The DART Mission involved sending a spacecraft to collide with an asteroid. Find out how it demonstrated the feasibility of NASA’s planetary defense strategy and exceeded expectations. We had tuned into the NASA channel, and I was spellbound. It was September 26, 2022 and the Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) was closing in on the Didymos-Dimorphos asteroid system. As readers will realize, especially if they watched the movie Don’t Look Up, our planet is at risk of…

Human Rights Watch has released its”annual review of human rights around the globe.” Find out why Human Rights Watch described the year as a “litany of human rights crises.” This month marks the fourth anniversary of one of my volunteer positions. I’m an Amnesty International urgent action volunteer. Every week or so, they send me a notification about someone, somewhere in the world who’s suffering a human rights violation. …

Photosynthesis signaling within plant cells is fundamental to life. Find out how a new discovery explains what triggers the process, potentially boosting crop yields and even helping cure cancer. I can still remember Mrs. Sauer writing the formula on the blackboard back in Grade Six. It went like this: C02 + H2O + Light → CH2O + O2 In plain language, green plants use carbon dioxide, water and light, to produce carbohydrates and oxygen. …

A doomed planet orbiting an aging star has been observed for the first time. Find out what this discovery can contribute to our search for life on other worlds. Growing up, I was a big fan of Superman comic books from DC. Coming from a rural community myself, I could easily relate to the young Clark Kent being raised by his adopted parent in Smallville, Kansas. Despite his many advantages, I always felt sorry for Superman. His birth parents…

Domestic chores overwhelmingly fall to women in most households. Find out the psychology behind this disparity and why it doesn’t give men a free pass to avoid housework. A few years ago, I was chatting online with a female friend while doing my laundry. She said to me, “You should…

A UN biodiversity conference called COP15 has ended with a deal involving 196 countries. Find out why environmentalists are hailing it as a landmark agreement, and what it will take to put its terms in place. In grade seven, we took a field trip to the Wye Marsh Wildlife Centre…

Artemis I is NASA’s ongoing, uncrewed test mission to the moon and back. Find out what the mission has accomplished so far, and about the plans for slashdown this Sunday, December 11. Growing up during the Space Race, there was a final ritual to which we all looked forward. After an American space capsule carrying astronauts re-entered the atmosphere, it deployed its parachutes and landed in the Pacific Ocean.

Music training has been a recognized mental health treatment since the dawn of time. Find out how a new study shows that learning to play an instrument improves our cognition while relieving depression, anxiety and stress. I learned to read music at the same time I learned to read and…

Reforestation plans play a central role in global strategies to solve the climate crisis. Find out why simply getting millions of saplings into the ground doesn’t deliver long-term success. Growing up, I remember noticing some very strange forests out the window of our family car. Every tree was the same, they were all lined up in exact rows at precisely the same distance from one another. My dad explained that those were new forests that county workers had planted…