2021 PH27 is just 0.62 miles (or 1 kilometer) in diameter and completes its orbit in just 113 Earth days—a shorter orbit than any other known asteroid, though longer than Mercury’s 88 day cycle. The space boulder was first discovered on August 13, while astronomers were collecting images from the Víctor M. Blanco 4-meter Telescope at Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory in Chile. In between studying galaxy clusters, the scientists used breaks to search for asteroids....

The number of known exoplanets now numbers in the thousands. A new explorer tool, released today, visualizes them all with an eye toward finding the most Earth-like. It’s called Goldilocks, after the idea that for a planet to be habitable, it has to be not to hot, not too cold, but just right. The project is by data visualizer (and friend of Popular Science) Jan Willem Tulp, in consultation with experts at the European Space Agency....

Guastella was neither family nor friend. She was his doctor, namely the chief of the palliative care unit at Clermont-Ferrand University Hospital (CHU), a public medical center in south-central France. Ringed by the storied wine regions of Bordeaux, Sancerre, and the Loire Valley, Clermont-Ferrand is home to six universities, a chain of volcanic mountains, a black cathedral made from lava, and what is likely the world’s only hospital-based wine bar, the sole purpose of which is to bring contentment to patients in pain or at the end of their lives....

And they’ll come in handy. Doing all the science, all the scouting and mapping, and building all the necessary rockets, vehicles, and infrastructure to explore the moon is a lot of work. As NASA continues with its Artemis program to return humans to the moon, it will be relying on help from the Commercial Lunar Payload Service (CLPS) initiative, which establishes a roster of companies that can bid on missions to take NASA hardware to the moon....

But yesterday, Nintendo went even further to introduce one of the most iconic characters in gaming to the Smash Bros ring: the dark hero Cloud from Final Fantasy VII will be on his way to Super Smash Bros 4 in December, and likely some other characters outside the Nintendo universe as well. That’s great news not only for Nintendo fans, but all gamers, who will now have the chance to play these characters in fresh and unusual settings, against all new opponents....

“People know that there is a disease now,” says study author Christos Nicolaides, a professor at the University of Cyprus who studies how contagions spread. That means far more people are likely washing their hands than they normally would, he says. But at any regular time, he says, only about one in five people in airports have clean hands. That’s a problem, because airports are a main pathway for global disease spreading, Nicolaides says....

Many seem to be under the impression that language learning is difficult to navigate when, in reality, you can start just by downloading an app. Babbel happens to be an excellent springboard to learning, as it has already helped millions of people speak and understand a new language quickly and with confidence. For a limited time, you can grab a lifetime subscription for just $199 (reg. $499). Touted as the #1 top-grossing language-learning app in the world, Babbel has been developed by over 100 linguists to empower people to learn as many languages as they wish....

“The headstone was shrouded in weeds and covered in tall grass,” one person said of their father’s plot. “It’s disrespecting our family.” Another wrote: “The area looks terrible. It is not mowed and looks disheveled.” And another: “I couldn’t help but feel I was looking onto the Serengeti plains with grassland growing out of control in a manner that I feel desecrates the final resting place of all lying in eternal [sic] slumber....

In 1923, Popular Science reported that people were drinking radium-infused water in an attempt to stay young. How far have we come to a real (and non-radioactive) ‘cure’ for aging? From the time Marie Curie and her husband Pierre discovered radium in 1898, it was quickly understood that the new element was no ordinary metal. When the Curies finally isolated pure radium from pitchblende (a mineral ore) in 1902, they determined that the substance was a million times more radioactive than uranium....

Now researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York City have started using the technology to better understand the genetic mutations that drive cancer. They’ve developed a new program for the Oculus Rift VR headset that lets users see and interact with 3D models of microscopic proteins. Called “IPM VR,” short for Institute of Precision Medicine VR, the program aims to make it easier for researchers to pinpoint where and how a person’s DNA has mutated to cause cancer....

People flock to Pip’s every day, especially on weekends. That is, unless they have to slosh through a foot of water to get there. “The water can be anywhere from a couple of inches to a foot,” Lamy said. “It’s always been like this, but it’s steadily getting worse. When I first opened, we would flood a few times out of the year. Now, it seems like it’s three to five times a month on a regular basis....

For most of its history, Le Mans has been a proving ground for new forms of automotive techno­logy. This year, two of the fastest cars in the race are hybrid-electric vehicles. The Audi R18 e-tron quattros feature electric motors attached to their front axles. The Toyota TS030 Hybrids carry supercapacitors that soak up energy while braking and discharge it for a quick burst of extra speed on straightaways. But the DeltaWing is an order of magnitude more radical than either of these cars....

It was the final scene of Act 1 of “Nunsense,” a riotous Off-Broadway musical detailing the fundraising antics of an ill-fated but endearing group of convent sisters. One nun had found a suspicious-looking bag in a high school bathroom and presented it to Mother Superior Mary Regina. Once alone, Reverend Mother rummaged around in the bag and pulled out a small, brightly-colored glass bottle. She gave it the once-over, quizzically reading its name aloud: “Rush....

Despite the reports, public health officials can do little to offer much comfort. Though the virus has been recognized for close to 70 years, the number of investigations into the virus, its pathogenesis, route of spread, and possible secondary consequences has been low. Unlike some viral infections such as Ebola, Zika posed little threat to global health and as such, did not deserve significant attention. With last week’s announcement of the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) by the World Health Organization, finding answers is now a global effort....

It does not bode well for demo­cracy when a population so widely distrusts those sworn to serve and protect it. So how did we get here and what can we do about it? Part of the answer has to do with law enforcement methods. For decades, police forces in many cities have relied on policies such as broken windows and stop-and-frisk. The idea was to crack down on minor offenses in order to discourage more serious crimes....

Just four animals make their year-round home in Norway’s frigid Svalbard archipelago: reindeer, rock ptarmigans, little rodents known as sibling voles, and Arctic foxes, which eat the other three. Scientists from the Norwegian University of Science and Technology studied populations of these animals living on the island of Spitsbergen, which is at 78 degrees north latitude. The three herbivores already fight for limited food supplies during winter, and when ice coats the frozen tundra, they have nothing to eat....

It’s relatively well known that most fully functioning corals one finds dotting colorful coral reefs are a symbiosis between a coral (the animal itself) and the microscopic algae that dwell within it. This duo forms the physical foundation of coral reefs, where one-fourth of Earth’s marine species reside. But what is much less well known is how corals get their algal partners. Spawning corals begin their lives flying solo as free-living larvae without algal partners....

Leonardo DiCaprio, who finally took home an Oscar for Best Actor after years of nominations, talked about how a warming world made the notoriously tough film shoot even more difficult. After thanking his family, friends, colleagues, and fellow nominees, DiCaprio said: Grist posted a video of his speech: Leo’s earlier accounts of the apparently unusually warm weather near Calgary, Alberta in Canada, where The Revenant was filmed, were previously disputed as a regular seasonal occurrence....

1522: Around the world 43K miles/5mph Ferdinand Magellan started the first trip around the globe but died en route. Juan Sebastián del Cano took charge, completing the circumnavigation—which tacked on mileage to curve around continents—in 37 months. 1848: A mile a minute 26 miles/60 mph Speed gains can be slow; sailboats, for one, top horses by only a mile or so per hour. But trains far outpaced every other mode of their era....

The base model of the JLTV is a four-seat vehicle that comes in several configurations. It can be general purpose, or a Heavy Guns Carrier version with a gun turret on top and room for a fifth occupant, or the Close Combat Weapons Carrier, which has a turret for soldier-fired anti-vehicle weapons like TOW missiles. There’s also a two-seat utility version. As a “joint” vehicle, the JLTV is used primarily by the Army, but also in great numbers by the Marine Corps, and smaller numbers by the Air Force and Navy....