The future of food policy may be guided by a new “food compass”
If almonds are 91 and a cheeseburger is 8, what is pizza?
Fans of pizza, radio waves, dinosaur art, and the Trojan asteroids will be pleased with today’s news offerings from Inverse, the coolest place to get smarter.
Those who are celebrating Alaska Day today will be even happier. Let’s dive in. I’m Nick Lucchesi, an editor at Inverse.
This is an adapted version of the Inverse Daily newsletter for Monday, October 18, 2021. Subscribe for free and earn rewards for reading every day in your inbox. ✉️
15 foods you love, ranked by health — How bad is pizza for you, really? Researchers created a new ranking system, called Food Compass, to determine the healthiest and unhealthiest foods in the United States. The healthiest foods received a score of 100. For instance, almonds are 91 on the chart. A cheeseburger scores a measly 8. So, where’s pizza? Find out in our story.
Scientists hope their development of their profiling system they are calling the food compass will “help guide consumer choice, research, food policy, industry reformulations and mission-focused investment decisions.”
Read the full story and see the countdown of all 15.
Go deeper into food science:
What did T. rex really look like? — From T. rex's reign to the asteroid crash, paleontology art gives us a window into the days when dinosaurs ruled. But how can we tell which depictions are accurate?
Read the full story and see the images.
Go deeper into dinosaurs:
Asteroids will unlock the secrets of Jupiter's Trojans — NASA's Lucy mission, the first spacecraft to travel to the asteroid system in Jupiter's orbit, will visit intriguing targets between 2025 and 2033:
NASA’s Lucy mission will be the first to visit a mysterious, ancient cluster of space rocks called the Trojan Asteroids.
What’s so special about the Trojans?
Unlike the more distant Kuiper Belt, these asteroids share an orbit with Jupiter. They’re incredibly old — and likely formed with the early Solar System.
Read the full story and see the images.
Go deeper into the Lucy mission:
Strange radio waves — A mysterious radio signal from the center of our galaxy matches nothing astronomers have seen before, reports Jon Kelvey. Here’s a snippet:
While many objects in the vastness of space shine or radiate with more or less constant intensity, astronomers have come to discover more and more objects that flash, blip, burp, and otherwise appear, disappear, and reappear in X-ray, visual, or radio frequencies.
Many such time-domain objects, as astronomers called them, are well known: Pulsars and neutron stars with regular, periodic signals, and the intermittent flash of a dying star, dashed on the rim of a black hole.
But some cosmic signals remain mysterious, including a radio signal described by an international team of researchers in a paper published last week in the Astrophysical Journal.
Go deeper into space science:
- Watch: Something strange is happening to Jupiter’s Red Spot
- Bonkers black hole discovery proves Einstein theory right 106 years later
- About the newsletter: Do you think it can be improved? Have a story idea? Want to share a story about the time you met an astronaut? Send those thoughts and more to newsletter@inverse.com.
- On this Day: On this day, October 18, back in 1867, the territory of Alaska was formally transferred from Russia to the United States. The price: $7.2 million, according to the Congressional Globe. A historical price index has estimated that amount to be roughly $133 million in 2020 dollars. Not a bad piece of business.
- Song of the Day: “Corporate Deathburger” by MDC
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