Victory in the FIA Formula 3 Feature Race and a podium in the Sprint; the 2025 British Grand Prix weekend will live long in the memory for Aston Martin Aramco Academy Driver Mari Boya.
Feature Race win. Sprint podium. Should Mari Boya’s successful weekend at Silverstone come as any great surprise? Just weeks before our home race weekend, Mari revealed how the circuit was his favourite.
“The layout, the speed, the atmosphere – everything. Silverstone has a special feeling.”
The inaugural member of the Aston Martin Aramco Driver Academy, a programme dedicated to developing the next generation of exceptional motorsport talent, 21-year-old Mari put in a spirited fight through the field to finish on the podium in Saturday’s Sprint before mastering wet conditions at Silverstone in a performance that belied his years and meant he came away from Northamptonshire with 27 points and his best F3 weekend to date.
We caught up with one of Spain’s most promising young drivers after an unforgettable weekend.
On the weekend’s triumphs
“What a weekend! Super happy! Happy to maximise all the potential we have had. Super proud to be here, super happy and enjoying the moment!
“[I had] solid pace since Friday and a good Qualifying with the fourth position. The comeback in Sprint from the ninth position to the podium gave us even more strength and confidence.
“And finally, getting my first win of the season. Doing it at Silverstone, at the home of Aston Martin Aramco, couldn’t be more special for me.”
On climbing positions in the Sprint Race
”It was really fun. I think the overtakes have been really strong in the last few races. At Silverstone, we showed great pace, so I’m really happy.”
“[The overtake into P3] was really nice. At that point, I was having challenges on the tyres, so I just tried to focus on the exits to prepare well. [Laurens van Hoepen
and Théophile Naël
] were fighting so I think it was maximised well. It was the move for the podium so I’m really happy.”
The most important things was to be calm, read the situation and be as fast as possible.
On battling the rain in the Feature Race
“I was confident of racing on a dry track. I wanted to race on the slicks, but it wasn’t the case. The most important things was to be calm, read the situation and be as fast as possible.
“Once I saw that it started to rain a bit, I didn’t care what the rest were doing. I knew that the last sector was properly wet, and I said to my engineer, ‘If you believe in me, let’s go.’ I’m happy that he believed in me at that point. It was a difficult situation but we managed it really well.
“At the beginning, it was really nice. The grip and everything was nice, but once the Safety Car came it was impossible to see anything. We were super slow on the straights, and I didn’t have much control of the car. Even the Safety Car was struggling in some places. I knew I had to be calm and really precise in those moments.
“I was constantly speaking with [my engineer] to tell him what the situation was. He was telling me when the rain was coming, and I was saving tyres because these Wet tyres don’t last long on a dry track. Every lap, we were in contact, reading the situation as best and as fast as possible. I think we both managed very well and super proud of him as well.”
Seeing Andy Cowell as soon as I got out of the car was really special.
On the Aston Martin Aramco Driver Academy
“I must say a huge thank you for all the support from everyone at Aston Martin Aramco. Seeing [CEO and Team Principal] Andy Cowell and him congratulating me as soon as I got out of the car was really special.
“I’m really proud to join the Aston Martin Aramco family. All the races since I joined the Driver Academy have been really good, so I’m excited to keep working together.”
On the future
“P1 and P3 puts us in a good position in fighting for the Championship. The pace is looking really strong. We just did a hat-trick of podiums, one in Austria and two here in a row. It’s looking really good, and I’m super excited for the rest of the season. I feel prepared.
“Let’s go for more in Belgium!”
Andy Cowell on Mari’s weekend
“Mari delivered an exceptional performance to take his maiden FIA Formula 3 Feature Race victory, and in very tough, wet conditions. His composure was impressive, and climbing from P13 to P4 in the championship over the past two events shows just how determined he is to demonstrate his skill.
“It’s a significant milestone for Mari and a special moment for our Driver Academy, marking its very first win.”
Mari returns to the track at Spa-Francorchamps on the hunt for more silverware in the FIA Formula 3 Championship on 25-27 July, before heading to the Hungaroring – a circuit he tells us is a close second favourite to Silverstone – for the final rounds before the summer break.
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Elon Musk is diving headfirst back into politics, and Tesla investors are not happy about it.
The electric carmaker’s stock fell more than 7% on Monday as investors digested Musk’s renewed feud with President Donald Trump and his announcement that he would set up a new political party.
After polling users on his social media platform X, the billionaire unveiled “the America party” on Sunday, with Trump responding that Musk had “gone off the rails.”
It comes just months after the Tesla CEO told shareholders that he would be spending less time on politics and turning his full attention to the EV giant, which has had a difficult year so far.
Tesla’s sales have collapsed worldwide amid renewed EV competition and backlash over Musk’s work at DOGE, and the company is currently in the middle of a critical robotaxi launch in Austin.
For Tesla investors and analysts who have already witnessed the stock decline22% this year, Musk wading back into the political fray is the last thing they want to see.
“We expect that investors are growing tired of the distraction at a point when the business needs Musk’s attention the most and only see downside from his dip back into politics,” wrote William Blair analysts Jed Dorsheimer and Mark Shooter in a note on Monday.
“We would prefer this effort to be channeled towards the robotaxi rollout at this critical juncture,” added the analysts. The investment firm downgraded Tesla to the equivalent of hold on the back of the expected negative impact of Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill.”
Wedbush Securities analyst and Tesla Bull Dan Ives, who previously called on Musk to spend more time on Tesla while the billionaire was working on DOGE earlier this year, said that things had now “taken a turn for the worst” with Musk’s latest political move.
“Musk diving deeper into politics and now trying to take on the Beltway establishment is exactly the opposite direction that Tesla investors/shareholders want him to take during this crucial period for the Tesla story,” wrote Ives in a note on Sunday.
Monday’s share price fall reflects a wider trend in Tesla’s stock in recent months. Shares have tended to fall when Musk is more focused on politics, while rising when he has shown a public commitment to Tesla.
In the four weeks after Musk said he would step back from DOGE and focus on his EV firm in April, Tesla’s share price rose 40%.
In March, when Musk held a surprise livestream to discuss Tesla’s ongoing projects, shares jumped 13% in the following week’s trading.
‘What is this guy doing?’
Musk’s decision to form a new political party, which he has suggested will take on Republicans and Democrats and focus heavily on reducing government spending, also sparked renewed questions from some quarters about his future as Tesla’s CEO.
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Former DOGE advisor James Fishbank announced on Sunday that his anti-DEI investment firm, Azoria, would postpone a planned Tesla ETF in response to Musk’s actions, which he criticized as a “ridiculous stunt.”
“I encourage the Board to meet immediately and ask Elon to clarify his political ambitions and evaluate whether they are compatible with his full-time obligations to Tesla as CEO,” said Fishbank in a letter posted on X, which he said had been sent to Tesla board chair Robyn Denholm.
“I remain hopeful that Elon will return his full attention to Tesla. If not, I trust the Board will take appropriate action,” he added.
Tesla shareholder and frequent Musk critic Ross Gerber also weighed in on Monday, saying that “no one wants the Elon First party” and accusing Tesla’s board of failing to rein Musk in.
Gerber has previously called on Musk to step down as Tesla CEO, and told BI last week that the billionaire’s war of words with Trump was the “nail in the coffin” for the EV maker.
“You’re at this kind of point where it’s like, ‘What is this guy doing?’ You know? You’re supposed to be selling cars and robotaxis, and instead we’re fighting with the President of the United States,” Gerber previously told BI.
Tesla and Musk did not respond to a request for comment, sent outside normal working hours.
Hickman was an employee of the bank from July 2021 until her termination in June 2023 while simultaneously working as a bookkeeper for the nonprofit.
“Hickman’s conduct constituted violations of law or regulation, and involved personal dishonesty,” the Fed said in its consent order.
The former banker joined Jonah Bank of Wyoming as a mortgage loan processor and later became a commercial banking assistant, according to her LinkedIn profile. Although the Fed doesn’t name the nonprofit she worked for, her LinkedIn profile indicates that she worked as a part-time executive assistant at Two Fly Foundation for 11 years, from April 2012 to June 2023.
Hickman has also worked at the McMurry Group of companies as an accounting specialist and in the lease administration department for more than a decade. Now, she works as a grant writer for community and business development at Central Wyoming Counseling Center.
Two Fly organizes a fly fishing tournament every year the Thursday and Friday before Mother’s Day in Casper, Wyoming, to raise money for charities in the state. Since its founding in 2005, the organization has donated more than $3.2 million to 28 charities, according to its website.
The enforcement action, which bans Hickman from participating in any affairs of the banking industry, doesn’t stop the Fed or any state agency from taking any other actions against Hickman. However, the central bank agreed not to take further action against Hickman on matters addressed in the order based on currently known facts, it said. She cannot return to work in the banking industry without written approval from the central bank.
The former banker neither admitted nor denied any wrongdoing but consented to the Fed’s order and agreed to comply with all the provisions mentioned.
The roughly $531 million-asset Jonah Bank of Wyoming, based in Casper, is a community bank with a state charter that specializes in commercial lending. Established in 2006 to support the state’s small businesses and their employees, the lender operates four locations in Cheyenne and Casper.
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Scientists from the University of Konstanz and Queen Mary University of London have identified a key molecular trigger that facilitates a crucial step in the formation of red blood cells.
The finding could advance research efforts into artificial blood production, the researchers say, though clinical applications remain distant.
The research is published in Science Signaling.
The role of CXCL12 in red blood cell formation
Red blood cell production, known as erythropoiesis, naturally occurs in the bone marrow. Stem cells mature into erythroblasts, which then develop into erythrocytes (red blood cells). In the final phase of this development, erythroblasts expel their nucleus, creating more internal space for hemoglobin – a protein that enables oxygen transport. This process is unique to mammals.
Although much is known about the maturation of stem cells into red blood cells, the mechanism prompting nuclear expulsion was unclear.
The research team, led by Dr. Julia Gutjahr from the Institute of Cellular Biology and Immunology Thurgau at the University of Konstanz, has identified that the chemokine CXCL12 can initiate this step.
“We discovered that the chemokine CXCL12 found mainly in bone marrow can trigger such nucleus expulsion, albeit in an interplay with several factors. By adding CXCL12 to erythroblasts at the right moment, we were able to artificially induce the expulsion of their nucleus,” said Gutjahr.
Mechanism reveals new function of chemokine receptors
The study found that CXCL12 interacts with red blood cell precursors differently than it does with other cell types. While other cells migrate in response to CXCL12, erythroblasts internalize the molecule, even transporting it into the nucleus. This internal action enhances cell maturation and assists in nucleus expulsion.
The research suggests that chemokine receptors may have intracellular roles in addition to their established function on the cell surface and may inform future techniques for improving the efficiency of artificial blood production.
“Importantly, apart from immediate practical application for the industrial production of red blood cells, our results brought a completely new understanding of cell biological mechanisms involved in erythroblast responses to chemokines,” added senior study author Antal Rot, a professor of inflammation sciences in the William Harvey Research Institute at Queen Mary University of London.
“While all other cells migrate when stimulated by CXCL12, in erythroblasts this signalling molecule is transported into the interior of the cell, even into the nucleus,” Rot continued. “There, it accelerates their maturation and helps to expel the nucleus. Our research shows for the first time that chemokine receptors not only act on the cell surface but also inside the cell, thus opening entirely new perspectives on their role in cell biology,”
Challenges in sourcing cells for artificial blood
Artificial blood production typically starts with stem cells derived from umbilical cord blood or bone marrow. These cells can achieve nucleus expulsion in approximately 80% of cases. However, the limited availability and high demand for these cells makes this approach insufficient for large-scale applications.
Recent advancements in cell reprogramming have allowed for the transformation of other cell types into stem-like cells, which can then be guided to produce red blood cells. Yet, this method is slower and less efficient, with successful nucleus expulsion occurring in only 40% of cases.
“Based on our new findings highlighting the key role of CXCL12 in triggering nuclear expulsion, we can expect that using CXCL12 should bring significant improvement in producing red blood cells from reprogrammed cells,” said Gutjahr.
The research team hopes that new advances aiding large-scale artificial blood production could lead to immediate, meaningful improvements for patients.
“Even though body cells are readily available, the lab-based production process will remain complex. But it would enable the targeted generation of rare blood types, help bridge shortages or allow individuals to reproduce their own blood for specialized treatments in many different diseases,” said Gutjahr.
Reference: Gutjahr JC, Hub E, Anderson CA, et al. Intracellular and nuclear CXCR4 signaling promotes terminal erythroblast differentiation and enucleation. Sci Signal. 2025;18(891):eadt2678. doi: 10.1126/scisignal.adt2678
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Prudential Financial might have been founded in 1875, but its IT stack is definitely next-generation.
The 150-year-old company has 38,000 employees who serve 50 million customers in more than 50 countries. Bob Bastian, chief information and technology officer, leads the company’s agentic AI initiative, which is built on Salesforce’s Agentforce for Financial Services.
We discussed with Bastian the company’s deliberate approach to rolling out AI services for its various insurance, retirement products and mutual funds.
How would you describe Prudential’s AI strategy?
Bob Bastian
Bob Bastian: Because we’re a regulated business, we give a lot of thought to how we’re using AI. Our main strategy is thinking about how to build governance so it does exactly what we need it to do for our customers and stakeholders, but at the same time, it’s protected, it’s governed and we think about data management right out of the gate.
Then we say, “Where would it provide the most value for our customers or advisors?” We’ve created various use cases that help us understand that value proposition. Or, in the case of something like underwriting — something we’ve been doing for quite a while — we have multiple tests [of AI tools] against our underwriting to make sure that we’re getting valid results.
When you saw generative AI for the first time, did you immediately see use cases?
Bastian: I enjoy technology overall. I just love to understand how things work. My first thought was, “Okay, I need to understand more about how this is coming together.”
After understanding about LLMs [large language models] and RAG [retrieval augmented generation] and all the other technical details that go into it, I started to think about how this can apply itself to the insurance, annuity and advisor spaces. Everything that we’ve come up with focuses on a human in the loop, just because of how GenAI is structured. It’s important for us to make sure that we still have humans thinking about what is happening. We are a company that generates a lot of documentation. We want to ensure that we get the right policy, contract and type of products out there in production. It necessitates a lot of information, and GenAI can help pull that information together. Many of our use cases are set up around that.
What are examples of operational use cases?
Bastian: We have a use case for group insurance claims. They’re different based on each company’s contract and the company’s state regulations. So if I’m on the phone with a customer, I have to go out to different places to pull that information together. With what we’ve done with GenAI, we know who the customer is, we know what company they work for, and we know what state they’re coming from. We gather all that information so that, instead of trying to find different documents, CSRs [customer service representatives] can focus on the customer and be very empathetic.
We also have another use case for advisors. It pulls together information about who they’re meeting. We have wholesalers [who support financial advisors] as well as advisors. In the wholesaler space, we’re pulling together information about the people they’re meeting with so that they can come well prepared. That makes them a lot more productive.
Do you employ multiple LLMs for different functions, or are you a one-LLM shop?
We give a lot of thought to what the right LLM is for the job. Bob BastianChief information and technology officer, Prudential Financial
Bastian: We are not a one-LLM shop. Different LLMs are optimized for different things. We give a lot of thought to what the right LLM is for the job. We also give thought to how we’re going to apply it; what is the right risk for our customers, stakeholders, advisors, whomever else. So we’re very protective how we’re using LLMs, which ones we’re using and which ones are the best for any given use case.
What are you doing with Salesforce agents and Financial Services Cloud?
Bastian: They have done some great things in our wholesaler space, as mentioned above. We consolidated our customer service across all our businesses onto Salesforce. We consolidated all our claims — except for disability claims — onto Salesforce. Our retirement business, our U.S. life insurance business, group insurance business and everything is on Salesforce.
On the sales side, we’re using agentic AI to help with call logging. If a CSR meets with a customer or a wholesaler meets with an advisor, it logs what happened during that meeting. The agents can go off and deal with follow-ups. Agentic is great at summarizing how we met with [an advisor], how they want to do these types of cases in the future and what follow-ups are needed, then it will set those up in Salesforce and deal with those background pieces. We think we can save at least half a day per week, just on different follow-ups and setting up other things in Salesforce. So that’s a great use case beta that we’re starting.
On the service side, there’s a lot that goes on after a call. When a customer calls up and has a service request, there are a bunch of other things, different follow-ups, different background things that happen with administration systems and others. We’re in a beta there where an agent can do some of those things. [This allows] the CSR to get on the next call and be more empathetic to the conversation that they’re having — as opposed to having to think about the call log, follow-ups or the things that they have to do in the background. This agentic force helps us get through many of the background [tasks] so that our advisors or CSRs can stay focused on the customer.
What advice do you have for your peers experimenting with or evaluating agentic AI?
Bastian: One thing is to keep customers at the heart. How do you make your CSRs better with the customer? How do you make them more empathetic? How do you make it a great relationship, so when a client calls up Prudential, they feel like the agent is listening to them? Design your agents keeping in mind how to enable better interactions.
The other thing, especially for our industry — whether it be bank, financial services or asset management — is that we’re regulated, so you’ve got to think that through first. Don’t go off and create a bunch of agents that do a bunch of things that could get you into trouble. Think through the governance before you get down the path of thinking about agentic.
If you focus on a customer at the heart of it and you really balance yourself with governance and regulatory, that space in the middle that allows the human to do the best that they can when they’re on the call or when they’re meeting with an advisor. That’s the path to greatness on some of this.
Don Fluckinger is a senior news writer for Informa TechTarget. He covers customer experience, digital experience management and end-user computing. Got a tip? Email him.
Three years ago, when England won their first major trophy at the expense of Germany, Bühl could only watch on from the sidelines, unable to step in and help her teammates.
Her standout form came to a crashing halt before the semi-finals, when she tested positive for COVID-19 and, as a result, missed out on the rest of the tournament.
Since then, the 24-year-old has gone from strength to strength as she continues to live up to expectations.
Considered one of the most exciting wingers in the game, Bühl arrived in Switzerland on the back of a career best campaign in the Fauen-Bundesliga.
Seven goals and 14 assists in the league alone proved a remarkable return for a player with limitless potential.
Now she is being looked at as one of the nation’s brightest hopes; someone who sparks belief that their ninth European title is coming.
With captain Giulia Gwinn ruled out for the remainder of the campaign, it has never been more important for each and every player to step up.
After missing those crucial stages of 2022, there will be added incentive to get the job done this time around, with Bühl ready to lead the way.
Performing in the spotlight did not always come so naturally to the international no.19, though she was forced to confront it as a teenager.
Making her Frauen-Bundesliga debut aged 15 for former club Freiburg, the tricky two-footed attacker had to become accustomed to life at the top fairly quickly.
“I felt like I had to pretend at first; cameras, media – I first had to learn to get to know myself,” Bühl confessed to Queenzine.
“I had to learn how to deal with successes and failures and still maintain my values.
“Over time, I realised that the most important thing is to stay true to yourself.”
The pressures of club and country can be palpable, so there’s no wonder Bühl turns to slow and steady activities like crocheting in her downtime.
She knitted mascots for the national team at both the 2023 World Cup and the 2024 Olympics, the second of which saw them to a bronze medal.
It looks as though the forward didn’t have the time to crochet one for EURO 2025 – but the weaving remains, this time on the pitch as Bühl glides in and out of opposing players in pursuit of a ninth German title.
Polarella has only been isolated from polar regions, though through -omics techniques, we have been able to identify the genera in a tropical oxygen deficient zone. Our data suggests that as oxygen and light declines, Polarella shifts from a phototrophic lifestyle (green) to potential heterotrophy (orange). At depths where oxygen is depleted and light level extremely low, Polarella upregulates genes involved in the uptake of both inorganic and organic nutrients and stress response.
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Credit: Birch Maxwell Lazo-Murphy designed the concept image and was finalized by the OLAR editorial office/graphic design team
A tiny single-celled organism may have a big impact on how the world’s basic chemical building blocks cycle between living things and the non-living environment. Called Polarella, the algal genus was thought to be restricted to polar cap regions of Earth, but a team has revealed that it is abundant and influential in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean off the coast of Mexico.
The researchers, based at the University of South Carolina (USC), published their findings on May 26 in Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research.
Polarella is a type of dinoflagellate that makes up a major portion of marine microbial communities and contributes significantly to global primary production, said first author Birch Maxwell Lazo-Murphy, a graduate student pursuing a Ph.D. in marine science in the laboratory of Xuefeng “Nick” Peng, the corresponding author and an assistant professor of in USC’s School of Earth, Ocean, and Environment.
“Understanding the roles of free-living dinoflagellates — as opposed to those that live in symbiosis with other organisms — in dynamic environments is critical, as these habitats often harbor high microbial diversity and niche differentiation,” Lazo-Murphy said. “Gaining a deeper insight into these environments will enable more accurate predictions of how these globally important groups will respond to environmental changes.”
One such dynamic environment in marine systems are oxygen-deficient zones (ODZs), where oxygen levels are so depleted that oxygen often can’t be detected even by state-of-the-art sensors. This results from a process called remineralization, which involves living matter decaying into its basic chemical building blocks. According to Lazo-Murphy and Peng, these zones account for less than 1% of the ocean area on Earth, yet they are responsible for losing 33% of biologically available nitrogen — which is critical for plant growth, human health and more — across the globe.
“ODZs have been expanding in size in part due to anthropogenic warming, so the role of ODZs and their respective microbial communities in global nutrient cycling is becoming increasingly important,” Peng said.
To better understand the specific microbial communities in these areas, including how they respond to change and potentially impact nutrient cycling, the researchers used a technique called metatranscriptomics. They collected seawater samples from the oxygen-rich surface, mid-depths and oxygen-depleted depths of the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean, which houses the world’s largest ODZ. They extracted and sequenced genetic material, from which they identified the specific organisms present in each sample.
“We found unexpectedly high relative contribution of Polarella, which is thought to have bipolar distribution, to the microbial communities in the Eastern Tropical North Pacific Ocean,” Lazo-Murphy said. “Once we established their abundance, we set out to understand the functions and gene expressions of Polarella, as well as their impacts on the nutrient cycles, in the ODZ.”
Further analysis revealed increased expression of stress response genes in Polarella, ranging from the lowest stress in surface samples to the highest in samples from oxygen-depleted depths. The researchers also found that the closer to the surface, genes for photosynthesis — converting sunlight into energy — were more highly expressed. In addition, they found that, while the overall gene expression was low for Polarella from low-oxygen or oxygen-free areas, the genes involved in transporting organic and inorganic nutrients were more highly expressed. Lazo-Murphy said this suggests that Polarella has an opportunistic lifestyle, taking advantage of available resources wherever it exists.
“Collectively, these findings suggest that Polarella thrives beyond polar regions and likely plays a more significant ecological and biogeochemical role in the ocean than previously recognized,” Lazo-Murphy said.
The Simons Foundation Postdoctoral Fellowship in Marine Microbiology and the Simons Early Career Investigator in Aquatic Microbial Ecology and Evolution Award to Peng supported this research.
Journal
Ocean-Land-Atmosphere Research
Method of Research
Data/statistical analysis
Article Title
Unexpected Abundance and Gene Expression of Polarella from a Tropical Oxygen Deficient Zone
Article Publication Date
17-Jun-2025
COI Statement
There are no conflicts of interest to declare.
Disclaimer: AAAS and EurekAlert! are not responsible for the accuracy of news releases posted to EurekAlert! by contributing institutions or for the use of any information through the EurekAlert system.
The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) has learned to do backward rolls to give its onboard radar better opportunities to find water-ice beneath the red planet’s surface.
“Not only can you teach an old spacecraft new tricks, you can open up entirely new regions of the subsurface to explore by doing so,” Gareth Morgan of the Planetary Science Institute and co-investigator on MRO’s Shallow Radar (SHARAD) instrument, said in a statement.
MRO is something of a veteran now, having been in orbit around Mars since 2006. It carries five instruments still in operation (a sixth, the Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars, CRISM, was shut down in 2023). The spacecraft typically points these instruments at targets on the surface by tipping itself over by up to 28 degrees. If MRO performs one of these rolls so a particular instrument can get a good view of something, it usually means the other four are inconvenienced, hence why the roll maneuvers are planned weeks in advance so as not to interrupt other observations.
Things usually work out — however, the SHARAD instrument has always been at a disadvantage.
SHARAD fires pulses of radar at Mars that are able to detect water-ice buried as deep as 1.2 miles (2 kilometers) below the surface. Yet, SHARAD is positioned on the rear of the spacecraft, playing second fiddle to the likes of the High-Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE), which has the best views in the house from the front of the spacecraft. From the rear, SHARAD’s radar beams typically catch part of the spacecraft’s structure, resulting in interference that reduces clarity and how deep underground it can probe.
“The SHARAD instrument was designed for the near-subsurface and there are select regions of Mars that are just out of reach for us,” said Morgan. “There is a lot to be gained by taking a closer look at those regions.”
So, starting in 2023, MRO’s engineers began experimenting with the spacecraft by performing what they describe as “very large rolls” of 120 degrees, spinning the spacecraft backwards so it is almost upside down relative to Mars. During the large roll, SHARAD gets an unencumbered view of Mars’ surface, which permits the radar signal to be 10 times stronger.
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There is a caveat to these very large rolls, though. During a standard roll of up to 28 degrees, MRO’s high-gain antenna can remain pointed at Earth and its solar arrays can keep tracking the sun to maintain power. During a 120-degree roll, the high-gain antenna isn’t pointed at Earth and the solar arrays lose sight of the sun.
This means that a 120-degree roll requires even more planning before it is performed.
A video showing how MRO can tip backwards to improve the view for its Shallow Radar (SHARAD) (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech)
“The very large rolls require a special analysis to make sure we’ll have enough power in our batteries to safely do the roll,” Reid Thomas, who is MRO’s Project Manager at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, said in the statement.
As a result, the MRO team is limiting the spacecraft to just one or two very large rolls each year, but they hope to be able to streamline the process and perform these maneuvers more often in future. It could really be worth it: Finding large pockets of water-ice close to the Martian surface would be vital for future astronauts who could use it for drinking water as well as for producing oxygen and rocket fuel. Plus, the very existence of the water at different latitudes can tell us more about the history of water and the past climate of Mars.
There’s also another benefit to the rolls. There is one instrument on MRO that was not designed to require rolls to point, and that is the Mars Climate Sounder, which measures small changes in temperature over the course of the Martian seasons. The Climate Sounder has to be able to point both down at the surface and at the horizon where it can peer through the thin layers of Mars’ atmosphere; to aid it in these observations, the Climate Sounder was affixed to its own gimbal. However, by 2024, this gimbal had grown unreliable due to age, and so the Climate Sounder now relies on the standard 28-degree rolls to make its observations. The very large 120-degree rolls give the Climate Sounder more flexibility.
An artist’s impression of MRO over Mars (Image credit: NASA/JPL–Caltech)
Where it used to be the case that the rolls limited MRO’s science output because they only gave a good view to one instrument at a time, the rolls are now helping the aging Mars probe to maintain its science output. It’s not quite cartwheels, but it shows that MRO still has a lot of life left in it yet.
An assessment of the success of the large rolls is described in The Planetary Science Journal.
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Exceptionalism has been one of few constants in the otherwise sinuous story of the English state. The nation split from the Catholic church, clung on to monarchy, evolved into an empire spanning a quarter of the globe and introduced its de facto lingua franca. Even after its domain dwindled, self-belief lingered sufficiently to persuade a majority of its voters to separate themselves from their closest trading partner.
Despite proudly carrying the baggage of centuries of invasions, conquests, dynasties and destinies, a newly unmoored England lacks friends and a direction of travel. It is hard to know what the country represents — has England lost its identity?
Two new books go searching for answers in different places. In their respective histories of English cricket and Christianity, both Brendan Cooper and Bijan Omrani hit upon a history of exceptionalism that once fuelled the country’s ascent as a global power and now leaves it pining for the past and paralysed in the present.
Cricket was born in England. Its etiquette and eccentricity are emblematic of much of what the country takes pride in. In the imagination, it plays out on some mythical village green of a peaceful past — little wonder that Cooper should look to the history of the sport, as he does in his book Echoing Greens, in an attempt to define Englishness.
Anthony Trollope claimed in 1868 that “it is the English alone who take part in the game” — despite the fact that the first ever international cricket match had taken place two decades earlier between the US and Canada. By the Victorian era, the game had become a byword for England’s competitive but courteous aspirations. As Cooper puts it: “Cricket was no longer just a sport. It was philosophy; it was virtue; it was an imagined ideal of nationhood. The game had been remade as a fiction, a metaphor for all the things England wanted itself to be.”
WG Grace, perhaps the most storied of the country’s cricketers, was so revered by fans that tickets to games in which he played cost twice as much as usual. Yet to rivals he was associated with underhand tactics or outright cheating. “His name will become a synonym for mean cunning and systematic fraud,” complained The Sydney Morning Herald after England’s inaugural tour to Australia in 1873.
For every attempt at generalisation, Cooper finds proof to the contrary; for every temptation towards nostalgia, there is a reality check. And it is not so different a picture when we turn to Omrani’s God Is an Englishman.
Omrani — barrister, academic, churchwarden — uses his book to chart the exceptionalist approach that has defined English Christianity over the centuries. As early as the 7th century, Pope Gregory sent a letter to the third Archbishop of Canterbury permitting pagan slaughter of animals on the newly Christian realm’s feast days: “It is doubtless impossible to cut out everything at once from their stubborn minds,” he wrote.
The attitude prevailed, from public unwillingness to give up Catholic festivals in the 16th century to Oliver Cromwell’s insistence on keeping his Quaker household staff. The response to the trauma of the Reformation, Omrani believes, was the kind of nostalgia and exceptionalism that continues to plague English politics: “Successive generations looked back to an era they usually placed just before their own, where England was a country of cheery yeomen and maypole dancing, social order and plenty.” He might well add cricket to that list.
God Is an Englishman eventually falls victim to the nostalgia it so convincingly chronicles. Omrani laments the “tragic” loss of hymn singing in schools and the decay of Christian values in national identity, treading a fine line between questions of church and state. His account of how Christianity came to underpin the laws and landscape of England is thorough; more contentious is his assertion that if social cohesion is in decline, the decay of Christian values has played a “significant part”.
Cooper also sometimes loses sight of his task, drifting into cricketing miscellany. Echoing Greens never quite lives up to its promise of being “a book about England — about the disorderly workings of the English imagination, its visions and ideals as well as its vexed relationship with the blunt reality of life”.
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Neither cricket nor Christianity really reflects the country as it is now. The 2021 census was the first time that less than half the population of England and Wales identified as Christian, with the proportion of atheists at an all-time high. English cricket, meanwhile, finds itself squeezed by low uptake in schools and big-budget international competitions such as the Indian Premier League. “In the twenty-first century,” admits Cooper, “the legitimacy of the Englishness of cricket feels more doubtful than ever.”
But in two subjects so bound up with questions of tradition, it is all too tempting to tend towards nostalgia. “I have no patience with the man who is constantly saying that cricket is not what it used to be,” wrote the Guardian’s Neville Cardus in 1933. “The Golden Age is always well behind us. We catch sight of it with young eyes, when we see what we want to see.” The same could well be said of England.
Echoing Greens: How Cricket Shaped the English Imagination by Brendan Cooper Constable £12.99, 352 pages
God Is an Englishman: Christianity and the Creation of England by Bijan Omrani Forum £25,400 pages
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