Scientific news in small doses

A few milligrams of all the scientific news of the week.

Hope for Space Debris

The European Space Agency (ESA) successfully tested in January a technology for accelerated reentry of end-of-life satellites. The Drag Enhancement Deorbiting System (ADEO) was tested on an Ion cubesat launch platform from the Italian company D-Orbit. The 3.6 cubic meter sail of ADEO, which was contained in a 10 cm cubesat, will increase the interaction with the Earth’s atmosphere, very thin at 340 km altitude, and complete the de-orbiting of the Ion platform in months rather than years. A 100m ADEO sail^⁠2 is intended for satellites larger than Ion. The longer an end-of-life satellite remains in orbit, the greater the risk of collision and the creation of space debris.

Quiz

What victory did Jupiter recently score against Saturn?

He regained the top spot on the list of most moons. Saturn has 83 moons and until the start of the year Jupiter only had 80. But in early February, astronomers at the Smithsonian Observatory in Boston identified 12 new Jovian moons, bringing the total to 92.

The number

8

This is the number of potential extraterrestrial signals that an artificial intelligence algorithm has identified from observations of 820 stars. This project by astronomers from the University of Toronto, published at the end of January in Nature Astronomy, shows the impact that AI can have for the search for extraterrestrial life. The Toronto researchers, who worked with the famed US SETI (Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence) Center, will now monitor these stars to see if any of the eight intriguing signals recur.

Cancer and ultra-processed foods

Ultra-processed foods increase the risk of cancer, according to a new British study. Epidemiologists at Imperial College London have calculated that a person whose diet consists of 30% ultra-processed foods – such as soft drinks, sugary cereals or commercial sliced ​​bread – is 2% more likely to have a cancer and 6% more likely to die from it, compared to a person who limits the consumption of ultra-processed foods to 20% of their diet. The London researchers, who publish their analysis at the end of January in the journal eClinicalMedicineanalyzed the records of 200,000 Britons followed for 10 years.

failures and pollution

Researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology have unexpectedly demonstrated the effect of pollution on the brain. They analyzed the performance of 121 chess players in 3 recent national tournaments in Germany, during which the level of air pollution was measured. The rate of PM2.5 fine particles varied between 14 and 70 micrograms per cubic meter, which is similar to the pollution in Montreal. For every increase of 10 micrograms per cubic meter, the probability of a player making an error increased by 2% and the probability of a serious error, by 11%, the Boston researchers wrote in early February in the journal Management Science.