A tiny new moon found orbiting Uranus
Astronomers have spotted a previously unknown Uranian moon, temporarily designated S/2025 U1. At roughly 10 kilometers across, the faint body hides among the planet’s tight inner retinue and orbits about 56,000 kilometers from Uranus’s center. The detection hinged on deep James Webb Space Telescope exposures that firmed up hints from earlier imagery, turning a smudge into a tracked object. The find adds to the census of Uranus’s small, under-studied inner moons and will help refine models for how the system evolved after giant impacts. Follow-up astrometry will pin down the orbit and feed a formal naming proposal to the IAU. The discovery also showcases JWST’s growing role in Solar System reconnaissance—not just distant galaxy hunting. (Wired)

SpaceX launches X-37B Mission 8 for the U.S. Space Force
SpaceX has launched the eighth flight of the U.S. Space Force’s uncrewed X-37B spaceplane from Florida, sending the reusable vehicle on another long-duration, largely classified mission. The winged craft—part testbed, part technology demonstrator—has previously set endurance records and returned autonomous landings after years on orbit. While payload details remain sparse, program officials typically cite in-space experimentation, on-orbit reusability studies, and operations in new regimes as objectives. The Falcon 9 carried the vehicle to space; mission length, orbit, and experiment manifest were not disclosed. The X-37B’s cadence underscores how spaceplanes have matured from concept to operational platforms with repeatable, cost-saving turnarounds—an approach the Space Force continues to iterate as commercial launch lowers barriers. (Space News)

Idaho logs third measles case; officials warn of local spread
Idaho health authorities reported the state’s third recent measles case: an unvaccinated child in Bonner County, in the far-north Panhandle. Investigators say there are no known links between this case and the two earlier Idaho infections, a pattern suggesting community transmission rather than a single imported chain. With the United States having recorded 1,375 measles infections so far this year—the most since elimination was declared in 2000—officials urged vaccination and vigilance. Although the pace of new cases has slowed as Texas’ large outbreak wound down, smaller clusters and a steady flow of travel-linked cases continue to seed risks. Post-exposure prophylaxis and contact tracing remain core tools as local health departments respond. (CIDRAP)

Africa’s mpox fight: deaths worry officials as Kenya cases surge
Africa CDC leaders reported ongoing progress against mpox—confirmed cases are down ~70% from this year’s peak and testing coverage is improving—but flagged a troubling rise in deaths and a surge in Kenya. In Kenya, clade 1b is circulating and the case-fatality rate sits near 2%; spread from coastal regions into Nairobi raises risks given the capital’s density. Kenya aims to launch vaccination on September 1 alongside intensified surveillance. The DRC, previously a major hotspot with clades 1a, 1b, and 2b, is seeing declines as activity shifts provinces; more than 28,000 people there have received Japan-donated LC16 vaccine since August 12. The U.S. authorized shipment of 219,000 doses to the continent, part of a larger pledged supply. (CIDRAP)

EU wildfires worsen as climate and land use reshape risk
A new analysis warns Europe’s wildfire problem is intensifying: climate change and land-use patterns are combining to make blazes larger and more destructive. Researchers note that eight of the continent’s top 10 wildfire years since 2000 occurred in the past decade, with 2025 already delivering record-setting burns in several countries. Prolonged droughts, heat waves, and fuel build-up in abandoned rural lands are increasing ignition potential and fire intensity. Beyond immediate carbon and health costs, the trend threatens biodiversity, agriculture, and tourism economies. The authors argue that prevention—prescribed burns, landscape mosaics, and managed grazing—plus resilient infrastructure will be critical as traditional suppression tactics prove insufficient in extreme conditions. (Phys.org)

Hubble’s close look at spiral galaxy NGC 2835
NASA highlighted a sharp Hubble portrait of NGC 2835, a face-on spiral galaxy in Hydra. Dusty arms trace lanes of obscuring material punctuated by star-forming regions, while a bright core hints at a dense stellar bulge (and possibly a subdued central black hole). Image releases like this aren’t just eye candy: detailed morphology and color information help astronomers model star-formation histories, map interstellar dust, and calibrate distances. Hubble’s long run continues to produce reference-quality data that complement JWST’s infrared views, offering a multi-wavelength baseline for understanding how spirals assemble over cosmic time. The archive-rich approach lets teams revisit targets with improved techniques and compare with newer observatories. (NASA)

$2.5M ACS pledge aims to boost student graduation rates
The American Chemical Society announced a $2.5 million commitment to help more students complete college, expanding financial and support resources focused on persistence and degree completion. The initiative responds to stubborn attrition in STEM fields, where course sequencing, work obligations, and financial strain can derail progress—especially for first-generation and underrepresented students. ACS says the funds will bolster scholarships and targeted supports intended to keep students enrolled through graduation. Although modest relative to nationwide need, professional-society micro-grants often fill gaps that institutional aid misses and can be scaled if outcomes look strong. The move follows broader conversations in STEM about retention, belonging, and evidence-based advising as levers for diversifying the scientific workforce. (The Scientist)

Directed evolution moves into mammalian cells
A team has unveiled PROTEUS, a platform that evolves proteins directly inside mammalian cells—long a “too hard” challenge compared with bacterial or yeast systems. Built on an engineered Semliki Forest virus chassis with a clever packaging workaround to avoid cheater particles, the method accelerates mutation and selection cycles in human-relevant environments. In proof-of-concept tests, the group improved the sensitivity of the doxycycline-responsive regulator rtTA-3G by roughly six-fold in hamster/human cell models; the gain disappeared in bacteria, underscoring why cell context matters. The approach could streamline therapeutic protein design and gene-regulation tools better tuned for clinical use. Experts call it a promising step toward closing the lab-to-human gap in protein engineering. (The Scientist)

Cornell’s “microwave brain” chip does AI without heavy math
Cornell researchers built what they call the first fully integrated silicon “microwave neural network,” an analog chip that processes ultrafast radio-frequency signals in hardware instead of crunching numbers digitally. By exploiting microwave physics, the tiny device classifies wireless signal types with reported ~88% accuracy while running at tens of gigahertz on about 200 milliwatts—suggesting on-device AI for wearables, secure radios, and edge sensing without cloud dependence. Analog computation trades exactness for speed and efficiency; here, probabilistic processing reduces circuitry and error-correction overhead. The work, published in Nature Electronics, points to niche but potent roles for analog AI in communications, radar, and low-power embedded systems where data are inherently analog. (New Atlas)

A dying star’s “exposed heart” reveals where elements form
Astronomers caught an “extremely stripped” supernova whose blast exposed deep layers, offering a laboratory for how elements like silicon and sulfur are forged. Because the progenitor had shed most of its outer envelope before exploding, light from the supernova carried clearer fingerprints of the inner fusion zones than usual. Analyses connect those spectral lines to specific nucleosynthesis sites, sharpening models for how massive stars build the periodic table prior to collapse. The study, published in Nature on August 21, helps bridge observations with stellar-evolution simulations and may refine estimates of how often such stripped events occur—and how much of certain elements they contribute to galaxies like ours. (Science News)