Hello Mercury! BepiColombo captures its first picture of the planet

Scientists restored vision in post-stroke mice with gene therapy, Tesla is finally releasing its Full Self Driving Beta button Oct 04, 2021 # Welcome back to the week. After months of setbacks, Tesla is finally releasing its Full Self Driving Beta button. But it's only for the worthy: You'll need to get a perfect score on Tesla’s not-so-perfect Safety Score system to activate it. And have a Tesla, of course. Also in today's edition, we'll wave to Mercury in a selfie snapped by a new spacecraft zipping through the inner solar system. Meanwhile, back on Earth, scientists used gene therapy to restore stroke-related vision loss in mice, which could have significant ramifications for people with motor function loss. This is The Blueprint. Happy reading. SCIENCE [Hello Mercury! Europe-Japan Mission Captures Its First Picture of the Planet]( [ESA/BepiColombo/MTM]( Mercury has been a hot mystery for centuries, but a joint European-Japanese mission, BepiColombo, is here to change that. BepiColombo [has transmitted a new and exciting image]( an up-close and personal view of the Sun’s favorite punching bag. The image also features a cameo from the spacecraft’s antennas and magnetometer boom. BepiColombo captured the image on October 1, 2021, as it careened past the planet, and it shows what a hot mess Mercury is, with an abundance of craters and ancient volcanic flows. The image marks a significant milestone in space exploration, since the only two probes that’ve made it to Mercury are Mariner 10, in 1974 and 1975; and MESSENGER, from 2011 to 2015. - What do we know about Mercury? It’s quite different from other planets in our solar system: It’s the smallest, has no known moons, a thin atmosphere, and [a crater named after John Lennon](. Imagine. Soon, we’ll know it more intimately. BepiColombo’s two science orbiters — ESA’s Mercury Planetary Orbiter and JAXA’s Mercury Magnetospheric Orbiter — will study its core and exosphere, map its surface, and analyze its composition to learn about its origins. [This could help us discover whether the theory]( that Mercury began as a larger body that was stripped by a massive impact is correct. Mark your calendars. BepiColombo's next Mercury flyby will take place on June 23, 2022. There are nine planetary flybys scheduled, one for Earth, two for Venus, and six for Mercury. [Read More]( HEALTH [Scientists Use Gene Therapy to Restore Vision After Stroke in Mice]( [A test mouse in a laboratory.]( A stroke happens when brain arteries are blocked, cutting nearby tissues off of precious oxygen and nutrients. Starved of these essentials, the cells die, and lose function. Stroke patients usually lose the ability to move a part of their body, but this can also impact their vision. While scientists have attempted stem cell therapy to restore vision, the immune system can reject these treatments due to immune mismatches. So, a team of researchers from the Purdue Institute for Integrative Neuroscience, Pennsylvania State University, and Jinan University [decided to use gene therapy instead](. - Let’s get medical. NeuroD1 is a transcription factor that can activate genes that transform astrocytes — neuron-protecting cells in the brain and spinal cord that don’t conduct electrical impulses — into neurons. Using NeuroD1-mediated gene therapy, researchers were able to convert astrocytes into important information-carrying cells. The experiment. The researchers first induced stroke in mice and then measured the extent of the vision loss. Afterward, they administered gene therapy to the damaged areas, allowing the transformed cells to integrate into neural pathways and restore vision loss. The mice's neurons regained normal reaction levels to light stimulation in three weeks. This breakthrough procedure is easier to perform than stem cell therapy, and causes less brain damage. Eventually, it could even pave the way for motor function restoration. [Read More]( INNOVATION [Want to Join Tesla FSD Beta? Be a Nice Driver]( [FSD Beta]( Tesla [is finally releasing its Full Self Driving (FSD) Beta button]( but there's a catch. To activate it, you need to be a very good driver. That means getting a perfect score on the new Tesla Safety Score system. - Memory refresher. FSD Beta enables Tesla vehicles to approach the self-drive threshold both on highways and city streets by simply entering a location in the navigation system. However, it's still considered a level 2 driver assist, and requires continuous driver supervision. Social credit score? In response to a Twitter user's question about the minimum score required for drivers to access the Beta button, [Elon Musk stated]( “First few days probably 100/100, then 99, 98, etc." Next steps. After its release, Tesla plans to ramp up access to the FSD Beta button by 1,000 owners per day based on their score. With an estimated 2,000 users in the early access program, the carmaker would be doubling the number of cars with access in just two days. Okay to speed and run red lights? The system is still in development and has several kinks. Brooks Weisblat from the YouTube channel DragTimes shared a video where he drives a Model S Plaid and tries to achieve a score of 100 in the new Safety Score system. - He loses points for braking abruptly when a car stops suddenly in front of him, following the car too closely, and turning too fast. The system, however, did not remove points for him driving too fast, ignoring red lights, and not using his turn signal. It's going to be interesting to see what the system considers good driving, and all this data is critical for Tesla to tweak its parameters [to reduce the risk of fatal crashes](. [Read More]( QUOTE OF THE DAY “ If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants. ” Isaac Newton, in a letter to his rival Robert Hooke, dated February 5, 1676. [Video]VIDEO OF THE DAY [The World's Most Unusual Toilets That'll Make You Look Twice]( [The World's Most Unusual Toilets That'll Make You Look Twice]( TODAY IN HISTORY In 1923, scientists considered the universe a "tiny" place, with one grand galaxy, our Milky Way, twirling in a lonesome ballet. This would change that very year, with Edwin Hubble's photo of a star in the Andromeda "nebula," which was taken almost a century ago today. After numerous calculations, the light from the star told a story as clear as day: Andromeda was well outside the Milky Way's boundaries, and our galaxy was no longer the entire universe, but rather a tiny grain of sand on a vast beach, swirling in majestic cadence with an endless number of sibling galaxies. AND ANOTHER THING... - Could "simulation theory" explain [why “space is hard”]( - The oil industry is pushing back against a $3.5 trillion budget bill — one of the Biden administration’s biggest efforts to pass meaningful climate policy — [through your Facebook feed](. (New York Times $) - After Europe, China passed its first major data privacy legislation in August. With so much going on, it's evident that the evolution of data privacy has reached a tipping point. [Let’s break down the mounting data privacy conundrum](. (TechCrunch) - Have you ever heard of [the eccentric engineer at the Beatles' record company]( who invented the CT scan? (Fast Company) - The NATO Phonetic Alphabet, the code that soldiers and pilots use to communicate, avoids confusion in spoken communications. And [it’s seeing increasing use in everyday life](. - [Here’s why the U.S. Navy is funding a hunt]( for the “death star” bacteria. (Knowable Magazine) - A Maglev train uses the forces of magnetic repulsion and electromagnetism to propel train cars that practically float above the track. [Watch its inventor dissect his ingenious design]( in this 19-minute 1975 lecture. (Aeon) Prepared by Derya Ozdemir and Brad Bergan Enjoy reading? Don't forget to forward to a friend! Was this email forwarded to you? [Subscribe]( [About Us]( | [Advertise]( | [Contact Us]( [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Youtube]( [Linkedin]( [Instagram]( You are receiving this email because you have subscribed to our newsletter. [Unsubscribe]( to manage your newsletter subscriptions. © Copyright 2021 | The Blueprint is by Interesting Engineering, Inc. 201 Spear Street, Suite 1100 San Francisco, CA 94105 | All Rights Reserved [Interesting Engineering]