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In Rare Event, the Moon Got a Massive New Crater (Maria)
The author writes, “A once-in-a-century crater formed on the moon right under our noses. A routine search of images from NASA’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter camera found a fresh crater as wide as two American football fields, planetary scientist Mark Robinson reported this month at the Lunar and Planetary Sciences meeting in Texas. … The discovery can help highlight the risks impacts pose to future astronauts.”
Elon Musk Misled Twitter Investors, Jury Finds (Sean)
From the BBC: “Elon Musk was misleading in his public statements during a crucial period of his 2022 Twitter takeover, a jury has found. After two days of deliberations, a jury in San Francisco federal court decided in a unanimous verdict against the tech titan, who was sued by a group of Twitter investors arguing they had relied on his statements. While testifying in court earlier this month, Musk argued that he did not mislead investors and that people simply read too much into his public comments and tweets. The jury instead found that certain of his public claims of problems in Twitter’s user metrics, and that he was possibly backing out of the $44bn acquisition deal, were intentionally misleading.”
Israel Destroyed Gaza’s Roads and Transit. Now, We Walk Everywhere. (Laura)
From The Intercept: “In Gaza, movement is no longer a mundane part of daily life. Israel’s military assault and prolonged siege have dismantled Gaza’s transportation system so thoroughly that journeys that once took minutes by car now require hours of walking through rubble and grotesque debris. What used to be an ordinary act — leaving home, reaching a clinic, visiting kin — has now become a form of physical labor, a calculation of pain, and a risk weighed against necessity.”
Philly-Area Prison Could Reshape How America Treats Prisoners (DonkeyHotey)
From Axios: “Pennsylvania is emerging as a proving ground for preparing people in prison to rejoin society, per a new report from the Brennan Center for Justice. Early results from a Philly-area pilot — the ‘Little Scandinavia’ community-style living unit that launched in 2022 in Chester — show sharply lower instances of violence. The program paves the way for other states to adopt rehabilitation-focused models of incarceration. Several states have implemented reforms focused less on punishment, adding programs that have improved prison conditions, eased tensions between guards and prisoners and equipped incarcerated people with life skills. But the Center cautions that more buy-in is needed from corrections officials across the country, estimating more than 70% of the people released from prison in 2022 will be rearrested by 2027.”
Portland Has a Wonky Secret To Building Cheaper Houses. Other Cities Are Copying. (Russ)
The author writes, “Not so long ago, the house that Laurel Moffat owns in Portland, Oregon, would have been illegal. Moffat’s 900-square-foot space is part of a duplex, sharing a wall with another home. And the two homes are both in the backyard of an older house. … As the housing cost crunch has spread from coastal cities to nearly every town in America, and consensus has coalesced around the idea that an undersupply of housing is to blame, many communities have changed their laws to allow more “middle” or “infill” housing in existing neighborhoods. This makes for denser living than a single-family house on a lot, but far less dense than a big apartment building. Portland now has duplexes, triplexes, fourplexes and six-plexes. Townhouses that stack one behind another, going deep into a lot, rather than all facing the street. Houses in backyards and on wheels. ‘Cottage clusters’ of tiny homes.”
Common Pesticide May More Than Double Parkinson’s Disease Risk (Mili)
The author writes, “A new UCLA Health study suggests that long-term exposure to the pesticide chlorpyrifos may dramatically raise the risk of Parkinson’s disease. Researchers found that people living in areas with sustained exposure had more than 2.5 times the likelihood of developing the disorder. Lab experiments reinforced the finding: animals exposed to the chemical developed movement problems, lost dopamine-producing neurons, and showed the same toxic protein buildup seen in Parkinson’s patients.
Meet Dooly, a Baby Dinosaur That May Have Been Fuzzy and Was Hidden in 113-Million-Year-Old Rock (Dana)
From Discover Magazine: “A tiny dinosaur no bigger than a turkey — possibly cute, fluffy, and resembling a little lamb — is revealing just how much detail can be hidden inside a single block of rock. Meet Doolysaurus huhmini, a newly identified baby dinosaur from South Korea, named after ‘Dooly,’ a mischievous green cartoon dinosaur that generations of children from Korea grew up with. The fossil, discovered on Aphae Island, is the first new dinosaur species identified in the country in 15 years — and the first Korean dinosaur fossil ever found with preserved portions of its skull. That level of detail, revealed through micro-CT scanning, allowed researchers to see delicate features that would have been nearly impossible to uncover by hand.”