Science & Technology

NASA set for first crewed moon return in over half a century

Published

3 months ago

March 30, 2026

NASA is preparing to launch the first crew of astronauts toward the moon in over 53 years with its second Artemis mission, a key test flight in humanity’s broader lunar goals as the U.S. races to reassert leadership in space faced with growing competition from China.

Three U.S. and one Canadian astronaut are due for ‌liftoff aboard NASA’s Orion capsule and Space Launch System rocket on Wednesday for a 10-day test mission swinging around the moon and back, a winding journey taking them deeper into space than humans have ever gone before, Reuters reported.

The mission is the first crewed test flight in NASA’s Artemis program, the flagship U.S. effort to begin regular flights to the moon, at an estimated cost of at least $93 billion since 2012. Not since Apollo 17 in 1972 have humans touched down on the moon’s surface, a tricky feat NASA aims to repeat in 2028 at the rugged lunar south pole.

The U.S. is the only country to have put humans on another celestial body with its six lunar landings of the Apollo program, driven by competition with the former Soviet Union.

China, a formidable technological rival to the U.S., has made steady progress in its own moon ⁠program in recent years, with a string of robotic lunar landings and a 2030 goal to put its own crew on the surface. U.S. officials have focused on beating China to the surface.

ANSWERING ‘THE QUESTION OF OUR LIFETIME’

NASA astronaut Christina Koch, Artemis II mission specialist, on Sunday said the moon is a “witness plate” to the solar system’s formation, and a stepping stone to Mars, “where we might have the most likelihood of finding evidence of past life.”

“Many, many countries have recognized the value that there is in exploring further into the solar system, to the moon and on to Mars,” she told reporters. “They recognize that not only can we gain all these extremely tangible benefits, but that we have the opportunity to answer the question that could be the question of our lifetime, which is, are we alone?”

“Answering that question starts at the moon,” she said. “The question is not should we go, but should we lead, or should we follow?”

Through a series of increasingly advanced Artemis missions extending into the next decade, the U.S. aims to set precedent for how others will operate and coexist on the moon’s surface, where someday countries and companies can exploit rocky lunar resources and practice for much more difficult missions to Mars.

COMMERCIAL LUNAR MARKET

NASA is relying on an array of companies in its moon program with the hope of stimulating a commercial lunar market in the ‌future, the value ⁠of which is hard to estimate, analysts say.

A PricewaterhouseCoopers report from January estimates $127 billion in revenues by 2050 from lunar surface activities, with investments potentially reaching $72 billion to $88 billion through the same period.

But for now, and in the near future, governments will drive companies’ lunar strategies and revenue. It will be a long time before commercial growth exists on the moon independently of government funding, said Akhil Rao, an economist at analysis firm Rational Futures who was a research economist at NASA.

“NASA did not see a short-run economic value that companies would be able to derive that would allow NASA to be hands-off,” said Rao, who was among a team of economists and space policy staff laid off last year amid the Trump administration’s sweeping federal workforce ⁠cuts.

The Artemis II mission will pose a greater test of NASA’s Orion capsule and SLS, which conducted a similar mission without crew in 2022. The astronauts on board will test critical life-support systems, crew interfaces, navigation and communications before NASA proceeds with more complex missions in the following years.

Liftoff is scheduled for April 1, though it could happen any day after until April 6, depending on weather conditions in Florida and any last-minute snags with the rocket. Thereafter, another launch window, determined largely by the ⁠orbital mechanics between Earth and the moon, opens on April 30.

Artemis III, the next mission planned for 2027, will involve the Orion capsule docking in Earth’s orbit with NASA’s two lunar landers – the Blue Moon system from Jeff Bezos’ Blue Origin and Starship from Elon Musk’s SpaceX. The delicate tag-up will demonstrate how the landers will pick up astronauts before heading for the moon’s surface.

That mission was added to the program in February by NASA’s new administrator, Jared ⁠Isaacman, a billionaire private astronaut who has more broadly shaken up the program with new objectives. His decision pushed the program’s first crewed lunar landing to Artemis IV.

The architecture is more complex than the Apollo missions, involving an array of companies funded by NASA with the hope of stimulating private competition and market activity around the moon. Boeing and Northrop Grumman lead SLS and Lockheed Martin builds Orion for NASA.

SpaceX and Blue Origin are developing their own landers with NASA funding but under different types of contracts that allow them to offer the spacecraft to other customers.

Related Topics:featured moon NASA Space Technology

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Science & Technology

UAE sets minimum social media age at 15, mandates age checks

The government said the measures were designed to address concerns over children’s exposure ⁠to inappropriate content, unsafe online interactions, excessive social media use and the collection of personal data.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 18, 2026

Ariana News

The United Arab Emirates has set a minimum age of 15 for social media use, becoming the first Arab country to introduce such a restriction as governments worldwide seek to ‌address growing concerns over the impact of online platforms on children.

Under a resolution approved on Thursday, children under 15 will be prohibited from creating, using or operating personal social media accounts. The ban means they will not be able to post content, comment, share or join public ⁠groups, the government’s media office said, Reuters reported.

Teenagers aged 15 and 16 will be allowed to use social media platforms subject to enhanced safeguards, including age-appropriate content controls, restrictions on interaction with unknown users, screen-time management tools and parental supervision features.

The rules apply to all social media platforms operating in the UAE and require companies to implement robust age-verification measures, including digital identity checks and artificial intelligence-supported technologies. Self-declaration of age will not be accepted as a valid ‌form ⁠of verification.

Platforms must also disable accounts created by children under 15, prevent users from circumventing age-verification systems and refrain from using children’s personal data for targeted advertising or behavioural profiling.

Social media companies will have up to 12 months to comply with the ⁠new regulations.

The UAE said the framework aligns with international efforts to strengthen online child protection while balancing digital access with safety.

Several countries, including Australia and ⁠others in Europe, have moved to tighten restrictions on children’s use of social media amid mounting concerns about its effects on mental health and online safety.

Regional

Iran banks hit by major cyber attack

Officials said a technical investigation confirmed that the disruptions were the result of a cyberattack.

Published

2 weeks ago

June 14, 2026

Ariana News

Several major Iranian banks experienced service disruptions on Saturday following a cyberattack, according to the Coordinating Committee of Iran’s state-owned banks.

The outage affected four major financial institutions, including Bank Melli Iran, Bank Saderat Iran, and Bank Tejarat, causing interruptions to mobile and online banking services, automated teller machines (ATMs), point-of-sale (POS) terminals, and some card transactions.

Officials said a technical investigation confirmed that the disruptions were the result of a cyberattack.

The affected banks stated that their technical teams immediately implemented precautionary measures after detecting the incident in an effort to safeguard customer information and protect banking infrastructure.

Qatasi, secretary of the Coordinating Committee of Iran’s state-owned banks, said necessary recovery and repair measures had been carried out.

Authorities said there is currently no evidence that customer data was accessed without authorization, and no data breach has been reported.

Science & Technology

GLP-1 drugs may have a beneficial effect across many types of cancer

The drugs, originally designed to treat diabetes and found to promote weight loss, have also shown benefits for heart risks, sleep apnea and alcohol and substance abuse.

Published

4 weeks ago

June 4, 2026

Ariana News

A growing body of evidence suggests that popular GLP-1 drugs, widely used for weight loss and diabetes, can provide protection against many types of cancer, Reuters reported.

More than two dozen studies presented over the past few days at the American Society of Clinical Oncology meeting in Chicago found that patients taking the drugs showed lower risks of developing cancer and disease progression, better survival, and improved responses to some treatments, compared with people who were not taking the GLP-1s.

The studies included analyses of clinical records and real-world databases tracking patients taking Novo Nordisk’s (NOVOb.CO), Wegovy ‌or Ozempic, Eli Lilly’s (LLY.N), Zepbound or Mounjaro, or older GLP-1 treatments.

The studies were not designed to show how or why GLP-1 use might affect cancer treatment. But researchers believe by reducing inflammation, regulating insulin signaling and possibly engaging directly with tumor biology, they may contribute to a protective effect in cancer patients.

“Chronic inflammation is a fundamental biological pathway involved in the development and progression of many cancers,” said Dr. Elizabeth Susan McDonald of the University of Pennsylvania.

McDonald on Tuesday reported on a study of 110,000 women, showing those who took GLP-1 medications were up to 35% less likely to develop breast cancer than those who did not.

While obesity itself is a known risk factor for certain cancers, the anti-inflammatory effects of GLP-1s will likely prove to have a role in cancer prevention, McDonald said.

GLP-1 drugs include semaglutide, the active ingredient in Wegovy, Ozempic and Rybelsus; tirzepatide, sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound, as well as Lilly’s Trulicity, or dulaglutide, and Novo’s older liraglutide, sold as Saxenda and Victoza.

Some of the strongest signals of benefit came from a study of more than 12,000 patients that showed GLP-1 use was associated with markedly lower odds of cancers advancing to metastatic disease, particularly in lung, breast, colorectal and liver cancers.

People with those cancers who took liraglutide, pramlintide, dulaglutide, tirzepatide, lixisenatide, or semaglutide were 38% to 50% less likely to see the disease spread than people who took drugs from a different class of diabetes medicines known as gliptins.

Reduced cancer incidence, longer survival, and fewer metastases were also seen with GLP-1 use in patients with endometrial, bladder and prostate cancers, as well as in those with small intestine neoplasms and blood cancers, multiple studies found.

A separate analysis of patients treated at U.S. community oncology practices found GLP-1 use was associated with significantly better overall survival across six tumor types – breast, prostate, colorectal, lung, liver and kidney – with a roughly one-third reduction in the risk of death.

Researchers also reported that cancer patients receiving immunotherapies such as Merck’s (MRK.N), Keytruda and Bristol Myers Squibb’s (BMY.N), Opdivo or Yervoy appeared to fare better when they were taking GLP-1 drugs, suggesting a ‌possible interaction ⁠with the immune system.

GLP-1 users with type 2 diabetes and stage 3 kidney disease had substantially lower mortality and lower rates of several malignancies, particularly lung, colorectal, and hepatocellular cancers, than non-users, read the report.

While GLP-1 medications carry a warning regarding a possible association with a type of thyroid cancer based on rodent studies, researchers say the recent findings point to a potential beneficial class effect across tumor types, rather than benefits confined to a small subset of cancers.

The drugs, originally designed to treat diabetes and found to promote weight loss, have also shown benefits for heart risks, sleep apnea and alcohol and substance abuse.

“These drugs have never been just glucose-lowering agents,” Dr. Marcin Chwistek of the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia said at an ASCO press ⁠briefing.

Researchers cautioned that nearly all of the data presented were from observational studies, raising the risk of confounding factors. Patients prescribed GLP-1 drugs may differ in important ways, including overall health, access to care and concurrent treatments, that could influence outcomes.

While the various studies tried to account for those differences, none can prove the drugs improve cancer outcomes. Experts said trials in which GLP-1s are added to standard treatment in some cancer patients but not others are needed to establish ⁠clear anti-cancer benefits. Some trials are already being planned.

The apparent cancer benefits were not clearly tied to the drugs’ weight-loss effects, suggesting that alone does not explain the findings, Reuters reported.

A seven-year study with nearly 120,000 participants found GLP-1s were associated with lower rates of new prostate cancer diagnoses in high-risk men, compared to drugs such as Merck’s Propecia and GSK’s (GSK.L), Avodart, which are used to shrink enlarged prostate glands.

GLP-1 users had a “very small” reduction in ⁠body weight at one year, said Dr. Colton Jones of the University of Texas San Antonio Mays Cancer Center who presented the study at ASCO.

“We hypothesize that both weight loss and a direct anti-cancer effect and anti-inflammatory effect may be driving the associations observed in our study,” Jones said.

ASCO expert Chwistek said anti-inflammatory and immune-modulating properties have long suggested broader effects of GLP-1s.

Referring to one of the largest studies, Chwistek said: “What’s new here is the consistency across tumor types, and data this large and this consistent warrant a prospective randomized trial.”