galaxy — is home to numerous star-forming clouds, where massive stars have blown out bubbles in the gas and dust. “Massive stars sweep up and destroy their natal clouds, but they continuously spark new stars to form along the way,” said WISE Mission Scientist Dave Leisawitz of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md....

Ready to be launched with its counterpart from China on 2 February, GomX-4B is built from six standard 10 cm (4 in) CubeSat units. Much quicker to build and cheaper to launch than traditional satellites, ESA is making use of CubeSats for testing new technologies in space. The main goal is to test the radio link at varying distances, routing data from one satellite to the other, then down to the ground....

This analog memory storage system — the first that can record the duration and/or intensity of events in human cells — could also help scientists study how cells differentiate into various tissues during embryonic development, how cells experience environmental conditions, and how they undergo genetic changes that lead to disease. “To enable a deeper understanding of biology, we engineered human cells that are able to report on their own history based on genetically encoded recorders,” says Timothy Lu, an associate professor of electrical engineering and computer science, and of biological engineering....

MIT chemists have determined the molecular structure of a protein found in the SARS-CoV-2 virus. This protein, called the envelope protein E, forms a cation-selective channel and plays a key role in the virus’s ability to replicate itself and stimulate the host cell’s inflammation response. If researchers could devise ways to block this channel, they may be able to reduce the pathogenicity of the virus and interfere with viral replication, says Mei Hong, an MIT professor of chemistry....

These interruptions are likely “nuisance trips,” in which a detector installed behind the wall trips an outlet’s electrical circuit when it senses something that could be an arc-fault — a potentially dangerous spark in the electric line. The problem with today’s arc-fault detectors, according to a team of MIT engineers, is that they often err on the side of being overly sensitive, shutting off an outlet’s power in response to electrical signals that are actually harmless....

“The rate of stroke among young adults has been increasing over the last few decades, and stroke in young adults causes death and serious disability,” said study author Eue-Keun Choi, MD, PhD, of Seoul National University in the Republic of Korea. “If we could prevent stroke in young adults by reducing alcohol consumption, that could potentially have a substantial impact on the health of individuals and the overall burden of stroke on society....

Scientists say it is extremely challenging to try and predict when a supervolcano might erupt again due to the sheer diversity of events that have gone before. Writing in Nature Reviews Earth and Environment, the team says there is not a single model which can describe how these catastrophic events play out, making it extremely difficult to determine how supervolcanoes may erupt in the future. Supervolcanoes are defined as a volcano that has had at least one explosion of magnitude 8, the highest-ranking on the Volcanic Explosivity Index, or VEI, meaning it has released more than 1000 cubic kilometers of material....

In mordanҫage, a fully developed black-and-white photograph is immersed in a solution containing copper (II) chloride, hydrogen peroxide, and acetic acid. The solution bleaches the photo to a pale yellow color and partially lifts formerly black areas of the print away from the paper backing. Then, the photographer rinses off the mordanҫage solution and redevelops the print to restore the black color. When the photo is dried and pressed flat, black areas that had lifted from the paper form the veils....

The technique, described in a paper published June 26 in Nature Communications, involves an intravenous injection of nanoparticles carrying a combination of donor DNA and synthetic molecules known as peptide nucleic acids (PNAs). The PNAs, which mimic DNA, bind to the target gene and form a triple helix — an aberration that triggers the cells’ repair mechanisms. As part of this process, the healthy donor DNA — paired with the PNA in a nanoparticle — is used to fix the mutation....

Engineers conducted the final Artemis I in-space developmental flight test objective to characterize temperature impacts on solar array wings from plumes, or exhaust gases. Once the solar array wing was in the correct test position, flight controllers fired the reaction control system thrusters using opposing thrusters simultaneously to balance the torque and test a variety of firing patterns. Engineers will perform several additional flight test objectives after Orion splashes down in the water and before powering down the spacecraft....

A new high-pressure ventilator developed by NASA engineers and tailored to treat coronavirus (COVID-19) patients passed a critical test Tuesday at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York, an epicenter of COVID-19 in the United States. The device, called VITAL (Ventilator Intervention Technology Accessible Locally), was developed by engineers at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California to free up the nation’s limited supply of traditional ventilators so they may be used on patients with the most severe COVID-19 symptoms....

The DAVINCI mission will “take the plunge” into Venus’ enigmatic history using an instrumented deep atmosphere probe spacecraft that will carry five instruments for measuring the chemistry and environments throughout the clouds and to the surface, while also conducting the first descent imaging of a mountain system on Venus known as Alpha Regio, which may represent an ancient continent. In addition, the DAVINCI mission includes two science flybys of Venus during which it will search for clues to mystery molecules in the upper cloud deck while also measuring the rock types in some of Venus’s highland regions....

Earlier this year, things started with 50 draft objectives developed by agency leaders across NASA mission directorates. Then NASA solicited feedback from its workforce, the public, industry, and the agency’s international partners, and followed up with two workshops with industry and international partners to engage in further discussions. The outcome was 63 revised final objectives that reflect a matured strategy for NASA and its partners to develop a blueprint for sustained human presence and exploration throughout our solar system....

The ring-region Saturnian moons Prometheus and Pan are both caught “herding” their respective rings in this image. Through their gravitational disturbances of nearby ring particles, one moon maintains a gap in the outer A ring and the other helps keep a ring narrowly confined. Prometheus (53 miles, or 86 kilometers across), together with Pandora (not seen in this image), maintains the narrow F ring seen at the bottom left in this image....

As a result of this decision, NASA is committed to a development cost baseline of $1.2 billion and to be ready for a launch no later than June 2028. The cost and schedule commitments outlined at KDP-C align the NEO Surveyor mission with program management best practices that account for potential technical risks and budgetary uncertainty beyond the development project’s control. NEO Surveyor is an infrared space telescope designed to help advance NASA’s planetary defense efforts....

More than a hundred years later, the chromosphere remains the most mysterious of the Sun’s atmospheric layers. Sandwiched between the bright surface and the ethereal solar corona, the Sun’s outer atmosphere, the chromosphere is a place of rapid change, where temperature rises and magnetic fields begin to dominate the Sun’s behavior. Now, for the first time, a triad of NASA missions have peered into the chromosphere to return multi-height measurements of its magnetic field....

The updated dates represent careful consideration of multiple logistical topics. These include the additional value of having more time to prepare for the cryogenic demonstration test, and subsequently more time to prepare for the launch. In addition, these data also allow managers to ensure teams have enough rest and time to replenish supplies of cryogenic propellants. NASA and SpaceX also continue to target no earlier than 12:45 p.m. EDT (9:45 a....