📌 First Private Spacewalk, Spirituality, More

A tech billionaire performed the first private spacewalk hundreds of miles above Earth on Thursday.

Jared Isaacman teamed up with SpaceX to test its new spacesuits on his chartered flight. The daring spacewalk also saw SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis going out once Isaacman safely returned inside.

"Back at home, we all have a lot of work to do. But from here, it sure looks like a perfect world," Isaacman said as the capsule soared above the South Pacific. Cameras on board caught his waist-high silhouette at the hatch, with the blue Earth beneath.

After about 15 minutes outside, Isaacman was replaced by SpaceX engineer Sarah Gillis to go through the same motions. Gillis bobbed up and down in weightlessness, no higher than her knees out of the capsule, as she twisted her arms and sent reports back to Mission Control.

More wealthy passengers are plunking down huge sums for rides aboard private rockets to experience a few minutes of weightlessness. Space experts say it's inevitable that some will seek the thrill of spacewalking, deemed one of the most dangerous parts of spaceflight after launch and reentry.

Americans who identify as spiritual are on the rise, while many are distancing themselves from organized religion.

According to a 2023 Pew Research study, seven out of 10 Americans describe themselves as spiritual in some way, a concept that can be tied to organized religion or exist outside.

Lisa Miller, a clinical psychologist at Teacher College, Columbia University (pictured), cited scientific research, including MRI studies, showing that spirituality is embedded in the human brain.

“We now have an excellent peer review science of 20 years that says we are innately spiritual beings. When we strengthen our spiritual core, we are healthier. We are more resilient.”

Varun Soni, interfaith chaplain at the University of Southern California, said people often associate religion with violence, misogyny, and anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric. But he said they are missing part of the picture.

"Religion is also a place of social services, liberation theology, hospitals, and schools. You don't need religion, and you don't need God, but you need something sacred. You need something that gets you up in the morning,"

Eli Lilly’s experimental insulin injected weekly is as effective as daily injections for maintaining blood sugar levels for some diabetics.

In two late-stage trials, researchers compared blood sugar management over a year with weekly injections of insulin efsitora alfa or daily injections of insulin degludec.

One trial involved 623 participants with type 1 diabetes, while the other included 928 patients with type 2. In both trials, hemoglobin A1c levels – a measure of blood sugar control over the previous three months – improved similarly with efsitora and degludec.

However, figuring out the correct dose of efsitora was trickier in type 1 patients. Patients experienced more episodes of low blood sugar, known as hypoglycemia, particularly in the first 12 weeks of treatment.

More work is needed to evaluate efsitora dose initiation and optimization while mitigating the risk of hypoglycemia in people with type 1 diabetes, a researcher said.

One of the dozens of experiments aboard private spacecraft Polalris Dawn involves collecting astronauts’ urine.

Scientists aim to track bone loss in astronauts—particularly in future deep space journeys—and monitor whether space travelers are at risk of developing kidney stones. The scientists said no one wants to pass a kidney stone, especially in a tiny space capsule.

In space, calcium leaves our bones, enters the bloodstream, and exits in the urine. Kidney stones are created when substances like calcium become too concentrated in urine.

Jay Buckey, professor of medicine and director of Dartmouth College's Space Medicine Innovations Lab, wants to prove that the “first-morning void" — the first pee in the morning and usually the most concentrated of the day — can reliably track bone loss.

In outer space, urinary calcium goes up briskly, so the researchers suspect that just one a.m. void on this condensed mission will be enough to show they can capture a usable sample. The samples won't be analyzed in space but will be taken to a lab on Earth.

A Danish hiker fell to his death Wednesday in the Mont Blanc massif in the French Alps after slipping from a trail.

The death comes one day after four climbers were found dead on the iconic peak. The 61-year-old man was walking through a steep area when he fell around 100 feet, officials said.

Two Koreans and two Italians were found dead of exhaustion on Mont Blanc after becoming stranded for days in harsh weather. The Italian climbers were reached by phone 4,600 meters (15,092 feet) up on Mont Blanc's north face, but the connection was lost.

At 4,809 meters (15778 feet), Mont Blanc is Western Europe's highest peak and is popular with climbers worldwide. But scaling the mountain is risky.

In 2022, a French mayor said conditions on Mont Blanc were so dangerous that climbers should pay a €15,000 ($16,571) deposit to cover rescue and possible funeral costs. Jean-Marc Peillex, the mayor of Saint-Gervais, criticized "pseudo climbers" who insisted on attempting the climb "with death in their backpacks."

Researchers have developed a flexible electronic prototype that harvests energy from body heat to power small electronics. Mohammad Malakooti, University of Washington assistant professor of mechanical engineering (pictured with device), said: “When you put this device on your skin, it uses your body heat to directly power an LED.”

At the center are rigid thermoelectric semiconductors that convert heat to electricity. 3D-printed composites with low thermal conductivity enhance energy conversion and reduce the device’s weight.

The semiconductors are connected with printed liquid metal traces to provide stretchability, conductivity and electrical self-healing.

The devices work in reverse: Adding electricity allows them to heat or cool surfaces, which opens up another avenue for applications.

An eco-designer is repurposing discarded tennis balls into bespoke furniture, diverting rubber and felt balls from landfills.

Mathilde Wittock (pictured on her tennis ball chaise lounge) and her team in Belgium can hand carve 1,800 balls per day into micro-cushioning elements for a chaise lounge and a bench — her two flagship products. To put that into perspective, 70,000 tennis balls were used in the US Open.

Looking to find innovative sources of materials, the tennis balls seemed obvious because of their durability, short lifespan, and nearly 400 years to decompose in a landfill, provided they haven’t been given over to a dog first.

Wittock receives tennis balls from sports clubs like the Federation of Wallonia. It gave her its stock of 100,000 used balls, which she says should provide nine months of production.

“Eco-design is about circularity. You can use great materials that are low carbon emission or recycled, but you need to think of the end cycle,” she said. “If you can’t reuse the elements into something else, it’s not eco-design.”