U.S. Pours Money into Hypersonic Missiles and Planes

Image: Gov.uk

President Joe Biden’s defence budget request for the fiscal year 2025 contains significant further funding for the U.S. hypersonic missile program, including $517 million to keep developing its Hypersonic Attack Cruise Missile – a more than $100 million increase over 2023 and 2024. Another hypersonic missile program of the U.S. military, the Air-launched Rapid Response Weapon (ARRW), was canceled in late 2023 after several tests failed. The race for hypersonic missiles has heated up in recent years as both China and Russia have been developing them. Some experts have questioned whether these missiles are worth the money. The U.S. Department of Defense has also given “substantial new funding” to the University of Central Florida to build a test facility for hypersonic propulsion systems. The idea of Hypersonic aeroplanes has seen a revival in the past decade as methods have been explored – among others by NASA – to significantly reduce the supersonic boom. Such aeroplanes could reach speeds exceeding Mach 5, or approximately 6000 km/h [3800 mph].

This episode of Science News covers scientific progress. We see constant progress in the world every day, from better cars to faster phones to virtual reality and the internet of things. However, despite all the technological and engineering advances, science seems to be slowing down? Let’s have a look. You can now leave comments on our quizzes!

Leading Medical Journal Investigates Suspicious Ties Between Drug Regulators and Big Pharma

The prestigious BMJ medical journal has raised alarm about cosy financial relationships between former commissioners of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the pharmaceutical industry they once regulated. The BMJ probe found that after leaving the FDA, some former chiefs took lucrative positions at drug companies or maintained investments that enmeshed them with the same industry they were previously tasked with objectively overseeing. A bit suspicious, don’t you think? These entanglements, the journal argues, represent glaring conflicts of interest that could erode public confidence in the FDA's independence when approving new drugs and medical devices worth billions to pharmaceutical firms. The BMJ is using its editorial freedom to call for stricter ethics rules to wall off FDA leadership from potential industry influence that could put profits ahead of patient safety. Press release here.

Social Media Rewards Radical Ideas, Study Confirms

New research from the University of Pennsylvania has found that social media platforms inadvertently reward users who express more extreme views, potentially contributing to the spread of misinformation and radicalization online. The study, published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, analysed over 16 million Facebook posts and revealed that posts expressing more extreme sentiments received higher engagement in the form of likes, shares, and comments. This dynamic creates an incentive for users to adopt more polarised positions to gain attention and visibility on these platforms. Paper here, press release here.

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