The mysteries of the astronaut biome

Enlarge (credit: Aurich Lawson | Getty Images)

Space poses some massive dangers for humans, from black holes to the heat death of the universe. But as humanity considers long-haul space travel, there are other, smaller potential hazards that some researchers say may deserve more attention: microbes from Earth.

Astronauts face numerous known health problems in space, including a loss in bone density, muscle atrophy, and psychological issues. And on Earth, researchers are increasingly discovering how the various bacteria and other microorganisms that live inside and outside of people — the human microbiome — affect physical and mental health.

Space, of course, is an entirely different environment from Earth, with high radiation levels and microgravity. Although the science is far from certain, these vast differences may cause unexpected changes in the microbiome of astronauts. In turn, this could result in a range of health problems, which may be more pronounced on long-haul stints in space, like traveling to another planet.

Read 23 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Algorithms quietly run the city of DC—and maybe your hometown

Enlarge (credit: Dmitry Marchenko/Getty Images)

Washington, DC, is the home base of the most powerful government on earth. It’s also home to 690,000 people—and 29 obscure algorithms that shape their lives. City agencies use automation to screen housing applicants, predict criminal recidivism, identify food assistance fraud, determine if a high schooler is likely to drop out, inform sentencing decisions for young people, and many other things.

That snapshot of semiautomated urban life comes from a new report from the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC). The nonprofit spent 14 months investigating the city’s use of algorithms and found they were used across 20 agencies, with more than a third deployed in policing or criminal justice. For many systems, city agencies would not provide full details of how their technology worked or was used. The project team concluded that the city is likely using still more algorithms that they were not able to uncover.

The findings are notable beyond DC because they add to the evidence that many cities have quietly put bureaucratic algorithms to work across their departments, where they can contribute to decisions that affect citizens’ lives.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

How the The Wire helped me understand the 2023 BMW 760i xDrive

Enlarge / The launch of the new i7 and 7 Series was a two-day affair, and we couldn't drive only the electric version.

BMW provided a flight from LA to DC plus three nights in a hotel so we could drive the i7 and 760i. Ars does not accept paid editorial content.

PALM SPRINGS, Calif.—"You want it to be one way... But it's the other way." I thought of Marlo Stanfield's words from The Wire that morning. Much as I might like, I couldn't just come to Palm Springs and drive the new BMW i7 without at least acknowledging that, for many, its time has not yet come. As much as I—or you—might want everyone to go electric, now, that isn't happening, and won't; not straight away.

Elsewhere on Ars, you can read our first take on that electric i7. Spoiler alert: pretty darn great. But most new 7 Series won't be i7s; plenty will still be ICE sevens. And recognizing the world as it is, and not the world as I might want it to be, meant going for a drive in one of the gas burners.

Since the chief attraction of internal combustion in 2023 is going for very long drives that don't involve charging stops, I decided to go for a long drive in a $113,600 760i xDrive. As luck would have it, BMW secured permits to film and take photographs within Joshua Tree National Park. Chances to do that don't come along that often, and I hadn't yet visited that park, so the plan seemed clear.

Read 14 remaining paragraphs | Comments

The weekend’s best deals: A bunch of Apple devices, Sony headphones, 4K TVs, and more

Enlarge (credit: Ars Technica)

It's the weekend, and that means it's time to round up the week's best deals. As we anticipate, each weekend (and every day, really) in November brings with it a new round of discounts on popular, big-ticket items, typically at their lowest prices of the year. Today that includes headphones from Sony, Beats, Jabra, and a deal on refurbished AirPods Max.

Sony has two great offers on its latest- and last-generation noise-canceling headphones. The frustratingly-named but high-quality WH-1000XM5 ($348, $400) and WH-1000XM4 ($228, $348) are discounted to match the lowest prices we've tracked for either. Since Sony released the latest WH-1000XM5, it continues to sell the previous generation WH-1000XM4 alongside it. When we tested the 5 versus the 4, we found it to improve slightly on just about every aspect of the previous gen headphones. They're better for phone calls, a bit lighter, and can charge more quickly. They also cant fold up for storage like the 4. These aren't what we'd call paradigm-shifting leaps, but rather moderate improvements, for the most part. Selling for over $100 less at its current price, the WH-1000XM4 remains a very well-reviewed, capable set of noise-canceling headphones that we couldn't fault you for picking up instead of the newer WH-1000XM5.

Apple's AirPods Max are our favorite noise-canceling headphones, though. And if you're comfortable buying refurbished, they're currently on discount for $355 ($475) from Woot, shaving off a couple of hundred dollars from the MSRP. Woot's website states that these headphones have no visual scratches or blemishes and come with a 90-day warranty from Woot.

Read 2 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Twitter shuts offices for day as it cuts 50% of workforce; staff already suing

Enlarge (credit: VIEW press / Contributor | Corbis News)

A day after it was reported that Twitter would lay off 50 percent of staff, Twitter has temporarily shut down its offices to begin layoffs. Some staff told Reuters that hundreds of employees who got this news yesterday immediately logged into Slack to say goodbyes before access was removed. Other workers told Reuters that the content moderation team is expected to be hit hard by layoffs.

One Twitter user whose bio says he formerly served as a Twitter senior community manager tweeted to mark the moment he lost company Slack access. That Twitter staffer assumed that losing Slack access confirmed he was no longer employed but won’t know for sure until today, when employees will find out if they’re fired when they receive an email to their personal inbox. Every employee expected to stick around Twitter will receive an email to their work inbox.

Those email announcements are expected to arrive by noon ET on Friday, according to a Twitter internal email reviewed by Reuters, which informed Twitter staff, "In an effort to place Twitter on a healthy path, we will go through the difficult process of reducing our global workforce on Friday."

Read 7 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Virgin Galactic delays development of ship capable of higher flight rate

Enlarge / Virgin Galactic's new vehicle, VSS Imagine, is lighter than its predecessor, VSS Unity. Will it ever fly? (credit: Virgin Galactic)

Space tourism company Virgin Galactic released its third-quarter financial results on Thursday. As one might imagine of a spaceflight company that has not flown since June 2021, the financials are pretty disastrous. The company reported revenue of less than $1 million against losses of more than $146 million.

After a long period of downtime, Virgin Galactic officials said the company is close to completing "modifications" of its VMS Eve carrier aircraft and VSS Unity spacecraft. The company expects to complete a glide flight of Unity, which is released from Eve at altitude, in early 2023. After that point, the company will conduct a powered test flight, likely with its own employees on board, before a research flight for the Italian Air Force.

And after that, Virgin Galactic CEO Michael Colglazier said, the company remains on track to begin flying commercial passengers—people who bought their seats, some more than a decade ago—in the second quarter of 2023. As with most schedules in spaceflight, that timeline seems pretty optimistic.

Read 11 remaining paragraphs | Comments

Corpus Christi sold its water to Exxon and is losing its big bet on desalination

Enlarge / People fish in front of defunct oil drilling rigs in the Corpus Christi Ship Channel at Aransas Pass on March 11, 2019, in Port Aransas, Texas. (credit: Loren Elliot/AFP via Getty Images)

CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas—Five years ago, when ExxonMobil came calling, city officials eagerly signed over a large portion of their water supply so the oil giant could build a $10 billion plant to make plastics out of methane gas.

A year later, they did the same for Steel Dynamics to build a rolled-steel factory.

Never mind that Corpus Christi, a mid-sized city on the semi-arid South Texas coast, had just raced through its 50-year water plan 13 years ahead of schedule. Planners believed they had a solution: large-scale seawater desalination.

Read 70 remaining paragraphs | Comments