A tricky frontier for women
WHILE more than 50 women have flown on space missions, the best way to manage menstrual cycles in space remains unclear. A recent analysis in the journal NPJ Microgravity reports that many women astronauts might choose to pause their periods, especially as missions get longer. Not that menstruating in microgravity is unsafe; early rumors about “retrograde” flow have been debunked. But changing tampons in space has logistical challenges.
Some astronauts have taken birth control pills continuously, skipping the placebo week. But it’s unknown whether pills would degrade from “deep-space radiation” on flights lasting months. And how to dispose of all those blister packs?
The authors say long-acting contraceptive methods, like implants or intrauterine devices, may be best, and so far there’s no evidence that the force of launching into outer space affects “placement or bleeding patterns.” Pam Belluck
PLENTIFUL, AND POSSIBLY BILLIONS OF YEARS OLD
The sun is old. But water may be even older.
It’s a mystery how the world became awash in it. But one clue to the riddle may be found in “heavy water” containing hydrogen’s chunky twin, deuterium, which contains a neutron in its nucleus. Deuterium-rich water may have formed in an interstellar “cloud” billions of years ago, scientists say. A recent paper showed that these ice molecules could have survived the solar system’s violent beginnings, eventually to be deposited on Earth, the moon, comets — even in your water bottle. Nicholas St. Fleur
FORGET FANCY CLEANSES
The practice of cleansing has become seemingly ubiquitous, like the use of hand sanitizer. But what is it that everybody is trying to remove from their bodies?
“People are interested in this so-called detoxification, but when I ask them what they are trying to get rid of, they aren’t really sure,” said Dr. James H. Grendell, a gastroenterologist at WinthropUniversity Hospital in Mineola, New York. Drinking vitamin-rich, antioxidant-filled vegetable juice may be beneficial for one’s health, perhaps even a tool for weight loss or resetting one’s habits. Still, Grendell said, “the human body is well designed to eliminate wastes and toxins.”
Dr. Woodson Merrell, author of “The Detox Prescription,” said that Americans needed to eat more vegetables, and if juicing was the path to that, great.
To Merrell, juice — like any healthful food — provides nutrients that help the liver process toxins, like grease on a gearshaft.
Colon cleanses, like juice cleanses, are supposed to push toxins out of the body. But stool is actually beneficial to the lining of the colon. Increasingly, doctors are even transplanting stool from healthy people into the guts of sick people.
So what’s with all the cleansing? “To be a bit cynical about it, there’s money to be made,” Grendell said. Sabrina Tavernise
SEPARATING METEORITES FROM ‘METEORWRONGS’
The polished sphere was fashioned from a meteorite that crashed into a dry riverbed in Russia. On Wednesday, it soared again, this time at auction, snagging $130,000 — nine times its asking price. The meteorite was a part of a cosmic collection put up for sale at Christie’s London. But before you go hunting for the next interstellar gold, know that it’s rare to unearth a space rock.
Just ask Randy Korotev, a lunar geochemist at Washington University in St. Louis, whose email has long been clogged with meteorite identification requests. Only about one in 1,000 is an actual meteorite, he said. The rest are “meteorwrongs”: masses of iron, glassy byproducts from smelting ore, or igneous rocks, or the occasional musket ball. Nicholas St. Fleur
HIDEOUT OF THE OLDEST TREE (IT’S NOT THIS ONE)
The Forest Service is so protective of its ancient, gnarled star that it will not even share its image. At 4,847 or so years old, Methuselah is the world’s oldest known living tree, which makes it, in the service’s mind, too old to be visited.
The tree did not survive several thousand years in what is now the Inyo National Forest, in California, only to be harassed by selfieobsessed Instagrammers.
In the Ancient Bristlecone Pine Forest, the part of the forest where Methuselah lives, there are many ancient trees; one of them may be even more elderly, about 5,065 years old. Bristlecone pines grow slowly, about one-hundredth of an inch in a good year, so it’s difficult to determine their age.
Debra Schweizer, a spokeswoman for Inyo National Forest, cautioned against fixating too much on wizened celebrities like Methuselah. “If you are so focused on seeing that tree, you are literally missing the forest for the tree,” she said. Tatiana Schlossberg