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Climate lawsuits are on the rise
People are increasingly turning to litigation to compel governments and companies to act against climate change. Citizens and organizations have filed more than 1,300 lawsuits related to climate change in at least 28 countries around the world. Landmark cases include two 2015 wins, for climate activists in the Netherlands and a farmer in Pakistan.
Source: J. Setzer and R. Byrnes. Global Trends in Climate Change Litigation: 2019 Snapshot (LSE, 2019)
Biologist found dead during Crete conference
Developmental biologist Suzanne Eaton, a group leader at one of Germany’s prestigious Max Planck institutes, has been found dead by police on the Greek island of Crete. Eaton was attending a conference on insect hormones when she went missing last week. Police are investigating the cause of death. “Suzanne was an outstanding and inspiring scientist, a loving spouse and mother, an athlete as well as a truly wonderful person beloved to us all,” said a statement from the Max Planck Institute for Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden.
Meet the ploonets
Simulations suggest that moons that escape their planets could start to orbit their stars as ‘ploonets’. The phenomenon might happen when so-called hot Jupiters — gas giants that start in a distant orbit — migrate closer to their stars, causing gravitational weirdness that kicks a moon out of its planetary orbit. Ploonets could even explain some of the mysterious planetary rings and celestial flickers that astronomers have already observed in exoplanet systems.
FEATURES & OPINION
NASA astronaut Deke Slayton and Soviet cosmonaut Alexey Leonov in the Soyuz spacecraft.Credit: NASA
Moon landing was nearly a US–Soviet mission
The Apollo programme that took people to the Moon is properly viewed as an outgrowth of the cold war between the United States and the Soviet Union. Today, as strained US relations with foreign powers threaten science once more, it is worth recalling how surprisingly close the Moonshot came to becoming a cooperative venture, writes Roger Launius, former chief historian of NASA.
Meet the new generation of lunar scientists
These five scientists weren’t born when people first stood on the Moon 50 years ago, but now they’re spearheading the next wave of lunar research. Meet the diverse researchers working around the world while keeping their eyes on the sky.
It’s the Lion Queen, actually
The 2019 remake of The Lion King features stunningly realistic-looking animation — but its portrayal of lion family dynamics is much less accurate. Male lions, far from being ‘born to be king’, leave their birth pride as soon as they can to find mates they aren’t related to. “Females are the core. The heart and soul of the pride. The males come and go,” says lion biologist Craig Packer. “Let’s say Simba comes back, and his grand prize for coming home and being the hero of the pride is he gets to marry Nala. But guess what — she’s his sister. Ewwww.”
