Peter's Quasi-Daily Blah-g

China is looking to take over Earth’s orbit with a staggering number of satellites, all of which serve an unknown purpose.

The Institute of Radio Spectrum Utilization and Technological Innovation in China filed a request with the International Telecommunications Union to operate two satellite constellations. Each constellation would include 96,714 units, totaling nearly 200,000 satellites to be launched into low Earth orbit.

It’s not yet clear what type of satellites would make up the two constellations, or why China needs so many of them. If they were to launch, however, they would exponentially increase the total number of satellites currently orbiting our planet.

Satellite overdose

The two constellations are named CTC-1 and CTC-2, according to PC Mag. Although there’s little information about the Chinese institute behind the request or the purpose of the constellations, one of the filings indicates that they plan on using a wide range of radio frequencies.

The filings also suggest that the satellites will be deployed across orbital altitudes ranging from 186 to 372 miles (300 to 600 kilometers) above Earth’s surface, and even higher orbits reaching 12,427 miles (20,000 km). By comparison, SpaceX’s Starlink satellites orbit at around 342 miles (500 km) above the Earth.

Although the recent filings were for two separate constellations, they do suggest China’s intent on dominating the satellite industry. The filings may be a way to secure China’s spot in Earth orbit ahead of attempts by other countries.

China is already constructing two constellations in space, Guowang and Qianfan, each of which will consist of more than 10,000 satellites. The country’s recent filings have not yet been examined by a regulatory body.

Crowded orbit

SpaceX operates the world’s largest constellation of satellites, with more than 9,400 Starlinks currently in orbit. Roughly 12,000 satellites are currently orbiting Earth, but that number is set to increase over the years as the space industry continues to grow.

The number of satellites in orbit has increased dramatically over the past five years alone. In 2020, there were approximately 2,500 to 3,000 satellites orbiting Earth. Studies estimate that by 2040, there will be around 560,000 active satellites based on planned launches by companies like SpaceX.

This past week, the Federal Communications Commission approved SpaceX’s request to deploy another 7,500 of its Starlink satellites. SpaceX plans to launch up to 42,000 Starlink satellites and so far has received approval for 30,000.

Delivery services show few signs of losing interest among Americans. While they often include significant surcharges over in-person shopping, it also means not having to press a button to get a case unlocked for deodorant or detergent. And Wing and Walmart have been able to capitalize on a drone delivery service in two regions so far, and the companies are looking to cover a wider part of the U.S.

Wing, an Alphabet-owned company, said on Sunday that it will boost its drone delivery service to Houston starting on Thursday, with planned expansions in Orlando, Tampa, and Charlotte in the coming weeks, making the option available to customers at 150 Walmart locations. By 2027, the company said it would add locations in cities such as Los Angeles, Miami, St. Louis, and Cincinnati, bringing the total store count to 270.

Six Walmart Supercenters in the Atlanta area added drone delivery last month in the holiday shopping season, Wing said. Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex was the first region to engage in the Wing-Walmart partnership in August 2023.

“We’ve spent years building our technology to ensure that when you realize you’re out of eggs or need over-the-counter medicine, the solution is just a few taps away, seamlessly integrated into existing store operations,” Wing CEO Adam Woodworth said in Sunday’s news release. “We believe even the smallest package deserves the speed and reliability of a great delivery service. Working with Walmart has allowed us to prove that delivering these critical, everyday items in minutes makes a significant difference for families.”

Wing claimed on Sunday that the top 25% of customers ordered three times a week through the Walmart app. In the Atlanta locations, for example, it offers delivery within 5 minutes of order fulfillment on items such as produce, dairy, non-perishable groceries, household products, over-the-counter medicine, and children’s toys.

Last year, Wendy’s partnered with Wing for a drone delivery program in Virginia. Wing has also previously partnered with PepsiCo during last year’s Super Bowl.

The International Space Station (ISS) is one of the most unique environments where life has ever existed, out in the low orbit of Earth. And research out today finds that bacteriophages—the viruses that prey on bacteria—can behave quite peculiarly in space.

Scientists studied how phages interacted with Escherichia coli bacteria aboard the ISS and compared them to pairs grown on Earth. The space-dwelling phages took longer to infect their hosts, while both the bacteria and viruses developed unusual mutations in response to each other and the microgravity conditions of the ISS, they found. The findings also suggest that phages in space could develop mutations useful to humans back home.

“Microbes continue to evolve under microgravity, and they do so in ways that are not always predictable from Earth-based experiments,” senior study author Vatsan Raman, a biomolecular and cellular engineer at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, told Gizmodo.

Phages in space

Studies have documented that many microbes and other tiny living things can thrive aboard the ISS, including the microorganisms left behind by touring astronauts. But according to Raman, there’s been relatively little research examining how these space microbes interact with each other, especially phages and the bacteria they infect to make more of themselves.

“Most microbial evolution experiments implicitly assume Earth-like physical conditions, but spaceflight changes fundamental aspects of the environment—how fluids mix, how cells encounter one another, and how physical forces shape cellular physiology,” he explained. “Phage infection depends critically on transport, encounter rates, and host physiology, all of which could plausibly change in space. We wanted to test whether microgravity simply slows these processes down, or whether it pushes phages and bacteria along different evolutionary paths altogether.”

They focused on a particular kind of phage that loves to munch on E. coli, known as T7.

The ISS phages were slower to infect their prey at first, likely because fluids don’t mix the same way under microgravity conditions, according to Raman. But once infection occurred, both the phages and bacteria rapidly adapted and often very differently from their Earth counterparts. The bacteria evolved in ways that seemed to boost their defenses against phage infection and enhance their survivability in space, while the phages evolved to more easily infect E. coli. What’s more, some of the genetic changes seen in the space phages were unlike anything seen on Earth.

“The main takeaway is that microgravity doesn’t just delay phage infection—it reshapes how phages and bacteria evolve together,” Raman said. “We observed mutations appearing in unexpected genes, including ones that are poorly characterized in standard laboratory settings.”

The team’s findings were published Tuesday in PLOS Biology.

What this means

The findings obviously have implications for space travel, especially longer-duration missions. The microbes living aboard the ISS and other space stations in the future aren’t just static tourists, and it’s certainly possible they could evolve in ways that have a real impact on the health of astronauts and the environment in general, Raman says.

That scary possibility aside, space phages could also help humanity. The team’s experiments on Earth found that several of the changes seen aboard the ISS made the phages better at attacking T7-resistant strains of E. coli that cause urinary tract infections in people.

Phages are already being developed as an alternative treatment for drug-resistant infections. And while it would be impractical to routinely run these sorts of experiments on the ISS, learning exactly how microgravity can shape the evolution of these microbes could allow scientists like Raman to apply those lessons to studies conducted on Earth.

“I hope this work encourages researchers to think of space not just as a place to reproduce Earth experiments, but as a fundamentally different physical environment that can uncover new biology—insights that ultimately circle back to improve research and applications here on Earth,” he said.

Looking ahead, the researchers now hope to better understand the specific genes and mutations in T7 phages that emerged under microgravity, particularly the ones not easily created in a standard lab. They also hope that similar studies in the future will reveal how space can change the biology of more complex microbial communities or medically relevant bacteria.

The doctor won’t see you now.

Utah has launched a first-in-the-nation pilot program that will allow an AI system to renew 190 commonly prescribed medications for patients with chronic conditions.

Some medications with the potential for abuse, like pain management and ADHD drugs, are excluded, according to Politico. The program will initially cost $4 per renewal but will eventually be either covered by insurance or offered at an annual fee.

Utah is undertaking the program with Doctronic, a health-tech startup that launched in 2023. Doctronic already offers AI medical tools designed to automate some of the work typically performed by physicians, including a chatbot that provides free medical consultations and generates follow-up notes for physicians as needed.

At the heart of Doctronic’s work is removing barriers to healthcare access, cutting down costs, and easing the burden on healthcare workers, and AI can certainly do that, at least to some extent. Artificial intelligence tools are increasingly used by healthcare professionals around the country, with a recent OpenAI report claiming that 46% of American nurses use them weekly. The report also claims that 7-in-10 healthcare-related conversations with AI chatbots happen outside of normal clinic hours.

Per Politico, the decisions made by Doctronic’s AI system matched those of human clinicians 99.2% of the time, and the system will be held to the same level of responsibility as a doctor would be for any claims of malpractice.

But AI is far from a perfect technology, and mistakes can prove to be fatal in healthcare contexts. The AI could fail to catch certain drug interactions or other patient red flags, leading to disastrous consequences for patients. AI systems are also prone to being gamed, including shockingly via poetry, and that can create a dangerous loophole that can be abused by patients struggling with addiction.

There is also the issue of biases. According to a recent Financial Times report, some medical AI tools tend to downplay the concerns of women and stereotype some races and ethnicities while making their diagnoses.

While Utah is so far the only state offering the AI renewals, Doctronic is reportedly in discussion to expand the practice to Texas, Arizona, and Missouri, and is weighing a path to nationwide approval.

The legality of it all is interesting. States broadly get to set their own rules on how medicine can be practiced within their borders, and an AI that independently renews prescriptions would technically be governed under that category.

But AI-enhanced medical devices fall squarely under the regulatory authority of the Food and Drug Administration, which itself is going through a reevaluation of how it regulates AI deployment in health.