Independent · Printed Daily · Est. 2026

The Daily Dispatch

Good News EditionWEDNESDAY, JULY 29, 2026Edition: Back to the News

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Lead Story

NASA's Psyche spacecraft aces Mars flyby, capturing timelapse en route to metal asteroid

NASA released data and a timelapse video this week from Psyche's gravity-assist flyby of Mars, which the spacecraft used to gain speed and adjust course toward its ultimate target: the metal-rich asteroid 16 Psyche. The spacecraft passed roughly 2,800 miles above Mars on a trajectory the navigation team had spent years planning, and mission officials said it hit the mark precisely, keeping Psyche on track for its rendezvous with the asteroid in the summer of 2029. Engineers also used the flyby, with Mars standing in for the distant asteroid, to test the spacecraft's science instruments under real planetary conditions ahead of the main mission.

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UK secures funding for all seven of a wildlife trust's species recovery projects

The Game & Wildlife Conservation Trust announced this week that every one of the seven conservation projects it submitted to Natural England's Species Recovery Programme has won government backing, covering sites from Yorkshire and Northumbria to Cumbria and Lancashire. The awards are part of a record £60 million investment under the government's "Wild Again: Restoring England's Wildlife" initiative, which will fund habitat restoration, captive breeding, and reintroductions across 130 projects benefiting 364 threatened species over the next three years, including priority species such as the swallowtail butterfly, white-clawed crayfish, and ghost orchid.

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Scientists pinpoint a protein-folding fix that could protect insulin-making cells

Researchers at Sanford Burnham Prebys Medical Discovery Institute and the University of Michigan reported new detail this week on why insulin-producing beta cells falter as diabetes progresses: proinsulin, insulin's precursor, needs a helper protein called p58IPK working alongside the chaperone BiP to fold correctly, and when p58IPK was missing, misfolded proinsulin built up inside cells. Restoring p58IPK in modified cell lines improved the cells' ability to fold and transport proinsulin and cut the buildup of misfolded copies, pointing toward strengthening cells' protein-folding machinery as a possible strategy to protect insulin production in people with diabetes.

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