Thursday, June 11, 2026

Is your dog left-pawed or right-pawed?

June 10, 2026—The science behind the World Cup (there's lots). Plus, the sun and many companions migrated away from the Milky Way's core. And how to know if your dog is left- or right-pawed.

—Andrea Gawrylewski
Chief Newsletter Editor

TODAY'S NEWS

A blonde-colored dog lifts his right paw toward the camera. What a good boy.

Jagoda Matejczuk/500px/Getty Images

Like humans, dogs prefer the left or right hand—er, paw. Here's how to tell if your pup is left-pawed or right-pawed. | 4 min read
Chinese scientists have discovered the largest whale “graveyard” ever found. It contains nearly 500 whale skeletons all collected by chance and spreads across 750 miles of seafloor and five million years of evolutionary history. | 3 min read
The FDA added bemotrizinol, an effective chemical filter that’s been used in sunscreens made in Asia and Europe for decades, to its list of permitted active ingredients in over-the-counter sunscreens. It's the first new entry in more than 20 years. | 5 min read
The Canadian rock duo Angine de Poitrine uses neurobiology, physics and a custom guitar to make viral music. | 4 min read
Americans’ trust in the CDC has plummeted since 2025, a new poll finds. Only 12 percent say they trust the agency's recommendations “a great deal.” | 2 min read
Mathematicians devised a batch of “First Proof” problems to evaluate AI’s usefulness for research-level math. The best AI model o nly got six or seven of the 10 questions right. | 4 min read

World Cup Science

The FIFA World Cup kicks off this week in North America. This wouldn’t be Today in Science without me saying that Science is Everywhere, including at major sporting events. So here’s some of the science behind the World Cup.

The ball: The soccer ball designed for this year’s World Cup is called the Trionda (Spanish for “triwave”). It’s named in honor of the three host nations—the U.S., Mexico and Canada—for the first multinational-hosted World Cup. The trionda ball is based on a tetrahedron, which at first seems the least ball-like of all the possible shapes. A tetrahedron is made of four triangles, three of which meet at every point. The trick in the Trionda design is in the shape of the panels. Though they have three points like a typical triangle, the panels’ edges are curves that fit together to give the ball a more rounded exterior. Learn more about the physics of this ball here.

CHARLY TRIBALLEAU/AFP via Getty Images

Perfect Pitch: FIFA is building temporary natural-grass fields meant to play consistently across 16 stadiums in three countries. But the grass engineers must account for a range of conditions, from open-air heat and rain to roofed venues with managed airflow. If the surface fails at any one of them, it could become part of the game, altering footing, bounce, how quickly the field recovers and, potentially, competitive fairness. Grasses are selected for the local conditions: Warmer venues are using Bermuda grass-based systems; cooler or lower-light ones use cool-season grasses, often with hybrid reinforced fibers. Crews are using grow-lights and monitoring the grass constantly, probing its moisture levels, aerating it for good oxygen flow, and mowing it meticulously. We sat down with an expert in turfgrass management to learn more about how the North American stadiums were outfitted with natural grass.

Pink grow lights illuminate half of a grass field inside a stadium

Pink grow lights illuminate newly laid grass inside a roofed stadium in Arlington, Tex. After installing the temporary pitches, venue crews must keep them alive. Mark Felix / AFP via Getty Images

Disease tracking: An anticipated five million soccer fans from around the world will travel to 16 host cities across three countries and pack stadiums to cheer on their teams, making these events perfect breeding grounds for disease. Dozens of health organizations and research groups have formed an independent surveillance network to track the presence of dangerous pathogens in community wastewater including measles, SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID) and influenza, as well as concerning but less likely threats such as the pathogens that cause dengue fever and Ebola. Wastewater monitoring sites can sense levels of disease in a community by detecting pieces of viral or other pathogenic DNA shed through feces, urine or other bodily fluids into municipal wastewater systems. These data can sometimes reveal community spread of a pathogen days or even weeks before cases spike at hospitals and health care systems.

Migrating Stars

Chemical analyses of the sun show that, given its age and chemical components, it would not have been able to form at its present location. It turns out our sun was born 4.6 billion years ago near the crowded center of the Milky Way and then migrated roughly 10,000 light-years outward. But it did not make this journey alone. Researchers examined satellite tracking data and solar wavelengths of stars and identified a massive group of more than 6,500 stars between six billion and four billion years old—including our sun—that migrated away from the galaxy’s inner region.

Why this is interesting: Observations of the Milky Way have revealed an enormous rotating barlike structure made of gas, dust and millions of stars that slices through our galaxy’s center. This bar creates a distinct gravitational phenomenon known as the corotation barrier, which prevents inner stars from traveling to the galactic outskirts. Computer simulations suggest only about 1 percent of stars born at the sun’s presumed origin site could successfully breach this barrier. And our sun did.

What the experts say: The corotation barrier did not stop the migration of the sun and its cohort, because the barrier was not fully formed when it happened, suggests Daisuke Taniguchi, an astronomer at Tokyo Metropolitan University. In fact, Taniguchi suggests, the growing galactic bar could have pushed the migration forward instead of restricting it.

**A SPECIAL SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN EVENT**

The Young American Scientists 2026

Scientific American’s first-ever Young American Scientists issue takes an unflinching look at the threats facing science today and offers a hopeful look at what comes next. Join Scientific American editors David Ewalt, Megha Satyanarayana, Dan Vergano and Ari Sen for an engaging discussion on the state of American science and how they found the 28 promising young researchers whose work may one day change the world.

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WHAT WE'RE READING

For people with the neuropsychological disorder misophonia, the noise of everyday life can be brutal. | The New Yorker
Antoni Gaudí drew on a centuries-old arch design to build Barcelona's Sagrada Família, the tallest church in the world. | BBC
The largest raw-milk dairy farm in the country is making millions, even though the product makes people sick. | ProPublica

Are you planning to watch any of the World Cup matches in the next couple weeks? Or even attend one in person? Climate scientists warned last month that many matches will likely be under conditions of extreme heat, so if you do venture out please take care. In my opinion, some sports are better watched from an air-conditioned bar.

Reach out to me anytime with comments or feedback on this newsletter: newsletters@sciam.com. We'll be back tomorrow.

—Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor

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Wednesday, June 10, 2026

NASA reveals Artemis 3 astronauts for test flight | New White House proposal could deny science funding | What would NASA's new telescope see on ancient Earth?

Created for ceo.studentlike.spuniv@blogger.com | Web Version

June 10, 2026

Taking you out of this world, every day

The Launchpad

NASA reveals Artemis 3 astronauts for test flight

Happy Wednesday, space fans. We're halfway through!

Yesterday, we saw NASA announce the astronaut crew that will fly on the Artemis 3 mission. The crew is comprised of commander Randy Bresnik of NASA, ESA's Luca Parmitano as pilot, and NASA astronauts Andre Douglas and Frank Rubio as mission specialists. NASA astronaut Bob Hines will also serve as a backup astronaut for the crew. While any new crew announcement is filled with excitement about the mission and getting to know a crew of astronauts, and the astronauts chosen are incredible and accomplished, people were disappointed to not see any women selected for the crew, especially seeing as today women make up nearly 40% of the active astronaut class so it's certainly not a decision made without options.

Beyond Artemis, we also got an exclusive interview with Casey Dreier of The Planetary Society who has issued a strong warning about a proposed new rule that would change how science works in the U.S., moving funding out of the hands of scientists and into the hands of political appointees who could even use scientists' personal social media to make funding decisions. We also have a whole host of incredible and weird new science and the reviews are already rolling in for the newest sci-fi blockbuster "Disclosure Day."

Check out what's big in space below!

What do you think?

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The White House has proposed massive changes to the scientific process in the U.S. which, if passed, could make science funding dependent on the whims of political appointees. "It replaces expertise with political appointees, globally decouples the U.S. and completely guts our scientific ecosystem," one expert said.

It's not too late (yet)

Search for Life

What would NASA's new telescope see on ancient Earth?

A new study analyzed how NASA's Habitable Worlds Observatory might be able to confidently spot biosignatures in the atmosphere of a distant ancient Earth.

A look back in time

Science & Astronomy

'Spacetime crystals' could give birth to tiny black holes

Using just a pen and paper, a team of scientists has calculated how space and time could crystallize to form tiny black holes.

How does it work?

Do galaxies have a 'kill switch' that stops them growing?

Above a certain threshold, galaxies stop growing , no matter how much raw material they have on hand. The question is: what flips the switch?

A kill switch?

SpaceX

SpaceX launched/landed a Falcon 9 booster for 35th time

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket carrying 29 Starlink satellites lifted off from the Cape Canaveral Space Force Station in Florida on Monday, June 8, 2026. The first stage booster flew for a record 35th time.

That's a record

Entertainment

'Disclosure Day' feels like the most exciting sci-fi this year

The director of 'Close Encounters' and 'ET', an original story, 'X-Files'-style conspiracy theories… 'Disclosure Day' is a welcome escape from the mega-franchises.

Do you agree?

Editor's Note

That's it for our space update today!

What do you think of NASA's choice to go with an all-male crew for Artemis 3? Follow along as we continue to see how this mission develops and how this crew compares to the beloved Artemis 2 astronauts. We love them all, but we're curious to see if NASA can capture that same magic another time around as we lead up to the lunar landing with Artemis 4.

We have some interesting new spaceflight news coming up, SpaceX plans to go public later this week (though some politicians are voicing concerns and potentially throwing a wrench in those gears), and as always we have new science on the horizon. We are also counting down to "Disclosure Day" coming out this upcoming weekend. Some are already saying it's the sci-fi film of the year, but with Project Hail Mary still holding a very large place in my heart, that's a big claim so we will have to see if it lives up to the hype. Stay tuned, and I'll see you tomorrow!

Ad astra, per aspera

Chelsea Gohd

Content Manager, Space.com