TV News LIES

She navigated segregation to become an esteemed mathematician — and today, her work helps billions of people navigate the world.

Gladys West, whose pioneering career contributed key elements to what became the GPS satellite system and was later acknowledged as a "hidden figure" of GPS, died Saturday at age 95.

West "passed peacefully alongside her family and friends and is now in heaven with her loved ones," her family said as they announced her death.

West is credited with astounding accomplishments in mathematics, playing pivotal roles in charting orbital trajectories and creating accurate mathematical models of the Earth's shape that would eventually be used by the GPS satellite orbit.

But, as West admitted to member station VPM in 2020, she did not really rely on the groundbreaking system she helped create.

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The Nobel physics prize is awarded by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and includes a prize sum totalling 11 million Swedish crowns ($1.2 million) that is shared among the winners if there are several, as is often the case.

The Nobel Prizes were established through the will of Alfred Nobel, who amassed a fortune from his invention of dynamite. Since 1901, with occaPhysics was the first category mentioned in Nobel's will, likely reflecting the prominence of the field during his time. Today, the Nobel Prize in Physics remains widely regarded as the most prestigious award in the discipline.

Past winners of the Nobel physics prize include some of the most influential figures in the history of science, such as Albert Einstein, Pierre and Marie Curie, Max Planck and Niels Bohr, himself a pioneer of quantum theory.

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Bret Adee is one of the largest beekeepers in the US, with 2 billion bees across 55,000 hives. The business has been in his family since the 1930s, and sends truckloads of bees across the country from South Dakota, pollinating crops such as almonds, onions, watermelons and cucumbers.

Last December, his bees were wintering in California when the weather turned cold. Bees grouped on top of hives trying to keep warm. “Every time I went out to the beehive there were less and less,” says Adee. “Then a week later, there’d be more dead ones to pick up … every week there is attrition, just continually going down.”

Adee went on to lose 75% of his bees. “It’s almost depressingly sad,” he says. “If we have a similar situation this year – I sure hope we don’t – then we’re in a death spiral.”

It developed into the largest US honeybee die-off on record, with beekeepers losing on average 60% of their colonies, at a cost of $600m (£440m).

Scientists have been scrambling to discover what happened; now the culprits are emerging. A research paper published by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA), though not yet peer-reviewed, has found nearly all colonies had contracted a bee virus spread by parasitic mites that appear to have developed resistance to the main chemicals used to control them.

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A Chinese scientist was arrested while arriving in the US at the Detroit airport, the second case in days involving the alleged smuggling of biological material, authorities said on Monday.

The scientist is accused of shipping biological material months ago to staff at a laboratory at the University of Michigan. The FBI, in a court filing, described it as material related to certain worms and requires a government permit.

L ike many scientists, I came to the US as a young adult, driven by idealism and ambition. I arrived with all my belongings contained in two suitcases, and just enough cash to cover the first month’s rent on a small apartment. But I also had something of greater value: an offer to work and train in one of America’s top biomedical research laboratories, a chance to participate in the revolution that is modern biological science.

In the years that followed, I became an American scientist and raised an American family. Now, I lead a laboratory in one of the US’s great universities. I am a member of America’s National Academy of Sciences. From a scientist’s perspective, I have lived the American dream.

My story is not unusual. Many of the best scientists in the world are drawn to the US, joining many Americans who choose to build a career in science. This attraction to American science is because more so than any other country, America values unfettered scientific enquiry. In the US, scientists have greater resources to pursue their work, and scientists are an integral part of a culture that has innovation and dynamism at its core.

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SpaceX launched its huge Starship rocket on the program's eighth test flight Thursday, but a malfunction of some sort triggered multiple upper stage engine shutdowns and the vehicle failed to reach its planned sub-orbital altitude, breaking apart in a spectacular shower of debris.

It was the second failure in a row for a Starship upper stage, a vehicle critical to NASA's plans to return astronauts to the moon in the next few years.

"During Starship's ascent burn, the vehicle experienced a rapid unscheduled disassembly and contact was lost. Our team immediately began coordination with safety officials to implement pre-planned contingency responses," SpaceX said in a statement.

"We will review the data from today's flight test to better understand root cause. As always, success comes from what we learn, and today's flight will offer additional lessons to improve Starship's reliability."

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