125. First Planetary Defense Test, Faster Cheaper Gene Sequencing, United Airlines’ $1 Billion Bet

Summary: Show Notes: Google Fiber Revs Up Its Multi-Gig Speeds to 20Gbps in Newest Field Test |  CNET (01:29)  Google Fiber CEO Dinni Jain announced Tuesday via blog post that 20 gigs is coming, The company achieved a 20.2Gbps download speed in a field test in Kansas City Google Fiber currently offers two plan options: 1-gigabit download speeds for $70 per month and a 2-gig plan for $100 monthly.  cheapest 2Gbps plan among major internet providers CNET reached out to a Google Fiber spokesperson, and was told that more information will be on the way in the coming weeks. No word yet on pricing or when to expect the plan to be available to customers. A 25Gbps speed tier from EPB costs around $1,500 per month According to Google Fiber's CEO this is just the beginning: “In the coming months, we'll have announcements to dramatically expand our multi-gigabit tiers. These will be critical milestones on our journey to 100 Gig symmetrical internet." NASA crashes DART spacecraft into asteroid in world's 1st planetary defense test | Space.com (06:45) For the first time in history, a spacecraft from Earth has crashed into an asteroid to test a way to save our planet from extinction.  Spacecraft: NASA's Double Asteroid Rendezvous Test (DART) probe Asteroid: Dimorphos, 7 million miles (11 million kilometers) from Earth The goal of the mission was to change the orbit of the space rock around its larger asteroid parent Didymos . Trying to test if humanity could deflect a dangerous asteroid if one was headed for Earth. Elena Adams, DART's mission systems engineer, said that “our first planetary defense test was a success”   The golf cart-sized DART (1,320 pounds) spacecraft slammed into the asteroid at 14,000 mph. Would be enough to move the 534-foot-wide (163 meters) Dimorphos a bit faster (10 minutes faster) in its orbit around its parent.  Poses no risk of changing the binary system's orbit to come anywhere near Earth.  The DART mission is the first demonstration of what NASA calls a "kinetic impactor" for planetary defense: crashing a spacecraft into an asteroid to change its orbit. Basic method to protect the Earth if a potentially dangerous asteroid were spotted five or 10 years before a prospective impact.  Angela Stickle, the leader of DART's impact working group, said the team's simulations and models suggest the spacecraft would likely create a crater up to 65 feet (20 m) wide.  Images Show Huge Plume of Debris as NASA Probe Smashes Asteroid  A vast network of ground-based telescopes were trained on the event and will be following the binary Didymos-Dimorphos system over time to see how much faster Dimorphos is now moving in its orbit.  The Era of Fast, Cheap Genome Sequencing Is Here | WIRED (13:35) At an industry event in San Diego today, genomics behemoth Illumina unveiled what it calls its fastest, most cost-efficient sequencing machines yet, the NovaSeq X series. Illumina controls around 80 percent of the DNA sequencing market globally The company believes its new technology will slash the cost to just $200 per human genome while providing a readout at twice the speed. Currently costs $600 for scientists to perform sequencing Sequence 20,000 genomes per year; its current machines can do about 7,500 Francis deSouza, Illumina’s CEO, states:  “As we look to the next decade, we believe we’re entering the era of genomic medicine going mainstream. To do that requires the next generation of sequencers … We need price points to keep coming down to make genomic medicine and genomic tests available much more broadly.” Stacey Gabriel, chief genomics officer at the Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard, states they have been “waiting for this for a long time.” She continues to talk about the benefits of the new tech: “With greatly reduced costs and greatly increased speed of sequencing, we can sequence way more samples.” A major benefit of cheaper and more efficiency sequencing