2026 OSDR AWG Workshop, Dec 2 in DC, before @ASGSRSpace. Open space data for fundamental and applied biomedicine, crew health, life support ->🌘 lunar missions
Register: forms.gle/jks2y618fGbYauAQ7
Agenda: awg.osdr.space/t/register-no…
About AWGs: awg.osdr.space/about

Off the planet and still showing up to vote 🇺🇸

Nitroduck designs new colors, flavors, and disease resistance into fruits and veggies. We integrate CRISPR into breeding through pollen, making any crop gene-editable. Breeding a new specialty crop variety takes 8 - 16 years: breeders hope for random gene combinations and mutations, then spend years picking out the good ones. Meanwhile, consumer tastes, the climate trends, and pathogens change way faster. Now, accessible genome sequencing and AI can tell breeders what to aim for instead of what to hope for, and CRISPR can turn random mutations into chosen ones. The catch is that CRISPR only works on about 15% of crops. It has to go into a single stem cell that’s then regrown into a whole plant, a process that has to be worked out for each variety, which is cost-prohibitive. We skip the stem cell and put CRISPR into a pollen grain. The grain pollinates a flower, and out comes an edited seed - seamlessly tapping into how breeders already work. Matúš, Miro, and I are plant synthetic biologists who made duckweed, the smallest and fastest-growing plant on Earth, genetically engineerable. For doing so we won the Grand Prize at iGEM, the “Olympics of biotech.” During our studies, we engineered 4x more plants than the average plant scientist does in a whole career. Now we’re building Nitroduck, The Crop Design Company, which will make pesticides obsolete by 2042.

A few words from @NASAJPL's new Deputy Director @astro_reid

The future is now.

.@NASAAdmin Jared Isaacman on Artemis III crew visit to the White House: "Not only did the president wanna meet the Artemis III group, we had an opportunity to present to him the largest moon rock we ever brought back from the Apollo era."

California getting a strong 🚀 boost! @Caltech @NASAJPL — maybe some visits to @NASAArmstrong & @NASAAmes too? 😅 Cheers and congrats Reid 💯

Pasadena, California here we come! I am thrilled to join @Caltech and @NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory as they continue their legacy into the next 90 years of deep space exploration... The stars are calling and WE MUST GO!

It was a great day at the White House with President Trump and the talented crew of Artemis III 🇺🇸 The Artemis III crew is led by Commander Randy Bresnik, Pilot Luca Parmitano, and Mission Specialists Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio with Bob Hines backing them up. It is clear @POTUS is the force behind a new era of American leadership in space. His policies include the Artemis program, the Artemis Accords, now signed by 78 nations, and the United States Space Force. Of course, the United States Space Academy is coming soon. With the resources provided to @NASA in the WFTCA, we were able to approach our return to the Moon the right way. We added the Artemis III mission and will now be able to establish humankind’s first outpost on another world, the Moon Base, with its first robotic mission just weeks away. We are rebuilding the workforce and core capabilities at NASA Centers, taking control of our destiny--we are building again. With SR-1 Freedom, we will finally get America underway on nuclear power in space, what should be the dawn of a Nuclear NASA. I am grateful every day to serve as NASA Administrator and to see the talent across our workforce, industry, and international partners changing the world. Together, we are leading the way on the greatest adventure in human history.

Chez ISS season 2 preview: new chefs, new food, and some old connections are coming soon. We've been growing more plants on station to improve our cultivation techniques. Russian kale, dragoon lettuce, wasabi lettuce. The ground is running a similar crop to compare. Cosmonaut Anna Kikina joins us for a taste test!

The space coast under a moonlit night. It's our morning on station 6am UTC.

WHAT A PERFORMANCE 🇺🇸

BEST DAY OF THE WEEK 🇺🇸 🏟️GEODIS Park 🎟️ eagles.rugby 📺 Paramount+

.@NASAAdmin leading the NASA flyover, fast and LOUD!

Yesterday’s bone density scans. This DEXA (Dual-Energy X-ray Absorptiometry) machine uses low dose X-rays to measure bone density and body composition. Without the loading signal of gravity, our bones will leach calcium in space, which can lead to significant losses in bone density. This is why it is so important for us to exercise in space. Thanks to lots of weight lifting on the @Space_Station, the preliminary results show that the bone density in my spine actually increased in space!

The next chapter of human lunar exploration will unfold near the Moon’s South Pole. This interactive lets you tour the region where the Moon Base will take shape and explore its distinctive lighting, rugged terrain, and notable landmarks. Launch the interactive: nasa.gov/moonbase-environmen…

Wow. Go go go go go!

Biology is becoming a proving ground for frontier AI labs. OpenAI acquired Orchestra Bio yesterday. Anthropic is expanding in life sciences. Google has Co-Scientist. And we just introduced X-Scientist at Xaira. My takeaway from building it: the hard part is sustaining scientific judgment across a long investigation. The harness must preserve evidence across sessions, interpret predictions in biological context, recover from failed workflows, and choose informative experiments despite noisy, delayed feedback. Crucially, “the code ran” and “the biology is supported” are very different milestones. With X-Scientist, we’re connecting scientific orchestration, specialized biological models, verification, and autonomous research with experimental feedback as the next step toward a self-improving virtual drug hunter.

Cancer patients with the same diagnosis often have very different tumor biology. Molecular testing can reveal underlying differences, but that's slow and expensive. Introducing Holon-S1, our platform to predict genes and biomarkers from routine pathology slides. • beats two other models at predicting spatial gene activity in a controlled comparison • has identified potentially novel biomarkers in breast cancer and colon cancer • evaluated across 16 organ types and more than 15 scanners, using slides from both formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded and fresh-frozen tissue. We believe Holon-S1 has the potential to help researchers find new biomarkers in slides they already have, discover treatment targets, and bring more personalized cancer care within reach!

First week back on Earth, a brief recap. Busy times with science, medical tests, physical training and of course a very joyous family reunion. Missing weightlessness, but loving Earth!