News at a glance: Layoffs at JPL, fossils of ancient innards, and Darwin ’s library

PLANETARY SCIENCE NASA cuts jobs at storied lab NASA’s premier center for space science, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, announced last week it would lay off 530 employees, about 8% of its workforce, along with 40 contractors, because of uncertainty over this year’s budget and lawmakers’ qualms about skyrocketing costs for the Mars Sample Return (MSR) mission. After arrival at Mars as early as 2030, the $10 billion effort would pick up rock samples collected by the Perseverance rover, load them in a rocket, and ferry them back to Earth. A Senate appropriations bill for this year would provide the mission only $300 million, a 63% cut from 2023. Congress has delayed passing spending bills because of disagreements about overall federal spending levels. Planning to spend more than the Senate’s proposed level would be unsound, NASA Administrator Bill Nelson said in a statement. NASA is reviewing MSR’s plans as scientists worry its escalating costs are depleting the agency’s funding for other research. PALEONTOLOGY Site preserves ancient innards A newly discovered fossil bed in southern France is offering scientists a rare glimpse at 470-million-year-old life forms, including well-preserved soft tissue such as sponge bodies . The site, discovered by amateur paleontologists, dates to the Ordovician period, when marine life flourished and primitive plants began to emerge on land. In a paper pu...
Source: Science of Aging Knowledge Environment - Category: Geriatrics Source Type: research