The Morning After: Dune-inspired spacesuit recycles astronauts’ urine into drinkable water

A new space suit designed by scientists at Weill Cornell Medicine and Cornell University, inspired by Frank Herbert’s Dune, could make spacewalks longer and less disgusting by recycling expelled urine in a special filtration backpack.

The traditional NASA spacesuit design has been in circulation since the 1970s and only has an absorbent polymer to catch astronauts’ urine. This outdated waste system has also led to hygiene and medical issues, like urinary tract infections (UTIs) and gastrointestinal problems, for astronauts. It’s not just for sci-fi whimsy.

The new ‘stillsuits’ have a “vacuum-based external catheter leading to a combined forward-reverse osmosis unit” astronauts carry on their back. The suits were designed for future NASA space missions, including the Artemis II and Artemis III missions, both headed to the moon. However, NASA hasn’t adopted this spacesuit or its technology yet.

Oh, and prime yourself: Amazon’s Prime Day kicks off tomorrow.

— Mat Smith

The biggest stories you might have missed

What to read this week: An astronaut’s journey and queer horror that bites back at cliché

The best budget Android phone for 2024

Amazon’s AI chatbot Rufus is now live for all US customers

You can get these reports delivered daily direct to your inbox. Subscribe right here!

OpenAI whistleblowers want SEC probe into NDAs

They say the NDAs keep employees from speaking out on safety risks.

Whistleblowers penned a letter to the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) alleging that OpenAI employees were made to sign “illegally restrictive” agreements preventing them from speaking out on the potential harms of the company’s technology. The whistleblowers ask the SEC to “take swift and aggressive steps” to enforce the rules they say OpenAI has violated. They allegedly include making employees sign agreements “that failed to exempt disclosures of securities violations to the SEC” and requiring employees to get consent from the company before disclosing confidential information to the authorities. The letter also says OpenAI’s agreements required employees to “waive compensation intended by Congress to incentivize reporting and provide financial relief to whistleblowers.”

Continue reading.

There’s finally a retro PC emulator on the App Store

But you’ll need to download virtual machines.

Retro PC game emulator UTM SE is now available on the App Store for iPhone, iPad and Apple Vision Pro, marking the first time Apple has allowed a PC emulator for iOS onto its marketplace. You’ll first need to either download a pre-built virtual machine — several of which UTM offers for free on its website — or you can create your own from scratch.