Final Results of NASA Twins Study Show How Scott Kelly Changed After a Year in Space

https://gizmodo.com/final-results-of-nasa-twins-study-show-how-scott-kelly-1833955282

Astronaut Scott Kelly taking a cognitive test during his one-year-long mission on board the International Space Station
Photo: NASA

Last year, various media outlets fumbled their reporting of genuinely interesting research from NASA, one that hoped to start figuring out what happens to our bodies if we live in space for long periods of time. The study was a meticulous comparison of then 50-year-old astronaut Scott Kelly, who spent a year aboard the International Space Station in 2015, and his identical twin brother Mark Kelly, who stayed on Earth.

This Thursday, the final findings of the NASA Twins Study were published in Science, and they’re still plenty cool—if a little anticlimactic when measured against the media hype the research got a year ago.

NASA found that Scott Kelly was about as mentally, physically, and genetically healthy as his brother during his trip to space, and that the vast majority of small changes spotted in Scott (relative to himself before the mission) went back to normal within six months time. But the differences seen in Scott while up in space and after his return home could provide NASA important leads on how to keep astronauts safe during longer missions to Mars and beyond.

“I think it’s reassuring to know that when you come back things will largely be back to the same,” Michael Synder, one of the study’s 10 principal investigators and director of the Stanford Center for Genomics and Personalized Medicine, said at a press conference held Tuesday discussing the results.

Preliminary results from the study were released in 2017. But it was the second round of findings, released in January 2018, that really caught the attention of media outlets, some of which misrepresented what was found. In particular, outlets like Newsweek reported that a whopping “seven percent of [Scott Kelly’s] genes did not return to normal after he landed.” Others implied that Scott Kelly had become a different person from his twin brother.

The astronaut twins are still twins, folks!
Photo: NASA

But the researchers were never talking about a seven percent difference between the twins’ genes. They were saying that some of Scott Kelly’s genes had changed in their expression—the carrying out of instructions in a cell’s genome—during his time up in space. And that roughly 7 percent of this overall change in gene expression could still be seen six months after he returned home.

That remaining change in gene expression six months out was actually closer to 10 percent, involving hundreds of individual genes related to the immune system and elsewhere, according to the final paper in Science. But as NASA clarified during the hubbub last year, this was still a relatively tiny change in his gene expression, or “epigenetics” as it’s otherwise known. These epigenetic and other changes to his metabolism or immune system were also well within the range you’d expect to see from someone dealing with a decent amount of stress, like intense exercise.

“Given that the majority of the biological and human health variables remained stable, or returned to baseline, these data suggest that human health can be mostly sustained over this duration of spaceflight,” said NASA in a statement.

Indeed, Mark Kelly also had epigenetic changes during the whole study period, and even to a slightly greater degree than his spacebound brother. That’s not so surprising, because literally everything in our environment can shape our gene expression. And while space is a stressful experience that can wear down the body and immune system, Scott Kelly wasn’t doing other things known to negatively affect the body that his brother was doing on Earth, like drinking alcohol.

The changes detected in Scott relative to himself on Earth and his brother are important though, since they help us get a sense of how long-term space travel will affect the human body. Scott’s eyes, for instance, developed a thicker retinal nerve after a few months, which has been noticed with some but not all astronauts on longer missions. The change is probably mostly caused by the microgravity of space. But scientists suspect that genetics play a part in making astronauts more vulnerable to it. As evidence for that hunch, both twins had genetic variations linked to the eye change, though only Scott developed it.

There were also unexpected shifts to Scott Kelly’s telomeres, the endcaps of chromosomes that are thought to predict our cellular age since they shorten over our lifetime. Some of them got longer while Kelly was in space, but then quickly shortened soon after his return and six months later, some remained shorter than before. It’s too early to say what any of that really means. But study author Susan Bailey, a radiation biologist at Colorado State University, cautioned during the press conference against anyone thinking that space travel should “be viewed as the fountain of youth and that people might expect to live longer because they’re in space.”

Interestingly, while most of Scott Kelly’s health stayed unchanged or returned to normal after he came back, his brainpower—measured by how accurate and speedy he was on cognitive tests—did take a noticeable step down once he returned, which was still apparent six months after his return. It’s unclear just how much of this mental drain can be attributed to the hazards of space itself, though, according to principal investigator Mathias Basner, an associate professor of sleep and chronobiology in psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine.

“It could be the effects of being re-exposed and readjusting to the gravity on Earth,” Basner told Gizmodo, noting that Kelly himself complained about learning to walk normally again. “But also, his post-mission schedule was very hectic, with lots of media events.”

That said, there’s also still the possibility that the conditions of the trip itself, including length, contributed to Kelly’s sharpness falling. And that’s an important risk to keep an eye on once people start taking even longer, more isolated missions.

“Of course, it is a potential red flag. I mean, if we send a group or astronauts to Mars, the journey there will probably take about a year. And then they have to go through this mission critical phase on the surface of Mars when we really want them to perform their best,” said Basner. “This study, admittedly with a n of 1, suggests that they may not be able to do that.”

Pivotal as the NASA Twins Study is, it’s only the start of studying human health in space. Living on the ISS is no picnic, for instance, but astronauts there are still largely protected from the cosmic radiation that would bombard any visitors on their way to Mars (the total radiation exposure would be at least fivefold greater). And the Kelly twins are the very epitome of a small sample size. So we need lots more research, with more astronauts. To that end, NASA is planning more missions of varying lengths up to a year that should provide more data as to the effects of space on the body.

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

April 11, 2019 at 01:06PM

Why Is the First-Ever Black Hole Photo an Orange Ring?

https://www.space.com/why-black-hole-image-orange.html

Orange you glad you’ve just seen the first-ever image of a black hole?

Today (April 10), a global collaboration of more than 200 astronomers presented the first image of a directly-observed black hole. The picture of a glowing orange-yellow ring around a dark core, was compiled from observations by eight ground-based radio telescopes known collectively as the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT).

Researchers’ data showed the black hole at the heart of Messier 87 (M87), a galaxy within the Virgo cluster located about 55 million light-years from Earth. But what exactly is the image showing, and why is the irregular ring orange? [IT’S HERE: The First-Ever Close-Up of a Black Hole]

Though black holes are compact objects, they are exceptionally massive — the mass of M87’s black hole is about 6.5 billion times that of our sun, the National Science Foundation (NSF) said in a statement. Because of this enormous mass, black holes warp spacetime, heating the dust and gas around them to extreme temperatures, according to NSF.

By definition, black holes are invisible, because no light escapes from them. But a prediction made by Albert Einstein in his theory of general relativity stated that under certain circumstances, an outline of a black hole and its light-swallowing event horizon could be seen, according to representatives of the Haystack Observatory at MIT, which houses one of the EHT telescopes.

“If immersed in a bright region, like a disc of glowing gas, we expect a black hole to create a dark region similar to a shadow,” EHT Science Council chair Heino Falcke, a professor of radio astronomy and astroparticle physics at Radboud University in the Netherlands, said in the NSF statement.

This is the first-ever image of a black hole.

This is the first-ever image of a black hole.

(Image: © NSF)

The black hole in M87 isn’t the closest to Earth, but it’s among the biggest, which made it a very promising target for the EHT, Derek Fox, an associate professor in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics at Penn State University, told Live Science (Fox was not affiliated with the EHT discovery).

In the image, the dark circle represents the “shadow” of the black hole and its boundary, created by the glowing material that surrounds it. However, the colors of the bright ring in the image aren’t the actual hues of the gas; rather, they represent a color map chosen by EHT researchers to depict the brightness of the emissions, Fox explained.

“The yellow is the most intense emission, the red is less intense, and then black is little or no emission at all,” Fox said. In the optical range, the ring around the black hole would likely appear white, perhaps tinged with blue or red, according to Fox.

“I’d expect it to be more of a whitish glow that is brighter along the crescent, dimmer at the other points, and then black where the black hole is casting its shadow,” he said.

Originally published on Live Science.

via Space.com http://bit.ly/2WPkkGi

April 11, 2019 at 06:32AM

Google Will Now Let You Use Your Android Phone as a Physical Security Key

https://gizmodo.com/google-will-now-let-you-use-your-android-phone-as-a-phy-1833949169

By now you should know that two-factor authentication is a vital and necessary component of good security hygiene. That said, the most common ways of getting 2FA codes usually involve text messages or authenticator apps, which aren’t always hacker-proof. But today, Google announced at its Cloud Next conference that you can now use any Android 7+ phone as a legit physical security key.

Basically, all you have to do is connect your phone over Bluetooth to a Chrome browser and verify your logins. It works similarly to Google’s Titan Security Key, and includes the same WebAuthn and FIDO APIs. According to 9 to 5 Google, Pixel 3 users will be able to hold the volume down button during the authentication process. Meanwhile, other Android devices will use an on-screen button.

The advantage of a physical security key—like the Titan or now, Android phones—is that they’re less vulnerable to spoofing, a practice where bad actors impersonate your account to gain access to your data. Because your phone would have to be in close, physical proximity, it makes it much harder for hackers to phish your second-factor information

Setting up your Android phone as a security key is simple. First, you have to make sure your phone is running Android 7 or newer. You’ll also have to make sure your computer has Bluetooth (which shouldn’t be an issue for most laptops), has the latest version of the Chrome browser, and the most up-to-date version of whatever operating system you have installed on it. Then, you can sign onto your Google Account on your phone and make sure Bluetooth is turned on. After that, you can visit myaccount.google.com/security on your computer to turn on 2-Step Verification (Google’s term for 2FA), scroll down to “Add Security Key”, select “Your Android Phone”, and pick your phone from the list of available devices.

Right now, the service is limited to Google accounts, as well as other services like Google Cloud. Gizmodo reached out to Google to see when it might expand to third-party sites but we did not immediately receive a response.

Who should do this? Google recommends it for “journalists, activists, business leaders, and political campaign teams who are most at risk of targeted online attacks.” But everyone with a compatible Android phone who uses Google services should jump on this feature. It could be your gateway drug into the broader world of physical keys that protect you on a wide range of services.

[Google via TechCrunch, The Verge]

via Gizmodo https://gizmodo.com

April 10, 2019 at 03:12PM

Nearly 70 percent of hotel websites leak personal data, Symantec study finds

https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/10/nearly-70-percent-of-hotel-websites-leak-personal-data-symantec/

A security flaw may be hiding in that confirmation email you get after booking a hotel room. A Symantec study of more than 1,500 hotels found that 67 percent of them were unwittingly leaking guests’ personal information. The hotels in the study were spread across 54 countries, including the U.S., Canada and even some in the E.U., despite strict GDPR protections. They ran the gamut in quality too, from two-star motels to five-star beach resorts.

The main issue involved booking confirmation emails, according to Symantec principal threat researcher Candid Wueest. Many of the messages include an active link that directs to a separate website where guests can access their reservation having to log in again. The booking code and the guest email are often in the URL itself, which in and of itself isn’t a big deal.

But, like many businesses, hotels share your personal data with third parties, meaning that your booking code and email are visible to them as well. The attacker would only need access to your booking code and email in order to find your address, full name, cell phone number, passport number and other highly sensitive information. Symantec also found that a smaller number of hotels didn’t encrypt the links sent in confirmation emails, giving attackers another window of opportunity.

A Symantec spokesperson told Engadget that the company contacted the hotels that had the security flaw and that most, but not all, of the hotels were taking measures to fix it. Symantec would not disclose which hotels were named in the study, but said it looked at a total of 45 different websites, including boutique hotels and major chains with hundreds of locations, covering more than 1,500 hotels.

What can customers do in the meantime to guard their privacy? Symantec advises that people use a VPN to change their hotel reservation when connected to public WiFi. Also, you can check the URL of your confirmation link to see if your booking details are exposed. A URL with the security flaw would look like this: http://bit.ly/2IrEpyj

Wueest told Engadget in an email that he also looked at five travel search engines, and found similar security flaws. "This (…finding) shows it is a general issue in the travel industry and not just a local issue," he wrote.

Source: Symantec

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

April 10, 2019 at 02:48PM

Virgin Orbit will launch satellites from Guam

https://www.engadget.com/2019/04/11/virgin-orbit-launch-site-guam/

Virgin Orbit has added one more location to its growing list of launch sites: Guam. The US island territory’s close proximity to the equator and its remote location make it an ideal addition to the program. It can serve as a launch site for missions leaving from any direction and for any orbital inclination. Plus, Virgin Orbit can deploy flights from the island if it needs to deliver payloads as heavy as a thousand pounds to equatorial orbit.

Virgin Galactic formed Orbit as a separate company for small satellite launches in 2017. It revolves around the company’s LauncherOne system, which is a modified 747 that can drop (or, more precisely, air launch) satellites from a high altitude. The fact that LauncherOne is reusable and is essentially just a modified plane that doesn’t require special infrastructure will allow the company to offer relatively affordable rates.

Virgin Orbit’s Guam missions will take off from the Andersen Air Force Base and, if it gets the FAA’s approval, the A.B. Won Pat International Airport. In addition to Guam, the spinoff company also has launch sites in California, Florida, Italy and the UK. The company is hoping to deploy its first full-fledged test flight this year after a successful "captive carry" test in 2018.

Source: Virgin Orbit

via Engadget http://www.engadget.com

April 11, 2019 at 08:54AM

Amazon admits that employees review “small sample” of Alexa audio

https://arstechnica.com/?p=1489431

Amazon admits that employees review “small sample” of Alexa audio

Most of the time, when you talk to an Amazon Echo device, only Amazon’s voice-recognition software is listening. But sometimes, Bloomberg reports, a copy of the audio is sent to a human reviewer at one of several Amazon offices around the world. The human listens to the audio clip, transcribes it, and adds annotations to help Amazon’s algorithms get better.

“We take the security and privacy of our customers’ personal information seriously,” an Amazon spokesman said in a statement emailed to Bloomberg. “We only annotate an extremely small sample of Alexa voice recordings in order [to] improve the customer experience.”

Bloomberg hints at a significant workforce doing this kind of work. Bloomberg says Amazon has employees listening to audio clips in offices in Boston, Costa Rica, India, and Romania. Employees interpret as many as 1,000 audio clips in a 9-hour shift.

It’s not hard to see why Amazon would want to have some audio clips reviewed by human beings. There’s probably no substitute for having a human being listen to clips and verify that the software is interpreting them correctly.

But Amazon could have been more explicit about the role of human reviewers. “We use your requests to Alexa to train our speech recognition and natural language understanding systems,” Amazon says in its frequently-asked questions page for Alexa—without mentioning the human element.

Amazon told Bloomberg that it has strict privacy safeguards in place to prevent misuse of the system. “Employees do not have direct access to information that can identify the person or account as part of this workflow,” the spokesman said. ”All information is treated with high confidentiality and we use multi-factor authentication to restrict access, service encryption and audits of our control environment to protect it.”

Employees occasionally hear unexpected or extreme audio, Bloomberg reports. In one instance, two workers heard what sounded like a possible sexual assault but were told that it wouldn’t be appropriate to intervene. Employees can discuss what they hear with other employees in an internal chat service, and they can share clips they have trouble interpreting—though the report also mentions files being shared simply because they are “amusing.”

Bloomberg says Apple and Google also have human reviewers

Bloomberg says that Apple’s Siri “also has human helpers.” The company points to an Apple privacy white paper that describes how Apple uses audio captured from customer devices.

“User voice recordings are saved for a six-month period so that the recognition system can utilize them to better understand the user’s voice,” the white paper says. “After six months, another copy is saved, without its identifier, for use by Apple in improving and developing Siri for up to two years.”

What about Google’s virtual assistant? “Some reviewers can access some audio snippets from its Assistant to help train and improve the product,” Bloomberg reports. “But it’s not associated with any personally identifiable information and the audio is distorted, the company says.”

via Ars Technica https://arstechnica.com

April 10, 2019 at 09:19PM