Beth Washington – Page 13

Rocket Report: SpaceX achieved daily launch this week; ULA recovers booster

alpha rocket, falcon 9, Firefly Aerospace, launch, rocket report, Science, Space, spacex, Starbase, starship, united launch alliance, vulcan, wallops island / Beth Washington / August 29, 2025

Firefly Aerospace reveals why its Alpha booster exploded after launch in April.

Starship and its Super Heavy booster ascend through a clear sky over Starbase, Texas, on Tuesday evening. A visible vapor cone enveloped the rocket as it passed through maximum aerodynamic pressure and the speed of sound. Credit: Stephen Clark/Ars Technica

Welcome to Edition 8.08 of the Rocket Report! What a week it’s been for SpaceX. The company completed its first successful Starship test flight in nearly a year, and while it wasn’t perfect, it sets up SpaceX for far more ambitious tests ahead. SpaceX’s workhorse rocket, the Falcon 9, launched six times since our last edition of the Rocket Report. Many of these missions were noteworthy in their own right, including the launch of the US military’s X-37B spaceplane, an upgraded Dragon capsule to boost the International Space Station to a higher orbit, and the record 30th launch and landing of a flight-proven Falcon 9 booster. All told, that’s seven SpaceX launches in seven days.

As always, we welcome reader submissions. If you don’t want to miss an issue, please subscribe using the box below (the form will not appear on AMP-enabled versions of the site). Each report will include information on small-, medium-, and heavy-lift rockets, as well as a quick look ahead at the next three launches on the calendar.

Firefly announces cause of Alpha launch failure. Firefly Aerospace closed the investigation into the failure of one of its Alpha rockets during an April mission for Lockheed Martin and received clearance from the FAA to resume launches, Payload reports. The loss of the launch vehicle was a dark cloud hanging over the company’s otherwise successful IPO this month. The sixth flight of Firefly’s Alpha rocket launched in April from Vandenberg Space Force Base, California, and failed when its first stage booster broke apart milliseconds after stage separation. This created a shockwave that destroyed the engine nozzle extension on the second stage, damaging the engine before the second stage ran out of propellant seconds before it attained orbital velocity. Both stages ultimately fell into the Pacific Ocean.

Too much stress … Investigators concluded that “plume induced flow separation” caused the failure. The phenomenon occurs when a rocket’s exhaust disrupts airflow around the vehicle in flight. In this case, Firefly said the rocket was flying at a higher angle of attack than prior missions, which resulted in the flow separation and created intense heat that broke the first stage apart just after it jettisoned from the second stage. Firefly will increase heat shielding on the first stage of the rocket and fly at reduced angles of attack on future missions. Alpha has now launched six times since 2021, with only two complete successes. Firefly said it was working on setting a date for the seventh Alpha launch. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

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ESA books a ticket on European launchers. The European Space Agency has awarded launch service contracts to Avio and Isar Aerospace under its Flight Ticket Initiative, European Spaceflight reports. Announced in October 2023, the Flight Ticket Initiative is a program run jointly by ESA and the European Union that offers subsidized flight opportunities for European companies and organizations seeking to demonstrate new satellite technologies in orbit. The initiative is part of ESA’s strategy to foster the continent’s commercial space industry, offering institutional funding to support satellite and launch companies. Avio won contracts to launch three small European space missions as secondary payloads on Vega C rockets flying into low-Earth orbit. Isar Aerospace will launch two small satellite missions to orbit for European companies.

No other options … Avio and Isar Aerospace were the obvious contenders for the Flight Ticket Initiative from a pool of five European companies eligible for launch awards. The other companies, PLD Space, Orbex, and Rocket Factory Augsburg, haven’t launched their orbital-class rockets yet. Avio, based in Italy, builds the now-operational Vega C rocket, and Germany’s Isar Aerospace launched its first Spectrum rocket earlier this year, but it failed to reach orbit. Avio’s selection replaces Arianespace, which was originally part of the Flight Ticket Initiative. Arianespace was previously responsible for marketing and sales for the Vega rocket, but ESA transferred its Flight Ticket Initiative eligibility to Avio following its split from Arianespace. (submitted by EllPeaTea)

Canadian rocket company ready for launch. NordSpace is preparing to launch its 6-meter tall Taiga rocket from Newfoundland, CBC reports. It will be a suborbital launch, meaning it won’t orbit Earth, but NordSpace says the launch will be the first of a Canadian commercial rocket from a Canadian commercial spaceport. The rocket is powered by a 3D-printed liquid-fueled engine and is a stepping stone to an orbital-class rocket NordSpace is developing called Tundra, scheduled to debut in 2027. The smaller Taiga rocket will launch partially fueled and fire its engine for approximately 60 seconds, according to NordSpace.

Newfoundland to space … The launch site, called the Atlantic Spaceport Complex, is located on the Atlantic coast near the town of St. Lawrence, Newfoundland. It will have two launch pads, one for suborbital flights like Taiga, and another for orbital missions by the Tundra rocket and other launch vehicles from US and European companies. The Taiga launch is scheduled no earlier than Friday morning at 5: 00 am EDT (09: 00 UTC). NordSpace says it is a “fully privately funded and managed initiative crucial for Canada to build a space launch capability that supports our security, economy, and sovereignty.” (submitted by Matthew P)

SpaceX’s reuse idea isn’t so dumb after all. A Falcon 9 rocket launched early Thursday from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, with another batch of Starlink Internet satellites. These types of missions launch multiple times per week, but this flight was special. The first stage of the Falcon 9, designated Booster 1067, launched and landed on drone ship in the Atlantic Ocean, completing its 30th flight to space and back, Ars reports. This is a new record for a reusable orbital-class booster stage and comes less than 24 hours after a preceding SpaceX launch from Florida that marked the 400th Falcon 9 landing on a drone ship since the first offshore recovery in 2016.

30 going for 40 … SpaceX is now aiming for at least 40 launches per Falcon 9 first stage, four times as many flights as the company’s original target for Falcon 9 booster reuse. Many people in the industry were skeptical about SpaceX’s approach to reuse. In the mid-2010s, both the European and Japanese space agencies were looking to develop their next generation of rockets. In both cases, Europe with the Ariane 6 and Japan with the H3, the space agencies opted for traditional, expendable rockets instead of pushing toward reuse. In the United States, the main competitor to SpaceX has historically been United Launch Alliance. Their reaction to SpaceX’s plan to reuse first stages a decade ago was dismissive. ULA dubbed its plan to reuse just the engine section of its Vulcan rocket “Smart Reuse” a few years ago. But ULA hasn’t even attempted to recover the engines from the Vulcan core stage yet, and reuse is still at least several years away.

Russia nears debut of Soyuz-5 rocket. In recent comments to the Russian state-run media service TASS, the chief of Roscosmos said the country’s newest rocket, the Soyuz-5, should take flight for the first time before the end of this year, Ars reports. “Yes, we are planning for December,” said Dmitry Bakanov, the director of Roscosmos, Russia’s main space corporation. “Everything is in place.” According to the report, translated for Ars by Rob Mitchell, the debut launch of Soyuz-5 will mark the first of several demonstration flights, with full operational service not expected to begin until 2028. It will launch from the Baikonur spaceport in Kazakhstan.

Breaking free of Ukraine … From an innovation standpoint, the Soyuz-5 vehicle does not stand out. It has been a decade in the making and is fully expendable, unlike a lot of newer medium-lift rockets coming online in the next several years. However, for Russia, this is an important advancement because it seeks to break some of the country’s dependency on Ukraine for launch technology. The new rocket is also named Irtysh, a river that flows through Russia and Kazakhstan. The rocket has been in development since 2016 and largely repurposes older technology. But for Russia, a key advantage is that it takes rocket elements formerly made in Ukraine and now manufactures them in Russia.

SpaceX launches mission to reboost the ISS. SpaceX completed its 33rd cargo delivery to the International Space Station (ISS) early Monday, when a Dragon supply ship glided to an automated docking with more than 5,000 pounds of scientific experiments and provisions for the lab’s seven-person crew, Ars reports. The resupply flight is part of the normal rotation of cargo and crew missions that keep the space station operating, but this one carries something new. What’s different with this mission is a new rocket pack mounted inside the Dragon spacecraft’s rear trunk section. In the coming weeks, SpaceX and NASA will use this first-of-its-kind propulsion system to begin boosting the altitude of the space station’s orbit.

A rocket on a rocket … SpaceX engineers installed two small Draco rocket engines in the trunk of the Dragon spacecraft. The thrusters have their own dedicated propellant tanks and will operate independently of 16 other Draco thrusters used to maneuver Dragon on its journey to the ISS. When NASA says it’s the right time, SpaceX controllers will command the Draco thrusters to ignite and gently accelerate the massive 450-ton space station. All told, the reboost kit can add about 20 mph, or 9 meters per second, to the space station’s already-dizzying speed. Maintaining the space station’s orbit has previously been the responsibility of Russia.

X-37B rides with SpaceX again. The US military’s reusable winged spaceship rocketed back into orbit from Florida on August 21 atop a SpaceX rocket, kicking off a mission that will, among other things, demonstrate how future spacecraft can navigate without relying on GPS signals, Ars reports. The core of the navigation experiment is what the Space Force calls the “world’s highest performing quantum inertial sensor ever used in space.” The spaceplane also hosts a laser inter-satellite communications demo. This is the eighth flight of the X-37B spaceplane, and the third to launch with SpaceX.

Back to LEO … This mission launched on a Falcon 9 rocket into low-Earth orbit (LEO) a few hundred miles above the Earth. This marks a return to LEO after the previous X-37B mission flew on a Falcon Heavy rocket into a much higher orbit. Many of the spaceplane’s payloads have been classified, but officials typically identify a handful of unclassified experiments flying on each X-37B mission. Past X-37B missions have also deployed small satellites into orbit before returning to Earth for a runway landing at Kennedy Space Center, Florida, or Vandenberg Space Force Base, California.

Rocket Lab cuts the ribbon on Neutron launch pad. Launch Complex 3, the Virginia Spaceport Authority’s Mid-Atlantic Regional Spaceport and home to Rocket Lab’s newest reusable rocket, Neutron, is now complete and celebrated its official opening Thursday, WAVY-TV reports. Officials said Launch Complex 3 is ready to bring the largest orbital launch capacity in the spaceport’s history with Neutron, Rocket Lab’s reusable launch vehicle, a medium-lift vehicle capable of launching 33,000 pounds (15 metric tons) to space for commercial constellations, national security, and interplanetary missions.

Not budging … “We’re trying as hard as we can to get this on the pad by the end of the year and get it away,” said Peter Beck, Rocket Lab’s founder and CEO. Beck is holding to his hope the Neutron rocket will be ready to fly in the next four months, but time is running out to make this a reality. The Neutron rocket will be Rocket Lab’s second orbital-class launch vehicle after the Electron, which can place payloads of several hundred pounds in orbit. Electron has a launch pad in Virginia, too, but most Electron rockets take off from New Zealand.

Starship completes a largely successful test flight. SpaceX launched the 10th test flight of the company’s Starship rocket Tuesday evening, sending the stainless steel spacecraft halfway around the world to an on-target splashdown in the Indian Ocean, Ars reports. The largely successful mission for the world’s largest rocket was an important milestone for SpaceX’s Starship program after months of repeated setbacks, including three disappointing test flights and a powerful explosion on the ground that destroyed the ship that engineers were originally readying for this launch.

Lessons to learn … For the first time, SpaceX engineers received data on the performance of the ship’s upgraded heat shield and control flaps during reentry back into the atmosphere. The three failed Starship test flights to start the year ended before the ship reached reentry. Elon Musk, SpaceX’s founder and CEO, has described developing a durable, reliable heat shield as the most pressing challenge for making Starship a fully and rapidly reusable rocket. But there were lessons to learn from Tuesday’s flight. A large section of the ship transitioned from its original silver color to a rusty hue of orange and brown by the time it reached the Indian Ocean. Officials didn’t immediately address this or say whether it was anticipated.

ULA recovering boosters, too. United Launch Alliance decided to pull four strap-on solid rocket boosters from the Atlantic Ocean after their use on the company’s most recent launch. Photos captured by Florida photographer Jerry Pike showed a solid rocket motor casing on a ship just off the coast of Cape Canaveral. Tory Bruno, ULA’s president and CEO, wrote on X that the booster was one of four flown on the USSF-106 mission earlier this month, which marked the third flight of ULA’s Vulcan rocket and the first with a US national security payload.

A GEM from the sea … The boosters, built by Northrop Grumman, are officially called Graphite Epoxy Motors, or GEMs. They jettison from the Vulcan rocket less than two minutes after liftoff and fall into the ocean. They’re not designed for reuse, but ULA decided to recover this set of four from the Atlantic for inspections. The company also raised from the sea two motors from the previous Vulcan launch last year after one of them suffered a nozzle failure during launch. Bruno wrote on X that “performance and ballistics were spot on” with all four boosters from the more recent USSF-106 mission, but that engineers decided to go ahead and recover them to close out a “nice data set” from inspections of now six recovered motors—two from last year and four this year.

Next three launches

Aug. 30: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-7 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 03: 09 UTC

Aug. 31: Falcon 9 | Starlink 10-14 | Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, Florida | 11: 15 UTC

Sept. 3: Falcon 9 | Starlink 17-8 | Vandenberg Space Force Base, California | 02: 33 UTC

Stephen Clark is a space reporter at Ars Technica, covering private space companies and the world’s space agencies. Stephen writes about the nexus of technology, science, policy, and business on and off the planet.

Rocket Report: SpaceX achieved daily launch this week; ULA recovers booster Read More »

Google warns that mass data theft hitting Salesloft AI agent has grown bigger

AI, Biz & IT, chat agents, credential theft, Salesforce, salesloft drift, Security / Beth Washington / August 29, 2025

Google is advising users of the Salesloft Drift AI chat agent to consider all security tokens connected to the platform compromised following the discovery that unknown attackers used some of the credentials to access email from Google Workspace accounts.

In response, Google has revoked the tokens that were used in the breaches and disabled integration between the Salesloft Drift agent and all Workspace accounts as it investigates further. The company has also notified all affected account holders of the compromise.

Scope expanded

The discovery, reported Thursday in an advisory update, indicates that a Salesloft Drift breach it reported on Tuesday is broader than previously known. Prior to the update, members of the Google Threat Intelligence Group said the compromised tokens were limited to Salesloft Drift integrations with Salesforce. The compromise of the Workspace accounts prompted Google to change that assessment.

“Based on new information identified by GTIG, the scope of this compromise is not exclusive to the Salesforce integration with Salesloft Drift and impacts other integrations,” Thursday’s update stated. “We now advise all Salesloft Drift customers to treat any and all authentication tokens stored in or connected to the Drift platform as potentially compromised.”

On Thursday, Salesloft’s security guidance page made no reference to the new information and instead continued to indicate that the breach affected only Drift integrations with Salesforce. Company representatives didn’t immediately respond to an email seeking confirmation of the Google finding.

Google warns that mass data theft hitting Salesloft AI agent has grown bigger Read More »

Video player looks like a 1-inch TV from the ’60s and is wondrous, pointless fun

Reviews, Tech, TVs / Beth Washington / August 29, 2025

TV static and remote included.

The TinyTV 2 powering off. Credit: Scharon Harding

If a family of anthropomorphic mice were to meet around a TV, I imagine they’d gather around something like TinyCircuits’ TinyTV 2. The gadget sits on four slender, angled legs with its dials and classic, brown shell beckoning viewers toward its warm, bright stories. The TinyTV’s screen is only 1.14 inches diagonally, but the device exudes vintage energy.

In simple terms, the TinyTV is a portable, rechargeable gadget that plays stored videos and was designed to look and function like a vintage TV. The details go down to the dials, one for controlling the volume and another for scrolling through the stored video playlist. Both rotary knobs make an assuring click when twisted.

Musing on fantastical uses for the TinyTV seems appropriate because the device feels like it’s built around fun. At a time when TVs are getting more powerful, software-driven, AI-stuffed, and, of course, bigger, the TinyTV is a delightful, comforting tribute to a simpler time for TVs.

Retro replica

Tom Cruise on the TinyTV 2. — The TinyTV’s remote and backside next to a lighter for size comparisons. Credit: Scharon Harding

TinyCircuits makes other tiny, open source gadgets to “serve creativity in the maker community, build fun STEAM learning, and spark joy,” according to the Ohio-based company’s website. TinyCircuits’ first product was the Arduino-based TinyDuino Platform, which it crowdfunded through Kickstarter in 2012.

The TinyTV 2 is the descendant of the $75 (as of this writing) TinyTV DIY Kit that came out three years prior. TinyCircuits crowdfunded the TinyTV 2 on Kickstarter and Indiegogo in 2022 (along with a somehow even smaller alternative, the 0.6-inch TinyTV Mini). Now, TinyCircuits sells the TinyTV alongside other small electronics—like Thumby, a “playable, programmable keychain” that looks like a Game Boy—on its website for $60.

“This idea actually came from one of our customers in Japan,” Ken Burns, TinyCircuits’ founder, told Ars via email. “Our original product line was a number of different stackable boards [that] work like little electronic LEGOs to allow people to create all sorts of projects. We had a small screen as part of this platform, which this customer used to create a small TV set that was very cute …”

Even when powered off, the TinyTV sparks intrigue, with a vintage aesthetic replicating some of the earliest TV sets.

The TinyTV was inspired by vintage TV sets. Scharon Harding

Nostalgia hit me when I pressed the power button on top of the TinyTV. When the gadget powers on or off or switches between videos, it shows snow and makes a TV static noise that I haven’t heard in years.

TV toned down

Without a tuner, the TinyTV isn’t really a TV. It also can’t connect to the Internet, so it’s not a streaming device. I was able to successfully stream videos from a connected computer over USB-C using this link, but audio isn’t supported.

With many TV owners relying on flat buttons and their voice to control TVs, turning a knob or pressing a button to flip through content feels novel. It also makes me wonder if today’s youth understand the meaning of phrases like “flipping channels” and “channel surfing.” Emulating a live TV, the TinyTV syncs timestamps, so that if you return to a “channel,” the video will play from a middle point, as if the content had been playing the whole time you were watching something else.

When the TinyTV powers off, the display briefly shows snow that is quickly eaten up by black, making the static look like a shrinking circle before the screen is completely black.

The TinyTV comes with an infrared remote, a small, black, 3D-printed thing with a power button and buttons for controlling the volume and switching videos.

The TinyTV with its remote. Credit: Scharon Harding

But the remote didn’t work reliably, even when I held it the recommended 12 to 18 inches away from the TinyTV. That’s a shame because using the knobs requires two hands to prevent the TinyTV from toppling.

Adding video to TinyTV is simple because TinyCircuits has a free tool for converting MP4 files into the necessary AVI format. Afterward, conversion you add files to the TinyTV by connecting it to a computer via its USB-C port. My system read the TinyTV as a USB D drive.

Image quality is better than you might expect from a 1.14-inch panel. It’s an IPS screen with 16-bit color and a 30 Hz refresh rate, per Burns. CRT would be more accurate, but in addition to the display tech being bulkier and more expensive, it’s hard to find CRT tech this size. (The smallest CRT TV was Panasonic’s Travelvision CT-101, which came out in 1984 with a 1.5-inch screen and is rare today.)

One of my biggest challenges was finding a way to watch the TinyTV at eye level. However, even when the device was positioned below eye level, I could still make out images in bright scenes. Seeing the details in dark images was hard, though, even with the TinyTV at a proper distance.

I uploaded a trailer for this summer’s Mission: Impossible – The Final Reckoning movie onto the TinyTV, and with 223.4 pixels per inch, its screen was sharp enough to show details like a document with text, the edges of a small airplane’s wing, and the miniscule space between Tom Cruise and the floor in that vault from the first Mission: Impossible.

A video of white text on a black background that TinyCircuits preloaded was legible, despite some blooming and the scrolling words appearing jerky. Everything I uploaded also appeared grainier on TinyTV, making details harder to see.

The 0.6×4-inch, front-facing speaker, however, isn’t nearly loud enough to hear if almost anything else in the room is making noise. Soft dialogue was hard to make out, even in a quiet room.

A simpler time for TVs

We’ve come a long way since the early days of TV. Screens are bigger, brighter, faster, and more colorful and advanced. We’ve moved from input dials to slim remotes with ads for streaming services. TV legs have been replaced with wall mounts, and the screens are no longer filled with white noise but are driven by software and tracking.

I imagine the TinyTV serving a humble mouse family when I’m not looking. I’ve seen TinyCircuits market the gadget as dollhouse furniture. People online have also pointed to using TinyTVs at marketing events, like trade shows, to draw people in.

“People use this for a number of things, like office desk toys, loading videos on it for the holidays to send to Grandma, or just for fun,” Burns told me.

I’ve mostly settled on using the TinyTV in my home office to show iPhone-shot footage of my dog playing, as if it’s an old home video, plus a loop of a video of one of my favorite waterfalls.

TinyTV 2 — The TinyTV’s 8GB microSD card is supposed to hold “about” 10 hours of video. Burns told me that it’s “possible” to swap the storage. You’d have to take the gadget apart, though. Credit: Scharon Harding

As TVs morph into ad machines and new display tech forces us to learn new acronyms regularly, TinyTV’s virtually pointless fun is refreshing. It’s not a real TV, but it gets at the true spirit of TVs: electronic screens that invite people to gather ’round, so they can detach from the real world and be entertained.

Scharon is a Senior Technology Reporter at Ars Technica writing news, reviews, and analysis on consumer gadgets and services. She’s been reporting on technology for over 10 years, with bylines at Tom’s Hardware, Channelnomics, and CRN UK.

Video player looks like a 1-inch TV from the ’60s and is wondrous, pointless fun Read More »

High-severity vulnerability in Passwordstate credential manager. Patch now.

authentication bypass, Biz & IT, password managers, patches, Security, vulnerabilities / Beth Washington / August 29, 2025

The maker of Passwordstate, an enterprise-grade password manager for storing companies’ most privileged credentials, is urging them to promptly install an update fixing a high-severity vulnerability that hackers can exploit to gain administrative access to their vaults.

The authentication bypass allows hackers to create a URL that accesses an emergency access page for Passwordstate. From there, an attacker could pivot to the administrative section of the password manager. A CVE identifier isn’t yet available.

Safeguarding enterprises’ most privileged credentials

Click Studios, the Australia-based maker of Passwordstate, says the credential manager is used by 29,000 customers and 370,000 security professionals. The product is designed to safeguard organizations’ most privileged and sensitive credentials. Among other things, it integrates into Active Directory, the service Windows network admins use to create, change, and modify user accounts. It can also be used for handling password resets, event auditing, and remote session logins.

On Thursday, Click Studios notified customers that it had released an update that patches two vulnerabilities.

The authentication bypass vulnerability is “associated with accessing the core Passwordstate Products’ Emergency Access page, by using a carefully crafted URL, which could allow access to the Passwordstate Administration section,” Click Studios said. The company said the severity level of the vulnerability was high.

High-severity vulnerability in Passwordstate credential manager. Patch now. Read More »

New dinosaur species is the punk rock version of an ankylosaur

ankylosaurs, Biology, dinosaurs, evolution, paleontology, Science / Beth Washington / August 28, 2025

And we have known for sure that the armor was around back then, given that we’ve found the skin-derived osteoderms that comprise the armor in Jurassic deposits. But with little more than a rib and a handful of mouth parts to go on, it wasn’t really possible to say much more than that.

Until now, that is. Because the new Spicomellus remains show extremely clearly that the armor of ankylosaurs got less elaborate over time.

The small, solid-looking spikes found along the edges of later ankylosaurs? Forget those. Spicomellus had a back that was probably bristling with sharper spines, along with far larger ones along its outer edges. Each rib appears to have generated as many as six individual spikes. At a handful of locations, these spikes extended out to nearly a meter, looking more like lances than anything needed to ward off a close-in attack.

And the largest of these were along its neck. On the upper surface of its neck, several osteoderms fused to form a massive half-collar of bone and then extended out five or more individual spikes, each among the longest on the animal’s body. And there were three of these structures along the neck. “No known ankylosaur possesses any condition close to the extremely long pairs of spines on the cervical half-ring of Spicomellus,” its discoverers note.

As if its hedgehog-on-acid appearance weren’t enough, handles present on the tail vertebrae suggest that it also had a weaponized tail. All told, the researchers sum things up by saying, “The new specimen reveals extreme dermal armour modifications unlike those of any other vertebrate, extinct or extant, which fall far outside of the range of morphologies shown by other armoured dinosaurs.”

Out go the hypotheses

Because it’s so unusual, the skeleton’s characteristics are difficult to place within a neat family tree of the ankylosaurs. The researchers conclude that some details of its skeleton do suggest Spicomellus groups among the ankylosaurs and conclude that it’s probably an early branch from the main lineage. But without any other significant examples from the lineage at that time, it’s an extremely tentative conclusion. Still, the alternative is that this thing is unrelated to the only other organisms that share at least a few of its bizarre features, which is a difficult idea to swallow.

New dinosaur species is the punk rock version of an ankylosaur Read More »

CDC director has been ousted just weeks after Senate confirmation

CDC, health, Monarez, robert f kennedy jr / Beth Washington / August 28, 2025

Georges Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, told the outlet that Monarez “values science, is a solid researcher, and has a history of being a good manager. We’re looking forward to working with her.”

A low point for the agency

The reported ouster comes at what feels like a nadir for the CDC. The agency has lost hundreds of staff from layoffs and buyouts. Vital health programs have been shuttered or hampered. Dangerous rhetoric and health misinformation from Kennedy and other health officials in the Trump administration have made once-respected CDC experts feel vilified by the public and like targets of hate. Kennedy himself has falsely called the COVID-19 shots the “deadliest vaccine ever made” and the CDC a “cesspool of corruption,” for example.

On August 8, a gunman warped by vaccine disinformation opened fire on the CDC campus. Of nearly 500 shots fired, about 200 struck six CDC buildings as terrified staff dove for safety. One local police officer was killed in the incident. The gunman had specifically targeted the CDC for the shooting and blamed COVID-19 vaccines for his health problems.

Additional exits reported

After news broke of Monarez’s removal, Stat News reported that a wave of CDC leadership has resigned. The high-ranking resignations include: Daniel Jernigan, director of the National Center for Emerging Zoonotic Infectious Diseases; Deb Houry, Chief Medical Officer; and Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases.

“I am not able to serve in this role any longer because of the ongoing weaponization of public health,” Daskalakis said in a message to staff seen by Stat.

“I am committed to protecting the public’s health, but the ongoing changes prevent me from continuing in my job as a leader of the agency,” Houry wrote in a message to staff. Houry added that science should “never be censored or subject to political interpretations.”

Earlier today, Politico reported that Jennifer Layden, director of the agency’s Office of Public Health Data, Surveillance, and Technology, has also resigned.

8/27/2025 8: 15 pm ET: This post has been updated to include the social media post from HHS, reporting from the Washington Post on the circumstances around Monarez’s exit, additional resignations reported by Stat and Politico, and the statement from Monarez’s lawyers.

CDC director has been ousted just weeks after Senate confirmation Read More »

2025 VW Jetta GLI: Save the manuals, but not like this

car review, Cars, Volkswagen Jetta GLI / Beth Washington / August 27, 2025

the American sedan take on a GTI

Specs mean nothing if you get the feel and execution wrong.

Built in Mexico, the Volkswagen Jetta is a North American sedan take on the Golf hatchback. Credit: Jim Resnick

Manual transmissions have gone the way of the dodo, but you can still find a few out there. Bless Volkswagen for keeping the helical gears turning, both literally and figuratively. The 2025 Jetta GLI, Volkswagen’s sporty sedan, still offers a gear lever with actual gears attached at the other end, and a third pedal hanging down from under the dash. Meanwhile, Golf GTI fans are still sobbing in their beer because 2024 was the last model year you could row your own in the hot hatch—now it’s paddles only.

Volkswagen updated the 2025 Jetta GLI with a new grille, LED headlights, and light bars that connect across both the front grille and rear taillights. There’s a red accent stripe that runs across the lower front fascia and turns up at the front corners, somewhat like The Joker’s lipstick, but way less menacing. It’s less distinctive than the Golf GTI, though, and the design even reminds me of the 2017-era Honda Accord a bit. So, yes, in a face-off, the Golf GTI wins.

The test GLI’s wheels get black paint with the Black Package (blackened wheels and side mirror caps). The Monument Gray color option pairs with a black roof, which must seem like a good idea to people who don’t live in the Southwest, where cars overheat before they’re even started.

A black Jetta wheel — Our test car had the black package. Credit: Jim Resnick

Performance: Punch without poetry

VW’s long-running EA888 2.0 L engine, which debuted back in 2007 in the Audi A3, resides under the hood. Now in its fourth turbocharged generation, it develops a healthy 228 hp (170 kW) and 258 lb-ft (350 Nm) of torque, entirely respectable numbers from modest displacement and compact external dimensions.

Mated to this particular 6-speed manual, the engine has its work cut out for itself. On my very first drive, before examining the technical data on gearbox ratios, I could tell that the manual 6-speed had massive gaps between first, second, and third gears.

Diving further into the gearing matter, the ratio spread between first and third gears is vastly wider in the 6-speed manual transmission than in the 7-speed DSG semi-automatic gearbox. This means that as you upshift the manual, the engine is faced with a huge drop in engine revs when you let out the clutch, placing the engine well below the rev range it would prefer to operate within to provide maximum power.

VW Jetta engine bay — EA888 in the house. Credit: Jim Resnick

Let’s look at the ratios, and remember that a lower numerical value means a “taller” or “higher” ratio, just like on multi-speed bicycles. The manual’s first gear is 3.77:1, where the DSG’s is 3.40:1. Upshift to the 2.09:1 second gear in the manual, and you select a gear that’s a whopping 55 percent taller than first gear. Conversely, the same 1-2 shift in the DSG (from 3.40:1 up to 2.75:1) results in a 19 percent taller gear ratio—a far narrower gap.

Third gear tells a similar story. The 6-speed manual’s third ratio (1.47:1) is 17 percent higher than the 1.77:1 ratio in the DSG (again, this “taller” gear giving 17 percent less mechanical advantage). Advantage: automatic.

Closer ratios mean better, faster engine torque recovery and better continued acceleration, because the engine will be spinning in the happier part of its power band—engines being happiest when revving at their torque peak and beyond.

Now, you might well argue that the manual’s third gear gives a higher top speed in-gear than the DSG automatic’s. And that’s 100 percent true. But it’s also irrelevant when you have three (or four!) more gears left to go in the transmission.

And then there’s the action of the shifter itself, with very long throws from forward to aft gates.

A white VW Jetta in profile

It’s quite handsome from some angles. Credit: Jim Resnick

But wait. I began this diatribe by complimenting the Jetta GLI for still offering a choice of manual or automatic gearbox. Indeed, if the manual gearbox had the DSG automatic’s ratios, the paragraphs above would have a very different tenor. The lesson here is that not all manuals are created equal.

We can also look objectively at the stopwatch. Using others’ published figures (don’t take our word for it), 0–60 mph figures tell the tale, as well. Car and Driver cites a time of 6.0 seconds to 60 mph for the manual GLI, where they achieved 5.6 seconds for the dash in the DSG automatic, a big gap.

Regardless of which transmission is used, a limited-slip differential tries to put the power down evenly, and adaptive suspension with multiple driving modes serves up a responsive connectedness to, or relative isolation from, the road surface. Compared to the standard GTI (not the Golf R), the Jetta GLI still rides with a greater accent on ride comfort, and that’s not always a bad thing, especially given the Jetta’s greater rear seat accommodations, which offer 2.4 inches (61 mm) more rear legroom than the GTI. Real adults can live back there for hours at a time without fidgeting, whereas you likely tickle that threshold in a GTI after a little over an hour.

Interior & tech

Inside, the GLI features perforated leather heated and cooled seats, a leather-wrapped and flat-bottom steering wheel that is still saddled with capacitive multifunction controls, a digital instrument cluster that can be configured with traditional dials or a compartmentalized digital-looking display, plus an 8-inch infotainment screen. While the latter may seem small compared to other cars that sport TV-size tablets perched on the dash, it at least comes fully equipped with Apple CarPlay and Android Auto. There’s a slow creep elsewhere in the industry to make this functionality either optional or simply unavailable, which is unforgivable in an era where we can hardly survive without our smartphones.

While much of the controls sit within the infotainment touchscreen, major climate controls reside just below, using capacitive sliders. These sliders are not anywhere near as intuitive as switches and knobs, but at least you don’t need to hunt and peck through endless menus to find them while driving.

The Jetta isn’t as modern as the 8th-generation Golf inside, but it’s had a bit of a tech upgrade. Jim Resnick

The GLI comes standard with active driver assists, including blind-spot warning, forward collision warning, emergency braking, adaptive cruise control, lane-keeping assist, and emergency assist.

Volkswagen managed to incorporate some pragmatic features and comforts. A 15 W wireless and cooled charging pad sits up front, and the trunk sports 14.1 cubic feet (400 L) of space with an actual spare tire under the trunk floor (although it’s a compact spare with limited mileage range).

The premium Beats Audio system in the Jetta GLI pumps 400 W through nine speakers, including a subwoofer. With all those speakers and electrons going for it, I expected way more than it delivered. It creates muddy bass frequencies that are simply inescapable, either by attenuating the bass or by lowering subwoofer gain.

Despite the preponderance of directionless bass, the system produces very little body to the music played, whether it’s jazz from Bill Evans or punk from Bad Religion. Midrange and high-end reproduction is no better. Shrill treble joins the errant bass, making everything sound muddy and indistinct. Delicate acoustic piano passages have little clarity, and Joni Mitchell hides behind a giant curtain of Saran Wrap. Poor Joni.

Driving the GLI is sometimes joyful, as the engine responds eagerly across all RPMs. The chassis and suspension prove willing, though a bit soft for a sports sedan. VW’s steering feels communicative, but not among the best of the modern electrically boosted lot.

VW equips this GLI with all-season Hankook Energy GT tires, sized 225/40R18. I specifically cite these tires because they underperform for the GLI. They don’t produce grip adequate for a sporty sedan, and they come up short underpinning the GLI. So, on a scale of 1 to 10, if the GLI’s engine is a 9, if the gearbox is a 5, and the interior is an 8.5, the GLI’s Hankook tires are a 6.

The GLI’s brakes are a version of the tire story. Despite borrowing front rotors and calipers from the lovely Golf R, they proved grabby, overboosted, and touchy in the GLI. Like the gearbox and tires, specs can tell you nothing in terms of feel and execution.

The GLI’s fuel economy lands at a decent 26/36/30 city/highway/combined mpg (9/6.5/7.8 L/100 km). In thoroughly mixed driving, I achieved an average of 29.1 mpg (8 L/100 km) over my approximately 400 miles (644 km).

The overall truth

The 2025 Jetta GLI certainly possesses sporty aspirations, but a few things hold it back from being the complete package that its Golf GTI stablemate is. Although the Golf GTI no longer offers a manual, the GLI’s 6-speed transmission disappoints both in feel and performance, with huge gaps between cogs. Of course, this malady could be overcome by ordering a DSG automatic GLI, but then any fun gleaned by rowing your gears is also lost.

This car could be better than it is. Credit: Jim Resnick

Closer to the road, mediocre tires generate modest grip. Compared to the Golf, the Jetta gains in rear seat legroom but loses in feel, performance, and tenacity. If it’s performance with practicality you’re after, the $35,045 price of this GLI as tested will get you what you need. But you’ll want something a bit spicier.

A veteran of journalism, product planning and communications in the automotive and music space, Jim reports, critiques and lectures on autos, music and culture.

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Google improves Gemini AI image editing with “nano banana” model

AI, Artificial Intelligence, Gemini, Google / Beth Washington / August 26, 2025

Something unusual happened in the world of AI image editing recently. A new model, known as “nano banana,” started making the rounds with impressive abilities that landed it at the top of the LMArena leaderboard. Now, Google has revealed that nano banana is an innovation from Google DeepMind, and it’s being rolled out to the Gemini app today.

AI image editing allows you to modify images with a prompt rather than mucking around in Photoshop. Google first provided editing capabilities in Gemini earlier this year, and the model was more than competent out of the gate. But like all generative systems, the non-deterministic nature meant that elements of the image would often change in unpredictable ways. Google says nano banana (technically Gemini 2.5 Flash Image) has unrivaled consistency across edits—it can actually remember the details instead of rolling the dice every time you make a change.

Google says subjects will retain their appearance as you edit.

This unlocks several interesting uses for AI image editing. Google suggests uploading a photo of a person and changing their style or attire. For example, you can reimagine someone as a matador or a ’90s sitcom character. Because the nano banana model can maintain consistency through edits, the results should still look like the person in the original source image. This is also the case when you make multiple edits in a row. Google says that even down the line, the results should look like the original source material.

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Scientists unlock secret to thick, stable beer foams

beer, beer physics, fluid dynamics, foamy physics, Physics, Science / Beth Washington / August 26, 2025

For many beer lovers, a nice thick head of foam is one of life’s pure pleasures, and the longer that foam lasts, the better the beer-drinking experience. A team of Swiss researchers spent seven years studying why some beer foams last longer than others and found that the degree of fermentation—i.e., whether a given beer has been singly, doubly, or triply fermented—is crucial, according to a new paper published in the journal Physics of Fluids.

As previously reported, foams are ubiquitous in everyday life, found in foods (whipped cream), beverages (beer, cappuccino), shaving cream and hair-styling mousse, packing peanuts, building insulation, flame-retardant materials, and so forth. All foams are the result of air being beaten into a liquid formula that contains some kind of surfactant (active surface agent), usually fats or proteins in edible foams, or chemical additives in non-edible products. That surfactant strengthens the liquid film walls of the bubbles to keep them from collapsing.

Individual bubbles typically form a sphere because that’s the shape with the minimum surface area for any volume and hence is the most energy-efficient. One reason for the minimizing principle when it comes to a bubble’s shape is that many bubbles can then tightly pack together to form a foam. But bubbles “coarsen” over time, the result of gravity pulling down on the liquid and thinning out the walls. Eventually, they start to look more like soccer balls (polyhedrons). In a coarsening foam, smaller bubbles are gradually absorbed by larger ones. There is less and less liquid to separate the individual bubbles, so they press together to fill the space.

This “jamming” is why foams are typically far more rigid than their gas (95 percent) and liquid (5 percent) components. The more tightly the bubbles jam together, the less they can move around and the greater the pressure inside them becomes, giving them properties of a solid.

Various factors can affect foam stability. For instance, in 2019, Japanese researchers investigated a phenomenon known as “collective bubble collapse,” or CBC, in which breaking one bubble at the edge of a foam results in a cascading effect as the breakage spreads to other bubbles in the foam. They identified two distinct mechanisms for the resulting CBCs: a so-called “propagating mode,” in which a broken bubble is absorbed into the liquid film, and a “penetrating mode,” in which the breakage of a bubble causes droplets to shoot off and hit other bubbles, causing them to break in turn.

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Ars Live: Consumer tech firms stuck scrambling ahead of looming chip tariffs

ars live, consumer tech, Donald Trump, game console prices, laptop prices, Policy, smartphone prices, tariffs, us-china trade war / Beth Washington / August 26, 2025

And perhaps the biggest confounding factor for businesses attempting to align supply chain choices with predictable tariff costs is looming chip tariffs. Trump has suggested those could come in August, but nearing the end of the month, there’s still no clarity there.

As tech firms brace for chip tariffs, Brzytwa will share CTA’s forecast based on a survey of industry experts, revealing the unique sourcing challenges chip tariffs will likely pose. It’s a particular pain point that Trump seems likely to impose taxes not just on imports of semiconductors but of any downstream product that includes a chip.

Because different electronics parts are typically assembled in different countries, supply chains for popular products have suddenly become a winding path, with potential tariff obstacles cropping up at any turn.

To Trump, complicating supply chains seems to be the point, intending to divert entire supply chains into the country to make the US a tech manufacturing hub, supposedly at the expense of his prime trade war target, China—which today is considered a world manufacturing “superpower.”

However, The New York Times this week suggested that Trump’s bullying tactics aren’t working on China, and experts suggest that now his chip tariffs risk not just spiking prices but throttling AI innovation in the US—just as China’s open source AI models shake up markets globally.

Brzytwa will share CTA research showing how the trade war has rattled, and will likely continue to rattle, tech firms into the foreseeable future. He’ll explain why tech firms can’t quickly or cheaply divert chip supply chains—and why policy that neglects to understand tech firms’ positions could be a lose-lose, putting Americans in danger of losing affordable access to popular tech without achieving Trump’s goal of altering China’s trade behavior.

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Google will block sideloading of unverified Android apps starting next year

android, Apps, Google, play store, smartphones, Tech / Beth Washington / August 26, 2025

An early look at the streamlined Android Developer Console for sideloaded apps. Credit: Google

Google says that only apps with verified identities will be installable on certified Android devices, which is virtually every Android-based device—if it has Google services on it, it’s a certified device. If you have a non-Google build of Android on your phone, none of this applies. However, that’s a vanishingly small fraction of the Android ecosystem outside of China.

Google plans to begin testing this system with early access in October of this year. In March 2026, all developers will have access to the new console to get verified. In September 2026, Google plans to launch this feature in Brazil, Indonesia, Singapore, and Thailand. The next step is still hazy, but Google is targeting 2027 to expand the verification requirements globally.

A seismic shift

This plan comes at a major crossroads for Android. The ongoing Google Play antitrust case brought by Epic Games may finally force changes to Google Play in the coming months. Google lost its appeal of the verdict several weeks ago, and while it plans to appeal the case to the US Supreme Court, the company will have to begin altering its app distribution scheme, barring further legal maneuvering.

Among other things, the court has ordered that Google must distribute third-party app stores and allow Play Store content to be rehosted in other storefronts. Giving people more ways to get apps could increase choice, which is what Epic and other developers wanted. However, third-party sources won’t have the deep system integration of the Play Store, which means users will be sideloading these apps without Google’s layers of security.

It’s hard to say how much of a genuine security problem this is. On one hand, it makes sense Google would be concerned—most of the major malware threats to Android devices spread via third-party app repositories. However, enforcing an installation whitelist across almost all Android devices is heavy handed. This requires everyone making Android apps to satisfy Google’s requirements before virtually anyone will be able to install their apps, which could help Google retain control as the app market opens up. While the requirements may be minimal right now, there’s no guarantee they will stay that way.

The documentation currently available doesn’t explain what will happen if you try to install a non-verified app, nor how phones will check for verification status. Presumably, Google will distribute this whitelist in Play Services as the implementation date approaches. We’ve reached out for details on that front and will report if we hear anything.

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SpaceX’s latest Dragon mission will breathe more fire at the space station

Commercial space, dragon, international space station, NASA, Science, Space, spacex / Beth Washington / August 25, 2025

“Our capsule’s engines are not pointed in the right direction for optimum boost,” said Sarah Walker, SpaceX’s director of Dragon mission management. “So, this trunk module has engines pointed in the right direction to maximize efficiency of propellant usage.”

When NASA says it’s the right time, SpaceX controllers will command the Draco thrusters to ignite and gently accelerate the massive 450-ton complex. All told, the reboost kit can add about 20 mph, or 9 meters per second, to the space station’s already-dizzying speed, according to Walker.

Spetch said that’s roughly equivalent to the total reboost impulse provided by one-and-a-half Russian Progress cargo vehicles. That’s about one-third to one-fourth of the total orbit maintenance the ISS needs in a year.

“The boost kit will help sustain the orbiting lab’s altitude, starting in September, with a series of burns planned periodically throughout the fall of 2025,” Spetch said.

After a few months docked at the ISS, the Dragon cargo capsule will depart and head for a parachute-assisted splashdown in the Pacific Ocean off the coast of California. SpaceX will recover the pressurized capsule to fly again, while the trunk containing the reboost kit will jettison and burn up in the atmosphere.

SpaceX’s Dragon spacecraft approaches the International Space Station for docking at 7: 05 am EDT (11: 05 UTC) on Monday. Credit: NASA TV/Ars Technica

While this mission is SpaceX’s 33rd cargo flight to the ISS under the auspices of NASA’s multibillion-dollar Commercial Resupply Services contract, it’s also SpaceX’s 50th overall Dragon mission to the outpost. This tally includes 17 flights of the human-rated Crew Dragon.

“With CRS-33, we’ll mark our 50th voyage to ISS,” Walker said. “Just incredible. Together, these missions have (carried) well over 300,000 pounds of cargo and supplies to the orbiting lab and well over 1,000 science and research projects that are not only helping us to understand how to live and work effectively in space… but also directly contributing to critical research that serves our lives here on Earth.”

Future Dragon trunks will be able to accommodate a reboost kit or unpressurized science payloads, depending on NASA’s needs at the space station.

The design of the Dragon reboost kit is a smaller-scale version of what SpaceX will build for a much larger Dragon trunk under a $843 million contract signed with NASA last year for the US Deorbit Vehicle. This souped-up Dragon will dock with the ISS and steer it back into the atmosphere after the lab’s decommissioning in the early 2030s. The deorbit vehicle will have 46 Draco thrusters—16 to control the craft’s orientation and 30 in the trunk to provide the impulse needed to drop the station out of orbit.

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Author name: Beth Washington