Following the successful landing of SN15, SpaceX now plans to attempt to fly a Starship prototype into orbit. In a filing with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the company details how it hopes its next test flight will unfold. According to the document, a Starship craft fitted with a Super Heavy booster will lift from the company's Boca Chica, Texas launch facility. Approximately three minutes into the flight, the booster stage will separate and splash down in the Gulf of Mexico about 20 miles from shore. The Starship rocket will pass over the Straits of Florida before entering orbit and then returning to Earth and attempting to make a soft ocean landing approximately 62 miles off the northwest coast of Kauai.

SCI COMMUN ### Conservation President Joe Biden's administration moved last week to overturn a regulation adopted by his predecessor that eliminated sanctions against companies whose operations accidentally kill migratory birds. Trump administration officials had said the fines should be reserved for intentional deaths—an interpretation that broke with long-standing policy and would have prevented, for example, any penalties against the companies responsible for the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico that killed as many as 1 million birds. Wildlife biologists have said the original, broader enforcement was essential to curtail steep declines in populations of 1100 bird species covered by the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act. Biden's administration would replace Trump's regulation with a new one, which could take months to finalize. Conservation advocates have long proposed a permitting program that would protect companies from legal action for accidental deaths if they adopt practices and technology shown to prevent most bird deaths. ### Energy ![Figure][1] CREDITS: (GRAPHIC) N. CARY/ SCIENCE ; (DATA) GLOBAL ENERGY REVIEW 2021 , IEA Electricity production from renewable sources, led by solar photovoltaics and wind, continued years of steady growth globally during the COVID-19 pandemic, a report says. The production grew 7% in 2020, even as overall demand for electricity dropped and generation from fossil fuels declined. This year, as social restrictions ease and demand climbs, renewable electricity is expected to increase by 8%, the International Energy Agency said last month in its Global Energy Review 2021 . Overall, production from renewables, especially in China, is forecast to provide half the total increase in electricity this year. But power from fossil fuels will grow as well, and analysts say the switch away from coal and other carbon-emitting energy sources is not happening fast enough to reduce the effects of global warming. ### COVID-19 In a move that promises to increase the meager supply of COVID-19 vaccines in poorer countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) last week gave a Chinese-made product the green light. Sinopharm, which makes its vaccine by chemically inactivating the pandemic coronavirus, received an Emergency Use Listing (EUL), a designation WHO gives after reviewing efficacy, safety, and manufacturing practices. It allows the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility, a global consortium promoting equity in vaccine distribution, to purchase and distribute Sinopharm's vaccine. COVAX and Sinopharm are still negotiating a price, and the company says it can increase production. More than 65 million doses have already been administered in 45 countries that have authorized its use. COVAX has struggled to buy affordable vaccines that have EULs—most are too expensive, or supplies were prepurchased by other countries. To date, COVAX has shipped fewer than 60 million doses. ### Vaccines After a protracted internal debate, the Biden administration last week said it supports a proposed international agreement to waive patents on the intellectual property used to make COVID-19 vaccines. The move was hailed by advocates of increased vaccine access and fairness in their distribution, who contend that it will attract new companies to help alleviate a global shortage and reduce costs. But many health officials and vaccinemakers caution that it will not increase supply for many months and that newcomers who want to produce the vaccines face bottlenecks including a lack of technical know-how and widespread shortage of raw materials. ### Public health U.S. regulators on 10 May authorized Pfizer and BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine for use in children ages 12 to 15, expanding availability beyond older teens and adults. The go-ahead is the first in the United States for this age group and a key step in restarting in-person schooling, team sports, and other group activities. The decision by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was expected after the companies announced in March results from a trial of 2260 adolescents in that age group; 18 who received a placebo developed COVID-19 versus none who received the vaccine. Pfizer has said it expects to obtain safety and efficacy data from clinical trials studying children ages 2 to 11 by September, when it plans to ask FDA to permit use in that age group. A small fraction of all Americans who have died from COVID-19 were under age 18, and children who contract COVID-19 tend to have milder symptoms, but some face long-term health problems. However, many U.S. parents remain hesitant to vaccinate their children because of misinformation and because FDA has only authorized COVID-19 vaccines for emergency use, not given them full approval. ### Virology The World Health Organization (WHO) on 10 May designated as a variant of concern a version of the pandemic coronavirus first identified in India in February. Evidence suggests the variant, B.1.617, now found in about 40 countries, is more transmissible than original strains of SARS-CoV-2, WHO said. It is the fourth variant to receive this WHO designation, following ones first found in Brazil, South Africa, and the United Kingdom. ### Governance To be better prepared for the next pandemic, the world needs a Global Health Threats Council akin to the United Nations Security Council, which would bring together country leaders from different regions along with representatives of the private sector and civil society, according to the first comprehensive review of the global response to COVID-19, released on 12 May. The 13-member Independent Panel for Pandemic Preparedness and Response, which was commissioned by the World Health Organization, also proposes creating an International Pandemic Financing Facility with annual funding of $5 billion to $10 billion and giving WHO a bigger budget, more independence, and new powers to investigate outbreaks anywhere in the world, among many other recommendations. The panel was led by two former heads of state, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf of Liberia and Helen Clark of New Zealand, and included public health specialists, diplomats, and economists. “Pandemics pose potential existential threats to humanity and must be elevated to the highest level,” says the report, COVID-19: Make it the Last Pandemic . ### Public attitudes U.S. adults voice varying support for rules by governments and businesses that could require people to prove they received a COVID-19 vaccine before certain in-person activities, such as attending crowded events or entering their office, a Gallup poll reported last week. Most of the 3731 respondents surveyed in April favored proof to travel by airplane (57%) and attend large events such as concerts (55%). But support dipped below a majority for requiring proof to enter one's workplace (45%) or dine indoors at a restaurant (40%). Responses differed by political party affiliation and willingness to be vaccinated. ### Leadership Nancy Messonnier, a top official at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) who drew the ire of former President Donald Trump in February 2020 for her unvarnished public warning about the impending coronavirus pandemic, will leave the agency on 14 May, she told colleagues last week in an email. Two weeks before the email, she had been reassigned from heading CDC's COVID-19 task force, Politico reported. She will join the Skoll Foundation as executive director for pandemics and health systems. At CDC since 1995, Messonnier led the launch of a low-cost meningitis vaccine in Africa and rose to head the agency's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases. After she warned at a press conference 15 months ago that the pandemic might severely sicken many Americans, stock markets plunged, and she did not appear at any subsequent White House briefings. ### Seismology One of the largest seismic research projects in history, used to study structures in Earth's crust and mantle as deep as 3000 kilometers, is ending its run. Begun in 2004 and funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation, the several hundred seismic stations of the Transportable Array collected earthquake data as a way of peering deep inside Earth. The stations were deployed at first in the western states and then were moved east across the country every few years. In 2017, the project's final phase began when the network was transported to Alaska. Pandemic-related delays prompted an extra year of operation, but in early May, more than 80 stations went dark, awaiting collection this summer. Another 100 will remain in Alaska, many of them in remote, previously unmonitored regions, filling gaps in the state's seismic coverage. ### Drug development A psychedelic drug has passed a major milestone by showing evidence of benefit as a supplement to talk therapy for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), researchers report this week. The results came from the first phase 3 clinical trial combining psychotherapy with the drug 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA), popularly called ecstasy, for people with severe, chronic PTSD. The study, sponsored by the Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies (MAPS), recruited 90 people to receive talk therapy during 15 sessions, including three “experimental” ones in which they received either MDMA or a placebo. The MDMA group saw significantly greater improvements on a PTSD symptom scale, the researchers said in Nature Medicine . Two months after the final experimental session, 67% of those who got MDMA no longer met the diagnostic criteria for PTSD, versus 32% of those who got a placebo. MAPS aims to confirm those benefits in a 100-person trial now enrolling volunteers and, in 2023, to seek approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for MDMA-assisted therapy. ### Conservation Researchers are pressing Chile's government to increase protections for whales along its coast against deadly ship collisions. After three whales were found dead during just 8 days in April, 65 Chilean marine mammal specialists issued a public plea for the government to act. They called for rerouting ships away from sensitive regions, setting speed limits, and establishing an alert system to warn vessel pilots of nearby whales. Hundreds of vessels plying Chilean waters pose significant threats to the estimated 40% of the world's cetacean species that frequent them, researchers say. In 2008, Chile declared its entire 6500-kilometer-long coastline a whale sanctuary. But the country's protections for marine mammals still exist only on paper or lack details. The government says it is working to increase safety measures. But researchers say it must commit adequate funding to succeed. ### Space science NASA marked two milestones this week—the final tests on Earth of its next marquee space telescope, and the start of a long journey home for a trove of asteroid rocks. NASA engineers are wrapping up testing on the giant gold-tinted mirror of the James Webb Space Telescope. Afterward, the long-delayed, $9 billion observatory will be shipped off to French Guiana for launch on 31 October. Also this week, NASA's OSIRIS-REx probe began its 2-year flight back to Earth from the asteroid Bennu, carrying up to 400 grams of rocky chunks the spacecraft collected from its surface. It will be the largest U.S. haul of rocks collected in space since the Apollo program, and NASA's first from an asteroid. ### Aquaculture Nutrition expert Shakuntala Haraksingh Thilsted was awarded the World Food Prize this week for research that used aquaculture to improve the diets of millions of people across Asia and Africa. Thilsted, who began her career at Trinidad and Tobago's Ministry of Agriculture, Land & Fisheries, now heads nutrition research at WorldFish, a nonprofit research center in Penang state in Malaysia. In Bangladesh, she studied small, native fish species widely eaten by farmers. Thilsted identified micronutrients the fish contain and their valuable role in the healthy development of infants and toddlers; adding these fish also helps the body absorb other micronutrients in rice and vegetables. She developed ways to cheaply raise fish, combining large and small species in ponds, which increases production. These methods have helped make Bangladesh one of the world's top aquaculture producers. [1]: pending:yes

AI may benefit or represent a threat to humanity in many ways in numerous fields such as education, environment, health, defense, transportation, space exploration and so on. To avoid potential drifts of AI and benefit as much as possible from its advantages, AI must be controlled by normative frameworks. Yet, setting legal norms is a difficult and time-consuming process. Therefore, ethics is seen as a convenient and acceptable alternative to laws, since conversely to laws, it is flexible, easy, and quickly adjustable, and less constraining than formal rules. The number of Ethics code that have been issued around the world demonstrates the need to regulate AI while avoiding formal legal constraint.

In the past 10 years, hundreds of projects have applied artificial intelligence (AI) to creating social good. The right tool applied to an appropriate problem has the potential to drastically improve millions of lives through better service delivery and better-informed policy design. But what kind of investments do AI solutions need to be successful, and which applications have the most potential for social impact? AI excels at helping humans harness large-scale or complex data to predict, categorize, or optimize at a scale and speed beyond human ability. We believe that more targeted, sustained investments in AI for social impact (sometimes called "AI for good")--rather than multiple, short-term grants across a variety of areas--are important for two reasons.

Sen. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., on introducing legislation aimed at increasing national security. During his first press conference as president, Joe Biden claimed that border officials were "sending back the vast majority of the families" arriving at our southern border. Unfortunately, as every outlet that covered the issue has since reported, Biden's statement has proven false. Before he took the oath of office, then-candidate Biden was on the campaign trail promising amnesty and open borders. Now, Biden's refusal to enforce the law is allowing thousands of migrants to cross the border illegally every day, even as overworked Customs and Border Patrol agents collect, transport, and process thousands more.

South Korea unveiled plans to spend roughly $450 billion to build the world's biggest chipmaking base over the next decade, joining China and the U.S. in a global race to dominate the key technology. Samsung Electronics Co. and SK Hynix Inc. will lead more than 510 trillion won of investment in semiconductor research and production in the years to 2030 under a national blueprint devised by President Moon Jae-in's administration. They'll be among 153 companies fueling the decadelong push, intended to safeguard the nation's most economically crucial industry. Moon will get a briefing from chip executives on the initiative Thursday during a visit to the country's most advanced chip factory, a Samsung plant south of Seoul. The investment comes at a time when the U.S., China and the European Union seek to shore up their semiconductor capabilities after a global chip shortage exposed a reliance on just a handful of Asian manufacturers and hobbled efforts to repair pandemic-scarred economies.

It has been predicted that if recent advancement in machine learning continue uninterrupted, human-level or even superintelligent Artificially Intelligent (AI) systems will be designed at some point in the near future [1]. Currently available (and near-term predicted) AI software is subhuman in its general intelligence capability but it is already capable of being hazardous in a number of narrow domains [2], mostly with regard to privacy, discrimination [3, 4], crime automation or armed conflict [5]. Superintelligent AI, predicted to be developed in the longer term, is widely anticipated [6] to be far more dangerous and is potentially capable of causing a lot of harm including an existential risk event for the humanity as a whole [7, 8]. Together the short-term and long-term concerns are known as AI Risk [9]. An infinite number of pathways exists to a state of the world in which a dangerous AI is unleashed [10].

Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques are used increasingly in many areas of applications, including banking and finance. They have several advantages over traditional statistical methods: i) ability to handle new data types such as text, audio, and images; ii) flexible models that yield excellent predictive performance; and iii) ability to automate many of the routine, and time-consuming, tasks in model development. However, the use of these algorithms also raise several challenges. A well-known problem is the opaqueness of ML models and the difficulties in understanding and interpreting the model results. In this paper, we focus on a related and equally important challenge: potential for bias and lack of fairness when using AI/ML techniques.

The recent growth of web video sharing platforms has increased the demand for systems that can efficiently browse, retrieve and summarize video content. Query-aware multi-video summarization is a promising technique that caters to this demand. In this work, we introduce a novel Query-Aware Hierarchical Pointer Network for Multi-Video Summarization, termed DeepQAMVS, that jointly optimizes multiple criteria: (1) conciseness, (2) representativeness of important query-relevant events and (3) chronological soundness. We design a hierarchical attention model that factorizes over three distributions, each collecting evidence from a different modality, followed by a pointer network that selects frames to include in the summary. DeepQAMVS is trained with reinforcement learning, incorporating rewards that capture representativeness, diversity, query-adaptability and temporal coherence. We achieve state-of-the-art results on the MVS1K dataset, with inference time scaling linearly with the number of input video frames.

Questions of fairness, robustness, and transparency are paramount to address before deploying NLP systems. Central to these concerns is the question of reliability: Can NLP systems reliably treat different demographics fairly and function correctly in diverse and noisy environments? To address this, we argue for the need for reliability testing and contextualize it among existing work on improving accountability. We show how adversarial attacks can be reframed for this goal, via a framework for developing reliability tests. We argue that Figure 1: How DOCTOR can integrate with existing reliability testing -- with an emphasis on interdisciplinary system development workflows. Test (left) and system collaboration -- will enable rigorous development (right) take place in parallel, separate and targeted testing, and aid in the enactment teams. Reliability tests can thus be constructed independent and enforcement of industry standards. of the system development team, either by an internal "red team" or by independent auditors.