Short Takes – 12-10-24

What do we need astronauts for? TheSpaceReview.com article. Pull quote: “Hence human health, specifically in lunar or Martian gravity, is a key constraint on space settlement destinations and types. Space settlers will need good health for the full human lifecycle. We have no data on human health in sustained low gravity. We should be healthier in 0.13 to 0.38g than in microgravity, but we don’t know if degradation of health will stop or just slow down, what microgravity health issues will persist, what countermeasures we will still need or how well they will work and with what side effects, or how well we might tolerate 1g later—or even if we will grow up normally, from conception to adulthood.”

Artemis reentry. TheSpaceReview.com article. Pull quote: “NASA, of course, won’t be able to cancel SLS and Orion without the support of Congress, including members from states and districts heavily invested in those programs. The attempt by the Obama Administration in 2010 to cancel the Constellation program ultimately led to the end of that program, but Orion continued, as did a shuttle-derived rocket in the form of SLS.”

Avian flu cases are on the upswing at big dairy farms. ArsTechnica.com article. Pull quote: “In the United States, a trend of consolidation in agriculture, particularly dairies, has seen more animals housed together on ever-larger farms as the number of small farms has rapidly shrunk. In 1987, half of the country’s dairy cows were in herds of 80 or more, and half in herds of 80 or fewer. Twenty years later, half the country’s cows were raised in herds of 1,300 or more. Today, 5,000-head dairies are common, especially in the arid West.”

Possible H5N1 bird flu case in Marin County child; source of infection unknown. LATimes.com article. Pull quote: ““It’s deeply concerning that another child may have H5N1. We need to know much more about this case, including some hypotheses for how she or he may have contracted the virus,” said Jennifer Nuzzo, director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University in Providence, R.I. “Given the proximity of this case to the last case of H5N1 diagnosed in a child without known exposure to animals, it may be prudent to conduct a broader investigation, including a serologic study, to see if there is evidence of other infections in the area.””

What Happened to the Canadian Teen Who Became Critically Ill With H5N1 Bird Flu? Medpage.com article. Pull quote: “The investigation revealed no additional cases of H5N1 and no evidence of human-to-human transmission, and all testing on human, animal, and environmental samples were negative for H5N1. Public health officials assessed the 60 healthcare workers who had contact with the patient, along with 16 close family and friends, none of whom developed any illness.”

Cellulose and chitin foam can remove nearly all microplastics from water. ChemistryWorld.com article. Pull quote: “Microplastic pollution in terrestrial and aquatic environments is escalating at a significant rate and the development of universal approaches for remediation are urgently needed. To find a solution, the team of researchers, who were based in China, set out to design a sustainable and adaptable adsorbent material through supramolecular self-assembly of two of the most abundant polysaccharides in nature: chitin, derived from squid, and cellulose, from cotton.”