Billionaire’s historic spacewalk, UK classifies DCs as critical, and AI predicts 1000s of diseases early

Billionaire Jared Isaacman becomes first private spacewalker

American billionaire Jared Isaacman has become the first to participate in a private spacewalk.

Spacewalks — when astronauts leave their capsules while in space — can be highly dangerous and have previously been reserved by trained experts.

Isaacman was the first to leave SpaceX’s Dragon capsule, following an unexplained four-hour delay, to carry out the walk against the background of the Earth.

“It’s gorgeous,” he said, in awe of what he could see, as he eased out of the spacecraft into the vacuum of space, hundreds of miles from Earth.

The mission, named Polaris Dawn, tested a new line of spacesuits that are much slimmer than those worn by NASA astronauts. It is the first of three missions funded by Shift4 founder Isaacman.

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UK classifies data centres as “critical national infrastructure”

UK data centres will be classified as critical national infrastructure, meaning they will receive extra government support during major incidents.

Data centres will join the emergency services, finance, and healthcare systems in being deemed critical to daily life. This means extra steps will be taken to minimise disruption in the event of incidents such as extreme weather or a cyber-attack.

The new Labour government is backing the IT sector, as data centres are “the engines of modern life,” according to Technology Secretary Peter Kyle.

The decision follows a consultation launched by the previous government to determine if data centres should join the 13 other critical national infrastructure sectors.

This means that the government will establish a team of expert officials tasked with monitoring potential threats against data centres and coordinating a response in the case of a serious outage.

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Australian PM plots social media ban for youths

Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has unveiled plans to trial age verification technology on social media platforms ahead of a potential ban to be introduced later this year.

The Australian government intends to set a minimum age for children to access social media due to concerns about mental and physical health. Albanese said this would likely be between 14 and 16.

The law would be one of the first in the world to impose an age restriction on social media and would have a major impact. Around four in five of Australia’s 26 million people reportedly use some form of social media.

“I want to see kids off their devices and onto the footy fields, swimming pools, and the tennis courts,” Albanese told the Australian Broadcasting Corp.

“We want them to have real experiences with real people because we know that social media is causing social harm.”

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AI tests predict thousands of diseases early

According to research from AstraZeneca, artificial intelligence can now detect more than 1,000 diseases long before symptoms appear.

A new AI algorithm named MILTON examines patient test results to find patterns that help it predict future disease diagnoses with a high degree of confidence.

According to AstraZeneca, MILTON can predict ailments years in advance. The biopharmaceutical company said it would make the tool freely available to other researchers so they can develop diagnostic tests that could boost preventative care.

It took data from 500,000 people who signed up to the UK Biobank, a repository of health information. MILTON analysed data from 67 routine biomarkers, such as blood and urine samples, to detect subtle patterns that would be invisible to the human eye, highlighting potential diseases.

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