Abstracts: Coal Plant Emissions, Women in Science, and More
• President-elect Trump’s plan to revitalize the coal industry may sound good to industry employees, but it’s bad news for sea life — and seafood — as the majority of mercury emissions that poison fish come from coal plants. (Scientific American)
• Women are less likely to get cancer than men thanks to that second X chromosome, which carries a tumor-suppressor gene. (Science Daily)
• After a prolonged development full of setbacks and budget overruns, NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope, the successor to the Hubble, is on track to be launched in 2018. (New York Times)
• Following the U.S. presidential election, almost 9,000 female scientists have signed an open letter pledging to combat discrimination and “anti-science sentiment.” (BBC)
• A biologist couple spent decades researching how the white-throated sparrow came to have four sexes. (Nature)
• Also in post-election news, the Obama Administration has been rushing through measures to protect public lands from being available for oil and gas drilling when President-elect Trump takes over. (The Guardian)
• A new study found that students from middle school to college were unable to tell whether a news story was real, fake, or sponsored content. (NPR)
• And finally, a huge underground layer of ice on Mars holds as much water as Lake Superior and covers a larger area than New Mexico. (Space)