Crypto Wake Up Call

For many low-income young South Koreans, it was an an entirely new way of making a living.

The cryptocurrency market made a ton of people rich during its early years, with the value of Bitcoin reaching incredible heights.

But what goes up must come down: 2018 was a harsh wake-up call for those invested. Many Koreans who invested in cryptocurrencies lost many thousands of dollars in the crash, the New York Times reports — but still hope for a rebound.

Block Battle

South Korea remains the third-largest market for cryptocurrencies after the U.S. and Japan, with a side dish of crypto pop culture that hasn’t been diluted by the market meltdown. For instance, contestants compete to build blockchain businesses on “Block Battle,” a TV show that calls itself the “world’s first blockchain survival TV show,” with viewers at home voting in real-time like “American Idol.”

“Who’s the next Satoshi?” the moderator asks rhetorically at the top of the show, a nod to the nebulous forefather of blockchain tech.

The show aired its first episode back in October 2018 — a terrible period, ironically, for crypto prices.

Cryptopia

While many Koreans are still counting their losses, the dreams of becoming rich through cryptocurrencies is still very much alive.

But the harsh reality — including numerous hacks and scandals involving South Korean crypto exchanges — should really be a sobering wake up call.

READ MORE: Cryptocurrency Was Their Way Out of South Korea’s Lowest Rungs. They’re Still Trying. [New York Times]

More on cryptocurrencies: Did a Crypto CEO Fake His Own Death to Abscond With $190 Million

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Neuron Time

Neurons receive, process, and transmit all the impulses in our brains. Essentially, they’re the building blocks of the human nervous system, and once they’re damaged by Alzheimer’s disease or some other brain injury, they’re done for — they have no regenerative abilities.

In contrast, the glial cells that support and insulate neurons do have regenerative abilities, and now, researchers from Penn State think they’ve found an efficient way to actually transform glial cells into neurons — a discovery that could lead to a pill to repair brain damage.

Molecular Report

Based on a previous study, the Penn team knew it was possible to convert human glial cells into neurons using a sequence of nine tiny molecules. However, the large number of molecules and specific sequence made transitioning the research from the lab to something that could work in a clinical environment difficult.

In a study published in the journal Stem Cell Reports on Thursday, the Penn team describes how it found a way to streamline the process of creating neurons out of a type of glial cells called astrocytes with remarkable success.

“We identified the most efficient chemical formula among the hundreds of drug combinations that we tested,” researcher Jiu-Chao Yin said in a press release. “By using four molecules that modulate four critical signaling pathways in human astrocytes, we can efficiently turn human astrocytes — as many as 70 percent — into functional neurons.”

Dream Delivery

The Penn team acknowledged in the press release that it still has a long road ahead before its latest research will be able to help people with brain damage, but it’s extremely optimistic about the future.

“The most significant advantage of the new approach is that a pill containing small molecules could be distributed widely in the world, even reaching rural areas without advanced hospital systems,” research leader Gong Chen said.

“My ultimate dream is to develop a simple drug delivery system, like a pill, that can help stroke and Alzheimer’s patients around the world to regenerate new neurons and restore their lost learning and memory capabilities,” he continued. “Our years of effort in discovering this simplified drug formula take us one step closer to reaching our dream.”

READ MORE: Simple Drug Combination Creates New Neurons From Neighboring Cells [Science Daily]

More on Alzheimer’s: New Research Could Reverse Memory Loss in Alzheimer’s Patients

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New Drug Combo Could Repair the Brains of Alzheimer’s Patients

Take a Byte

Recently, medical researchers have created a surge of ingestible electronics that do everything from tailoring treatments based on the needs of individual cells to helping you poop.

As these devices become increasingly common in the lab, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration — that’s the regulatory body responsible for testing and vetting pharmaceuticals and medical devices — is left figuring out how to deal with the weird new tech.

Multiple Choice

To make sense of the emerging new field of treatments, the FDA released a draft of newly-proposed guidelines for how developers can get smart pills approved.

The people behind pills with electronic components generally prefer to submit to multiple approval processes, in order to let regulators approve the the pill and electronic components separately. But the new guidelines would require scientists to choose the single most relevant category and stick with it throughout the process.

Uneven Hurdles

The reason that developers prefer to break things up piece by piece is because the regulatory process for medical devices may be better suited for the unique challenges of the electronic components of smart pills.

Treating the whole package as one would a typical pharmaceutical may mean holding certain aspects of the treatment to different degrees of rigor than others, MobiHealthNews reports.

READ MORE: FDA’s new draft guidance could hinder applications for digital combination products [MobiHealthNews]

More on edible tech: An Edible Controller Moves Gaming From the Screen to Your Gut

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The FDA Is Trying to Figure out How to Regulate Smart Pills

Too Much

In 2011, a 13-year-old student in Otsu, Japan, jumped to his death following weeks of intense bullying from other students. His teacher had reportedly brushed off the abuse as a joke, and the school denied that bullying was the direct cause of the suicide until a survey of his fellow students made the connection clear.

The case shone a spotlight on bullying in Japanese schools — and soon after, the nation enacted laws requiring school boards to establish guidelines to prevent bullying.

Now Otsu has a new plan to prevent other bullied students from slipping through the cracks the way that 13-year-old boy did in 2011 — and it all starts with artificial intelligence.

Predicting Escalation

On Friday, the Otsu school board announced its plan to use AI to predict how suspected cases of school bullying might evolve in the future.

According to a story in The Japan Times, the school will feed the AI information about 9,000 suspected bullying cases reported by Otsu’s elementary and junior high schools between 2012 and 2018. This information will include details on the students involved — their ages, genders, absenteeism records, and academic achievements — as well as when and where any bullying incidents took place.

“Through an AI theoretical analysis of past data, we will be able to properly respond to cases without just relying on teachers’ past experiences,” Otsu Mayor Naomi Koshi said, according to The Japan Times.

Timely Intervention

The hope is that the AI will allow school officials to identify the bullying cases that are likely to escalate in seriousness so that they can intervene and diffuse the situation before it’s too late.

“Bullying may start from low-level friction in relationships, but can get worse day by day,” an Otsu education board official said, according to The Japan Times. “It is important to know which cases have a tendency to become serious.”

If AI is able to prevent even one student from reaching the same breaking point as that boy in 2011, this new initiative will be well worth the effort — and perhaps it’ll even inspire other schools across the globe to create similar AI systems to protect their own students.

READ MORE: City of Otsu to Use AI to Analyze Past School Bullying Cases With an Eye on Future Prevention [The Japan Times]

More on school surveillance: Schools Are Installing Bathroom Surveillance Systems to Bust Vapers

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Roll Out

Tesla CEO Elon Musk doesn’t want dogs to get trapped in hot Teslas.

On Thursday, Musk tweeted that his company will roll out two new Enhanced Autopilot features next week via an over-the-air software update — including one suggested by a dog-loving Twitter follower that’ll keep pups cool and entertained while their owners run errands.

Puppy Love

On Oct. 18, Twitter user Josh Atchley used the platform to ask Musk if he could create a “Dog Mode” for the Model 3.

As Atchley described it, this setting would leave a Tesla’s air conditioning and music on while in park, presumably so that an owner could leave their dog in the vehicle alone. He also suggested that “Dog Mode” include “a display on screen saying ‘I’m fine my owner will be right back.'”

Musk replied to the request the next day with a simple “Yes.” And based on Thursday’s tweet, “Dog Mode” could arrive as soon as Feb. 11.

At that point we’ll find out if Dog Mode also displays the length of time an owner has been away from the car and the vehicle’s current temp, as Atchley later requested.

Sentry Mode

The other Enhanced Autopilot feature rolling out next week — “Sentry Mode” — also has a Twitter connection.

On Jan. 22, user Andy Sutton tagged Musk in a tweeted photo of his damaged Tesla, noting his desire for a “360 dash cam feature while parked.” Like some kind of genie of social media, Musk showed up in the Twitter thread to grant the wish.

“Tesla Sentry Mode coming soon for all cars with Enhanced Autopilot,” he responded to Sutton, later elaborating that the setting would “play Bach’s Toccata and Fugue during a robbery (and keep Summer safe),” the parenthetical being a reference to a car in “Rick and Morty” that goes to murderous ends to protect its inhabitant, Summer.

Let’s just hope Sentry Mode isn’t quite as extreme as that.

READ MORE: Elon Musk Reveals Release Date for Two New Tesla Software Features [Inverse]

More on Sentry Mode: Elon Musk: A “360 Degree Dash Cam” Will Soon Keep Your Tesla Safe

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Liquid Diet

Most humans aren’t big fans of bugs that feed on their blood.

Keeping mosquitoes at bay is a task that scientists have been buzzing about for quite some time now. Not only because the pests can be a nuisance, but also because they can transmit terrible diseases like West Nile Virus and Malaria. The quest to fend off the hungry swarms has led scientists to some innovative solutions — including the recent discovery that human diet pills can curb the appetites of some mosquitoes.

Buzz Off

The research, detailed in a new study published in the prestigious journal Cell by a team of researchers from Rockefeller University, examined the Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which are the principle spreader of dengue fever throughout South America, Africa, and the Eastern United States.

Female Aedes aegypti mosquitoes are driven to feed on human blood in order to acquire a protein they need to lay their eggs. But the researchers found that giving the mosquitoes a saline solution containing human diet drugs left the mosquitoes feeling full and without an appetite — similarly to how the drugs would work in humans.

Although the study didn’t specify which drug or drugs were used specifically, it did say that the diet pills work by suppressing the Neuropeptide Y (NPY) receptors responsible for diet regulation in humans, and mosquitoes apparently. By analyzing the mosquitoes’ NPY receptors, the researchers were able to determine which ones were affecting their diet, meaning they could reproduce similar effects by interfering with those NPY receptors without the use of human diet drugs.

Blood Pact

The study has huge implications for new ways to control pest populations. Understanding ways to curb the insects’ appetites would reduce the need for insecticides, which many insects are developing immunity to and which have been tied to the deaths of both birds and bees. New population control methods would also offer alternatives to controversial gene drives, which destroy populations entirely.

“We’re starting to run out of ideas for ways to deal with insects that spread diseases,” the study’s senior author, Leslie Vosshall, told the BBC, “and this is a completely new way to think about insect control.”

READ MORE: Mosquitoes ‘put off biting’ by human diet drugs [The BBC]

More on pest control: Scientists Wiped out a Mosquito Population by Hacking Their DNA with CRISPR

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To Stop Mosquitoes From Biting, Scientists Put Them on Diet Pills

3D Printed Rockets

We’ve seen 3D printed rockets before, but never on this scale.

UK space startup Orbex just showed off its Prime Rocket’s gigantic second stage — the “world’s largest 3D printed rocket engine,” according to a press release. The entire rocket, including the engine, will stand at 56 feet (17 meters) tall — roughly a quarter of the size of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, for context. In other words, things are heating up in the world of 3D printed spacecraft.

BREAKING NEWS: Orbex reveals #Prime, the completed stage 2 rocket and the world’s most efficient #smallsat launcher. It includes the world’s largest 3D printed rocket engine and designed to run on bio-propane, a #clean, #renewable energy source. https://t.co/jl0qARduyb pic.twitter.com/9Nos4325aV

— Orbex Space (@orbexspace) February 7, 2019

Seamless

The news comes weeks after U.S.-based startup Relativity Space signed a contract with the U.S. Air Force to launch their 3D printed rocket from Cape Canaveral in Florida.

Orbex worked with aerospace engineer veterans from organizations including NASA and the European Space Association to build the Stage 2 rocket, which is the part of a multi-stage rocket that pushes a spacecraft into orbit after a launch from Earth.

The startup claims it’s the first time a 3D printed rocket engine was “uniquely manufactured in a single piece without joins.” That means the rocket is up to 30 percent lighter and 20 percent more efficient than other small launchers. No welds or joins also means that the rocket could withstand extreme temperature and pressure fluctuations better.

The rocket is also designed to use bio-propane, a “clean-burning, renewable fuel source that cuts carbon emissions by 90 percent.”

3D Printed Future

Orbex has already made major strides, choosing the yet-to-be-built spaceport in Sutherland, Scotland last year for its upcoming first launch in 2021. The company also partnered with Swiss satellite tech startup Astrocast to launch 64 nanosatellites to build a global Internet of Things network.

It’s yet another sign that the private space sector is growing — and at an unrelenting pace. 3D printing technology could push it even further ahead.

READ MORE: Take a look at the world’s largest 3D-printed rocket engine [Engadget]

More on 3D printed rockets: U.S. Air Force Approves Launch Site for 3D Printed Rocket

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UK Startup Shows Off World’s Largest 3D Printed Rocket Engine

Finding love isn’t as easy as finding something good to watch on Netflix. But the algorithms that get you there are more similar than you might expect.

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Love at First Swipe? How Netflix and Tinder are Using Similar Algorithms

We Can Rebuild Him

For the first time, scientists have figured out how to regrow not just the bone but even the joints of a mouse’s amputated toes.

Normally mammals like mice don’t regenerate body parts — meaning the new development could help lead to futuristic medical procedures in which amputees are able to grow back their missing limbs.

Expanding Reach

Thanks to a cocktail of proteins that stimulate regeneration, lab mice grew back a greater portion of their amputated toes than was possible in past experiments, according to New Scientist.

Biologists from Texas A&M University amputated the toes of mice and then treated them with two specific proteins, BMP2 and BMP9. The proteins triggered their bodies to grow back missing bones and, in a medical first, the cartilage necessary to support the joints of their toes, according to research published Tuesday in the journal Nature Communications. Just three days after treatment, more than 60 percent of the new bones had a layer of cartilage covering them.

“Our study is transformational,” lead researcher Ken Muneoka told New Scientist.

In his view, the research suggests that animals that don’t regrow limbs, like mice, could someday do so as easily as those that do, like lizards.

“They can do it, they just don’t do it,” Muneoka told New Scientist. “So, we have to figure out what’s constraining them.”

First Steps

The mice used in the A&M study didn’t grow back complete toes, but they did get closer to a completed digit than past experiments, which only grew out some of the missing bones.

Even if they had fully regenerated their toes, there’s a long road between research showing that a protein can regenerate cartilage and the point at which that protein could be used to grow back a human limb.

All the same, clinical research has to start somewhere. If these findings hold up, we may someday find ourselves with a new way to treat amputees.

READ MORE: Mouse toes partially regrown after amputation thanks to two proteins [New Scientist]

More on regenerative medicine: Neural Stem Cells Grown From Blood Could Revolutionize Medicine

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A New Cocktail of Proteins Makes Mice Regenerate Toes Like Lizards

Molecular Coffee

Take the animal out of meat, and you’ve got fake meat. Take the dairy out of milk and you have soy or almond milk. But what happens when you try to take the bean out of the coffee?

Seattle-based startup Atomo has developed a “molecular coffee” that promises to make a better cup without needing to harvest a single coffee bean. The company is touting it as a way to ditch the cream or sugar, since their product is engineered from the ground up to deliver the desirable flavors and aromas of a great cup of coffee.

Re-Engineered Java

Atomo CEO Andy Kleitsch and microbiologist Jarret Stopforth are the faces behind Atomo. They believe they’ve identified the 40 or so compounds found in the proteins and oils of coffee that represent the body, mouth feel, aroma, and color of coffee, and built a product made out of naturally derived sustainable ingredients.

The result: “the smoothest coffee you’ve ever had – with a caffeine kick you’d expect,” their peppy Kickstarter page reads. The product itself is not a powder you dissolve in hot water — the team decided to replicate the traditional coffee-making ritual by creating grounds instead.

Atomo says the grounds are made of “upcycled plant-based materials,” but it’s incredibly vague about what that actually means. “At this time we’re not disclosing our ingredients,” reads a the FAQ in the company’s press kit.

What’s Wrong With Coffee?

There are several reasons we shouldn’t over-rely on growing coffee.

Coffee growers are increasingly feeling the negative effects of climate change and deforestation. A 2019 study found that 60 percent of wild coffee species are under threat of extinction.

There are the labor issues plaguing the coffee industry. Even the biggest coffee companies themselves, including Nestlé, are starting to admit the risk of slave labor being used on coffee plantations around the world.

There’s also cost. The steep price of a high-grade, locally roasted bag of coffee beans can be inhibiting to some. Atomo’s offerings, according to their Kickstarter, bring that price down to just under 40 cents a cup.

But are we really ready to say goodbye to the coffee bean? Atomo, for one, is convinced we are.

READ MORE: You’ve tried ‘meatless’ sausage, but would you go for ‘beanless’ coffee? [grist]

More on futuristic coffee: This Ridiculous Startup Wants to Roast Coffee in Space

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This “Molecular Coffee” is Brewed Entirely Without Beans

Killer App

An official told military and veterans site Task & Purpose that the Army plans for its upcoming rifle to be an expandable platform comparable to Apple’s iconic iPhone.

“We have hundreds of capabilities we can put into this weapons system, but we want to do it by holistically creating a system that that takes advantage of everything we’ve done in the past,” Army Col. Elliott Caggins, a project manager for soldier weapons, told Task & Purpose. “This means its capabilities will only grow, just as the iPhone’s did.”

“iPhone of Lethality”

The gun —described by Task & Purpose as the “iPhone of lethality” — is the Army’s upcoming Next Generation Squad Weapon. A lot is riding on the gun, which is expected to replace the M4 and M16 that many soldiers currently carry.

The Army is currently soliciting prototypes for the next-gen weapon, Task & Purpose pointed out — and, according to the interview with Caggins, it sounds like Army officials are looking for a high-tech, platform-style device that can be built up with future add-ons.

Platformer

Basically, it sounds like the Army is looking to build a stable platform, like iOS, that it can build increasingly sophisticated weapon technologies on top of.

“Imagine that Steve Jobs and his engineers were trying to convert the iPod Touch to the first 3G iPhone,” Caggins told Task & Purpose. “There were a thousand technologies they could have put in the first iPhone but they were looking to mature the platform before they could actually go onto the system.”

Editor’s note Feb. 8, 2019 at 4:32 PM ET: This article has been updated to describe Task & Purpose as a “military and veterans” site instead of a “military tech blog.”

READ MORE: The Army’s Next-Generation Rifle Will Be the iPhone of Lethality, Officials Say [Task & Purpose]

More on weapons: Russian Navy Says New Weapon Makes Enemies Hallucinate

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Gift Horse

According to “The Iliad,” the Greeks won the Trojan War by sneaking a few dozen soldiers into the city of Troy inside a giant wooden horse disguised as a gift of surrender. The men waited until nightfall before emerging from the horse and opening the city gates for the rest of the Greek army, which destroyed Troy and ended the war.

It wasn’t the most forthright battle plan, but it worked. And now, U.K. researchers are using a similar tactic in the fight against hard-to-treat cancers — with extremely promising results.

TV Winner

Researchers from the Institute of Cancer Research, London (ICR), and The Royal Marsden NHS Foundation Trust have created a new cancer drug called tisotumab vedotin (TV) that combines a chemotherapy agent with an antibody.

This antibody attaches to markers on a cancer cell’s surface in a way that causes the cell to draw in the chemotherapy drug — which then attack the cell from the inside, like the Greek soldiers attacking Troy.

“What is so exciting about this treatment is that its mechanism of action is completely novel,” ICR researcher Johann de Bono said in a press release. “It acts like a Trojan horse to sneak into cancer cells and kill them from the inside.”

Last Resort

On Thursday, the researchers published the details of a clinical trial of TV in the journal The Lancet Oncology.

This trial involved 147 patients with a variety of cancers, including ovarian, cervical, and esophageal. For the majority of trial participants, the cancer was already in an advanced stage and had proven resistant to several other types of treatment.

According to the press release, a “significant minority” of trial participants saw their tumors either shrink or stop growing following treatment with the new cancer drug. On average, the positive response lasted 5.7 months, but some patients went 9.5 months before the effect of the TV wore off.

Next Steps

The research team is already testing TV in trials featuring several other types of cancer, including bowel, pancreatic, and head and neck. It’s also moving forward with a phase II trial of the cancer drug as a secondary treatment for cervical cancer.

“It’s exciting to see the potential shown by TV across a range of hard-to-treat cancers,” ICR’s Chief Executive Paul Workman said in the press release. “I look forward to seeing it progress in the clinic and hope it can benefit patients who currently have run out of treatment options.”

READ MORE: New ‘Trojan Horse’ Cancer Treatment Shows Early Promise in Multiple Tumour Types [ICR]

More on cancer: A Single “Cell of Origin” Might Trigger All Forms of Cancer

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“Trojan Horse” Cancer Drug Sneaks Inside Tumor Cells to Kill Them

Smart Bombs

China’s military is working to adopt artificial intelligence and autonomous technology as quickly as it can.

That’s because Chinese President Xi Jinping believes that AI and other cutting-edge technologies, especially when applied to military systems, are the key to keeping up and leveling the playing field between China and countries like the U.S. that had a head start on its industrial development, according to a new report published Wednesday by a think tank called the Center for a New American Security.

World Powers

The push for advanced Chinese AI is focused on more than military might — the new report highlights how China is taking steps to move away from importing foreign technology.

In October, Xi was quoted as saying that China should strive to “achieve world-leading levels” in artificial intelligence tech while also eliminating its “external dependence for key technologies and advanced equipment,” according to the report.

In short, China is positioning itself to take a global leadership role in AI development and wants to make sure it can do so without the help of any other nation.

All Hands On Deck

The think tank’s report goes on to clarify that many Chinese leaders are concerned that they may be fostering a sort of arms race between China and the West as both push to develop and weaponized autonomous technology like AI.

Still, though, the report says that those same leaders believe that AI will inevitably become more prevalent in combat. And when that happens, China is poised to take the lead, according to MIT Technology Review, because Chinese tech corporations work hand-in-hand with the government while American companies like Google, Microsoft, and Amazon are subject to worker protests over military contracts.

READ MORE: China’s military is rushing to use artificial intelligence [MIT Technology Review]

More on military AI: The Military Just Created An AI That Learned How To Program Software

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China Thinks AI Could Make Its Military As Powerful as America’s

We Have a Problem

Many space visionaries want to mine asteroids. But drilling in microgravity is hard, because exerting force on an asteroid will push you away from it.

That’s what an inspired a far-out idea from scientists from University of Vienna: turning an asteroid into a space station and mining it from the inside out, according to New Scientist.

Setting up Shop

The best type of asteroid to build a space station inside would be made of solid rock and rotating several times per minute, according the Viennese scientists’ research, which was published in the preprint server ArXiv in December. The idea is that it would provide enough centrifugal force to let space miners chisel away at the asteroid from the center outward.

“If we find an asteroid that’s stable enough, we might not need these aluminium walls or anything, you might just be able to use the entire asteroid as a space station,” Thomas Maindl, one of the scientists who worked on the research, told New Scientist.

Maybe Someday

Questions remain. Would digging a tunnel to place station inside an asteroid weaken it to the point that the spinning space rock rips itself apart? Would it stop spinning altogether as miners probe and dig? And if it’s so hard to drill into an asteroid from the outside, wouldn’t hollowing it out in the first place pose the same problems?

“The border between science and science fiction here is sort of blurry,” Maindl told New Scientist. “My gut feeling is that it will be at least 20 years before any asteroid mining happens, let alone something like this.”

READ MORE: Here’s how we could turn an asteroid into a space station [New Scientist]

More on asteroid landings: Here are the First Photos Japan’s Robot Landers Sent Back From an Asteroid

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Scientists Want to Build a Space Station Inside an Asteroid

Moon Man

NASA administrator Jim Bridenstine published a bold essay yesterday in Ozy outlining the space agency’s plan to return astronauts to the Moon — and laying out a bold vision for humanity’s future beyond Earth.

“We are going to the moon with innovative new technologies and systems to explore more locations across the surface than we ever thought possible,” Bridenstine wrote. “This time, when we go to the moon, we will stay.”

Lunar Outpost

According to Bridenstine, America’s return to the moon will hinge on the Lunar Gateway, an orbiting lunar outpost that will serve as the first reusable lunar lander system for astronauts.

In realizing that vision, Bridenstine emphasized the role he foresees for private spacetech ventures. NASA is currently working with nine American companies on commercial deliveries of cargo to the moon and on the Gateway project, he said.

Proving Ground

Two thirds of Americans alive today, Bridenstine pointed out, weren’t alive during the last Moon landings — including Bridenstine himself. But he emphasized that NASA’s next foray to the Moon won’t be a redux of those missions. Astronauts will venture farther onto the lunar surface and conduct new research. The missions will also, according to Bridenstine, serve as a proving ground for technologies that will take Earthlings even farther into the reaches of space.

“Following a buildup of capabilities, our goal is to land astronauts on the moon within the next decade,” he wrote. “Billions of people around the world will watch history being made as astronauts explore more of the surface for longer periods of time than ever before, and help us prepare for missions to Mars and other destinations.”

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Fuel Rules

Waste plastic is choking the Earth’s oceans and poisoning its wildlife.

That’s why researchers at Purdue University are excited about a new chemical technique technique that turns waste plastic back into useful polymers — or even clean fuel.

Immortal Technique

The new technique works on polypropelene, according to a new paper published in the journal Sustainable Chemistry and Engineering, which is used to make everything from toys to snack food bags. The technique users super-heated water to convert the plastic into a gasoline-like fuel that could be used to fuel conventional vehicles.

“Our strategy is to create a driving force for recycling by converting polyolefin waste into a wide range of valuable products, including polymers, naphtha (a mixture of hydrocarbons), or clean fuels,” said Linda Wang, a researcher at Purdue University and leader of the research team behind the new technique, in a press release. “Our conversion technology has the potential to boost the profits of the recycling industry and shrink the world’s plastic waste stock.”

Waste Disposal

Polypropelene accounts for about 23 percent of the five billions of tons of plastic waste that’s been cast into landfills and the environment, according to the new research — meaning that if it could be turned into a valuable commodity, it’d create a huge incentive to recover and re-purpose it.

“Plastic waste disposal, whether recycled or thrown away, does not mean the end of the story,” Wang said. “These plastics degrade slowly and release toxic microplastics and chemicals into the land and the water. This is a catastrophe, because once these pollutants are in the oceans, they are impossible to retrieve completely.”

READ MORE: Researchers Developed a Technique to Turn Nearly a Quarter of Our Plastic Waste into Fuel [Motherboard]

More on plastic: The EU Just Voted to Completely Ban Single-Use Plastics

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New Chemistry Technique Turns Waste Plastic Into Clean Fuel

Print “Motorcycle”

A new BBC video shows an electric motorcycle called the Nera that looks like something from a stylized video game — a “TRON”-like design made possible by the fact that it’s almost 100 percent 3D printed, down to the airless tires.

“The idea was to demonstrate to designers and engineers and architects and the general consumer what 3D printing was all about,” said Stephan Beyer, the CEO of Nera maker BigRep. “Historically, engineers and designers have been limited with manufacturing technologies like grinding and molding.”

“TRON” Bike

Though you can’t buy it yet, the BBC says the Nera is expected to cost about £2,000 ($2,600.)

The BBC claims the Nera is the world’s first 3D printed electric motorcycle — though, to be fair, a separate project called the Light Rider appears to have come first.

Bike Hack

Still, the Nera is an extraordinarily bold design, with futuristic angles and polygons that look too sharp for the staid world of automotive design. Beyers credits those bold choices with the possibilities opened up by 3D printing.

“The nice thing with 3D printing is that you can swipe those limitations away and you can create objects that have completely new capabilities, follow completely new sets of designs,” he told the BBC. “For instance, with the outer hull of the bike, that follows a design that we created that you would typically not be able to bring to life with a traditional bike.”

READ MORE: The world’s first 3D-printed electric motorbike [BBC]

More on motorcycles: Harley-Davidson’s Electric Motorcycle Will Go on Sale in August

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This 3D Printed Electric Motorcycle Looks Like Something From “TRON”

Weed Law

A new bill in the Senate Friday would mark a tectonic state in the United States’ drug law by legalizing marijuana nationwide.

“The federal prohibition of marijuana is wrong, plain and simple,” said Ron Wyden, an Oregon Senator who introduced the bill, in a statement. “Too many lives have been wasted, and too many economic opportunities have been missed.”

Blaze It

The new bill, called S.420 — get it? — would give the Drug Enforcement Administration 60 days to strike cannabis from its list of controlled substances. It would also institute a tax on the substance and set up a mechanism for retail permits and special labeling, like tobacco and alcohol, according to The Verge.

That would be a huge shift, because individual states have pursued cannabis legalization and decriminalization piecemeal in recent decades, but the federal government still considers it a “Schedule I” substance — along heavy duty drugs like methamphetamine and heroin.

Research Opportunities

Legalizing marijuana would likely decrease unnecessary strain on the legal system and create new economic opportunities, according to many experts — and could be a major opportunity for research into possible medicinal uses.

“The American people have elected the most pro-cannabis Congress in American history and significant pieces of legislation are being introduced,” said Oregon Representative Earl Blumenauer, who introduced the bill in the House of Representatives alongside Wyden. “The House is doing its work and with the help of Senator Wyden’s leadership in the Senate, we will break through.”

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To Serve Man

For decades, scientists have used radio telescopes to listen for cosmic signals that could originate with an extraterrestrial civilization. Increasingly, they’re also broadcasting messages to the stars in hopes that someone is listening.

But in a new interview with The Times, University of St. Andrews astronomer Martin Dominik cautioned against sending messages into the unknown of deep space.

“Maybe,” he told the paper, provocatively, “they will come and eat us.”

We Come in Peace

The Arecibo Observatory beamed out a message to potential aliens in 1974. Next year, scientists intend to send a signal to the stars representing the period table of elements. In 2008, the maker of Doritos chips shot a 30-second advertisement to a system in the Ursa Major constellation. And we’re constantly beaming radio waves of old music and sitcoms in every direction.

“Anyone can just beam messages into outer space, and nobody has any right to stop them from doing it,” Dominik told The Times. “Some people feel uncomfortable about it. For the first time astronomers are facing an ethical question. Should we send messages out to others? Is this dangerous? Should we keep a lower profile? What is the better strategy?”

Last Thing

Dominik’s comments allude to the terrifying “dark-forest theory,” which holds that astronomers haven’t spotted extraterrestrial signals because other civilizations are hiding from killer aliens that wipe out any galactic competition they spot.

“Some say [alien contact] is the greatest thing we should do,” Dominik told The Times. “Some think we should be very quiet and this should be the last thing we should do — and it might indeed be the last thing we will do.”

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Annual Check-Up

Once a year, the Hubble telescope snaps photos of our solar system’s gas giants for the Outer Planet Atmospheres Legacy (OPAL) program, an initiative to help us better understand the four planets.

On Thursday, NASA released the latest OPAL image of Uranus — and it offers a stunning view of a mind-bogglingly massive storm currently raging on the icy planet.

White Cap

The storm is impossible to miss in the new photograph — it blankets Uranus’s north pole in a cloud of white, making the planet resemble a blue Easter egg that wasn’t fully immersed in the dye.

According to a NASA blog post, scientists believe the striking image was made possible by something that sets Uranus apart from every other planet in our solar system: its dramatic tilt.

Uranus essentially spins on its side, with an axis tilt of 98 degrees. For comparison, the Earth’s axis has a 23-degree tilt. That means Uranus’s north pole points almost directly at the Sun during the planet’s summer.

The middle of that summer season is approaching, thereby granting Earth this stunning view of Uranus’s north pole and the storm on it, which NASA posits was caused by changes in the planet’s atmospheric flow.

Patterns in the Sky

Just like a meteorologist can’t predict weather patterns on Earth from a few photos, astronomers need a series of images of the atmospheres of other planets, taken over long periods of time, to reach any worthwhile conclusions about their weather trends.

The hope is that the OPAL program will provide this valuable data, helping scientists better understand the atmospheres and weather patterns of the planets circling the outskirts of our solar system — and, in the process, providing us with stunning images like the one released on Thursday.

READ MORE: Hubble Reveals Dynamic Atmospheres of Uranus, Neptune [NASA]

More on Hubble: Hubble Takes Another Incredible Picture After Gyroscope Failure

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