M Thomas Apple

Ground squirrels reduce their metabolism during hibernation; could humans do it, too, with some genetic tweaks? Hibernation is extremely complex – after all, it affects every cell in the body – and there are almost certainly multiple switches involved in the process. MIT neuroscience researcher Siniša Hrvatin has identified another brain region that seems to play a key role in the process. In a…

Do you think we’re shaped more by our experiences or by who we are?

What’s a chapter of your life you’d title “The Hard Years” — and what got you through it? I didn’t know the term “freeta-“ (from “free arbeiter” with “arbeiter” meaning “worker” in German) until I had lived in Japan as a teaching assistant for several years. Yet it occurred to me that that was the lifestyle I had been living after undergraduate school, even during the two misguided years of my…

Which languages do you speak and how did that impact your life? I studied French from junior high through first year undergraduate. I can’t speak it. I tried, but my teacher (MA from Tunisia) has to use a book based on Parisien French, even though my hometown is a stone’s throw from Québéc (not Paris!). After failing to learn how to speak French, I switched to German in second year college.…

Six small satellites developed by universities and other organizations carried by the vehicle also were believed to be successfully separated, JAXA said. https://apnews.com/article/japan-jaxa-h3-rocket-launch-9c64f2c59b9212d612902e74823b77b5 “Believed to be” successful. Very Japanese. It’s a start. A late, very much delayed start. But at least it worked (finally).

“In the mission’s first five years, it’s expected to unveil more than 100,000 distant worlds, hundreds of millions of stars, and billions of galaxies,” [Julie McEnery, senior project scientist] said. https://www.nbcnews.com/science/space/nasa-roman-space-telescope-launch-fastest-ever-rcna349773 It should be ready for launch in August, to be parked at the L2 Lagrange space near James Webb…

Originally designed to operate for just one year around Mars, MAVEN’s mission was repeatedly extended, enabling the most extensive research into the workings of the Martian atmosphere ever attempted.https://www.cbsnews.com/news/nasa-declares-end-mars-orbiter-maven-mission Thanks to MAVEN, we know how the Mars atmosphere has been eroded by solar wind over billions of years. Designed to work for a…

Li Jiaying, a 43-year-old police officer and mother of three, serves as the payload scientist in the three-member crew who made their way to China’s Tiangong space station on Sunday night. https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn7p87r56mgo Congratulations to her! But is it really important that she is a “mother of three”? I never see anything about male astronauts being a “father of…

“Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;But then begins a journey in my head,To work my mind, when body’s work’s expired…” I dearly wish I had though of this. Then again, I don’t know Patrick Stewart… https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/patrick-stewart-ai-schooled-shakespeare-rcna344945

May thy Ninth?

Artist’s impression. Probably doesn’t have that many track lights behind it. Just 300 miles or so across, this mini Pluto is thought to be the solar system’s smallest object yet with a clearly detected global atmosphere bound by gravity, said lead researcher Ko Arimatsu of the National Astronomical Observatory of…

Astronomers have discovered 27 new potential planets that orbit two stars, like the fictional desert planet Tatooine from the Star Wars universe… https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/may/04/scientists-discover-27-potential-new-planets And now you know what a “Circumbinary planet” means. Happy Star Wars Day!

“The moon really is its own unique body in the universe. When we have that perspective and we compare it to our home of the Earth, it just reminds us how much we have in common. Everything we need, the Earth provides, and that, in and of itself, is somewhat of a miracle.” https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/10/artemis-ii-landing-return-moon-mission?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Should have…

If you could be a character from a book or film, who would you be? Why? If I could, I’d be Columbo. But if TV shows are out, then I’d be the Grandfather from The Princess Bride. I pretty much already act like both anyway 😆

“It is blowing my mind what you can see with the naked eye from the moon right now,” Canadian astronaut Jeremy Hansen radioed ahead of the flyby. “It is just unbelievable.” https://www.theguardian.com/science/2026/apr/06/artemis-ii-astronauts-record-moon-earth-distance?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other Just like Apollo 8 in 1968. History does not repeat, but it sure does rhyme.