After two horror crashes with 346 deaths, the scandalous Boeing 737 Max aircraft is allowed to fly again in large parts of the world.
With the new software, leading aviation authorities now consider the machine to be sufficiently safe.
But is that really it?
Wherever one of these jets is flying - the FAA inspectors won't miss it.
Every single 737 Max sends bulky data packets twice per second.
The FAA receives information on speed and position, but also on the status of technical systems and unusual incidents, almost in real time.
Every day the FAA overseers automatically receive test reports for the weal and woe of every Max in the world.
This is possible because, like all modern aircraft, the machines are equipped with an »ADS-B« transmitter, which usually transmits a number of parameters to ground stations.
Some of this data is also displayed by tracking apps such as Flightradar24.
ADS-B is to be the basis for air traffic control of the future, which will then no longer be based on radar.
The FAA has now signed a contract with the US company Aireon, which uses a network of 66 "Iridium Next" satellites.
With their help, Aireon can collect ADS-B data from aircraft everywhere;
even where this was previously impossible due to a lack of ground stations, for example over the oceans, the poles or the great deserts.
Should a 737 Max get into trouble anywhere, FAA experts in New Jersey could be the first to find out.
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Intermediate Boeing 737 Max at Victorville Airport in California (March 2019)
Photo: Mario Tama / AFP
How important this system can be was already shown in March 2019: Only the data that Aireon was able to present on the crash of the Ethiopian 737 Max convinced the initially hesitant FAA to shut down the machine.
Aireon's service costs money - but maybe it could increase safety above the clouds for all modern aircraft.
One question has not yet been resolved: Who should pay for it?
Stay healthy!
Your Marco Evers
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Abstract
My reading recommendations this week:
What good are the rapid tests from the supermarket?
In Germany, the first three corona rapid tests are approved for lay people.
My colleague Julia Köppe describes how they are checked - and what users have to consider.
21.6 million people in Germany belong to the Corona high-risk group:
According to the Robert Koch Institute, a quarter of all people
in Germany belong to
the high-risk group.
The German forest is dying
: The forests in Germany are doing worse than ever.
A new status report shows that only a fifth of the trees have an intact crown, describes my colleague Philipp Kollenbroich.
"Many medical professionals do not even understand basic statistics."
The rejection of the AstraZeneca vaccine is great, even among doctors - the data speak in favor of the vaccine.
Education researcher Gigerenzer has been warning for years that many medical professionals understand too little about numbers.
Quiz*
1. The boom in video conferencing during the corona crisis is now also occupying science. Psychologists, doctors and educators, for example, explore the phenomenon of
a) "Zoom Fata Morgana"
b) "Zoom Euphoria"
c) "Zoom Dysmorphia"
2. The new age record for the sequencing of DNA is now over a million years, the genetic material comes from
a) early human fossils from Africa
b) mammoths from Siberia
c) a slot weevil from the Eifel
3. Australia's oldest well-dated rock painting is over 17,000 years old and was dated with the help of
a) Wasp nests
b) kangaroo poop
c) a mythical map (»Song Line«)
* You can find the answers at the bottom of the newsletter.
Picture of the week
Icon: enlarge
Etna (on February 16, 2021)
Photo: Salvatore Allegra / AP
Like a planetary fireworks display
, several hundred meter high fountains of glowing lava and ash shot from a crater of Etna in Sicily, one of the most active volcanoes in the world.
Chronicles mentioned him 2500 years ago.
Nut-sized chunks of tuff (lapilli) rain on the provincial capital of Catania.
There is currently no acute danger, but geologists are using a measuring network to monitor the south-eastern flank, which has been sliding towards the sea for a while.
footnote
A neutrino from another galaxy traveled through space for
700 million
years until it was caught by the neutrino detector "Icecube" at the South Pole on October 1, 2019.
The spooky particle probably came from a star in the northern sky that was torn apart by a black hole, celestial researchers report in the journal Nature Astronomy.
The origin of the neutrino could be determined exactly because at the right time an unusual change in brightness was registered by a second observatory in California.
Recommendations from science
Experts: The False Prophets
- Which Virologists Can We Trust and Which Not?
Corona:
Why the Robert Koch Institute is still fighting the chaos of numbers after a year of pandemic
Animals:
Road noise harms birds and insects more than previously known
Environment:
eco air conditioning systems are said to help alleviate global warming
* Quiz answers
1c) "Zoom Dysmorphia" is the term used to describe dissatisfaction with one's own appearance, reinforced by confrontation with one's own face during video conferences.
The »Ärzteblatt« warns: »Elastic surgeons all over the world are currently reporting a boom in demand«, a so-called »zoom boom«.
2a) Paleogeneticists working with the Swede Love Dalén broke the sequencing record with DNA from mammoths that is over a million years old.We talked to him about how this research can also help protect endangered animal species, more on this in the current issue of SPIEGEL.
3a) The dating was successful because some of the mud wasp nests were below and some above the paintings.
The wasp nests themselves can be dated using the radiocarbon method.
