2026-03-21 21:00:07
Welcome back to the Abstract! Here are the studies this week that visited strange new worlds, broke the adorability scale, pigged out, and took in an alien light show.
First, scientists sift through thousands of planets to find the best possible sites for life. Then: meet a Cretaceous cutie, check out some python blood, and travel to the biggest moon in the solar system.
As always, for more of my work, check out my book First Contact: The Story of Our Obsession with Aliens or subscribe to my personal newsletter the BeX Files.
Scientists have discovered more than 6,000 exoplanets, which are planets that orbit other stars, but most of these worlds are hopelessly inhospitable to life. To hone in on the best candidates for habitability, a team combed through the catalogue of exoplanets to identify the best potential alien homes.
The short-list includes 45 rocky worlds that are no bigger than twice the size of Earth and orbit within the habitable zone (HZ) of their stars, which is the region where liquid water might exist on the surface. The most exciting destinations include four planets that orbit the red dwarf star TRAPPIST-1, about 40 light years away, or Proxima Centauri b, which is the closest known exoplanet, located just four light years from Earth.
“To assess the limits of surface habitability, it is critical to characterize rocky exoplanets in the HZ,” said researchers led by Abigail Bohl of Cornell University. “Observations of known rocky exoplanets on the edges of the HZ can now empirically explore these boundaries.”
“The resulting list of rocky exoplanet targets in the HZ will allow observers to shape and optimize search strategies with space- and ground-based telescopes… and design new observing strategies and instruments to explore these worlds, addressing the question of the limits of exoplanet surface habitability,” the team added.
While previous studies have compiled similar lists, this work includes updated observations and also organizes the planets according to key properties such as age, orbital characteristics, radiation exposure, and ease of observation from Earth. In this way, the researchers pave the way toward testing individual factors that influence habitability, such as whether older planets seem to be more hospitable to life.
It could also be useful to compare planets that orbit at the edges of the habitable zone to planets right smack dab in the middle. After all, in our own solar system, Venus and Mars are at the inner and outer edges of the solar system, while Earth is vibing right in the Goldilocks zone.
It may be that planets in other star systems are similarly limited in their habitability as they approach the edge of the zone—or maybe not! We won’t know until we look. And now, we know where to start. To the observatory!
In other news…
It is my great pleasure to inform you that an incredibly cute baby dinosaur has been discovered in South Korea, where dinosaur fossils are very rare. Meet Doolysaurus, named for the popular Korean cartoon character Dooly the Little Dinosaur. This little infant lived in the mid-Cretaceous period, about 100 million years ago, and represents a new species of thescelosaurid, a type of bipedal dinosaur.
“Here, we describe a small, well-preserved skeleton…recognized as the holotype of a new genus and species, Doolysaurus huhmini” which includes “the first diagnostic cranial material of a dinosaur from Korea,” said researchers led by Jongyun Jung of the University of Texas at Austin. “It contributes novel insights into the diversity of the Korean dinosaur fauna, which has previously been known primarily from ichnofossil and egg fossil records.”
To top it off, this dinosaur might have sported a fuzzy coat. Jurassic Park has primed me not to trust any tech billionaire that wants to resurrect dinosaurs for public spectacle, but I’ll make an exception for Doolysaurus.
At dinnertime, pythons go whole hog—often literally. These huge snakes can devour their own body weight in a single meal, allowing them to fast for more than a year between feedings. In a new study, scientists probe these extreme eaters by analyzing the blood of Burmese pythons during their “postprandial” (after-gulp) phase.
“Burmese pythons display a remarkable array of postprandial responses, including more than 40-fold increase in energy expenditure, sustained tissue protein synthesis and more than 50 percent increase in the size of most organs,” said researchers co-led by Shuke Xiao of Stanford University, Mengjie Wang of the University of South Florida, and Thomas G. Martin of the University of Colorado, Boulder.
In other words, the snakes “undergo extensive gastrointestinal remodelling” that truly put humanity’s best competitive eaters to shame. Joey Chestnut would have to simultaneously swallow over 2,000 hot dogs to even rival their sublime engorgement, just in case you are interested in some mustard-smeared napkin math (his world record is a measly 83).
We’ll close, as all things should, with an extraterrestrial aurora. This week, let’s gaze into the glowing skies of Jupiter’s moon Ganymede, the largest moon in the solar system and the only one endowed with its very own magnetic field.
Now, scientists discovered that “Ganymede's auroras are brighter than previously thought,” according to a study based on new atmospheric measurements and laboratory data.
Ganymede “mini-magnetosphere [is] embedded within Jupiter's powerful magnetospheric environment,” said researchers led by Xin Cao of the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies. “This unique configuration allows for auroral processes similar in morphology to those observed on magnetized planets, but driven by different external and internal conditions.”
The research illuminates the complex magnetic interactions between Ganymede and Jupiter, which will be studied more in depth by future missions, such as the European Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer (Juice) that is currently on its way to the gas giant, aiming for a 2031 arrival. I hope this news of cosmic radiance adds some sparkle to your weekend.
Thanks for reading! See you next week.
2026-03-20 23:00:00
This is Behind the Blog, where we share our behind-the-scenes thoughts about how a few of our top stories of the week came together. This week, we discuss getting stories from Twitter, the metaverse, and the new game Marathon.
EMANUEL: I think I’m addicted to Twitter again.
We haven’t written a ton about the war with Iran but I’ve been following the news closely because I’m checking if there are important stories for us to do there, and because I can’t help but watch the disaster unfold even if it’s making me incredibly anxious.
2026-03-20 21:50:54
The tiny township of Ypsilanti, Michigan, is worried about being a target for drone strikes thanks to a planned datacenter that the University of Michigan is building to support nuclear weapons research According to Douglas Winters, the township’s attorney, the University and Los Alamos National Laboratories (LANL) “have put a big bulls eye target on this entire township […] I believe it’s the truth.”
Winters delivered a report to the town’s Board of Trustees about the proposed datacenter during a public meeting on Tuesday. “Los Alamos, which produces the nuclear weapons, is a high value target,” he said. He pointed to America’s war in Iran as proof that the datacenter would be a target, noting that Iran’s drones had disabled AWS servers in the Middle East. “This is not a commercial datacenter. A Los Alamos datacenter is going to be the brains of the operation for nuclear modeling, nuclear weaponry.”
The university and LANL first announced their plan to build a $1.25 billion datacenter in 2024. The university picked nearby Ypsilanti Township—population of about 20,000—as the location for the datacenter and residents have been fighting it ever since. Concerns from the community are typical for people fighting against a datacenter: water, rising electricity bills, pollution, and noise.
Unique to the Ypsilanti datacenter fight, however, is its role in the production of nuclear weapons. The datacenter would service LANL, the birthplace of the atomic bomb and home to America’s nuclear weapons scientists. In January, LANL confirmed that the datacenter would, indeed, be used in nuclear weapons research.
To hear the university tell it, the datacenter will be one of the most advanced computing systems in the world. “We were told at the very beginning by U of M’s Vice President of public relations […] that they were going to build, in his words, the biggest, baddest, fastest computers in the world,” Winters said at the public meeting. “That, in of itself, is what makes these datacenters high value targets […] these data centers constitute power. Artificial intelligence is power. Supercomputers are power. And when something becomes that important, it becomes a target.”
Winters questioned the American military’s ability to protect targets from the threat of drone attacks on its own soil. “The drone capability is not a joke, folks,” he said. “The United States and Israel, in spite of all their high technology they’re bringing to bear in their war on Iran, they’ve actually had to request that Ukraine send their top advisors to help them understand how to best detect and destroy these drone attacks.”
He also questioned U of M’s values. Following a demand from the White House, the university eliminated its DEI programs in 2025. In February, again at the behest of the federal government, it announced the end of the PhD Project which helped people from underrepresented backgrounds get PhDs. “You have a situation now where the University of Michigan […] has cut a deal with the Department of War under Trump,” Winters said. “That’s what the University of Michigan has turned into by basically selling their soul to the Department of War.”
Jay Coghlan, the executive director of Nuclear Watch New Mexico, told 404 Media, “That LANL datacenter is going to be the brains for nuclear modeling and nuclear weaponry. Ultimately that's what it’s all about. Beware, a recent study found that in war games artificial intelligence went to escalation and nuclear war 95 percent of the time.”
According to Coghlan, the construction of the datacenter followed a familiar pattern. “The Lab has colonized brown people for eight decades here just like it’s now trying to do in Ypsilanti (New Mexico is 50 percent Hispanic and 12 percent Native American). But what the brown people in Ypsilanti have that they don’t have here is lots of water,” he told 404 Media.
Another topic of discussion at the Tuesday meeting was how to stop the construction of the datacenter. Winters and others explained that it’s been difficult to get the university, county, and other government powers to engage with them. Interested parties plead ignorance or recuse themselves because of financial involvement with U of M. “They’ve acted like The Godfather, making you an offer that you can’t refuse,” Winters said.
Trustee Karen Lovejoy Roe questioned why LANL wanted to build a datacenter 1,500 miles away from its home. “Why don’t you do that datacenter where you're going to build the plutonium pits? One’s in South Carolina, one’s in New Mexico. Tell me why?” Roe said during the meeting. “They thought that we would be an easy target […] that we’re just a bunch of poor brown and black and dumb hillbillies.”
But the Township isn’t completely powerless. “U of M is totally above the law, but is DTE?” Sarah, an Ypsilanti resident said during public comments. DTE is the local power company. Datacenters are electricity hungry buildings and DTE will need to build substations to service LANL’s supercomputers.
“What if we had a moratorium on substations until we learned about the harmonics of the electricity and how that’s impacted by datacenters?” Sarah said. “Having a moratorium on heavy construction on the roads, you know, heavy construction equipment on the roads leading to the datacenter site […] it’s going to be scary and hard to stand up to the University of Michigan. It’s true: they’re very powerful and we just need to be creative and we need to be strong and we need to block them at every step of the way.”
Holly, another resident, suggested another plan of attack. “U of M’s vulnerability is in their reputation,” Holly said. “We need to continue to make them look as bad as possible.”
The University of Michigan did not return 404 Media's request for comment. LANL did not provide a comment.
Correction 3/20/26: This story incorrectly conflated the City of Ypsilanti with Ypsilanti Township. They are two separate, but neighboring, locations. We've updated the story to reflect this and regret the error.
2026-03-20 01:38:27
A few things on the end of Horizon Worlds, the metaverse that Mark Zuckerberg believed in so much that he renamed his company:
2026-03-19 22:42:44
Tinder plans to let machine vision algorithms loose on your camera roll. Instead of building a profile on their own, AI will scan users’ locally-stored photos—everything from gym selfies to pictures of their family, sensitive documents and dick pics—to help construct profiles by determining what users’ interests and values are.
Dating apps are the go-to way for people to connect romantically in the modern dating world. As AI has risen in popularity thanks to services like ChatGPT, however, users are suffering the consequences of problems like bots and AI-generated messages infiltrating dating apps. For some people, the experience is less authentic than ever as people offload get-to-know-you conversations to artificial intelligence.
2026-03-19 21:28:55
North Oaks, Minnesota is the only city in the United States that is not on Google Maps Street View. YouTube documentarian Chris Parr, who grew up not too far from North Oaks, set out to change that earlier this year. For a brief few days, he literally put North Oaks on the map. And then it was gone again.
“It’s known by Minnesotans as a place where executives and CEOs live,” Parr told 404 Media. “Famously Walter Mondale is from North Oaks, but also like United Healthcare executives and Target executives.”
North Oaks has managed to largely stay unmapped on Street View because of the way the city handles its streets. In almost every city and town in the United States, property owners give an easement to their local government for the roads in front of their homes (or don’t have any claim to the roads at all). In North Oaks, homeowners’ property extends into the middle of the street, meaning there is literally no “public” property in the city, and the roads are maintained by the North Oaks Homeowners’ Association (NOHOA): “the City owns no roads, land, or buildings. The 50-60 miles of roads in the city are owned by the NOHOA members whose property extends to the center of the road subject to easements in favor of NOHOA,” the homeowners association’s website, which has very little information on it and notes that it is “unable to share most private documents with the public.” The roads entering North Oaks have no trespassing signs posted and automated license plate readers.
In the early days of Google Maps, North Oaks was on Street View. But in May, 2008, the city threatened Google with a lawsuit because its Street View cars had trespassed. Google deleted its Street View images and North Oaks hasn’t been on Street View since.
"It's not the hoity-toity folks trying to figure out how to keep the world away," then-Mayor Thomas Watson told the Star Tribune in 2008. "They [Google] really didn't have any authorization to go on private property."
Google Maps allows people to upload their own images, however. And Parr set out to find a way to map North Oaks without actually going there. So he began mapping it with a drone.
“It’s a geographic oddity,” Parr said. “I realized the airspace above North Oaks operates differently than the property on the ground. I thought you could effectively map the city with a drone.”
Parr is right. The national airspace is technically managed by the Federal Aviation Administration, and “airspace” starts directly above the ground, which is something I covered over and over in the early days of consumer drones as towns sought to ban drones in certain areas.
“Technically, if you launch your drone from public property, which anyone can do if you’re a registered drone pilot, you can fly it straight up and above private property,” Parr said. And so Parr stood at “six or seven different spots” directly outside the boundary of North Oaks and flew his drone around. “I just pulled my car over onto the shoulder and popped my drone up and flew it over,” he added.
There were parts of North Oaks that he couldn’t reach by drone from outside the boundaries of the city, so eventually he decided he needed an invite into the city to go to a park within its boundaries to keep flying his drone.
“According to North Oak’s ordinances, you can go like, visit a friend, or if you’re a contractor working on a house, you can go into the city, but you have to be an invited guest,” Parr said. “I made a Craigslist post asking for somebody to invite me and I got an absolute ton of responses. I started texting with this woman named Maggie and she invited me, so technically I had the invite to go to the park.”
Parr then took his drone footage and uploaded it to Google Maps. For a few glorious days, North Oaks was mapped. And then it was gone.
“I’ve since been in a battle with the people who flag the images,” he said. He also got a letter from a law firm representing the North Oaks Homeowners Association. “It’s not asking me to take any of the videos down or anything, but basically they say, ‘Don’t come back.’”
Parr’s experiment and documentary raises questions, of course, about who gets to have privacy in America. A wealthy enclave has set up the legal and surveillance infrastructure to be able to prevent being mapped. The rest of us, meanwhile, are subject to all sorts of surveillance by our neighbors and law enforcement. “The only reason it’s set up this way is because it’s such a wealthy community,” Parr said. “I know that I was able to do this, but I don’t know if I should be able to do this, and that’s kind of the question that I wanted to tackle. The YouTube comments are pretty crazy man. They’re all over the place. They’re very split 50/50 on that question.”
North Oaks did not respond to a request for comment.