In a stellar step forward for planetary science, Japan successfully launched a spacecraft on October 19th, headed for the mysterious moons of Mars. The mission aims to collect soil samples and bring them back to Earth for the first time in history.⁠

The Martian Moons eXploration mission, known as MMX, lifted off from Tanegashima Space Center aboard Japan's H3 rocket at 3:41 p.m. EDT (4:41 a.m. local time the next day). 

Led by the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), this five-year, $578 million international effort brings together partners from NASA, France's CNES, Germany's DLR, and the European Space Agency in a shared quest to unlock secrets of our solar system.⁠

The roughly 5-ton spacecraft is expected to arrive at Mars by late summer 2027, where it will closely study the planet's two small, potato-shaped moons—Phobos (about 14 miles or 22 km across) and the even smaller Deimos. Then it will attempt something never done before: landing on Phobos to gather samples of its surface.

Scientists are eager to understand how these curious moons formed. Were they created from debris after a giant impact

An 86-year-old man named Dale has spent nearly four decades welding a 62-foot steel boat in his front yard.

Now, a wave of kindness is bringing his long-held dream within reach—just when it seemed to be beyond his reach. 

Dale, from Mineral Wells, Texas, started the project in 1987 with a clear goal: Finish the boat and sail it to Alaska. The vessel has 4 staterooms and is roughly 75% complete.

At his age, however, he can no longer keep building it on his own, and a steep hill stands between the boat and the road, meaning heavy machinery will be needed to move it.

The story reached a wider audience after 3 English visitors— Laurence Benson, Benjie, and Will—were told about the boat and stopped by unannounced. When Dale started talking about the project, his passion was unmistakable.

"The second he started talking about the boat, you could see it. He's as passionate now as he was 40 years ago," Benson wrote. "His dream is to see her on the water."

Dale even climbed a ladder to show them the deck,

51 years ago today, Venera 9, the Soviet Union orbiter-lander spacecraft, became the first mission to enter orbit around Venus, and to return images from the surface of another planet. The key design feature of the lander was that it had to remain operational under conditions of extreme heat. This meant that not just all the delicate instruments, but the parachute and other accessories all had to be built to withstand 900°F. READ about what it told us of our nearest neighbor… (1975)

Many of the instruments began working immediately after touchdown and the cameras were operational 2 minutes later. These instruments revealed a smooth surface with numerous stones. The lander measured a light level of 14,000 lux, similar to that of Earth in full daylight but with no direct sunshine.

Venera 9 measured clouds that were 30–40 km (19–25 mi) thick with bases at 30–35 km (19–22 mi) altitude. It also measured atmospheric chemicals including hydrochloric acid, hydrofluoric acid, bromine, and iodine. It also measured the scorching temperatures mentioned earlier.

Venera 9 was the first probe to send back television pictures (black and white) from the Venusian surface, showing no shadows, no apparent dust in the air, and a variety of

Just one year after ecological restoration efforts on Samoa, forests, wildlife, and food resources are showing remarkable signs of recovery.

Nu'utele Island is considered a Key Biodiversity Area for Samoa, and is home to one of the country's most pristine native forests teeming (usually) with native species.

Yet, like many islands across the Pacific, it has suffered from ecological degradation by invasive species—in Nu'utele's case rats, and feral pigs which turn up the soil and prevent native vegetation from growing.

Samoa's Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment (MNRE), the Pacific Regional Invasive Species Management Support Service (PRISMSS), and island community members successfully removed these damaging invasive species from the island.

They were joined by the nonprofit conservation organization Island Conservation, which has worked to heal dozens of islands across the world's oceans from the wounds sustained by invasive animals.

Now with the animals having been removed, that trajectory is beginning to reverse, and the ecological response has been swift.

"In many areas, native seedlings are carpeting the forest floor," said Paul Jacques, Project Manager for Island Conservation. "On recent visits, I saw knee-high seedlings growing where forest regeneration had previously been suppressed. People are now able
to grow and harvest giant taro

Great for frying, perfect for your skin, and irreplicable in a ketogenic diet, coconut oil is a wonderful product.

In the future it may even power our passenger aircraft.

Chemists in Japan recently conducted extensive experiments on whether it would be possible to create a sustainable aviation fuel out of coconut oil, and not only were they a success, they outperformed existing biofuels across several metrics.

Compared to high pressures and intense heating required to synthesize sustainable aviation fuel out of existing biofuel feedstocks, the chemists' co-solvent method created an aviation-compatible fuel at room temperature pressure and lower levels of heat.

This minimized the fuel's carbon footprint even before the researchers cut it with kerosene, poured it into a micro jet engine, and set it on fire to see what would happen.

The ultimate tests—of how the mixture performed in the engine—generated "thermal efficiency… comparable to that of pure kerosene." One drawback on pure performance metrics was that fuel consumption was slightly elevated due to the coconut oil's lower ignition temperature.

In terms of the emissions profile, the largest observed improvements over kerosene was the release of unburned hydrocarbons. Called UHCs in the industry, or sometimes VOCs (volatile organic compounds) they include substances like

See these apples here? They rank among the most consumed worldwide—and one of Europe's largest supermarkets would like to see that changed.

The Spar Group is embarking on a project to bring heritage and heirloom cultivars to market at scale through commercialization testing of numerous alpine apples.

They feature rather interesting names, reflecting the hard work and humor of the time they were developed—in some cases over 200 years ago.

Austrian produce trader Frutura is on board the project with Spar, and the first varieties they're testing are called the Ilzer Rose, which originates in the year 1840 from the southern state of Styria, and the Falchs Gulderling, identified in the 1870s in South Tirol.

"Many consumers today are once again taking a greater interest in where food comes from, the varieties involved and how it tastes," Markus Kaser, Spar Austria's deputy chair, told the Guardian.

The point isn't just to revive a bit of Austrian farmland history, but to rigorously test these old varieties to see if they "can thrive in commercial fruit growing under today's conditions".

"If we succeed, we would like to offer these special varieties throughout the region," Kaser said.

There are some 7,500 varieties of apples that

Indonesian authorities have paused, and perhaps ended, the "world's largest deforestation project."

Having achieved self-sufficiency in rice cultivation some 3 years ahead of a government schedule, around 4 million acres of rainforest, swamps, and peatlands across large Indonesian islands will be spared from deforestation.

Though the ultimate destiny of these vast areas remains unclear, a decision was made between the agriculture and forestry ministries and the Indonesian National Economic Council that any further agriculture projects will take place on land that's already been converted into productive use.

The Indonesian president's younger brother Hashim Djojohadikusumo is also the special envoy for climate and energy, and he told a sustainability forum in the capital of Jakarta in early October that 4.4 million acres of forest areas which had previously been slated to become rice plantations would remain untouched.

An executive effort to make the nation self-sufficient in rice was expected to extend across those acres and at least to 2029, but the target has been achieved earlier than expected off the back of incentives, improvements in crop varieties, and government fertilizer subsidies.

Along the way, the effort was met with fierce resistance from international environmental groups, and local organizations of activists and indigenous groups.

The government,

This week, crews installed a 29-foot bronze statue of Cyrus the Great in Atlanta, an ancient Persian king might seem like an unlikely addition to the city

To the people who spent years bringing him here, however, there's no more fitting place in America for a man who authored what's sometimes called the worlds "first human rights declaration" over 2,500 ago.

The statue, located in Pardis Park, is now one of the largest Iranian monuments anywhere outside of Iran. The bronze figure alone weighs about 8,000 pounds, and that doesn't even include its limestone base, which is shaped like his tomb.

This Saturday, it will be formally dedicated during Iran Unveiled, a free, family-friendly festival celebrating Persian culture. "The festival is organized by the Persian Cultural Center of Atlanta and PCC's Executive Director, Azadeh Vatanpour.

Why Atlanta

Cyrus founded the Persian Empire roughly 2,500 years ago, but he's remembered less for conquest and more for tolerance. The Cyrus Cylinder, a clay artifact now in the British Museum, is often called one of the earliest declarations of human rights.

It reflects a policy of religious freedom and respect for the dignity of every people under his regime.

Solar panels grown above grapevines substantially increased the development and fruit production of the crop—all while generating clean energy.

The technique, known as agrivoltaics, has been well-studied in other settings, but how it would effect the delicate science of viticulture has not.

Researchers from the University of Bari conducted a study on a vineyard in southern Italy's Puglia region (think the heel of the boot) where intense sunlight and the hot Mediterranean climate produces exceptional growing conditions for all sorts of Italian favorites like olives, tomatoes, and grapes.

Previous research into agrivoltaics shows that growing crops under banks of solar panels produces a synergistic effect: the partial shade helps plants focus on growing and less on protecting themselves from the Sun. The partial shade also increases ground-level humidity under the panels, which in turn radiates up and helps to moderate the temperatures of the panels' circuitry, modestly increasing their energy output.

Whether this phenomenon would provide a beneficial change to the growth and development of the Primitivo, or Zinfandel grapes on the researchers' test field wasn't immediately clear, so they set about installing solar panels over a section of a 2.2-acre vineyard of 8-year-old grape vines.

Giuseppe

A man's misfortunate on vacation turned into a story fit for a fantasy novel, as complete strangers came to his rescue inspired by The Lord of the Rings.

Losing his wedding ring in a mountain stream, 3 young men summoned a determination worthy of Tolkien's masterpiece to not only find the man's 'precious' golden ring, but go 'there and back again' to return it.

Hobbit puns satisfied for the moment, the story begins with Patrick Mohr, visiting Italy with his children and wife of 16 years. While playing in the fast-flowing water, one of his kids grabbed Mohr's hand in such a way as to slide the 18-karat wedding band right off and away downstream.

Mohr stood paralyzed, realizing that it was gone forever, and with it the memories and sentiment accumulated through its 16-year stay on his finger. Explaining the disaster to his wife, the couple quickly diverged on the next step. Mohr admittedly felt like moping, while his wife hurried downstream to ask the only other people around for help.

Rather than Tolkien's 4 hobbits or 13 dwarves, she found i tre ragazzi: Filippo Palagi, Nicola Malloggi, and Edoardo Poggi. Hearing what had happened, the three young friends were pessimistic at best,

Loggerhead sea turtle nests along the Atlantic coast in the US have set a new 37-year record, topping every annual count for beaches in the state of Georgia, going back to 1989.

The state's Department of Natural Resources calls it "a slow but steady rebound" for the animal listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 1978.

According to the Georgia Sea Turtle Cooperative, the nest count passed 4,110 last week—the most since 1989, when that group of volunteers, researchers, and staffers, coordinated by the DNR, began counting nests all along the state's barrier island beaches.

In the last five summers, the record has been broken twice. The previous high was 4,071 nests in 2022—which is almost double the goal originally set in a recovery plan hatched by humans for these beloved, big-headed reptiles.

Wildlife officials are 'encouraged' by the progress of the species' restoration for a couple reasons. As big as they are—300 pounds—they develop very slowly.

"Loggerheads are a long-lived species and don't reproduce until they're 30-35 years old,"