NASA Just Broke the 'Venus Curse': Here's What It Took

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June 03, 2021

Space NASA Just Broke the 'Venus Curse': Here's What It Took Despite the best efforts of scientists eager to study Earth's sister world, U.S. efforts to send a dedicated spacecraft to Venus languished—until NASA made a surprising announcement By Robin George Andrews

Space NASA Picks Two Missions to Explore Venus, the First in Decades The space agency's DAVINCI+ and VERITAS missions could spark a sea change in planetary science when they launch later this decade By Robin George Andrews

Weather Record Heat Bakes Drought-Stricken West Blistering temperatures add to concerns of a potentially devasting wildfire season By Anne C. Mulkern,E&E News

Evolution Puppies Understand You Even at a Young Age, Most Adorable Study of the Year Confirms Researchers in the happiest lab in the world tested 375 pups and found they connected with people by eight weeks By Karen Hopkin,Christopher Hopkin | 04:25

Biology Century-Old Textiles Woven from Fascinating Fungus Researchers pinpoint the mycelial source of museum artifacts By Cypress Hansen

Public Health Fixing Medical Devices That Are Biased against Race or Gender Designers should show how well instruments perform across different populations By Claudia Wallis

Policy & Ethics As Health Care Workers, We Stand in Solidarity with Palestine Israel continues to deny Palestinians essential care and resources By Osaid Alser,Ariän El-Taher,Asmaa Rimawi,Sabreen Akhter,Nusheen Ameenuddin,Anand Chukka,Qaali Hussein,Bryan Leyva

Engineering New 3-D-Printed Material Is Tough, Flexible--and Alive Made from microalgae and bacteria, the new substance can survive for three days without feeding. It could one day be used to build living garments, self-powered kitchen appliances or even window coverings that sequester carbon. By Sarah Vitak | 05:23

Public Health Excess Deaths Reveal the Pandemic's Hidden Toll in Some U.S. Counties A detailed analysis suggests that COVID deaths and other pandemic-related mortality may have been significantly undercounted in the rural South and West By Tanya Lewis

Natural Disasters Hurricanes Threaten 32 Million U.S. Homes The at-risk properties have a combined value of $8.5 trillion, according to a new report By Thomas Frank,E&E News

Policy & Ethics Creative Thinking in both Science and the Arts Is Not for the Faint of Heart To put it another way, be yourself; everyone else is already taken By Avi Loeb

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 324, Issue 6

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FROM THE ARCHIVE Is There Really Life on Venus? There's Only One Way to Know for Sure If phosphine detected on the planet next door is really a signature of alien biology, we can send a space probe to find out By David Grinspoon | September 2020

QUOTE OF THE DAY "Only Venus can tell us why our home planet is unique in our solar system and the likelihood of actually finding Earth 2.0 around another star." Sue Smrekar, planetary geophysicist at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory

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