This year’s Emoji class continues the consortium’s trend of emphasizing inclusion. There are more options for same-sex couples, gender neutral cartoon people, both manual and electric wheelchairs, and prosthetic limbs—all of which make it easier for people to communicate in a way that more accurately represents them. Of course, all that’s accompanied by the expected selection of whimsical nonsense like a kite, some underpants, and an adorable sloth emoji that I will use constantly the second it’s available....

But maybe we’re putting too much stock in the air we breathe. A new study published in ACS Earth and Space Chemistry suggests the presence of atmospheric oxygen on another planet is far from a sure sign. “The presence of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere, in significant quantities, is due to the presence of life,” says Nikole Lewis, an exoplanet scientist from Cornell University and a coauthor of the new study....

This has also made it the site of a bit of aerial sport. Despite the channel being just over 20 miles across at its narrowest point, aviators since the dawn of aviation have clamored to be the first to fly across the channel with a new craft. In 1909, Louis Blériot became the first person to do so, but records have been claimed as recently as last year, when the first two entirely electric airplanes crossed the channel, each claiming to be the first plane like that to do so (it’s still disputed which one was first)....

Perhaps, according to new findings published in Astronomical Journal on Sunday, we need to stop thinking about Planet Nine as, well, a planet—and instead consider that it might actually just be a bunch of smaller objects, working in concert to exert the sort of gravitational forces one would expect from a large, single body. “I like the paper,” says Caltech astronomer Mike Brown, who was not involved with the study but has worked very extensively over the last several years to characterize and find Planet Nine....

Ambrosia, a startup founded in 2017 by Jesse Karmazin (who went to medical school, but isn’t licensed to practice medicine), promotes its treatments based on the idea that young plasma can counteract aging and rejuvenate old organs. The problem is, there’s still no evidence that young plasma can actually do that. “As far as I know, the science hasn’t changed,” says Michael Conboy, a bioengineering researcher at UC Berkeley who’s studied young and old blood in rodents along with his wife, Irene Conboy, also a bioengineering professor at Berkeley....

If you were standing on Pluto, the sky would probably actually look reddish gray, though Miriam Kramer at Mashable reports that sunrise and sunset on Pluto could have a blue hue. The way the atmospheric particles are scattering blue light is a surprise to the New Horizons scientists. It also tells them a thing or two about the composition of the atmosphere. “That striking blue tint tells us about the size and composition of the haze particles,” said New Horizons’ Carly Howett in a press release....

The Justice in Policing Act of 2020 would make it compulsory for “federal uniformed police officers to wear body cameras.” It would also require “state and local law enforcement to use existing federal funds to ensure the use of police body cameras.” Police departments in the US adopted body-worn cameras en masse after a spate of civilian deaths in the past decade. Officers usually don them on their chests, and they typically have to turn them on and off while interacting with everyday people....

Fulfill those childhood monster hunter dreams and make a tray of ghoulish ice pops. The four different monster molds have ferocious detailed faces, foot handles, and reusable sticks. Mix and match 2.64 fluid ounces of juice, pureed fruit, and ice cream for a colorful and delicious prehistoric creation. Made of BPA-free nylon and silicone, these molds are dishwasher safe and easy to clean. Zoku’s fish pop molds are a school of six sea creatures including a shark, clownfish, octopus, whale, puffer fish, and a scuba diver....

Despite how much change she’d lived through, her reply came quickly and without hesitation: air conditioning. An artificial oasis cooled to a brisk 68 degrees on a blazing summer after­noon? Nothing could compare. For all the comfort it’s brought, though, AC is the quintessential example of the complicated relationship modern humans have with heat. Our desire for indoor chill in the steamy months feeds into the very problem it was conceived to ease—a bandage that itself spreads the infection....

To date most studies looking into the human cognition that dogs display have been carried out on adult dogs. Adult dogs excel at following these social cues, even more so than the chimpanzees that we’re much more closely related to. But it’s unclear how much of that behavior is ingrained in dogs from the beginning—enter the puppies. In this (rather unfairly) adorable study, researchers looked to see whether the way dogs can communicate with humans is rooted in biology....

GM has yet to officially announce the winner, but Reuters reports that Compact Power is the victor. From our current issue, here’s a look inside the fight to power the Volt.

Researchers have been able to teleport quantum information for a while now. Quick quantum primer: This isn’t Star Trek-style teleportation, but the transfer of information–of quantum states–from one place to another without that information crossing the space between them in any way. This is achieved through the strange quantum phenomenon of entanglement, which allows two quantum objects to share the same quantum state such that if you influence one particle you also influence the other, whether they are separated by nanometers or light-years....

It’s important to keep in mind that vaccines can be effective in a range of ways. At their best, vaccines might keep a virus from getting even a toehold in the body. They might prevent symptoms, but still allow for asymptomatic infections. Or they might prevent mild symptoms from progressing into severe illness and hospitalization. All of those are meaningful effects, but they change how a vaccine impacts the course of an outbreak....

Lasers are nothing more than a contained group of atoms (that emit light at a certain frequency) that are excited by inserting energy into the system. This light emission is triggered by bouncing light back and forth past the atoms, generally by placing mirrors at either end of the group of atoms. Sometimes the atoms are contained in a crystal, other times in an optical cavity that contains gaseous atoms, but the setup is generally the same: confined atoms plus light bouncing between mirrors through said atoms equals an emission of specifically tuned light....

Fortunately for the future of nanotechnology, University of Florida physicists have found a way to dampen the Casimir Effect. By using grooved plates that resemble corduroy, rather than the flat plates known to induce the Casimir Effect, the researchers were able to staunch the compression of the plates by 30 to 40 percent. The Casimir Effect results from the spontaneous creation and destruction of subatomic particles. On the quantum scale, particles continually pop in and out of existence, and the difference in density between the dense cloud of particles on the outside the plates and the fairly sparse cloud of particles fluctuating within the void between the plates pushes the plates closer....

“That’s my dream,” says David Neale, plant scientist at the University of California, Davis. Now, he and a team of scientists from UC Davis, Johns Hopkins University, and Save the Redwoods League have completed the first major step to accomplishing this dream: sequencing the entire genomes of the two trees. “Getting a reference genome sequence for an organism for the first time is that necessary step to enable discoveries,” says Neale....

“Single-use plastic is one small piece of moving towards sustainability,” says Shelie Miller, a professor of sustainable systems at the University of Michigan and an author on the study. In the new paper, published this week in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, Miller tackles five misconceptions about the impact of this commonplace material. To do the study, Miller used a strategy called life cycle assessment, which evaluates the environmental impacts of each stage of a product’s life from creation to disposal in a variety of categories....

Each leg has eight muscles—Kevlar straps attached to a motor on one end and to the plastic skeleton on the other. As the motor turns, it pulls the strap, mimicking the way our muscles contract. Some of Achilles’ muscles extend from the hip or thigh to the lower leg so they can project forces all the way down the limb. This allows us to put most of the motors in the hips and thighs....

Militaries and defense companies use, and are working on, two completely separate camouflage technologies: static, such as paint or textile that doesn’t change once applied, and dynamic, which adapts in real-time to its environment. While the former is well-established, the latter has yet to be bought by an armed force. “The primary goal is to merge the object with its background,” Mike Stewart, director of research and innovation at QinetiQ, a British defense technology group, told Popular Science at an arms show in London in September....