Short Takes – 3-18-25

H5N1 2.3.4.4b D1.3 in Ohio-Indiana Poultry Outbreak with Associated Undisclosed Human Sequence Data. HogVet51.Substack.com article. A tad bit geeky, but interesting discussion. Pull quote: “I don’t want to drone on. We have a relatively new zoonotic H5N1 2.3.4.4b D1.3 genotype that has killed over 19 million chickens on 84 farms in a small area in less than 2 1/2 months! It put one poultry worker in the hospital. No one has even bothered to publicly announce the new genotype to my knowledge! CDC has likely sequenced it from the hospitalized human patient yet has failed to deposit the sequence or even inform the public of its findings.”

Isar Aerospace sets date for first launch after receiving license. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “The launch attempt will be a major milestone for both the company and the European space industry as it seeks to expand its launch capabilities. “In today’s geopolitical climate, our first test flight is about much more than a rocket launch: Space is one of the most critical platforms for our security, resilience and technological advancement,” Daniel Metzler, chief executive and co-founder of Isar Aerospace, said in a statement. “In the next days, Isar Aerospace will lay the foundations to regain much needed independent and competitive access to space from Europe.””

Wired is dropping paywalls for FOIA-based reporting. Others should follow. Freedom.press article. Pull quote: “We commend Wired for tipping the balance that all for-profit media outlets must strike between public interest and business more toward the public interest. We hope others will follow its lead (and shoutout to outlets like 404 Media that also make their FOIA-based reporting available for free).”

A method to assess 'forgivable' vs 'unforgivable' vulnerabilities. NCSC.gov.uk article. Pull quote: “We know many vulnerabilities are complex and hard to avoid. But vulnerabilities that are trivial to find (and that occur time and time again) are ones the NCSC are aiming to drive down at scale. These ‘unforgivable vulnerabilities', a phrase coined by Steve Christie in his 2007 MITRE paper, ‘are beacons of a systematic disregard for secure development practices. They simply should not appear in software that has been designed, developed, and tested with security in mind’.”

Europe funds inflatable satellite drag sail demonstration. SpaceNews.com article. Pull quote: “A growing number of satellites rely on onboard propulsion to maneuver and lower their altitude for deorbiting. However, this method requires the satellite to be functional at the end of its mission and consumes fuel that could otherwise be used for operational tasks.”

US reviews chemical incident prevention planning rules. ChemistryWorld.com article. Pull quote: “California-based environmental non-profit group Earthjustice voiced concerns at the review. ‘This is the second time the Trump administration targets safeguards against chemical disasters. Any rollback of health and safety protections from chemical disasters will face legal challenges.’ Earthjustice asserts that fatal or life-threatening chemical incidents occur at chemical facilities on average every 2.5 days, and over $5 billion in damages have resulted from these disasters.” Includes quotes from me.

Farewell, Blue Ghost! Private moon lander goes dark to end record-breaking commercial lunar mission. Space.com article. Pull quote: “"We battle-tested every system on the lander and simulated every mission scenario we could think of to get to this point," Blue Ghost Chief Engineer Will Coogan said in a Firefly statement today (March 17) that announced the end of the mission.”

Snubbed Vaccine Committee Members Lament FDA's Flu Shot Actions. MedPageToday.com article. Pull quote: “He told MedPage Today that an additional value of VRBPAC is that its discussions and reasoning are "open to the public" -- and that they include a "post-mortem on how we did the previous year and whether we could have done better" in terms of matching strains with those that end up circulating.”