🌎 Glacier Collapse

SpaceX’s Starship launch crashes as it prepares for Mars mission

Not all rockets can land on chopsticks. SpaceX conducted its ninth Starship test flight on Tuesday, delivering a mix of successes and setbacks as the company prepares the world’s biggest rocket for a potential Mars mission in 2026.

Crash landing

After launching from Starbase, Texas (now SpaceX’s official city), the ninth test flight of the company’s Starship was part historic milestone, part fireworks display. Not long after launch, the rocket experienced a few issues:

• A fuel leak and early booster separation ultimately caused it to lose control and break apart in reentry, ending in an uncontrolled descent over the Indian Ocean (see video).

• Additionally, a payload door failed to open, preventing the release of Starlink satellite simulators.

CEO Elon Musk, who recently returned “24/7” to his companies from the Trump administration, said the rocket passed several checkpoints that the last two failed to reach, showing important progress.

The launch marked the third straight test flight where Starship failed to complete its mission, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing for the company.

Failure as a feature

Since its conception, SpaceX has leaned into its “fail fast, learn faster” strategy. While Flight 9 didn’t achieve all of its goals (or land on chopsticks), it highlights a significant step towards the company’s vision of a fully reusable spacecraft:

• The test provided critical data on booster reuse and system behavior under stress.

• No losses of the upgraded heat shields were recorded on ascent, which is especially important when trying to survive the plunge back to Earth.

SpaceX plans to speed up its launch schedule, conducting test flights every three to four weeks, with the FAA authorizing up to 25 launches and 50 landings from Starbase per year.

Looking ahead: The accelerated schedule should help SpaceX to usher in even more improvements, getting the Starship ready for a Mars mission next year and a manned mission to the moon for NASA’s Artemis program in 2027.

Cholera outbreak makes Sudan’s humanitarian crisis even worse

Cases have spiked rapidly in the past week. Sudan is teetering on the edge of a public health disaster as cholera cases surge amid the country’s ongoing civil war.

Dire situation

Cholera is a highly contagious, water-borne disease that rapidly infects an individual, leading to severe dehydration and death within hours if it is left untreated, according to the World Health Organization.

The outbreak began last month, but the nation has seen an “alarming spike” in cases after drone strikes caused power outages at water purification stations, forcing residents to rely on contaminated water sources.

• The International Rescue Committee (IRC) reports that in just one week, 172 people have died from cholera, with thousands more infected.

Authorities say the existing health facilities cannot help the recent surge in patients, and the crisis is only getting worse due to dwindling essential supplies and low vaccine coverage, per the IRC.

Civil war hasn’t helped

The escalating health crisis highlights the dire humanitarian situation in Sudan, where over 150,000 people have been killed and millions displaced since the conflict began more than two years ago (see overview).

• The civil war has severely compromised basic infrastructure, rendering healthcare either unavailable or unaffordable in many areas.

• Many health workers have fled due to the fighting, leaving the remaining facilities overwhelmed.

In places where hospitals are functional, treatment centers are inundated with patients, leaving many arriving too late to be saved. One organization, Médecins Sans Frontières, has treated nearly 2,000 suspected cholera cases in the past week alone.

What can be done? The World Health Organization emphasized the urgency of a coordinated response, including improved water, sanitation, and expanded treatment capacity, though no action has been taken as of writing.

OpenAI is attempting to replace the iPhone

It marks the largest acquisition to date for the company. Last week, OpenAI acquired hardware startup io for $6.5 billion in an attempt to rethink how we interact with technology, possibly creating a product that could eventually rival the iPhone.

Jony Ive—the legendary designer behind the iPhone—founded the one-year-old company after leaving Apple in 2019. The deal shocked the tech world, and speculation is only growing over what Ive and Altman could be building.

What would the device be like?

Under their new partnership, Altman and Ive are looking to build something completely new… a smart AI device that goes beyond traditional smartphones.

According to the WSJ, the new duo gave out more details on the AI “companion” device at an internal meeting:

• The device is envisioned as a highly aware, intelligent assistant designed to seamlessly integrate into users’ daily lives.

• It wouldn’t be a smartphone replacement, but a device that “complements” your phone and laptop.

What form will it take? No one knows yet, but speculation has run wild. Tech analyst Ming-Chi Kuo said the device could resemble an iPod Shuffle, featuring microphones but no display, while others think it could take the shape of a hockey puck.

When can you get one? Altman and Ive are seeking a release date sometime in late 2026 and hope to ship out over 100 million units “faster than any other company has… before.”

Will it succeed? Hard to know, but recent attempts at wearable AI tech haven’t been too promising… the Humane pin and Rabbit R1 both attempted to achieve a similar goal, each with lackluster results.

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Glacier collapse completely buries Swiss town

The devastating event caused hundreds of homes to be buried. On Wednesday, a Glacier above the Swiss Alpine village of Blatten collapsed, triggering a massive landslide that buried 90% of the village under ice, rock, and debris.

Tragic collapse

All 300 residents of the town, which resides just south of the nation’s capital, were evacuated (along with all livestock) on May 19 following warnings from geologists.

• The 52 million-cubic-foot glacier that towered over Blatten crashed into the valley after disintegrating.

• Footage of the glacier’s dramatic collapse spread quickly online, showing a vast cloud of rock, ice, and soil pluming upward (watch here).

The ensuing landslide blocked the nearby Lonza River, forming a lake and causing what remains of the village to flood. As of writing, only one man remains missing, however, searches were suspended yesterday after falling debris forced rescue crews to evacuate.

What’s next? Swiss authorities have called in army disaster relief and promised to pay for locals to stay nearby while the town recovers. Blatten's mayor, Matthias Bellwald, said, “We have lost our village, but not our heart,” in a conference on Thursday.

Harvard revokes tenure from ethics professor accused of cheating

Well, that’s awfully ironic. In an extremely rare move, Harvard Business School has stripped professor Francesca Gino of her tenure after an investigation found she manipulated data in several academic studies to support her conclusions.

Liar, liar, pants on fire

Gino, once known for her studies on honesty and ethical behavior, is the first Harvard professor to lose their tenure since the 1940s. Her work was widely featured in the media, including the New York Times, the WSJ, and NBC News (but not here, baby).

• Gino authored two books and over 140 academic papers, with one (ironically) focused on dishonesty in the workplace.

• Before the misconduct allegations, Gino was among the university’s most highly compensated faculty, earning over $1 million annually in 2018 and 2019.

How did she get caught? Trouble began for Gino in August 2021 when Data Colada, a data integrity blog, accused her of manipulating results in a research paper (see here). Soon after, the paper was retracted, and HBS launched an 18-month investigation.

• By June 2023, the school concluded she had committed academic fraud, placing her on unpaid leave and banning her from campus.

Gino has denied all allegations of her misconduct, saying on a personal website that the institution is conspiring to damage her reputation. Separately, Gino filed a $25 million lawsuit against Harvard and the paper’s authors, claiming defamation, gender discrimination, and breach of contract.

What happened recently? Gino claimed the policy on research misconduct introduced in August 2021 was created specifically to target her. Additionally, a federal judge dismissed Gino’s defamation claim, but allowed the breach of contract allegation.

FAST FACTS
Catch up on this week’s weird news

Magnetic Moon: A new MIT study suggests that a colossal asteroid impact may have momentarily intensified the Moon's magnetic field, explaining the unexpected magnetism found in some lunar rocks.

Crypto Crime: Two cryptocurrency investors, John Woeltz and William Duplessie, have been charged in New York City for allegedly kidnapping and torturing an Italian man to obtain his Bitcoin wallet credentials.

Strange Signal: Every 44 minutes, a cosmic enigma named ASKAP J1832-0911 pulses with energy, sending out mysterious signals that are baffling astronomers.

Overweight Americans: As of 2024, over 4% of Americans are using GLP-1 weight-loss drugs like Ozempic and Mounjaro, a nearly 600% increase since 2018.

Protein Power: Researchers at the University of Oxford managed to extract over 1,200 proteins from a 200-year-old human brain, developing a new way to study the biology of dead tissue.