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Walking With Venus’ Wind

By Jonathon Keats

Venus is not a forgiving planet. The longest that any machine has survived there is 127 minutes. Surface temperatures surpassing 800 degrees Fahrenheit and clouds of sulfuric acid are a perfect recipe for frying circuits. So Jet Propulsion Lab engineer Jonathan Sauder and his team designed a futuristic Venus rover that doesn’t need electronics. Instead it uses mechanical systems that would have been familiar to Leonardo da Vinci.

The Automaton Rover for Extreme Environments (AREE) — which recently received a NASA Innovative Advanced Concepts grant — is built entirely of hardened metals and guided by a clockwork computer. The rover is still far from a planned mission, but it would be able to collect weeks’ worth of climate and seismic data from Venus’ surface, all recorded on phonograph-style records that periodically would be lifted by balloon to an overhead drone. Then NASA just needs to salvage an old Victrola.

Relay Drone

A solar-powered drone could safely fly dozens of miles over the surface, where temperatures and pressure are Earth-like. Gas-filled balloons would tote rock samples and phonograph records up to the drone, which would record the findings and relay it to an orbiting spacecraft. That craft would then beam data back to Earth.

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Earth’s lost history of planet-altering eruptions revealed

By Alexandra Witze

Enormous volcanoes vomited lava over the ancient Earth much more often than geologists had suspected. Eruptions as big as the biggest previously known ones happened at least 10 times in the past 3 billion years, an analysis of the geological record shows.

Such eruptions are linked with some of the most profound changes in Earth’s history. These include the biggest mass extinction, which happened 252 million years ago when volcanoes blanketed Siberia with molten rock and poisonous gases.

“As we go back in time, we’re discovering events that are every bit as big,” says Richard Ernst, a geologist at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and Tomsk State University in Russia, who led the work. “These are magnificent huge things.”

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Americans are growing more secular all the time — which is one reason why Trump voters are so angry

By AMANDA MARCOTTE

Despite all the posturing by conservatives about how their movement represents “real” America and liberal political attitudes are restricted mainly to the “coastal elite,” new research from the Public Religion Research Institute suggests that, at least in political terms, most Americans are secular in their orientation. While many Americans may still hold conservative personal beliefs, when it comes to the issue of church-state separation, large majorities are rejecting efforts by the religious right to use the power of the state to impose conservative Christian values on others.

In fact, the polling data shows there’s really only one group of Americans that rejects a secular society: white evangelical Christians. And this study is just further evidence that a lot of the political polarization in our country is the direct result of white evangelical Christians realizing that they no longer are the dominant majority and lashing out angrily in an effort to regain the levels of influence they used to enjoy.

For instance, the poll found that while a majority of Americans from all walks of life has come to embrace the rights of gay and lesbian Americans, white evangelicals remains stubbornly opposed to the gay rights movement. White evangelicals are the only category of the population to support business owners who want to discriminate against gay and lesbian customers.

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Scientists Bristle at Trump Budget’s Cuts to Research

By HENRY FOUNTAIN and JOHN SCHWARTZ

Before he became president, Donald J. Trump called climate change a hoax, questioned the safety of vaccines and mocked renewable energy as a plaything of “tree-huggers.”

So perhaps it is no surprise that Mr. Trump’s first budget took direct aim at basic scientific and medical research.

Still, the extent of the cuts in the proposed budget unveiled early Thursday shocked scientists, researchers and program administrators. The reductions include $5.8 billion, or 18 percent, from the National Institutes of Health, which fund thousands of researchers working on cancer and other diseases, and $900 million, or a little less than 20 percent, from the Department of Energy’s Office of Science, which funds the national laboratories, considered among the crown jewels of basic research in the world.

The White House is also proposing to eliminate climate science programs throughout the federal government, including at the Environmental Protection Agency.

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An Entirely Synthetic Yeast Genome Is Nearly Complete

By Carl Engelking

Scientists are five steps closer to synthesizing the entire genome of baker’s yeast, a feat that, once accomplished, will push the field of synthetic biology into a new frontier.

An international team of researchers led by NYU Langone geneticist Jef Boeke on Thursday announced it constructed and integrated five “designer” chromosomes into Saccharomyces cerevisiae. This collaboration, known as the Synthetic Yeast 2.0 project (Sc2.0), unveiled the first-ever “designer chromosome” back in 2014, which brings the official total of made-from-scratch chromosomes to 6 of baker’s yeast 16.

In other words, over 30 percent of a living organism’s genetic material can be substituted with artificial code, and it won’t be long before Sc2.0 researchers reach 100 percent—an entirely synthetic organism. Discover spoke with Boeke about the project’s recent success:

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Updated: Some 100 groups have now endorsed the March for Science

By Lindzi Wessel

The March for Science, set for 22 April, is creating a buzz in the scientific community. The march arose as a grassroots reaction to concerns about the conduct of science under President Donald Trump. And it has spurred debate over whether it will help boost public support for research, or make scientists look like another special interest group, adding to political polarization.

Leaders of many scientific societies have been mulling whether to formally endorse or take a role in the event, which will include marches in Washington, D.C. and some 400 other locations.

ScienceInsider has been tracking what science groups decide.

Here’s what we know as of 15 March (most recent updates at the top of each section):

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This Is How the EPA Uses Its Budget—Now Targeted for Deep Cuts

By Sarah Gibbens

Ensuring clean air, land, and water—this is how the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) uses nearly 90 percent of its budget. However, in a controversial move that has many advocates concerned, this same budget has been slated for deep proposed cuts.

President Donald Trump’s proposed $1.1 trillion budget, released early Thursday morning, would reduce the EPA’s budget by 31 percent. Along with the EPA, a dozen other agencies from the State Department to Housing and Urban Development would see significant budgetary reductions.

Last year’s EPA budget, allocated at $8.1 billion, was the lowest it had been in 16 years. Forty-five percent of the agency’s spending on these initiatives comes in the form of grants.

An anticipated 3,200 positions would be cut from the EPA if Trump’s proposed budget were adopted by Congress. Payroll accounted for 22 percent of the EPA’s previous budgetary allocations.

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Oklahoma Senator Caught In Hotel Room With Underage Boy

By Michael Stone

Family Values: Christian conservative and Republican state Senator Ralph Shortey is busted with an underage boy in his hotel room; police recommend 3 prostitution-related charges.

Senator Shortey, a member of Donald Trump’s leadership team in Oklahoma, will be charged with soliciting prostitution of a minor, prostitution within 1000 feet of a church, and transporting for the purpose of prostitution, according to a report filed by KOCO News.

Shortey was found with a teenage boy in a motel in the town of Moore on the night of March 9, after an anonymous tip was made to police requesting for a welfare check on the hotel room.

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Infographic: The Best And Worst Science News Sites

By Alex Berezow

A common question I hear again and again is, “How do I know if a news story is fake?” There is no easy answer1. It helps to be well informed, and it requires a conscious suspension of credulity combined with a gut instinct honed over years of experience.

If journalism as a whole is bad (and it is), science journalism is even worse. Not only is it susceptible to the same sorts of biases that afflict regular journalism, but it is uniquely vulnerable to outrageous sensationalism. Every week, it seems, an everyday food is either going to cure cancer or kill us all.

One thing experience has taught us is that some news outlets are better than others. Some journalists really do care about reporting the news as it is rather than the way they would like it to be. So, in an effort to promote good science news sources while castigating the bad, we teamed up with RealClearScience to create an infographic.

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Moon Or Space Dumpling? You Decide

By Jessica Body

Over 700 million miles away, a tiny space dumpling orbits Saturn.

At least, that’s the food item that came to my mind after checking out the new images of Saturn’s moon Pan. Since the images were snapped by NASA spacecraft Cassini on Tuesday and released Thursday, others have suggested the moon looks like a classic Italian ravioli, a flaky empanada, and even a walnut. I think it could also pass as a pierogi or maybe even a gyoza.

Some even wrote songs about the petite moon because of its strikingly ravioli-esque appearance.

These are the closest images ever taken of the moon — Cassini flew by just 15,268 miles from Pan to capture its appearance. The moon has a radius of less than 9 miles.

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