Short Takes – 5-29-24

Nerve agent powder discovered in passenger's bag at Incheon Airport. KoreaJoongAngDaily.com article. ‘Nerve Agent’ implies weaponized material, should have been described as ‘Organophospate’, still potentially dangerous, but not an attack. Pull quote: “She found unknown materials inside a black pouch in her bag and reported it to police. She told authorities that there were “powdery materials that look like ground coffee.””

Boeing’s Starliner set to launch first crewed flight into space Saturday. TheHill.com article. Pull quote: ““We can handle this particular [helium] leak if that leak rate were to grow even up to 100 times,” said Steve Stich, manager of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program, according to Agence France-Presse (AFP).”

How the pandemic gave power to superbugs. NPR.org article. Pull quote: “Researchers from the National Institutes of Health found that, during the pandemic, hospital-acquired antibiotic-resistant infections jumped 32% when compared with data from just before the pandemic – they leapt from 28 cases out of 10,000 hospitalizations to 38 cases out of 10,000 hospitalizations.”

Pentagon Opens Ammunition Factory to Keep Arms Flowing to Ukraine. NYTimes.com article (free). Pull quote: ““The steady increase of artillery ammunition production is significant for long-term U.S. and Ukrainian needs,” said Michael Kofman, an expert on the Russian military and a senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, “but even in the best case scenario, I would say those late-2025 output targets will arrive late in this war, and it is likely that Russian artillery output will still be higher than the U.S. and Europe combined at that point.””

NASA's OSIRIS-APEX unscathed after searing pass of sun. Phys.org article. Pull quote: “The spacecraft is in an elliptical orbit around the sun that brings it to a point closest to the sun, called a perihelion, about every nine months. To get on a path that will allow it to meet up with its new target Apophis in 2029, the spacecraft's trajectory includes several perihelions that are closer to the sun than the spacecraft's components were originally designed to withstand.”

Russian experts were guiding North Korea's space program ahead of Pyongyang blowing up its latest satellite: South Korean report. BusinessInsider.com article. Pull quote: “North Korean state media cited a space official saying that preliminary investigations showed the rocket's new liquid oxygen and petroleum engine was to blame. However, he also said there may have been other reasons for the launch failure.”