Abstracts: Health Care, Climate, Keystone XL, and More
• House Republicans withdrew their bill to repeal Obamacare on Friday, after it became apparent that they wouldn’t net enough votes for it to pass. According to House Speaker Paul Ryan, Republicans are now “moving on” from health care, and the nation is “going to be living with Obamacare for the foreseeable future.” (CNN)
• German scientists are bringing the heat with their so-called “world’s largest artificial sun.” This honeycomb array of giant spotlights creates furnace-like conditions that could help produce environmentally friendly hydrogen fuel. (TIME)
• On Friday, President Trump gave the go-ahead for TransCanada to construct the Keystone XL pipeline, which was protested by environmental advocates and stalled during the Obama administration. (Washington Post)
• According to a new study in Science, nearly two-thirds of cancer-causing mutations result from errors in cells’ DNA replication process, rather than unhealthy habits, environments, or genetics. (Nature)
• According to a new report on the Kaikōura earthquake that rocked New Zealand last fall, at least a dozen faults — cracks in Earth’s crust — were involved in the event. That means the quake was far more extensive than seismologists thought possible — possibly causing them to underestimate seismic hazards worldwide. (Science)
• President Trump will sign an executive order Tuesday to start rolling back Obama-era climate policies. Among his directives, he has tasked the EPA with reviewing the Clean Power Plan, which limits carbon dioxide emissions from existing fossil fuel power plants. (Vox)
• A supermassive black hole got booted out of its home galaxy, and it’s now hurtling through space faster than four million miles per hour. Astronomers suspect that gravitational waves were responsible for this astronomical eviction. (New Scientist)
• A group of researchers devised a clever way to lure out fake open-access journals. They applied to editor positions at hundreds of journals with the blatantly fake resume of a fictional scientist and noted which journals offered “Dr. Fraud” a job. Their sting operation caught 48 phony journals red-handed. (New York Times)
• And finally, as if SpaceX and Tesla weren’t enough, Elon Musk is launching a new company called Neuralink to help humans merge with machines. (Wired)