Things have been busy lately! JWST has launched and is making its way to L2 and I successfully presented and defended my qualifying exam to become a PhD candidate officially! Also, new records have been set in terms of amount of extractable energy from a fusion reaction. Let's talk about the materials and materials science need to achieve this goal. Image of the ITER fusion reactor in Europe from Nature.

• NASA's official JWST website!
• JWST launch delays
• New fusion reactor record from LLNL
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Let's face it, Hubble won't be around forever. There needs to be another space observatory launched soon so that it can replace Hubble. The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) may be just the candidate. As it will mostly operate in the infrared region of light, JWST is set to look at extremely old objects and light from potentially the first stars and galaxies to form. Getting closer to the Big Bang and learning about the very early days may soon be in our grasp. Let's talk about JWST, where it's going to be, what it's going to look for, and how it will collect the data. Image of the JWST gold-coated beryllium mirror from NASA.

• NASA's official JWST website!
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The New York Yankees mission statement every year. And that is to win the World Series. But to do that, you have to make the playoffs. It wasn't looking good back in July. But let's talk about what happened and how the Yankees clinched that second wild card spot. Plus. let's talk about the Wild Card game against Boston and what the Yankees could do to improve the team for next season. Image from Getty Images.

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Are you a civilian? Would you like a chance to go to space? That might just be a reality for you in the not too distant future. The Inspiration 4 mission just completed and it was crewed by all civilians. The first all-civilian orbital spaceflight! No governmentally trained astronauts on this SpaceX spacecraft. Plus, this mission is really doing a great job fundraising for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital in Tennessee. Let's talk about the entire mission from the crew, to the spacecraft, to the science, to the cause they are raising money for. Image of the Inspiration 4 flight path from the US Space Force.

• Donate to St. Jude!
• Inspiration 4 mission website
• First sports bets placed from space
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Are you concerned about contamination in your drinking water? I think everyone feels that their water should be clean and free of pollutants. One of the common pollutants is a class of compounds that simply do not break down. These are per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS compounds. Let's talk about PFAS compounds. Specifically, what they are, why are they trouble, and what is being done to address the contamination. Image of some PFAS contaminated sites from Northeastern University.

• Basic information and drinking water advisories from the EPA
• How to remove PFAS from drinking water
• PFAS in food containers and FDA's warning to manufacturers
• Maine bans PFAS
• Current US legislation addressing PFAS contamination
• European countries to ban PFAS
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The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a report this month outlining how bad climate change is, how bad it will be, and what will happen if we don't make drastic changes in the way we address the crisis. But that doesn't mean we will not be able to come up with clever solutions to help prevent some of the most extreme and dire consequences of climate change. Let's talk about the what the IPCC report states and one potential solution we could utilize, metal organic frameworks (MOFs) and carbon capture. Plus a brief update on the FDA fully approving the Pfizer vaccine for those 16 and older. Image from NOAA.

• FDA full approval of Pfizer vaccine
• Worldwide COVID vaccination rates
• IPCC report on human-caused climate change.
• NASA study on rainforests losing ability to absorb carbon.
• Review of carbon capture technologies
• Metal organic framework (MOF) under development at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory.
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We have sent so many rovers, landers, and orbiters to Mars over the past few decades, including the Perseverance rover. So surely we know just about everything we need to know about the red planet, right? Absolutely not! We don't even really know what underneath the surface of the crust or how Mars evolved to the point it's at now. It's thought that Mars once had conditions that were beneficial to life, instead of being the desolate wasteland it is today. Luckily, the InSight Mars lander is firmly planted on the surface finding out some critical information that can help scientists learn more about Mars and its evolution. Three new papers, just recently published in Science, shed some light on the composition of the interior of Mars. Let's talk about these pretty interesting results! Image from the journal Science.

• NASA's announcement of InSight's findings.
  
• Summary of the journal articles published in Science.
  
• InSight dumping sand and dirt on itself to clean its solar panels!
  
• Why the mole couldn't dig itself underground, among other common questions.
  
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Is the planet's most famous and arguably most successful telescope on the brink of total failure? Luckily, no. The Hubble Space Telescope is still working just fine and producing all kinds of stunning images and valuable data. But the latest problem with the telescope over the past month was not the first problem that Hubble has worked through to become one of the most successful missions NASA has ever launched. Let's talk about Hubble, some of the problems it has overcome, and just a small selection of some of the most important discoveries it has made. Image of the Hubble Space Telescope as seen from the Discovery space shuttle during the second servicing mission from NASA.

• Timeline of NASA solving the latest computer problem that causes Hubble to be inoperable for about a month.
  
• Mission details of Servicing Mission 1 in order to fix the mirror that was manufactured incorrectly.
  
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