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The 570 megapixel Dark Energy Camera captured this image of the iconic Sombrero Galaxy. The galaxy has characteristics of both elliptical galaxies and spiral galaxies, and is likely the result of multiple mergers and cannibalizations of dwarf galaxies. A faint stellar stream, only fully traced a few years ago, is revealed by DECam's resolving power.

NASA and other space agencies spend a lot of time and money considering the cleanliness of their missions. Billions of dollars are spent in and on cleanrooms every year, with the express effort of ensuring both that the equipment operates without interference, but also that we don’t accidentally contaminate our exploration target with life from Earth itself. So far, we have primarily focused on bacteria in our efforts to stop this contamination, but according to a new paper by Atul M. Chander of NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory and his co-authors, we might be missing an entirely different threat - fungi.

Curiosity has detected a surprising variety of organic molecules on Mars, including compounds tied to the chemistry of life. Some of these molecules may be billions of years old, preserved in ancient clay-rich rocks that once held water. One standout find resembles building blocks of DNA, raising exciting questions about Mars’ past. Although not proof of life, the discovery suggests the Red Planet may have once been far more biologically promising than we thought.

Robots can now run a half-marathon faster than humans and are rapidly homing in on the 100-metre sprint record. But why are companies so keen to create speedy robots that have no obvious application in homes or factories?

I’m a sucker for lists like the NYT’s 100 Best Books of the 21st Century (also archived here), though the list may be a bit premature given that the century is barely one-quarter over. The article notes that the list was compiled by “votes from 503 novelists, nonfiction writers, poets, critics, and other book lovers—with a little help from the staff of the New York Times book review.”

From the intro:

Many of us find joy in looking back and taking stock of our reading lives, which is why we here at The New York Times Book Review decided to mark the first 25 years of this century with an ambitious project: to take a first swing at determining the most important, influential books of the era. In collaboration with the Upshot, we sent a survey to hundreds of literary luminaries, asking them to name the 10 best books published since Jan. 1, 2000.

Stephen King took part. So did Bonnie Garmus, Claudia Rankine, James Patterson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Karl Ove Knausgaard, Elin Hilderbrand, Thomas Chatterton Williams, Roxane Gay, Marlon James, Sarah MacLean, Min Jin Lee, Jonathan Lethem and Jenna Bush Hager, to name just a few. And you can also take part! Vote here and let us know what your top 10 books of the century are.

Sarah Jessica Parker? Jenna Bush Hager? Are those literary luminaries? I don’t think so. Well, there were many real luminiaries and real critics, so we’ll let it pass.

Is it a good list? Well, I’ve heard of many of the books, and the 18 I’ve read (see below) have been good ones. But seriously, there’s no mention of All the Light We Cannot See? (2014; it won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction and is perhaps the best book I’ve read written in this century). Or A Little Life (2015)?  Where is Hamnet (2020)? And for medically related nonfiction, I’d add Bad Blood: Secrets and Lies in a Silicon Valley Startup (2018), about Elizabeth Holmes and the Theranos scam, and Empire of Pain: The Secret History of the Sackler Dynasty,(2021), about the Sackler family’s relentless pushing of opioids. And where, oh where is Rebecca Skloot’s The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks (2010), a book I enthusiastically reviewed? 

I’d also kvetch because there’s only one nonfiction book about science (The Emperor of All Maladies; 2010), though two others are tangentially related to science.  This likely reflects the NYT’s general neglect of the wonders of science.

But I’m sure everyone will find lacunae, and if I thought hard I’d find others. But it doesn’t matter: use the list for suggestions of books to investigate. At least you can tick off the books you’ve read and the paper conveniently compiles a list—and a photo—of the ones you’ve read. Here’s my own list:

I’ve read 18 books on the list. . . .

The Warmth of Other Suns ● The Known World ● Austerlitz ● Never Let Me Go ● The Year of Magical Thinking ● The Road ● The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay ● The Overstory ● Atonement ● H Is for Hawk ● A Brief History of Seven Killings ● The Vegetarian ● The Looming Tower ● Demon Copperhead ● The New Jim Crow ● The Passage of Power ● The Emperor of All Maladies ● The Sympathizer

Again, it biggest gap on their list is “All the Light We Cannot See,” a masterpiece of a book.

And it makes a photo you can use for bragging rights, though I don’t have many:

Some of the best books I’ve read have hyst missed this century, including A Gesture Life (1999) and Troubles (1970). As always, recommend books you like written recently, particularly ones not on this list.

It is long past time the US eliminated gerrymandering, the drawing of district lines specifically for the purpose of favoring one political party, across the board. This requires either a 50 state agreement, or action at the federal level. This has been a problem since near the beginning of our democracy, and seems to be getting worse. We are now in the middle of a mid-decade tit-for-tat rash of gerrymandering that is extremely anti-democratic, so it’s a good time to raise this as an issue voters should definitely understand and prioritize.

As a quick aside – this is not a “political” blog, which does not mean that I never discuss political issues or topics with a political dimension. It partly means that I try my best to by non-partisan, and to avoid purely political value-judgements. I recognize this is an impossible ideal – we all have our biases and perspectives that color our thinking on topics in subtle ways. But we can try. Also, this is not a strictly science blog, it covers science, critical thinking, and media savvy, which are part of what we call scientific skepticism. Recently I started a video podcast, Political Reality, with co-host Andrea Jones Roy, who is a political scientist, for the purpose of applying scientific skepticism to political topics. This is also not a partisan show, and is mostly part civics lesson and part fact-checking. With that in mind, I thought I would write about what science and critical thinking have to say about gerrymandering, given that this is a topic in the news recently, although not as much as I think it should be. We also did cover this topic on Political Reality.

The term gerrymander dates back to 1812 when Massachusetts Governor Elbridge Gerry redistricted his state’s representative districts in order to favor his party, the Democratic Republicans. One of the districts looked like a salamander, leading the Boston Gazette to quip that it was really a “Gerry-mander”, and the name stuck. (Ironically, the two parts of that term, gerry and mander, both kinda sound like they mean “rig”, but the word has nothing to do with that.) Since then all political parties have used gerrymandering to gain unfair advantage. This stems from some features of US politics.

First, we have single representative districts, in a winner-take-all system. Senators are elected state-wide, and so gerrymandering is not an issue. Many countries have multi-representative districts, with representatives being apportioned to the votes – if your party wins 40% of the votes, you get 40% of the representatives. This also, by the way, is part of why we have such a dominantly two-party system – you need to earn a plurality of votes in order to have any representation. A party representing 10% of voters, without a local power base, would have zero representation. Districting, in a fair world, would be designed to share power roughly according to the population. In a state that is 60% party A and 40% party B it seems intuitively fair that party A, on average, should net about 60% of the representatives and party B 40%. Also, districts can be drawn to keep people with similar demographic interests together enough to have their interests represented. This would be partly geographic, but also partly urban vs rural, cultural, and racial.

Gerrymandering happens when one party controls the process of redistricting, usually because they control the state legislature. In our hypothetical 60/40 state, with let’s say 10 representatives, you could draw districts so that all 10 are 60/40, meaning party A would likely win all 10 representatives. You could also use redistricting to specifically disenfranchise specific demographics of voters. With modern data and computers you could theoretically do this with “surgical precision” (as one judge put it).

Partisan gerrymandering causes several problems for democracy. It is often referred to as politicians choosing their voters, rather than voters choosing their politicians, and this is apt. It makes districts less competitive, and often non-competitive, which reduces voter choice. This shifts the real election battle to the primary, which tends to favor more extreme partisan candidates. There is then no incentive to appeal to the middle in the general election because the outcome of that election is all but predetermined. So gerrymandering disenfranchises voters, reduces voter choice, and favors more extreme partisan politicians. This results in greater political polarization among our politicians, which causes dysfunction in Congress. How do we stop this?

The 2019 SCOTUS decision on Rucho vs Common Cause determined that federal courts have no roll to play in deciding questions of redistricting, which should be left entirely to the states. This is a deep issue unto itself – in our federalist system, what rights do congress and federal courts have in controlling how the states manage elections? Under Rucho vs Common Cause, however, Congress still has the right to pass laws to regulate redistricting. So it could be as simple as passing an anti-gerrymandering law. This would be ideal, rather than dealing with this state-by-state, which hasn’t worked. We are seeing what happens when this is left to the states. Some hold to principles, and leave redistricting in the hands of non-partisan committees, or some other reasonable fair process. But many states use their control to unfairly gerrymander their state, which then leads other states to do the same in retaliation. The best solution would therefore involve all 50 states at once.

Congress, however, has failed to pass anti-gerrymandering laws, most recently in 2025. This is typically blamed on political polarization, but also on the fact that many congressmen benefit from gerrymandering, on both sides, and would not want to see their favorable district suddenly become competitive. About 85% of House seats are not competitive (even lass after the recent round of gerrymandering), so that is most representatives. It is likely that only extreme pressure from voters will break this logjam and get us the anti-gerrymandering law we deserve. In fact, I would prefer a constitutional amendment. This is a higher bar to cross, but that’s the point – it would also be far more difficult to undue.

Gerrymandering makes America less democratic, it reduces voter choice, disenfranchises some voters, and increases political extremism and polarization. When asked, 70% of voters say that gerrymandering is bad and we should do something to eliminate it. However, those same voters seem to be OK with it when it is done to the advantage of their own party, justifying it by saying it is necessary because the other side does it. This is another reason why action at the federal level is needed, because that would affect everyone all at once. This is not going to happen, however, unless it comes from the bottom up. Voters need to take control of their own voting rights.

The post We Need to Ditch Gerrymandering first appeared on NeuroLogica Blog.

Quantum physics once shocked scientists by revealing that particles can behave like waves—and now, that strange behavior has been pushed even further. For the first time, researchers have observed wave-like interference in positronium, an exotic “atom” made of an electron and its antimatter partner, a positron. This breakthrough not only strengthens the weird reality of quantum mechanics but also opens the door to new experiments involving antimatter, including the possibility of testing how gravity affects it—something never directly measured before.

The ongoing closure of the Strait of Hormuz has seen energy prices soar, but thanks to solar panels and a home battery, Alice Klein pays just A$25 (£13) a month for her electricity, even when charging an electric car or running an air conditioner

Using nothing but a laser beam, scientists at Texas A&M University have demonstrated that tiny engineered devices can be lifted and steered in three dimensions without any physical contact. This breakthrough could one day form the basis of a propulsion system capable of reaching our nearest neighbouring stars in decades rather than centuries.

Researchers at the Institute of Science Tokyo have developed an origami inspired foldable antenna for CubeSat satellites that weighs just 64 grams yet in orbit, it deploys to two and a half times its stowed size. The antenna folds away neatly for launch and deploys automatically in space, achieving high gain communications performance from a package small enough to fit in your pocket and could one day support missions as far away as the Moon.

“Chiropractors are my kind of people.” RFK Jr. to Chiropractors Not certain who was more insulted, although it appears both sides considered it a compliment. He went on to say, The people who are drawn to this field are people who do critical thinking, who are willing to question orthodoxies and have the courage to stand up against these orthodoxies. Well, critical […]

The post Not Mine first appeared on Science-Based Medicine.

A revolutionary cancer treatment is now being applied to a wide range of autoimmune disorders. Columnist Michael Le Page finds it is proving to be even more effective than expected

This Internet legend claims the Earth's gravity will shut off for seven seconds in 2026.

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A massive cosmic milestone has just been reached: scientists have completed the largest high-resolution 3D map of the universe ever created. Built using data from over 47 million galaxies and quasars, this map could unlock new clues about dark energy—the mysterious force driving the universe’s expansion. Despite setbacks like wildfire disruptions, the international DESI collaboration powered through, gathering an unprecedented dataset that already hints dark energy may behave in unexpected ways.

A massive cosmic milestone has just been reached: scientists have completed the largest high-resolution 3D map of the universe ever created. Built using data from over 47 million galaxies and quasars, this map could unlock new clues about dark energy—the mysterious force driving the universe’s expansion. Despite setbacks like wildfire disruptions, the international DESI collaboration powered through, gathering an unprecedented dataset that already hints dark energy may behave in unexpected ways.

Researchers have, for the first time, directly visualized how electronic patterns known as charge density waves evolve across a phase transition. Using cutting-edge microscopy, they found these patterns form unevenly, breaking into patches influenced by tiny structural distortions. Unexpectedly, small pockets of order persist even above the transition temperature. This reveals that electronic order fades gradually rather than disappearing all at once.

Space travel has taught us valuable lessons for living and working in outer space, specifically regarding how microgravity (often mistakenly called zero-gravity) impacts the human body during short- and long-term spaceflight. This includes decreased muscle and bone mass, fluid shifts, reduced heart rate, psychological health, compromised immune system, and radiation exposure. But with agencies like NASA aspiring to build a lunar base and establish a long-term presence on the Moon, and eventually Mars, how could space travel impact potentially having babies in space?

The Milky Way has a sizable retinue of dwarf galaxies, and they may hold important clues about conditions in the early Universe. However, they're difficult to observe because many of them are so faint. The tiniest ones are called Ultra-faint dwarf galaxies, and a new simulation aimed at how they form is showing how these faint collections of stars and gas mirror the conditions of the early Universe.

These images, released on April 14, 2026, show two open star clusters, Trumpler 3 (left) and NGC 2353 (right). They represent a recent study from NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory that shows how young Sun-like stars are dimmer in X-rays than previously thought. This latest study looked at eight clusters of stars between the ages of […]

I heard this song yesterday on Facebook, where the melody was used as background for a video of a man walking two kimono-clad cats in Kyoto.  I hadn’t heard “Sukiyaki” in many years (it came out in the U.S. when I was 13), but I remembered the tune instantly, though the words of course are in Japanese. The Japanese title was changed for play in other countries, but changed into the name of a dish, for crying out loud. And I didn’t know how popular the song was (see below).

It’s a song of loneliness, though it inspired by politics. The details below are from Wikipedia.

Ue o Muite Arukō” (Japanese: 上を向いて歩こう; “I Look Up as I Walk”), alternatively titled “Sukiyaki“, is a song by Japanese crooner Kyu Sakamoto, first released in Japan in 1961. The song topped the charts in a number of countries, including the U.S. Billboard Hot 100 in 1963. The song grew to become one of the world’s best-selling singles of all time, selling over 13 million copies worldwide.

Sakamoto died at 43 in a plane crash.

“Ue o Muite Arukō” (pronounced [ɯeomɯiteaɾɯkoꜜː]) was written by lyricist Rokusuke Ei and composer Hachidai Nakamura. The lyrics tell the story of a man who looks up while he is walking so that his tears will not fall, with the verses describing his memories and feelings. Ei wrote the lyrics while walking home from participating in the 1960 Anpo protests against the U.S.–Japan Security Treaty, expressing his frustration and dejection at the failed efforts to stop the treaty. However, the lyrics were purposely generic so that they might refer to any lost love

In the US, “Sukiyaki” topped the Billboard Hot 100 chart in 1963, one of the few non-English songs to have done so, and the first in a non-European language. It was the only single by an Asian artist to top the Hot 100 until the 2020 release of “Dynamite” by the South Korean band BTS. “Sukiyaki” also peaked at number eighteen on the Billboard R&B chart, and spent five weeks at number one on the Middle of the Road chart.

Can you name an American chart-topper in a European language? I can!

Here’s “Sukiyaki,” which has both the Japanese words written in English transliteration as well as the English translation.