News at a glance: A new antibiotic, COVID-19 in Antarctica, and a Venus mission deferred

CLIMATE SCIENCE Space station carbon mapper faces demise An orbiting fridge-size sensor that uses lasers to map forest structure—key to understanding how much carbon trees sequester—is set to plummet to a fiery destruction in the atmosphere in 2023 unless NASA extends its tenure. Researchers and some U.S. Congress members are lobbying the agency to reconsider its plan to jettison the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) instrument from the International Space Station to make way for a Department of Defense sensor. GEDI measures the height of trees and the quality of habitat they provide, information that its supporters say imaging satellites such as Landsat cannot provide. In operation since April 2019, GEDI has identified the parts of the Amazon rainforest that hold the most carbon, which could guide conservation efforts intended to minimize deforestation and the release of carbon to the atmosphere. GEDI’s value has been constrained by a lack of ground data from locations such as China and Indonesia, which are necessary to calibrate its readings. DRUG DEVELOPMENT New antibiotic passes key hurdle A new antibiotic that represents an entirely novel chemical class has passed it first clinical test. The drug, gepotidacin, cured urinary tract infections (UTIs) so well in two large trials that researchers stopped them early. Its manufacturer, GSK, says it plans to seek approval of the drug from the U.S. Food ...
Source: ScienceNOW - Category: Science Source Type: news