DTN 031: India on the Moon

India Becomes Fourth Country Ever to Land on the Moon, First to Lunar South Pole

“Two visitors from India — a lander named Vikram and a rover named Pragyan — landed in the southern polar region of the moon on Wednesday. The two robots, from a mission named Chandrayaan-3, make India the first country to ever reach this part of the lunar surface in one piece — and only the fourth country ever to land on the moon. Chandrayaan-3 out-endured its Russian counterpart, Luna-25, which was scheduled to land on the moon on Monday in the same general vicinity as the Indian craft but crashed on Saturday following an engine malfunction. That India managed to outdo Russia, which as the Soviet Union put the first satellite, man and woman in space, speaks to the diverging fortunes of the two nations’ space programs.” (New York Times)

Complexity Theory’s 50-Year Journey to the Limits of Knowledge

“Even seasoned researchers find understanding in short supply when they confront the central open question in theoretical computer science, known as the P versus NP problem. In essence, that question asks whether many computational problems long considered extremely difficult can actually be solved easily (via a secret shortcut we haven’t discovered yet), or whether, as most researchers suspect, they truly are hard. Meta-complexity theorists have been asking questions like this for decades. A string of recent results has started to deliver answers. At stake is nothing less than the nature of what’s knowable.” (Quanta Magazine)

Why the vagus nerve is so exciting to scientists

“The vagus nerve is, in fact, a pair of nerves that serve as a two-way communication channel between the brain and the heart, lungs and abdominal organs, plus structures such as the oesophagus and voice box, helping to control involuntary processes, including breathing, heart rate, digestion and immune responses. They are also an important part of the parasympathetic nervous system, which governs the “rest and digest” processes, and relaxes the body after periods of stress or danger that activate our sympathetic “fight or flight” responses. Scientific interest in the vagus nerve is exploding. Could stimulating it transform physical and mental health?” (The Guardian)