ARTEMIS I Also a Success

 The review of Artemis I has shown "no issues" that would delay the planned launch of Artemis 2. There was a minor issue with the heat shield, but it would not have caused safety issues. (Obviously, they're analyzing to see if a small redesign would help).

There was also a minor issue with the power system in the service module, which could be monitored by the astronauts.

The biggest damage remains that to the elevators on the mobile launcher. One has now been fixed.

So, Artemis 2 will likely go off more or less when scheduled and we can probably expect to see an announcement about who's going soon enough.

DART Mission Ruled a Success

 The DART mission altered the orbit of Dimorphos' by 32 minutes. Which doesn't sound like a lot, but was more than scientists expected.

This means that we can theoretically do this! We can divert an asteroid that is on a collision course with Earth. This is worth spending money on...and working internationally on (as the U.S. might not be the best place to launch from).

Planetary defense is GO.

Time travel?

 Apparently, this 77 year old guy believes that you can bend time with a spinning laser loop and an artificial black hole. Sounds a bit like the vortex.

Light can create gravity and thus influence time: That seems reasonable.

However, he hasn't created time travel. There is some possibility he may have made a very small scale time loop, though...allowing travel back only to when the loop was created. He thinks we might be able to use this to predict earthquakes.

We've all seen all of those movies and TV shows, though. Time loops bad!

Hybrid Species?

 Scientists discovered an adorable little yellow throated hummingbird and thought it was a new species.

Turned out it was a hybrid between the Pink-Throated Brilliant Hummingbird and the Rufous-Webbed Brilliant Hummingbird.

Unlike mammals, birds do not suffer fertility problems when they hybridize (not all mammals do either, but...) It appears that there are multiple generations of these hybrids.

Hybrid, new species, or could it possibly be both?

Natural selection is how life evolves...

 ...and it may also be how life started in the first place.

Scientists messing around with recreating the primordial soup discovered that natural selection determined the 20 specific amino acids that life relies on. Organic compounds integrated with the amino acids they "needed."

Or do we need to redefine life? If so, then life is everywhere, throughout the universe, on and in asteroids, certainly on moons like Titan. If it evolves through natural selection, what is it if not life?

I actually find this...hopeful.

I just read this book...

 (it wasn't all that good).

No, let's not use human brain cells to make computers. And don't call it "organoid intelligence." Please.

Why do people think this could possibly be a good idea? The ethics and the potential unintended consequences bother me.

How about putting effort into quantum computing instead?

Time on the moon

So, here's a thought:

What's the time, right now, on the moon?

This isn't a trivial question. With increased lunar exploration and potentially settlement, we're going to need GPS satellites for the moon at some point. GPS requires really good clocks.

Which means...

...everyone needs to agree what the time is on the moon.

The Apollo missions, of course, ran on  Houston time. But if we have a NASA mission, a SpaceX mission, a Chinese mission, a Japanese mission...all talking to each other? It would be temporal chaos.

So, we need to agree on a time framework for the moon. Complicating the fact is that time does not flow at quite the same speed on the moon, because gravity is lower. This isn't anything you would notice, but clocks on the moon run about 56 microseconds faster than those on Earth. Oh, and clocks on the moon don't sync with clocks in orbit either. All of this has to be taken into account.

The lunar day is 29.5 days long, so probably won't be used as a basis for the lunar clock. This results in the complication of having two days on the moon: The natural lunar day, and the Earth day. Science fiction authors never think of that.

What will we call each day?

All of these are questions we need to answer. Will the moon have its own singular timezone, which makes sense given the astronauts' day won't be the lunar day?

Time on the moon. It's not that easy...