Inverse Daily: Is this our best defense against an asteroid?
Plus: Ikea-like pasta ... food of the future
For the last decade or so, researchers, space agencies, and other governmental organizations have periodically come together to do a macabre dress rehearsal of our doom. The goal is to prepare the world to handle an event of such magnitude, one that would require coordination across borders unlike any other effort in history.
This year’s exercise faced a different disastrous reality, though. With Covid-19 precautions still in place, it was held, like almost everything these days, via online video chat.
Keep scrolling to read more about how scientists prepared for the worst while facing the worst pandemic in a century.
It’s the compelling story by Adam Mann that leads this Monday edition of Inverse Daily. (I’m Nick Lucchesi, editor-in-chief of Inverse. I’m glad you’re here.)
This is an adapted version of the Inverse Daily newsletter for May 10, 2021. Subscribe for free and earn rewards for reading every day in your inbox.
The “best defense” against an asteroid — At an annual conference, more than 300 scientists ran a simulated asteroid strike on Earth. Adam Mann reports that what they found suggests we may not be prepared for reality:
On April 19, telescopes on Earth detected a huge asteroid out in the depths of space whizzing along at 11,000 miles per hour toward our planet.
Simulated trajectories estimated it could crash down somewhere in the Americas, Europe, or Western Africa in October. Initial observations suggested the object could be bigger than a skyscraper — large enough to obliterate major cities in its path, like New York, London, or Lagos.
You likely didn’t hear about this menacing space rock until now — because it doesn’t exist. In truth, it is part of a fictional scenario fed to a global team of experts who gathered virtually last week for the annual International Academy of Astronautics Planetary Defense Conference Exercise. During a four-day drill, more than 300 participants from the U.S., Russia, China, South America, Mexico, Japan, and elsewhere acted out a cosmic war game to test humanity’s readiness for the sudden appearance of a celestial threat.
“This was a short-warning exercise,” Lindley Johnson, holder of one of NASA’s cooler job titles — Planetary Defense Officer — tells Inverse.
Related links:
- Vesta: An alien rock on Earth reveals our solar system's violent history
- What would happen if a giant asteroid hit the Earth?
- Asteroid Bennu close encounter could help NASA predict a future apocalypse
How intermittent fasting methods work — Intermittent fasting is a popular eating pattern, but does the way you fast really matter? Sophie Putka reports on the different techniques and the science behind them:
Supporters of various intermittent fasting techniques swear by their method for everything from weight loss to cardiovascular health (though both of those claims are still being examined by scientists).
But is there really a difference between methods like alternate day fasting, 5:2, and 16:8?
Here are what studies have to say about 5 intermittent fasting methods:
Related links:
- 5 liquids that technically won’t break a fast
- What fasting does to the brain: Four ways it may help brain health
- Fasting before a diet might transform your microbiome
Once it hits the water, this pasta flower begins to spring from its flat-packed shape into a delicate flower. Morphing Matter Lab.
Ikea-like pasta, food of the future — Researchers have designed a pasta noodle that can be flat-packed, like Ikea furniture, and then spring to life in water -- all while decreasing packaging waste. It’s the latest story from Sarah Wells:
Call it the Ikea of Italian cuisine.
Where the trendy mid-century coffee table or cube shelf for records from an Ikea flatpack is a rite of passage for many 20-somethings, material scientists have unveiled a way to do the same thing for pasta — making your favorite Italian dish suddenly easier to transport and unexpectedly making it environmentally friendly in the process.
It’s something that Carnegie Mellon University’s Morphing Matter Lab director Lining Yao says even apply to shapes like macaroni.
“Based on our geometrical calculation, flatly pack macaroni pasta could save more than 60% of the packaging space,” Yao tells Inverse. “Because more than half of the food packaging space, in this case, is used to pack air.”
Related links:
- See the 1,200+ comments on this story on reddit
- Best pasta shape? Geometry debunks a popular food myth
- A revolution in 3D printing could help scientists speak to spiders
The researchers say there may be more bumblebees in mountainous regions than previously thought.
Eight animals already discovered in 2021 — New species are being discovered all the time, and despite that, we likely won't know about most of the animals living on Earth. Here are 8 recent discoveries, as shown in a brilliant gallery from Bryan Lawver:
Earth is a planet teeming with life, and scientists are still working to catalog new species. It may seem hard to believe, but a 2011 study suggests as much 86 percent of land species and 91 percent of marine species are still undiscovered.
Here are eight new species discovered so far in 2021.
Read the full story and see the photos.
Related links:
- The science used to find this frog could help Covid-19 get lost.
- Look: An alien-like new cephalopod was found deep in the ocean
- 10 images of unlikely animal relationships: See why they work
Circa 1960: Interior of a BEA Vickers showing the passenger section
Airlines could make air travel safer — There are ways airlines could reduce Covid-19 transmission risk, but experts say airlines put profits before safety. It’s the latest story from Katie MacBride:
Air travel can be awful. Over the past decade, planes have gotten more cramped, the food has gotten worse, and airlines learned that they could charge you for everything. Prior to the pandemic, it was working. Airline profits were booming.
The novel coronavirus, however, at least temporarily forced some airlines to make changes their wallets weren’t thrilled about. For example, some airlines started leaving the middle seat empty to space passengers out further from each other. Some adopted a strict back-to-front boarding policy with the idea that it would reduce contact between passengers.
However, new research suggests that boarding back to front increases infection risk — and public health experts tell Inverse boarding changes are just one aspect of air travel that could be made safer.
Related links:
- NASA's X-57 and beyond: Understand the world in 9 images
- NASA electric jet tests may finally bring the EV concept to life
- eVTOL: What they are, when they’ll be here, and how they’ll change travel
Sony and Discord and the start of something big — Tomas Franzese speaks to an analyst to figure out why Discord's deal with Sony Interactive is so important to the platform's future:
Discord is about to make chatting on PlayStation consoles a whole lot better.
Sony and Discord announced a new partnership on May 3, 2021 that will bring the popular messaging platform directly to PlayStation consoles by early 2022. Discord boasts over 140 million monthly users and is a well-known platform in gaming circles. This deal makes it clear that the platform will remain independent — for now.
It’s a surprising turn of events, given recent reports that Sony’s chief gaming competitor Microsoft was looking to acquire the platform. Ampere Analysis Research Director Piers Harding-Rolls says remaining autonomous makes the most sense for Discord.
Related links:
- Spider-Man: How Sony-Disney streaming deal secures Tom Holland's MCU future
- PS3 Store shutdown reversal signals a major Sony strategy change, analyst says
- MLB The Show 21 GamePass reactions reveal a big PlayStation problem
Let me know what you think of this daily dispatch by emailing newsletter@inverse.com. You can follow me on Twitter at @nicklucchesi, where I share some of my favorite stories from Inverse every day.
