December 5, 2024: Can scientists save Earth from an incoming asteroid? Also, curiosity fuels lifelong learning and memory, and we sit down with Anthony Fauci. —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | | | Jared Isaacman. Patrick T. Fallon/AFP via Getty Images | | | • President-elect Donald Trump has tapped Jared Isaacman, a billionaire entrepreneur, aviator and private astronaut, to lead NASA. He already has big plans for the space agency. | 2 min read | | | • The Hawaiian crow, or 'alalā, has been extinct in the wild since 2002. This week, conservationists released five young birds on the slopes of the Haleakalā volcano on the island of Maui. | 4 min read | | | • Fast fashion (think stores like Zara and Shein) has a heavy environmental footprint. It is responsible for an estimated 8 to 10 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions per year, plus tens of millions of tons of waste. | 4 min read | | | Scientific American sat down with Anthony Fauci, former 40-year director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, to discuss his experience with COVID—and what he thinks the future might hold in terms of bird flu and other potential pandemics. Listen to the full interview here. | | | Are you enjoying this newsletter? If you want to dive deeper into the articles I link to, consider a subscription to Scientific American. We have special discounts for Today in Science readers! | | | Contrails left by the Chelyabinsk meteor over Russia. Alex Alishevskikh | In 2013, an asteroid exploded just 15 miles above Earth's surface, creating a huge fireball that briefly outshone the sun in the sky. The resulting shock wave shattered windows in the nearest town, more than 40 miles away in Chelyabinsk, Russia. The impactor had escaped detection by astronomers.
What's new: Since the 2013 impact, scientists have discovered an additional 200,000 near-Earth asteroids, more than had been found in all of history up to 2013. In 2022 NASA's Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) slammed a spacecraft into a small asteroid and slowed its orbit by about a half hour, successfully altering the cosmic body's trajectory.
The future: The Chelyabinsk asteroid took us by surprise but it won't be the last, writes Phil Plait, astronomer and science communicator. Bigger impactors are rare, but we're sharpening our detectors and tools to be able to deal with them. In fact, "thanks to new projects such as NEO Surveyor and the Vera Rubin Observatory, within a decade or two we'll have found upward of 90 percent of the asteroids that may threaten Earth in the next hundred years," says science journalist Robin George Andrews, who this year published a new book, How to Kill an Asteroid: The Real Science of Planetary Defense. | | | Curiosity Wires the Brain | | | Curiosity plays important roles in the human brain. Infants are naturally curious. And the drive to know primes neural memory circuits, forming the basis for learning and retaining information. In a 2014 study, participants rated a series of questions by how curious they were about them: What Beatles single lasted longest on the charts? What is the only known place on Earth where trees have square trunks? The participants sat in an fMRI machine and waited 14 seconds for the answers. The brain imaging revealed increased activity in the hippocampus, critical to creating memories. Plus, people were better able to remember answers to the questions they'd been most curious about.
Why this is interesting: Curiosity can be delectable (it triggers the release of dopamine and feelings of reward). Studies show that people happily avoid spoilers so as not to miss out on the delicious experience of an unfolding drama or result. Curiosity can even be somewhat distressing. For example, some people who are so desperate to know the secret behind a magic trick have been willing to accept mild electric shocks to satisfy their curiosity.
What the experts say: "There's probably a drive that evolved to learn new stuff and gather information because 99 percent of the time in the natural world, for an animal, information is useful," says Jennifer Bussell, a postdoctoral researcher at the Zuckerman Institute. If the brain builds a system that regards gathering information and reducing uncertainty as rewarding, "that kind of solves the problem," she says. | | | • What helps people bounce back from adversity? In a study of musicians who struggled to book gigs and make a living during the COVID pandemic, boosting feelings of hope was far more motivating than practicing mindfulness (a popular tool for fostering resilience). "Those who maintained a hopeful outlook reported higher levels of work-related resilience and engagement, even as their industry remained in limbo," writes Kristin Scott, a professor of management at Clemson University. | 5 min read | | | A lot has happened since health reporter Tanya Lewis last interviewed Anthony Fauci at the start of the COIVD pandemic in 2020. "He is a straight-talker, and this time was no different," Lewis tells me. "He acknowledged the successes and mistakes made during the pandemic, and warned about the dangers of ignoring bird flu and of increased polarization." Though I doubt he remembers, when I was a cub reporter working at The Scientist magazine, I interviewed Fauci in 2007 about the latest HIV research. I was struck by his willingness to talk to a junior journalist. His commitment to communicating science to the public was evident. | I love hearing from you. Send your suggestions and questions to: newsletters@sciam.com. See you tomorrow! | —Andrea Gawrylewski, Chief Newsletter Editor | P.S. In case you were dying to know, the Beatles' most durable hit was Hey Jude. And square-trunked trees are found in Anton Valley in Panama. | | Subscribe to this and all of our newsletters . | | | | Scientific American
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