September 2023

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Big News
UK delays ban on petrol and diesel car sales.
This month Rishi Sunak revealed a significant shift in the UK’s approach to net zero targets. The anticipated ban on the sale of new petrol and diesel cars, initially planned for 2030, has now been pushed back to 2035. Sunak claims that this move will help reduce costs for consumers, also emphasising the importance of individuals making the choice to switch to electric vehicles without the need for government interference. However, this announcement has caused frustration among both Conservative MPs and experts, who share concerns about the decision. There are the initial economic repercussions, this delay could damage the UK's reputation among car manufacturers due to unpredictability and consumers might in fact face higher costs in the long term due to a reliance on fluctuating oil prices. In addition to economic concerns, both members of the public and MP’s are concerned what environmental impact this change in policy will have, as the delay implies a prolonged dependence on cliamte damaging fossil fuels.

NASA retrieves a long awaited asteroid sample.
On 24 September a capsule containing soil from an asteroid located 200 million miles away from Earth safely touched down in Utah. Carried by NASA's OSIRIS-REx spacecraft (Origins, Spectral Interpretation, Resource Identification, Security-Regolith Explorer), the sample was collected from the ancient asteroid Bennu. The asteroid is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old and it is thought that the material that was collected from its surface could hold crucial information about the origins of life. Following a three-year journey back from the asteroid, the capsule underwent a scorching descent before deploying a parachute and landing safely at Hill Air Force Base, Utah. While NASA has plans for a press conference on 11 October, to share initial findings, OSIRIS-REx's mission is far from over. The spacecraft will chart a course to visit the asteroid Apophis in 2029, shortly after Apophis makes a close flyby of Earth, and carry out analysis of the asteroid's surface.

Littles News
AI tool developed to hunt for alien life.
When exploring planets it can be difficult to distinguish between samples from living organisms, such as shells, teeth, and bones, and non-biological compounds, like those found in carbon-rich meteorites. A group from the Earth and Planets Laboratory (Carnegie Institution for Science, Washington, DC) have trained an AI to solve this problem. The team designed an artificial intelligent system that was given data about 134 known samples and asked it to identify if other materials were from either a living or non-living source. It managed to identify the samples correctly 90% of the time. The next step is to use the program to evaluate samples that could contain Earth's oldest sources of life, including a 3.5-billion-year-old rock slab from Western Australia, believed to contain ancient fossilised microbes. The hope is that with ongoing training, the program will learn to differentiate between various life forms and could be used to test samples collected by NASA's Curiosity rover on Mars to identify signs of extraterrestrial life.

What I’ve been enjoying
First Law Trilogy.
This month I’ve been getting back into fantasy books and, after starting the series at the beginning of the year, have just finished reading the final book in the First Law Trilogy by Joe Abercrombie. The series follows the intertwined journeys of various characters, including a disgraced warrior, a ruthless torturer, and a powerful mage, as they navigate a war-torn land. It features some spectacular characters, a gripping story and has some equally brutal and entraining scenes. I already have my eyes on the subsequent trilogy, set almost 30 years after the original series. If it’s half as good as the First Law Trilogy I’ll be a happy reader.

P.S: If you want to read more content from me then check out my recent fiction work available now for free on Medium.