5/1/25 ABSTRACT Following decades of successful space missions, humanity’s focus is increasingly shifting from short-term exploration to establishing a permanent extraterrestrial base through lunar industrialization.…
View More It Starts With Welding: The Beginning of Lunar Industrialization
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has stopped considering grant applications in the wake of the Trump administration’s funding freeze. This has stalled around 16,000 grant applications competing for $1.5 billion in NIH funding to develop cutting-edge treatments. This freeze threatens lives across the country, as scientists lose jobs, local economies are damaged, and the health of patients fighting life-threatening diseases is put in jeopardy.
View More NIH Funding Freeze Stalls Applications to Public Medical Research Funds
The FDA’s Accelerated Approval (AA) program enables early approval of drugs that treat serious conditions by bypassing unmet regulatory conditions. Despite risks, the recent approval of Humacyte’s bioengineered blood vessels has sparked concerns over how medical devices are approved during this process.
View More FDA Approval of Bioengineered Blood Vessels Raises Concerns about Expedited Medical Reviews
AI teammates are a new variation of artificial intelligence designed to supplement employees in the workplace, boosting productivity while reducing burnout. Their integration into society underscores the urgent need for clear frameworks and regulations to ensure their ethical and responsible use.
View More The End of Break Room Banter: AI Teammates Reshape Workplace Culture
Colossal is a company committed to de-extinction. Its main mission is to bring back the woolly mammoth. This mission may help conserve critically endangered Asian elephants and mitigate the impacts of global warming. However, it also raises ethical concerns regarding the livelihood of wildlife that currently reside in the mammoth’s habitat.
View More De-extinction: Does the End Justify the Means?
Asteroid samples collected by NASA’s OSIRIS-REx not only contain the pristine building blocks for life, but also the salty remains of an ancient water world. The spacecraft was able to help unlock these discoveries because it collected samples directly from the asteroid and carefully preserved them on the way back to Earth. These findings support the idea that asteroids delivered the building blocks of life to our planet early in its history, and may have delivered them elsewhere in the solar system. The success of this mission justifies the development of future sample retrieval missions to other cosmic bodies within our solar system.
View More Returned Asteroid Samples Suggest the Building Blocks for Life are Scattered Across the Universe
Recent breakthroughs in AI have expanded its use to translating endangered Indigenous languages. While it has promising preservation potential, these language technologies highlight the ethical scruples of using AI in cultural preservation. Careful attention is needed to implement AI preservation efforts that respect the sovereignty and cultural values of Indigenous communities.
View More Preserving the Past: AI in Indigenous Language Preservation
Quantum computing is an emerging technology that leverages the principles of quantum mechanics to increase computational speed. Transitioning from theoretical research to industry, it has the possibility to propel research. While its power is promising, it poses risks to cybersecurity.
View More Quantum 2.0— The Catalyst for a Cybersecurity Revolution
A slurry of executive orders has led to a massive purging of public health information from the CDC and other federal websites. Thankfully, data-hoarding Redditors have come to the rescue by posting any information they had managed to salvage from these websites. As engineers, if we have the skill set we should follow suit and help with any effort to make this important data accessible to those who need it.
View More CDC Censorship: Engineers to the Rescue of Public Health Data
After taking office, President Donald Trump promised to increase coal combustion to generate power needed for AI data centers. However, new coal plants take time to fire up and are not suitable sources of backup power. Therefore, natural gas and geothermal energy offer the most likely solution to the rising electricity needs of the tech industry.
View More Fossil Fuels vs. Renewable Energy: How to Power the Tech Industry