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A spacecraft is only as strong as its power source, which is why when NASA was designing its Perseverance Mars rover, the agency turned to radioactive plutonium. The plutonium that will be blasting off the planet on Thursday (July 30) isn’t in the same form as is used for weapons, and it’s well protected in case something happens to go wrong during the launch. But these plutonium units are a respected power source for spacecraft—NASA’s Curiosity rover runs on a similar device....

CLIMATEWIRE | Women in much of the world are more prone than men to shocks related to drought and desertification because of systemic sexism, according to a U.N. report. That’s due largely to a lack of land rights and social equity that excludes women from accessing capital, training, technical assistance and the halls of power. Commissioned by the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, the report finds that women who often engage in agricultural practices are not recognized as farmers because of gender norms....

For 30 years, scientists have hunted for elusive quarry in the sizzling ashes of the most famous supernova in recent history. On February 23, 1987, astronomers watched in awe as a star in a nearby galaxy exploded, the closest known instance of a supernova in the last 400 years. Around the world, stargazers immediately trained their telescopes in the dying star’s direction, expecting to see a new object—a neutron star—born in the supernova’s wake....

Strange radio signals have been spotted coming from the vicinity of a nearby star—but don’t get your hopes up that aliens are responsible. On May 12, the 1,000-foot-wide (305 meters) Arecibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico detected “some very peculiar signals” apparently emanating from Ross 128, a red dwarf star that lies just 11 light-years from Earth. “The signals consisted of broadband quasi-periodic nonpolarized pulses with very strong dispersion-like features,” Abel Mendez, director of the Planetary Habitability Laboratory at the University of Puerto Rico, wrote in a statement late last week....

Dear EarthTalk: Three regions in California recently implemented transportation plans as part of a statewide strategy for cutting greenhouse gas emissions. Can you explain?—Bill Oakes, Reno, Nev. Americans are becoming increasingly concerned about global warming even as Washington politicians continue to debate whether or not to mandate emissions cutbacks. In lieu of federal action, some states and municipalities are taking action on their own to reduce fossil fuel use and greenhouse gas emissions....

A climate scientist says Facebook is restricting her ability to share research and fact-check posts containing climate misinformation. Those constraints are occuring as groups that reject climate science increasingly use the platform to promote misleading theories about global warming. The groups are using Facebook to mischaracterize mainstream research by claiming that reduced consumption of fossil fuels won’t help address climate change. Some say the planet and people are benefitting from the rising volume of carbon dioxide that’s being released into the atmosphere....

After her teenage daughter tested positive for the novel coronavirus this past January, Jennifer Scruggs got to work disinfecting surfaces in their home in Bethpage, N.Y. Then she noticed that she couldn’t smell the Lysol she was spraying. “Uh-oh—this wasn’t a good sign,” she recalls thinking. “So I got tested, and sure enough, I was positive for COVID.” Scruggs, an administrative employee at Northwell Health, a network of hospitals and clinics based in Long Island, N....

There’s a reason your mother told you to look people in the eye when you talk to them: eye contact conveys important social cues. Yet when someone holds your gaze for more than a few seconds, the experience can take on a different tenor. New work elucidates the factors that affect whether we like or loathe locking eyes for a lengthy period. Researchers have long known that eye contact is an important social signal....

The day after Valentine’s Day, flower bouquets from sweethearts around the world begin to fade. A rose’s vibrant red dulls to dried-out brown, and flowers begin to droop. Some say adding a citrus-flavored soda, such as 7-Up or Sprite, or an alcohol like vodka to the vase of water will lengthen the time these flowers remain beautiful. According to floriculturists, they are right; if the mixture of soda and water is in the correct proportion, a bouquet will remain bright, because the combination provides the flowers with the water and food they need....

The gently curved lentil served as the namesake for the similarly shaped lens. Future cameras, however, may focus light by relying on flat lenses. Physicists are making major advancements with planar lenses that can scatter and bend rays of light, sans bulge. As we dream of smartphones that could roll up or slip into a wallet, laboratory researchers have made inroads with flexible circuits, batteries and displays. The millimeters-thick camera lens, however, stands in the way, especially in cases where corrective lenses are necessary to overcome imperfections that would otherwise yield blurry images....

NEW YORK—A new approach to stopping hospital infections. A framework for identifying genes critical to developing better cancer therapies. Those were the winning projects in the 10th annual Siemens Competition in Math, Science & Technology announced this morning at New York University in Manhattan. The Siemens Foundation, the nonprofit arm of the multinational technology company, gave away $500,000 in college scholarships to 18 top high school researchers for projects declared “superb” by physics Nobel laureate and lead judge Joseph Taylor....

Under the Obama administration’s proposed rule for power-sector carbon emissions, states are given wide latitude in charting their paths to compliance. The plan’s flexibility is one of its cardinal selling points— although U.S. EPA may set state-specific targets, it’s up to the states themselves to decide how to get there. As a result, the process could result in as many different approaches to carbon reduction as there are states covered under the rule....

If you had to guess the organ that has undue influence on your emotions, your mood, even your choices, what would you guess? The brain? Sure, but what else? The heart—that mythological seat of the soul? Not quite. The stomach? You’re getting warmer. Would you believe it’s the large and small intestine, collectively known as the gut? More specifically, it’s the trillions of bacteria—the microbiota—that live in your gut. Each of us carries up to four and a half pounds of bacteria around in our guts at any given time....

Lifestyle Link? “Playing Defense against Lou Gehrig’s Disease,” by Patrick Aebischer and Ann C. Kato, was an excellent and hopeful summary of current research on amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS). But the last paragraph, which suggests that lifestyle may play a role in the development of ALS (and which mentions that regular exercise offers some protection against neurodegenerative diseases), seems to have little to do with the research described in the article....

What is the best way to seduce a virgin so that neither she–nor your wife–notices? The Greek god Zeus devised a crafty plan after he observed the lovely Princess Europa gathering flowers by the sea and was immediately overcome by desire. Zeus took the form of a bull and walked gently over to Europa and let her pet him. The bull seemed so peaceful to Europa that she trustingly climbed on his back–whereupon the animal plunged into the sea, absconding with the lady....

In his new book, In Pursuit of the Unknown: 17 Equations That Changed the World, Ian Stewart recounts one of the worst jokes in the history of science. You can develop your own setup from first principles once you know the punch line: “The squaw on the hippopotamus is equal to the sum of the squaws on the other two hides.” Never mind how Native Americans were in possession of a hippopotamus—the important thing is that the Pythagorean theorem is so well known that comedy writers consider it fair game even if that game couldn’t possibly be found on the correct continent....

Easter Island’s colossal statues loom large—both literally and figuratively—in the popular imagination. The massive heads and torsos dot the landscape like stone sentinels, standing guard over the isle’s treeless, grassy expanse. The statues have inspired widespread speculation, awe, and wonder for centuries. But the island, called Rapa Nui by its Indigenous people, has also captured the world’s imagination for an entirely different reason. Rapa Nui is often seen as a cautionary example of societal collapse....

The central dogma of modern biology holds that genetic information is inherited in the form of DNA, copied into RNA and expressed as protein; pride of place goes to DNA. But the spectacular discovery that a species of plant can summon up genes its parents have lost highlights biologists’ increasing recognition of RNA as a more versatile and important molecule in its own right. RNA already has a special place among biological molecules....

Trump met with David Gelernter—a computer scientist at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, and a critic of liberal academia—on January 16. And on January 13, Trump met with William Happer, a physicist at Princeton University in New Jersey who rejects the notion that carbon dioxide emissions from human activities will cause dangerous levels of global warming. Several media reports have identified the two men as contenders for the science-adviser job....

An early indication that the Biden administration would seek to elevate the importance of science in decision-making was the announcement that the director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy would be a Cabinet level position. It set a pattern that the administration would give science a prominent role in a wide range of policy matters. While this strengthens the role of science and offers hope that the U....