This Report Could Make or Break the Next 30 Years of U.S. Astronomy

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August 18, 2021

Astronomy This Report Could Make or Break the Next 30 Years of U.S. Astronomy A battle for the future of American stargazing is about to begin—and the stakes are sky high By Lee Billings

Public Health Natural Mosquito Repellent's Powers Finally Decoded Here's how a flower extract keeps off mosquitoes By Rachel Nuwer

Nutrition Wake-up Call: Climate Change Threatens Rice Farming Half the world's population relies on rice as a primary food By Sara Schonhardt,E&E News

Policy Academic Institutions Must Do Better to Protect Caregivers This Fall Schools, colleges and universities that fail to impose mask mandates and other COVID protections put working parents in an excruciating position By 500 Women Scientists

Cosmology When Physicists Follow their Guts Fred Hoyle and George Gamow were brilliant iconoclasts who reached opposite conclusions about the expanding universe (for the record, Gamow was right) By Paul Halpern

Climate Change Climate Hawks Could Take Over Two U.S. Financial Agencies The intent is to blunt the impact of climate change on the U.S. financial system By Avery Ellfeldt,E&E News

Space Exploration 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

Astronomy Astronomer Vera Rubin Taught Me about Dark Matter--and about How to Live Life The groundbreaking scientist ushered in a revolution in how we think about the universe. She also lived by a set of principles that made her an exceptional human being By Ashley Jean Yeager

Public Health England's Rush to Reopen Is a Cautionary Tale for the U.S. Stripping back nearly all public health restrictions comes as the virus still poses a threat By Luke Taylor

Planetary Science Brown Dwarfs Could Reveal Secrets of Planet and Star Formation They're not quite stars and not quite planets but can help us understand both By Katelyn Allers

Mathematics A Deep Math Dive into Why Some Infinities Are Bigger Than Others The size of certain infinite sets has been a mystery. Now, it turns out, each one is different than the next, and they can all be ordered by size By Martin Goldstern,Jakob Kellner

FROM THE STORE Scientific American Volume 325, Issue 3

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FROM THE ARCHIVE U.S. Astronomers Ponder Science Priorities for the 2020s and Beyond The Astro 2020 Decadal Survey kicks off amid turmoil and uncertainty By Nadia Drake | January 2019

QUOTE OF THE DAY "I do believe this Decadal is existential for astronomy in the United States. When you consider the facilities and the science topics that are under discussion, it will influence whether or not we become a second-place player in global astronomy." John O'Meara, chief scientist of the W. M. Keck Observatory

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