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Health Science

NASA Spots ‘Peanut’ Asteroid

NASA’s Lucy spacecraft, on a 12-year journey to explore Jupiter’s Trojan and main-belt asteroids, made a close approach to asteroid Donaldjohanson on April 20 — passing within just 600 miles (960 km). The flyby revealed a bizarre shape that caught researchers off guard: two lobes fused together in what’s known as a contact binary. NASA compared its form to two ice cream cones stuck tip to tip; others have likened it to a peanut.

The asteroid’s structure, especially the narrow neck connecting its lobes, couldn’t be captured in a single image due to its size. More images are expected as data continues to stream back from Lucy, which is currently 135 million miles from Earth. The asteroid itself is estimated to be about 150 million years old. Prior observations had hinted at its irregular shape through brightness variations, but this flyby confirmed those theories with direct visual evidence.

“These aren’t just chunks of rock floating around,” said Hal Levison, the mission’s principal investigator. “They carry clues to how planets were formed.” While Lucy’s next major target is the Jupiter Trojan asteroid Eurybates in August 2027, the detailed imagery of Donaldjohanson has already demonstrated the scientific value of the mission. “The spacecraft is performing exactly as we hoped,” added program scientist Tom Statler. “We’re just getting started.”

Good News

It Takes a Village…

A viral TikTok video is warming hearts around the world after capturing a small act of kindness in a Tokyo restaurant: a Japanese waitress offering to hold a newborn so the baby’s parents could eat in peace. The moment challenged common stereotypes about Japanese people being reserved or distant — and struck a chord with millions online.

Maggie Boynton, an American mother traveling in Japan, shared the video and said she was stunned when the woman offered to take her fussy baby during dinner. “I’ve never had a stranger offer to hold my baby before,” she told People. “At first I hesitated, but she seemed sincere.” Jet lagged and exhausted, the brief reprieve allowed the couple to enjoy a meal for the first time in days.

“Even just 10 minutes for us to enjoy our meal was all I needed,” Boynton captioned the video, which has since surpassed 2 million views. She added that trying to eat with chopsticks while holding a wriggling newborn is no easy feat — making the waitress’s gesture all the more meaningful.

@maggieeboynton

Can’t explain how much this truly meant to me.

Environment

Trout Population Restored

After decades of work controlling invasive species and stocking fish, Lake Champlain has reached a major milestone: it now supports a self-sustaining population of lake trout. The Lake Champlain Fish and Wildlife Management Cooperative—a joint effort between agencies in New York, Vermont, and Quebec—announced on April 10, 2025, that trout stocking will be suspended in New York waters. According to officials, the population is now healthy enough to survive and reproduce without human intervention. “This kind of success is rare,” said University of Vermont fisheries scientist Ellen Marsden. “But this one was fast and clearly worked.”

Stocking will continue once more this spring, after which the cooperative will monitor wild trout numbers and set benchmarks in case future stocking is needed. No other lake trout recovery effort has reached this point, according to Adirondack Explorer, making this a first-of-its-kind decision. Since lake trout can live up to 30 years, officials caution that long-term outcomes will take time to fully evaluate.

The turnaround is largely credited to aggressive sea lamprey control, which began in earnest in 1990. Native to the Atlantic, sea lamprey are parasitic invaders that can kill lake trout by feeding on their body fluids. A broad program led by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service—which includes barriers, lampricides, and adult trapping—cut lamprey wounding rates from 99 per 100 fish in 2006 to just 23 in 2022. That reduction helped revive not just lake trout but the broader native fish population and fishing economy, which generates over $450 million annually. “We’re proud to support the recovery of lake trout in Champlain,” said Wendi Weber of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “The results speak for themselves.”

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Mind Stretchers

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I open not with hinges wide,
But bloom above when clouds collide.
I vanish when the sun is bold,
And live again when skies grow cold.

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