Good week for:

Inventors, with a public call from NASA to the nation’s “community of makers, garage tinkerers, and citizen scientists” to help develop a zero-gravity toilet that can handle “simultaneous urination and defecation,” including “500g of diarrhea per event.” Viral marketing, with the opening in Miami of “Covid-19 Essentials,” a stylish boutique offering face masks, hand sanitizer, non-contact door openers, and every other conceivable pandemic accessory. “It’s like a toy store,” marveled shopper Hili Hazan. Chickens, whose existential angst may be partially eased by new research suggesting that whether or not the egg came first, they owe their existence to a brightly colored jungle fowl by the Latin name of Gallus gallus spadiceus that humans first domesticated in Southeast Asia around 7,500 B.C.