your science briefing for 02.20.2025

Looking for missing planets around alien suns, a runaway solar system, the industry making a mockery of scientific peer review, and more...

Astronomers are getting closer and closer to finding their 6,000th exoplanet, and with more and more data, starting to ask some questions about the distribution of planets in alien solar systems and what that tells us about planets in general. It seems that not only does our little solar system seem to be unusual in the grand scheme of things, an entire class of planets just doesn’t appear to exist anywhere. Is it because our current tools can’t spot them? Are we getting caught up in outliers? Or maybe, there are rules of solar system evolution we just don’t understand yet… (SciAm)

Peer review used to be a mark of scientific quality. It meant that a team of experts had dissected a paper and made sure everything made sense and had merit. Often times, a paper would have to be revised multiple times to make sure it was good enough for publication, mostly thanks to Reviewer #3. But with the rise of outright predatory and fake journals, that peer reviewed stamp may mean dangerously little today on its own, as shown in the confirmation hearings for RFJ Jr., the man who wants to Give America Measles Again… (The Atlantic)

ADHD is a condition in which people struggle to control their attention and impulses. An invasive or stray thought can win over an important task, or trigger a hyperfixation that preempts even basics like bathroom breaks and hunger. So, obviously, in our ever more chaotic and multitasking world, those with ADHD must suffer tremendously. Yet a new large scale study suggests otherwise... (Upworthy)

A small star with a Neptune sized planet in tow appears interested in doing on a little trip to see the universe. Initially spotted by astronomers trying to take advantage of a gravitational lens around the code of the Milky Way to study stars there, this tiny solar system is barreling through space between 500 and 600 km/s. This is not only more than twice as fast as our sun orbits the galaxy, but if its velocity is closer to the upper end of that range, it will be ejected into intergalactic space… (NASA)

Humans are competitive creatures. If we can’t compete with each other, we’ll even try to compete with ourselves. And according to researchers, we don’t stop competing in the bedroom either as it turns out that males who think their partners might just have a roster of other willing partners produce more and more concentrated sperm. At the same time, men certain their partners are purely monogamous produce way more fast moving sperm. So either with swarm tactics or speed and precision, they’re ready for locking down their chances to pass on there genes… (PsyPost)