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<ul class="summary-list"><li>Scientists say they observed a planet that may have an ocean-covered surface, the Guardian reported.</li><li>The observations were made using NASA's James Webb space telescope.</li></ul>Researchers say they have observed a <a target="_blank" href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/7571/toi-270-d/">Neptune-like</a> planet that could be covered by a deep-water ocean, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/mar/08/astronomers-detect-waterworld-with-a-boiling-ocean-in-deep-space?fbclid=IwAR05Ygwpv64-frgfibQcglp6qAZy2Gy55rZ-gvltUB3SeATacVWvt9zGXoA">the Guardian</a> reported.A team from the University of Cambridge in the UK said it had found evidence of water vapor and chemical signatures of carbon dioxide and methane on an exoplanet known as TOI-270 d, which is around 70 light years away.The team used NASA's James Webb space telescope to make observations of the planet, which has twice the radius of Earth and a mass of 4.78 Earths, per <a target="_blank" href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/exoplanet-catalog/7571/toi-270-d/">NASA</a>.Nikku Madhusudhan, a professor of astrophysics at the University of Cambridge who led the research, told the Guardian, "the ocean could be upwards of 100 degrees [Celsius] or more," adding that with high atmospheric pressure, that ocean could still be liquid.But it was "not clear if it would be habitable," he said.The planet is also tidally locked, meaning one side is left in constant darkness while the other faces its star, per the report."The ocean would be extremely hot on the day side. The night side could potentially host habitable conditions," Madhusudhan added.A liquid ocean is the preferred premise set out in a paper published in the journal <a target="_blank" href="https://www.aanda.org/articles/aa/full_html/2024/03/aa48238-23/aa48238-23.html">Astronomy &amp; Astrophysics</a>.The paper also notes the lack of ammonia on TOI-270 d, which it said was "consistent with predictions for a Hycean world with a planet-wide ocean" under a hydrogen-rich atmosphere.However, a group of <a target="_blank" href="https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.03325">Canadian researchers who also observed TOI-270 d have disputed the Cambridge team's claims.</a>While they detected the same chemicals in the planet's atmosphere, one of the researchers told the Guardian that they believed the temperature was "too warm for water to be liquid."Université de Montréal Professor Björn Benneke said that surface temperatures on the exoplanet could be around 4,000 degrees Celsius, or around 7,200 degrees Fahrenheit.He added that this meant any water would be in a supercritical state, where "it's almost like a thick, hot fluid."<div type="image" title="image of the colorful nebula in space" height="1307" width="1500" msid="108564372" hostid="261" sizebytes="160428"></div>The James Webb telescope has played a key role in advancing the search for habitable planets beyond Earth.The telescope intercepts infrared light and directs it to scientific instruments where it can be recorded.One of its main uses is to study the atmospheres of exoplanets to see whether they could support life.One key that scientists look for in a potentially habitable planet is the presence of liquid water.The area around a star where water can exist in a liquid state is called the "<a target="_blank" href="https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/faq/15/what-is-the-habitable-zone-or-goldilocks-zone/">habitable zone</a>" or "Goldilocks' zone." Planets in this zone are neither too hot nor too cold to support liquid water.

Astronomers discover a possible water world in the search for a habitable planet, report says

<ul class="summary-list"><li>The desert planet, Arrakis, in "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dune-part-two-cast-real-life-characters-photos-2024-2">Dune: Part Two</a>" has extreme temperatures and little water.</li><li>Surviving on such a planet would take technology and adaptability.</li></ul>In a distant star system, 20,000 years into the future, a scorchingly hot planet with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-where-to-find-water-lost-in-desert-survival-guide-2023-8">arid deserts</a> and little water is home to blue-eyed, seminomadic inhabitants called <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dune-ending-explained-character-guide-what-happened-2021-10">the Fremen</a>.Frank Herbert first described this harsh, fictional world of Arrakis in his 1965 novel "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dune-explained-what-its-about-characters-movie-2020">Dune</a>," which was recently adapted into a film trilogy. The trilogy's second iteration "Dune: Part Two" debuted in US theaters Friday.The movie was shot in the deserts outside Abu Dhabi, but we wondered what it would actually take to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dune-part-two-ending-explained-2024-3">survive on a real-life Arrakis</a>.While it would require some ingenuity and technology, it wouldn't be impossible, according to scientists we spoke with."There are populations that have lived for centuries and even millennia in deserts," Seth Collings Hawkins, a wilderness medicine specialist with Wake Forest University School of Medicine, told Business Insider.<h2>What the planet in Dune would look like in real life</h2>"There are so many factors that make Earth <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-find-earth-like-planet-sun-like-star-2020-6">habitable to humans</a>," Amy J. Kreykes, an aerospace medicine expert at the University of Texas Medical Branch, told BI.That includes everything from the atmosphere to its distance from the sun to its available water."Everything is just uniquely perfect," she said, "and really any deviation from any of that could make other environments a hostile environment for humans."Dune's planet Arrakis has <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dune-memes-tweets-jokes-timothee-chalamet-denis-villeneuve-2021-10">enormous sandworms</a>, a drug known as spice that helps with <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-antimatter-could-work-for-interstellar-travel">interstellar travel</a>, and two moons. Yet it's not totally dissimilar to Earth.<div type="image" title="Timothée Chalamet as Paul Atreides in &quot;Dune.&quot;" height="1354" width="2040" msid="108150536" hostid="261"></div>When "<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dune-character-guide-houses-explained-differences-from-novel-2021-10">Dune: Part One</a>" came out in 2021, University of Bristol meteorologist Alexander Farnsworth and several other scientists used a weather-prediction <a target="_blank" href="https://theconversation.com/dune-we-simulated-the-desert-planet-of-arrakis-to-see-if-humans-could-survive-there-170181">climate model</a> to simulate the conditions of Arrakis.They input everything they could find from <a target="_blank" href="https://www.google.com/books/edition/The_Dune_Encyclopedia/IdFaAAAAYAAJ?hl=en">The Dune Encyclopedia</a> on the planet's geographical features, atmosphere, and astronomy.There were a few places where the team's model differed from the book's descriptions, like the weather at the planet's poles and tropics, for example.Overall, though, Farnsworth said he was impressed by the world Herbert created."I think what surprised me most was overall how accurate Frank Herbert was in envisioning a desert world without having a physics background or a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/google-deepmind-ai-weather-forecast-accuracy-2023-11">supercomputer</a> to run any sort of calculations on," he said."He must have done a huge amount of research into the various earth system components to understand how such a world could work," he added. In fact, Herbert <a target="_blank" href="https://vasil.ludost.net/dunegenesis.pdf">said</a> he spent six years researching for the book.Based on their calculations, Farnsworth and the other researchers found that living on Arrakis would be possible, though probably not all that pleasant.<h2>Surviving Arrakis' lack of water</h2><div type="image" title="Timothee Chalamet in front of mountain" height="1213" width="2300" msid="108150565" hostid="261"></div>Planet Arrakis lacks oceans, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/death-valley-badwater-basin-california-lake-record-rains-2024-2">lakes</a>, or even tiny puddles on its surface. Needless to say, that's bad news for humans."There's a rule of threes," Hawkins said. The human body can go for about three minutes without oxygen, about three days without water, and about three weeks without food. "This would be the point at which your body would start to break down," he said.To survive such dry conditions on Dune, the fictional Fremen wear what are called stillsuits, which capture the body's perspiration and other bodily fluids and turn them into drinkable water.However, this concept isn't completely sci-fi.Hawkins called space the "ultimate water-deficient environment," which is why the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-nasa-astronauts-pee-and-poop-in-space-2018-8">International Space Station's toilets</a> turn nearly 85% of astronauts' urine into drinking water.Reclaiming that moisture is essential in environments where there's no ready external source. However, as crucial as water is, on Arrakis, the temperature is the real killer."You would probably get <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/conditions-symptoms/heat-stroke">heat stroke</a> before you would die of dehydration," Hawkins said.<h2>Surviving Arrakis' temperature extremes</h2><div type="image" title="A picture of Zendaya in &quot;Dune.&quot;" height="844" width="1500" msid="108150566" hostid="261"></div>Unlike in the book, Farnsworth's scientific model of a real-life Arrakis found the tropics to be more hospitable than the polar regions because the temperatures would be milder year-round.At the poles, the temperatures ranged from 158 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer to -76 degrees Fahrenheit in the winter. Meanwhile, temperatures at the tropics would range from 56 to 113 degrees."So [at the poles] it is not just <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/conditions-symptoms/heat-exhaustion-vs-heatstroke">heat stress</a> but also cold stress that living things would have to contend with," on a real-life Arrakis, he said.Therefore, if you could pick, you'd want to live near the equator on Arrakis."The most feared consequence of being out in that environment is <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wet-bulb-temperatures-spot-stages-of-heat-stroke-and-intervene-2022-7">heat stroke</a>, which is literally cooking of the brain," Hawkins said. The body's temperature would rise to 106 or 107 degrees Fahrenheit, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/health/conditions-symptoms/normal-body-temperature">hotter than a fever</a>.<div type="image" title="Zendaya touching Timothée Chalamet's face" height="1500" width="2250" msid="108150567" hostid="261"></div>"You just wouldn't travel during the day at all," he said. Everyone would find shelter until temperatures began to cool off at night. In the event that you'd have to venture out during the day, you'd need something akin to a stillsuit."It really seems paradoxical [to cover yourself], but we know now that a lot of the problem is the radiation and the heat exposure from the sun," Hawkins said.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fabric-technology-keep-skin-nine-degrees-cooler-2023-9">Certain fabrics</a> are both breathable and good at reflecting heat. Integrating heat-conducting materials into clothing can help, but you would still want some kind of internal fan or air conditioner, Hawkins said."With technology, we can actually add tools on that help prolong our time out in the sun or in the hot environment with less bad effects," Hawkins said.<h2 id="docs-internal-guid-06514c9f-7fff-2bb6-ba31-ee26f8d71fc1">Surviving Arrakis' atmosphere</h2><div type="image" title="Timothee Chalamet holding up a knife" height="960" width="1280" msid="108150568" hostid="261"></div>When it comes to the composition of the atmosphere, "humans are very specific in their needs," Kreykes said.The <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rocket-satellite-metals-polluting-earth-stratosphere-2023-10">atmosphere</a> on Arrakis is similar to Earth. It has similar pressure, slightly less nitrogen (74.32% compared to <a target="_blank" href="https://climate.nasa.gov/news/2491/10-interesting-things-about-air">about</a> 78% on our planet), and a bit more oxygen (23.58% versus Earth's 21%).Despite the similarities, humans might still have an adjustment period."Anytime that you start messing with the atmosphere and changing those parameters, that has the potential to have significant effects on the human," Kreykes said. "Any deviation would need to be looked at very, very closely for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/worlds-most-like-earth-support-alien-life-2016-5">habitability for humans</a>."Arrakis also has a little less <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/so-much-co2-planting-trees-cant-save-us-2017-5">carbon dioxide</a> than Earth, which could affect plant growth. It would be another challenge on top of the limited water sources.<h2>A glimpse of the future Earth?</h2><div type="image" title="Sandworms attacking" height="1213" width="2300" msid="108150569" hostid="261"></div>While learning to tame <a target="_blank" href="https://youtu.be/VC7-OcFvVEw?si=ytE5RzHYTebmG_oT">giant sandworms</a> is a problem that Earth will hopefully never have to face, parts of our planet aren't all that different from Arrakis.For example, the <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/scottsdale-things-to-never-do-there-arizona-according-to-local-2022-11">Sonoran Desert</a> along the Mexican-U.S. border <a target="_blank" href="https://www.science.org/content/article/move-over-death-valley-these-are-two-hottest-spots-earth">recently</a> hit 177 degrees Fahrenheit, one of the hottest surface temperatures on record.<a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/arizona-limits-development-phoenix-houses-homebuilding-water-shortage-katie-hobbs-2023-6">Arizona</a>, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/new-mexico-faces-extreme-water-stress-2019-8">New Mexico</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/california-drinking-toilet-water-sewage-waste-drought-climate-crisis-solution-2023-12">California</a> have all faced droughts or water shortages in recent years.As Earth <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/world-hottest-year-ever-history-climate-crisis-2024-1">continues to warm in the face of climate change</a>, excessive heat and <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/ocean-water-desalination-san-diego-us-drought-crisis-2023-10">water scarcity</a> will continue to affect not only humans but plants and animals worldwide.One reason for the popularity of "Dune" and similar speculative fiction, Hawkins said, is because we can see elements of our own futures in it, "and I do think that this story has that message for us."

What it would take to survive on Dune's planet Arrakis, according to 3 experts

New York, Oct 27 (IANS) <keyword id="6436894" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="venus" source="Orion">Venus</keyword>, known as a scorching wasteland of a planet, may have once had tectonic plate movements similar to those believed to have occurred on early Earth, found a study indicating the possibility of hosting life. Using atmospheric data from Venus and computer modelling, a team of scientists from Brown University showed that Venus must have had plate tectonics sometime after the planet formed, about 4.5 billion to 3.5 billion years ago. This can account for the abundance of nitrogen and carbon dioxide present in Venus' atmosphere, they said, in the paper published in the journal <keyword id="3951856" type="General" weightage="20" keywordseo="nature-astronomy" source="Orion">Nature Astronomy</keyword>. The composition of the planet's current atmosphere and surface pressure would only have been possible as a result of an early form of plate tectonics -- a process critical to life that involves multiple continental plates pushing, pulling and sliding beneath one another. On Earth, this process intensified over billions of years, forming new continents and mountains, and leading to chemical reactions that stabilised the planet's surface temperature, resulting in an environment more conducive to the development of life. Venus, on the other hand, Earth's nearest neighbour and sister planet, went in the opposite direction and today has surface temperatures hot enough to melt lead. One explanation is that the planet has always been thought to have what's known as a "stagnant lid," meaning its surface has only a single plate with minimal amounts of give, movement and gases being released into the atmosphere. The team posts that this wasn't always the case. The paper suggests that this early tectonic movement, like on Earth, would have been limited in terms of the number of plates moving and in how much they shifted. It also would have been happening on Earth and Venus simultaneously. "One of the big picture takeaways is that we very likely had two planets at the same time in the same solar system operating in a plate tectonic regime -- the same mode of tectonics that allowed for the life that we see on Earth today," said lead author <keyword id="12410616" type="General" weightage="50" keywordseo="matt-weller" source="Orion">Matt Weller</keyword>, who led the study while a postdoctoral researcher at Brown and is now at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston. This bolsters the possibility of microbial life on ancient Venus and shows that at one point the two planets -- which are in the same solar neighbourhood, are about the same size, and have the same mass, density and volume -- were more alike than previously thought before diverging. The study also highlights the possibility that plate tectonics on planets might just come down to timing -- and therefore, so may life itself. "We've so far thought about tectonic state in terms of a binary: it's either true or it's false, and it's either true or false for the duration of the planet," said study co-author Alexander Evans, an assistant professor of Earth, environmental and planetary sciences at Brown. "This shows that planets may transition in and out of different tectonic states and that this may actually be fairly common. Earth may be the outlier. This also means we might have planets that transition in and out of habitability rather than just being continuously habitable." That concept will be important to consider as scientists look to understand nearby moons -- like Jupiter's Europa, which has shown proof of having Earth-like plate tectonics -- and distant exoplanets, the paper said.

Venus has Earth-like plate tectonics, indicating possibility of hosting life once

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Comets may have delivered the seeds of life to Earth, scientists say.</li><li>They could also have delivered similar building blocks of life to other planets.</li></ul>Comets may hold the secret to finding alien life, according to new research.Scientists at Cambridge University propose that comets may "bounce" around the universe, carrying the essential ingredients to create life on alien worlds.If their theory is correct, it could help narrow down the search for <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-exoplanets-discovered-astronomers-find-water-alien-worlds-life-2023-1">exoplanets</a> that have the correct conditions for a comet to deliver the building blocks of life."It's possible that the molecules that led to life on Earth came from comets, so the same could be true for planets elsewhere in the galaxy," said first author Richard Anslow from Cambridge's Institute of Astronomy.Though it's still not quite clear how life starts on a planet, a leading theory is that <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comets-brought-first-phosphorus-dna-chemical-to-earth-2020-1">comets carry "prebiotic"</a> molecules that can develop into life, provided they land safe and sound on the right planet.To deliver their organic molecules, these <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/comet-heading-earth-bright-outshine-stars-scientists-c-2023-a32023-3">comets</a> need to travel fairly slowly, at about nine miles per second, per a <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/11/231114215641.htm">press release</a> accompanying the findings. Any faster and the molecules would be destroyed.Scientists modeled different scenarios to see how planetary systems and their stars would pull at a traveling comet.They specifically looked at systems carrying rocky planets around low-mass stars — stars that are smaller than our sun. These types of planets have been studied as prime candidates to carry life.The study found that, in most cases, a comet speeding through a planetary system around a low-mass star would travel too quickly to seed life on a planet in the habitable zone.There is one notable exception: if the planet is part of a planetary system called "peas in a pod," where the planets are in very close alignment, this string of planets could slow the comet down as it is captured in its orbit."It's like kicking a football all the way across the football pitch in one massive shot versus dribbling it slowly with lots of different kicks between the players," Amy Bonsor, an astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, told Insider."One way to get the velocity really low is to have lots and lots of planets, kick the ball between them, and bring it with that low velocity down to the habitable planet to deliver your organics," said Bonsor, who is an author on the study.Still, Bonsor said the research suggests a low-mass planetary system is less likely to carry life than a system with a brighter star. In these systems, planets can be farther away from their star, which means the comets don't have to pick up quite so much speed to reach them."We're all super excited in the community about the fact that we can find habitable zone planets around low-mass stars. And these are really interesting planets and we should be studying them," she said.Bonsor added that she's not alone in saying that such planets may be less likely to be habitable than an Earth-like planet around a sun similar to ours.The findings were published in the peer-reviewed journal Proceedings of the Royal Society A on Tuesday.

Comets that bounce around the universe could be delivering the ingredients for life to alien planets

Gen Z's addiction to fast fashion is destroying the planetEveryone knows that Gen Z cares about the planet: The generation has been at the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-climate-activists-biden-climate-change-school-strike-2021-4?international=true&amp;r=US&amp;IR=T">forefront of the climate movement</a>, they are more likely than any other generation to say that the <a href="https://www.pewresearch.org/science/2021/05/26/gen-z-millennials-stand-out-for-climate-change-activism-social-media-engagement-with-issue/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">climate crisis is their No. 1 concern,</a> and some have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gen-z-companies-kpmg-climate-quitters-esg-sustainability-climate-survey-2023-1">even reported turning down jobs</a> over companies' climate records. But they also have a big problem: Gen Z can't stop buying new clothes. It's not that young people don't want to shop sustainably: Three-quarters of Gen Zers say that sustainability is more important to them than brand name, according to a <a href="https://www.firstinsight.com/white-papers-posts/gen-z-influencing-all-generations-to-make-sustainability-first-purchasing-decisions" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a> by First Insight and the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. But despite their stated preferences, the actual buying habits of young shoppers are fueling a planetary crisis. A recently released <a href="https://newsroom.thredup.com/gen-z-fast-fashion-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> on Gen Z by the online vintage-resale platform ThredUp found that while 65% of Gen Z respondents said they want to shop more sustainably and buy higher-quality clothing, one-third also described themselves as addicted to fast fashion, and more than <a href="https://newsroom.thredup.com/news/thredup-teams-up-with-stranger-things-star-priah-ferguson-to-launch-an-fast-fashion-confessional-hotline-p7la4" target="_blank" rel="noopener">two in five</a> said they buy clothes that they're likely to wear only once. Researchers from Sheffield Hallam University in England found that despite their preference for sustainable clothing, <a href="https://www.shu.ac.uk/news/all-articles/latest-news/fast-fashion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">90%</a> of young Brits still opt for fast fashion — and only 16% of those surveyed could name a single sustainable-fashion brand. As Gen Zers get older, richer, and make up more of the fashion industry's market share, their habits have the potential to affect the industry for good — or ill. And pushing the fashion industry to be more sustainable is key in the fight against climate change: At our current rate, the fashion industry is on track to consume <a href="https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=https-3A__www.thredup.com_resale_2021_-23thredup-2Dimpact&amp;d=DwMFaQ&amp;c=euGZstcaTDllvimEN8b7jXrwqOf-v5A_CdpgnVfiiMM&amp;r=8uFW25uN-J62-CEx8GA0dcy4K_B_QZm00Hn1XE00b6Y&amp;m=dsInlynyx6KgOHGI6Dut2GUYY_6kFltCTnXnr9QKAv0&amp;s=tSKpjbnJj0Hzbf9m_CqUJ1VNIIoiB_UN6XoJAE86EqU&amp;e=" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26% of the world's carbon budget</a> by 2050. And clothing production contributes <a href="https://www.mdpi.com/2073-4441/14/7/1073" target="_blank" rel="noopener">20%</a> of all global wastewater, with an anticipated 50% increase in greenhouse-gas emissions from the industry by 2030. <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/fast-fashion-christmas-shopping-clothes-returns-shein-zara-waste-mountain-2022-12">Fast fashion</a> — the most environmentally damaging business model — prioritizes the quick design, manufacturing, and marketing of astronomically large quantities of clothing, using low-quality materials to replicate current fashion trends in affordable styles. Brands like Missguided and Fashion Nova dominated fast fashion's Instagram era, releasing about <a href="https://www.missguided.co.uk/about#:~:text=We%20drop%20up%20to%201000,ready%2Dto%2Dgo%20outfits." target="_blank" rel="noopener">1,000</a> new styles a week. Now, the TikTok-favorite Chinese brand Shein has stepped on the accelerator, adding anywhere between 2,000 and 10,000 individual styles to its app each day, according to an <a href="https://restofworld.org/2021/how-shein-beat-amazon-and-reinvented-fast-fashion/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">investigation</a> by Rest of World. That overproduction of styles creates a huge amount of waste: <a href="https://earth.org/statistics-about-fast-fashion-waste/#:~:text=Of%20the%20100%20billion%20garments,on%20landfill%20sites%20every%20second." target="_blank" rel="noopener">100 million tons of clothes are tossed out each year</a>.Based on their preferences, young people seem to understand how important shopping sustainably is, so why are they still so addicted to fast fashion?<h2>The Gen Z paradox</h2>Gen Z's economic power is growing faster than other generations, according to <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2020/11/20/gen-z-incomes-predicted-to-beat-millennials-in-10-years.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Bank of America</a>. By 2030, as more of the generation begins working, their income is predicted to account for over a quarter of the world's income. By 2031, they will surpass the income of millennials. And what are young people spending their money on? In the US, <a href="https://www.businessoffashion.com/reports/retail/gen-z-fashion-in-the-age-of-realism-bof-insights-social-media-report/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fashion</a> is the preferred category for entertainment spending among Gen Z, outranking dining out, video games, and music. The market-research firm <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/fashion/2021/oct/06/out-of-style-will-gen-z-ever-give-up-its-dangerous-love-of-fast-fashion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mintel</a> found that younger generations tend to outspend older generations on fashion. And more of the clothes they buy go to waste: In the UK, 64% of 16- to 19-year-olds said they have purchased clothes that they have never worn, compared with 44% of all adults surveyed. Plus, the clothes they buy aren't usually from sustainable brands. A <a href="https://email.mckinsey.com/T/v700000184e4597a6eaf7bf96e9666b528/2719aecfdf0f4c000000021ef3a0bcdb/2719aecf-df0f-4c00-a3f4-7da359feebb2?__dU__=v0G4RBKTXg2GsTlMa8YbE0npiPHb7Gzq29ujr-mrJsl6bcn0E30HNSquNCCrd1XNAz" target="_blank" rel="noopener">2021 McKinsey survey</a> found that 42% of American Gen Zers said they didn't even know what makes clothes sustainable. "I feel like with Gen Z there's sort of like dissonance where we say we care about sustainability, but then all of the Gen Z influencers who are influencing millions of people are telling us to go to these fast fashion brands that are only making things to be worn like three times," Estella Struck, 22, who founded a marketing agency focused on sustainable brands, said. Malthe Overgaard and Nikolas Rønholt, researchers at Aarhus University in Denmark, published a study in 2020 on the contradiction, which they called "<a href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/341756158_An_Exploratory_Study_The_Fast_Fashion_Paradox" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Fast Fashion Paradox</a>," to understand how consumers were thinking about what they buy. More than half of participants either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement, "I like it, I buy it," to describe their clothing-consumption behavior. One participant said that liking the clothes "is the most important thing," adding that they will buy cheap clothes they like even if they weren't sustainably made. Overgaard and Rønholt concluded the reason for the discrepancy between Gen Z's preference for sustainable fashion and their behavior was mainly because of cost. "The low prices offered by fast fashion retailers were articulated as something that affected their attitude in the sense that they were willing to compromise with their attitude towards sustainability," they wrote in their report.This was certainly the case for Katie Robinson, a 24-year-old student, who told me that her fast-fashion purchases are driven by economic necessity. "I didn't have money to shop sustainable alternatives," she told me. "With the cost-of-living crisis, young people also often have student debt and don't have well-paying jobs. You're not able to afford these really expensive, sustainable alternatives. You can either shop secondhand or you can just fall into the fast-fashion trappings and there's not any other options."A 2022 <a href="https://www.33seconds.co/33_zero-report" target="_blank" rel="noopener">survey</a>, commissioned by<a href="https://www.tiktok.com/@earthtopia" target="_blank" rel="noopener"> Earthtopia</a>, one of the world's largest eco-communities on TikTok, found 96% of UK Gen Z and millennial consumers feel the high cost of living is preventing them from making sustainable purchases. While money is a huge factor, it isn't the only explanation for young people's addiction to cheap brands. After all, consumers are buying 60% more than they did in 2000 and keeping it only half as long according to <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-insights/style-thats-sustainable-a-new-fast-fashion-formula" target="_blank" rel="noopener">McKinsey</a>. Consumer psychologist Kate Nightingale believes that this paradox is the result of the "intention behavior gap." She explained that "intentions are great, even attitudes are great, but they don't necessarily result in action." Nightingale believes Gen Z are particularly susceptible to this paradox because their identities are still developing and so they're more easily influenced, especially by social media. "They're going to be naturally much more prone to impulsive shopping, which can be very easily triggered by the way that shopping on social media and other sort of similar platforms is designed," she said.<h2>The live-shopping rabbit hole</h2>For the environmentally aware generation, the viselike grip of fast fashion has been fueled by social media. "You literally can't go on TikTok or Instagram without being sold to," Robinson, who runs a TikTok about sustainable fashion, said. "It's just consumerism all the time. Especially when they're integrating these easy shopping features into the platform — it removes all barriers for you."One of those shopping features — live shopping — has made it much harder to resist buying unnecessary clothes. Instead of shopping at your leisure in a physical store or on a brand's website, live shopping makes buying clothes a time-sensitive experience. Individual sellers or representatives for fashion brands sell their products on a livestream on TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, or YouTube. The sellers interact with the audience in real time, showing off their products and answering questions people put in the comments. These sessions often include specialty items, flash sales, or special discounts that disappear when the livestream is over. And if someone wants to buy something, they never have to leave the app. It often only takes a few clicks. TikTok has been testing its live-shopping feature, which has exploded in popularity in China, where the most popular influencers are able to sell more than <a href="https://www.ft.com/content/3ad7595b-557d-4086-a01e-be5d54b28b45" target="_blank" rel="noopener">$1 billion</a> worth of goods in a single broadcast, The Financial Times reported. It's also massively popular in the UK — and soon it's coming to the US. Robinson is based in the UK and said that as soon as her TikTok account gained followers, she started to get invitations to participate in TikTok's shopping feature. "I would get a push notification every week saying 'join TikTok shop and you can grow a following because we'll get eyes on it,'" she said. Part of why the model, described as "<a href="https://www.modernretail.co/retailers/the-new-qvc-gen-z-is-driving-a-livestreaming-boom/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">the new QVC</a>," is so successful is because it's frictionless. Nightingale explained that when we shop normally there is a lot of "meaningless friction" such as cumbersome website design or waiting in checkout lines in a physical store. But on a livestream, there's not much time to consider what you're buying. Because it's so instantaneous, live shopping encourages the buy-now, think-later approach that fast-fashion companies profit from. Lauren Bravo, an author and journalist, explained how this kind of shopping is flattening the difference between what we like, want, and need. "You can see a dress and think, 'I really like that,' in the same way that you can like a painting or a flower, but it doesn't mean you necessarily want it and it definitely doesn't mean that you need it," she said. "I think what these social-media apps are trying to do is flatten all of those different emotions so that we interpret everything as need."A 2021 <a href="https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/mckinsey-digital/our-insights/its-showtime-how-live-commerce-is-transforming-the-shopping-experience" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mckinsey</a> report found that companies have reported conversion rates — meaning the percentage of potential customers who end up buying something — from live shopping that are up to 10 times higher than conventional e-commerce. TikTok's own report on its live-shopping feature found that <a href="https://newsroom.tiktok.com/en-my/tiktok-whats-next-report-2022-my" target="_blank" rel="noopener">67%</a> of users said TikTok inspired them to shop even when they weren't planning to. "That idea that you can click and buy something immediately within an app, I think is quite dangerous," Bravo said. In addition to pushing people to buy more clothes, the buy-now, think-later model of live shopping also encourages people to buy clothes that are worse for the planet. The model lends itself well to the ultra-fast-fashion labels that produce endless styles and lure in young customers with popular influencers and tantalizing discounts — leaving no time to question what this rate of consumption is doing to the planet. One <a href="https://twitter.com/emmacrochets/status/1624635553076416512" target="_blank" rel="noopener">compilation</a> of TikTok live-shopping streams recently went viral because sellers were left stumped when questioned about the environmental impact of the cheap clothes they were selling. One seller, when asked why the clothes were so cheap, responded, "Don't even question it guys." Another boasted that the clothes she was selling are "cheaper than Shein."<h2>Cutting through the noise</h2>For Gen Z to really live up to their reputation as the green generation, cutting back on the endless scrolling is an important step. Shopping in brick-and-mortar stores can help anyone pause and think more critically about what they're buying to limit overconsumption. As Bravo noted, waiting in a crowded checkout line with music blaring is enough to make any shopper question how much they truly want the items in their basket. After shopping fast fashion throughout her teens, Estella Struck wanted to try to close the gap between Gen Z's desire to shop sustainably and their fast-fashion habits. "It seems like Gen Z are backed into a corner where we have to trade off between caring about the planet or being fashionable, and that bridge needs to be closed," Struck said. To solve that problem, she founded Viviene New York in 2022, a Gen Z-led marketing agency that helps sustainable brands connect with Gen Z audiences through social media. If sustainable brands jump on the live-shopping trend, Struck said, they could encourage more young people to buy the clothes they claim they want to buy. Bravo also believes there's an opportunity for these brands to create more authenticity and intimacy with their customers through the live-shopping model. "It could be a real positive thing in that we're able to have a more personal relationship with the product and potentially even the maker that you're buying from," she said. By putting eyes on more sustainable options right at the source, it could help Gen Z ultimately put their money where their mouths are.<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/author/eve-upton-clark" rel="">Eve Upton-Clark</a> is a features writer covering culture and society.

TikTok's newest shopping feature is destroying the planet

Researchers have identified two dozen planets outside our solar system that may have conditions more suitable for life than our own and some of these orbit stars that may be better than even our Sun. A study, led by Washington State University scientist Dirk Schulze-Makuch and published in the journal Astrobiology, detailed characteristics of potential "superhabitable" planets, that include those that are older, a little larger, slightly warmer and possibly wetter than Earth. Life could also more easily thrive on planets that circle more slowly changing stars with longer lifespans than our sun. The 24 top contenders for superhabitable planets are all more than 100 light years away. However, Schulze-Makuch said the research could help focus future observation efforts, such as from NASA's James Web Space Telescope, the LUVIOR space observatory and the European Space Agency's PLATO space telescope. "With the next space telescopes coming up, we will get more information, so it is important to select some targets," said Schulze-Makuch, a professor with WSU and the Technical University in Berlin. "We have to focus on certain planets that have the most promising conditions for complex life. However, we have to be careful to not get stuck looking for a second Earth because there could be planets that might be more suitable for life than ours". There are at least 4,500 known exoplanets beyond our solar system. Habitability, however, does not mean these planets definitely have life, merely the conditions that would be conducive to life. Earth is around 4.5 billion years old but the researchers argued that the sweet spot for life is a planet that is between 5 billion to 8 billion years old. Size and mass also matter. A planet that is 10 per cent larger than the Earth should have more habitable land. "One that is about 1.5 times Earth's mass would be expected to retain its interior heating through radioactive decay longer and would also have a stronger gravity to retain an atmosphere over a longer time period," the researchers noted. Water is key to life and the authors argue that a little more of it would help, especially in the form of moisture, clouds and humidity. A slightly overall warmer temperature, a mean surface temperature of about 5 degrees Celsius (or about 8 degrees Fahrenheit) greater than Earth, together with the additional moisture, would be also better for life. Among the 24 top planet candidates, none of them meet all the criteria for superhabitable planets, but one has four of the critical characteristics, making it possibly much more comfortable for life than our home planet. "We have a great number of complex and diverse lifeforms, and many that can survive in extreme environments. It is good to have an adaptable life, but that doesn't mean that we have the best of everything," the authors wrote. SEE ALSO: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/supreme-court-defers-loan-moratorium-case-hearing-to-october-13-gives-rbi-and-the-government-another-week-to-file-additional-affidavits/articleshow/78487586.cms">Supreme Court defers loan moratorium case hearing to October 13 — gives RBI and the government another week to file additional affidavits</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/stock-market/news/tcs-shares-hit-record-high-board-to-mull-over-share-buyback-and-earnings-on-october-7/articleshow/78486980.cms">TCS rallies nearly 5%, shares hit fresh high — board to mull over share buyback and earnings on October 7</a> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.in/finance/banks/news/indusind-icici-rbl-axis-hdfc-kotak-mahindra-bank-share-price-and-other-stocks-surge-on-loan-moratorium-case/articleshow/78486360.cms">Relief rally in bank stocks continues as Supreme Court defers loan moratorium hearing to October 13</a>

Two dozen superhabitable planets identified —  some older, a little larger, slightly warmer and possibly wetter than Earth

<ul class="summary-list"><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-world-records-chili-peppers-international-space-station-2021-12">NASA</a> is set to launch the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-checking-james-webb-space-telescope-for-damage-after-incident-2021-11">James Webb Space Telescope</a> — the world's most powerful <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-ask-nasa-for-huge-space-telescope-image-habitable-planets-2021-11">space observatory</a>.</li><li>Webb's first year will include bold searches for primordial <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-dancing-ghosts-illusion-galaxies-billion-light-years-daway-2021-8">galaxies</a> and habitable <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/astronomers-nasa-telescope-spot-signs-of-planet-beyond-galaxy-2021-10">planets</a>.</li></ul><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/nasa-postpones-astronauts-spacewalk-due-to-possible-space-junk-danger-2021-11">NASA</a> is about to open a never-before-seen window into the cosmos. Starting next year, astronomers should be able to peer into the atmospheres of <keyword id="11910186" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="planets" source="Orion">planets</keyword> orbiting distant stars, analyze the aftermath of the <keyword id="6471260" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="universe" source="Orion">universe</keyword>'s most violent collisions, and look further back in time than ever before.That's because the <keyword id="12594489" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="james-webb-space-telescope" source="Orion">James Webb Space Telescope</keyword> — JWST, or simply "Webb," for short — is folded up, full of fuel, and loaded onto a rocket in French Guiana.<keyword id="6360409" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="nasa" source="Orion">NASA</keyword>'s last game-changing space observatory, the Hubble Space Telescope, launched in 1990. It, too, was on a mission to document the 13.8-billion-year history of the universe.Hubble is still observing the cosmos, and NASA hopes to keep using it for a few more years, possibly into the 2030s. But Hubble could only see so far, and Webb is designed to see even farther.In collaboration with the <keyword id="11921802" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="european-space-agency" source="Orion">European Space Agency</keyword> (ESA) and the Canadian Space Agency, NASA has spent decades and more than $10 billion building Webb, which is set to launch into space as soon as December 24. While Webb was first conceived of in the 1990s and originally slated to cost $500 million, a redesign and delays both drove up its price tag and pushed back its launch date.After launch, if all goes according to plan, Webb will spend six months unfolding and adjusting itself, falling into an orbit 1 million miles from Earth. Then it can begin rewriting cosmic history.<div type="image" title="james webb space telescope lifted vertically enormous gold mirrors wrapped in purple foil inside white cleanroom" height="2048" width="1536" msid="88227311" hostid="261"></div>The telescope's main project is to investigate how <keyword id="12393175" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="galaxies" source="Orion">galaxies</keyword> formed and grew after the Big Bang — peering into the universe's depths to capture images of the first galaxies ever formed. Its infrared cameras are so powerful and precise that they could spot a bumblebee 240,000 miles away — the distance between Earth and the moon.Webb will also help astronomers investigate mysteries they hadn't considered when NASA first designed the telescope."Webb has this broad power to reveal the unexpected. We can plan what we think we're going to see, but at the end of the day, we know that nature will surprise us more often than not," Klaus Pontoppidan, a Webb scientist at the Space Telescope <keyword id="11896083" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="science" source="Orion">Science</keyword> Institute, said in a press briefing on November 18.NASA expects the telescope to probe the secrets of the cosmos for at least a decade. Even the telescope's first year in space is jam-packed, with nearly 400 investigations from thousands of scientists all over the world, Pontoppidan said.From peering at Mars to investigating ancient galaxies, here are a few of the most exciting projects that Webb — the most powerful space telescope ever built — is expected to tackle in its first year: <h2>Light from the first galaxies is still traveling to Earth, and Webb may spot it</h2><div type="image" title="hubble ultra deep field image 10,000 galaxies pinpricks of light" height="2200" width="2200" msid="88227314" hostid="261"></div>As a telescope peers into the distance, it's also looking back in time. That's because it takes time for light to travel. When you look at the sun — please, don't! — you're seeing light that our star emitted eight minutes ago. When Hubble looks at distant galaxies, it's seeing light from billions of years ago, as far back as 400 million years after the Big Bang."We have this 13.8-billion-year story — the universe — and we're missing sort of a few key paragraphs in the very first chapter of the story," Amber Straughn, a scientist on NASA's Webb team, said in the November 18 briefing. "JWST was designed to help us find those first galaxies."Webb is expected to spot galaxies that formed when the universe was just 100 million years old.It's 100 times more powerful than Hubble. It's also using infrared light, which has wavelengths that can cut through dust clouds that may have obscured Hubble's view, which relied on visible light.Webb should see deeper into the cosmos and detect galaxies — the first ones formed after the Big Bang — that are too distant and faint for Hubble to pick up.<h2>Looking for gold forged by the universe's most violent collisions</h2><div type="image" title="neutron star collision" height="998" width="1330" msid="88227317" hostid="261"></div>For the last six years, <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/gravitational-wave-experiment-ligo-cracked-einstein-mystery-2020-11">gravitational-wave detectors</a> on Earth have been sensing ripples in space-time created by the most violent events in the cosmos: black holes and <keyword id="12717370" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="neutron-stars" source="Orion">neutron stars</keyword> crashing into one another.Scientists think these collisions <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/neutron-stars-crash-ligo-gravitational-waves-periodic-elements-2017-10">forged most of the universe's heavy elements</a>, like silver, gold, and platinum. Webb will try to confirm that by focusing on distant collisions of neutron stars — the dense cores of stars that have collapsed, ejected their outer layers, and died.Webb will be able to analyze the entire spectrum of infrared light from those collisions. That will allow astronomers to indentify individual elements like gold or platinum in the explosion debris, based on their wavelengths of light.This method, called spectroscopy, will help astronomers learn about other objects Webb studies, too."Spectra will be the bulk of the science," Antonella Nota, a Webb scientist who leads the ESA office at the Space Telescope Science Institute, said in the briefing. "While an image, we say is worth 1,000 words, spectra for astronomers are just worth 1,000 images."<h2>Our first glimpse at the atmospheres of planets that could host life</h2><div type="image" title="An artist’s impression shows the planet K2-18b, its host star and an accompanying planet in this system. K2-18b is now the only super-Earth exoplanet known to host both water and temperatures that could support life. UCL researchers used archive data from 2016 and 2017 captured by the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope and developed open-source algorithms to analyze the starlight filtered through K2-18b’s atmosphere. The results revealed the molecular signature of water vapor, also indicating the presence of hydrogen and helium in the planet’s atmosphere." height="1750" width="2333" msid="88227319" hostid="261"></div>When it's not busy studying the most massive objects and ancient galaxies in the universe, Webb will search for less extreme environments, worlds where conditions could be just right to give rise to life.<keyword id="12393174" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="exoplanets" source="Orion">Exoplanets</keyword> — worlds orbiting other stars — were barely a field of study when NASA began designing Webb. Two decades later, astronomers have identified dozens of exoplanets that could be temperate enough for alien life. They're not too cold, not too hot, just right for water — but only if they have hospitable atmospheres.Webb will watch potentially habitable exoplanets pass in front of their stars, and analyze the spectra of starlight that shines through the planets' atmospheres. That spectroscopy will indicate to scientists whether the air on other worlds contains compounds that could point to life, like carbon dioxide, methane, or water."This telescope is definitely our next big step in our search for potentially habitable planets," Straughn said.<div type="image" title="james webb space telescope gold octagon mirror in large white cleanroom" height="1618" width="2157" msid="88227322" hostid="261"></div>These aren't necessarily Earth-like planets. Stars like the sun are so big and bright that Webb wouldn't be able to see the tiny Earth-like planets orbiting them. That's a job for the next great space telescope. Instead, Webb will look at rock planets orbiting stars that are much smaller and dimmer.Some of its first targets will be planets circling a small star, TRAPPIST-1, just 39 light-years away.The star has seven rocky planets, three of them in its "Goldilocks zone," meaning they're just the right distance to have temperatures that would allow liquid water to exist on their surfaces.<div type="image" title="trappist 1 seven earth size planets discovery nature 7" height="2550" width="3400" msid="88227324" hostid="261"></div>Webb is also set to zoom in on uninhabitable, but fascinatingly extreme, planets. At least one of the planets on its roster is so close to its star that its surface is molten, and it may even rain lava there. Webb should be able to detect that lava rain.The telescope will also examine every object in our solar system, starting with Mars and working its way outward to the icy objects beyond Pluto.In those planets, stars, and galaxies, near and far, Webb is sure to uncover major surprises. "Webb will probably also reveal new questions for future generations of scientists to answer — some of whom may not even be born yet," Pontoppidan said.This post has been updated with new information. It was originally published on December 11, 2021.

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will spend its first year looking for primordial galaxies, gold-forging explosions, and habitable planets

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Ever since I was small, I've liked the feeling of rubbing ribbons.</li><li>It helps calm me down when I'm feeling stressed out. </li></ul>I was out to dinner with my husband, trying to be discreet about what I was doing under the table. A slight movement of my arm must have given me away, because he looked at me and shook his head."You're not, are you?" he said.I grinned, feeling a bit guilty. I was caught rubbing again, and it was not the first time. Until recently, I thought I was the only adult with this quirky habit — an anomaly in the population. You see, I like to stroke ribbons.<h2>Rubbing ribbons helps me calm down when I'm feeling stressed out</h2>As you may have guessed, it's a self-soothing technique that stems from childhood. When I was a little girl, my mom sewed a ribbon on my teddy bear's ear, and I would stroke it to comfort myself. Most kids outgrow their comfort objects. They <a target="_blank" href="https://www.insider.com/woman-39-years-old-still-sleeps-with-childhood-security-blanket-2022-9">eventually ditch the moth-eaten security blankie</a> or throw their beloved teddy out of a car window nonchalantly.Not me. At the ripe old age of 38, I still love the texture of a ribbon between my thumb and index finger.If I have some major life event happening, like an impending birth or operation, the ribbon is always packed. Even if it's happy days and we are heading overseas on a family holiday, the ribbon comes along.If I wake up at night, the ribbon is what I reach for to <a target="_blank" href="https://www.insider.com/tips-for-getting-better-sleep-2023-8">get me back to sleep</a>. And sometimes, I even sneak it out in public with me, at the risk of appearing a little strange.<h2>I'm not the only adult with a 'comfort object'</h2>I recently decided to see if I was the only person on the planet who had a comfort object in my 30s. To my surprise, a quick Google search revealed online forums with dozens of people talking about adult comfort objects. Some even <a target="_blank" href="https://www.quora.com/Why-do-I-love-the-feeling-of-rubbing-material-between-my-thumb-and-finger">discussed</a> why they loved the feeling of rubbing material between their thumb and finger, whether it be clothing tags or the remnants of a childhood blankie."I'm obsessed with this thread now that I've found my fellow Rubbers," one person wrote. "In my family we call it a 'rubby.' I've had a rubby my whole life, literally! I'm to the point now I don't even care if people see me with it. I have it in hand all the time."In an <a target="_blank" href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2022/nov/19/adults-who-have-cuddly-toys-comfort-objects">article</a> for The Guardian, one woman who was interviewed summed up her attachment to her childhood teddy bear perfectly. "The only way to describe it is 'safety' and 'home,'" she said. I totally get it.The science behind why <a target="_blank" href="https://www.businessinsider.com/guides/tech/self-care-products">certain objects soothe us</a> is still emerging. A small <a target="_blank" href="https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S209549642030131X?casa_token=O9PRwBMS4-EAAAAA:nYPSCJzolmnjUM93abRy9dmNIeb05fqgXqZWe0qptdl7z4mXPVeAKXcm7uKEh9svXy9fIq0">study</a> published in 2020 in the Journal of Integrative Medicine found that weighted blankets reduced anxiety in patients at a psychiatric facility who chose to use them, compared to patients who did not.And a <a target="_blank" href="https://metro.co.uk/2019/05/20/1-3-british-adults-still-sleeps-soft-toy-9607056/">UK survey</a> found 34% of adults still sleep with a soft toy every night, while 15% admit they can't sleep without theirs. Almost one in 10 (9%) say they'd rather share a bed with their teddy than their own partner. I wouldn't go that far. My husband still takes priority over the ribbon — most of the time.

You Searched For "Habitable planet" and got 8 results

Astronomers discover a possible water world in the search for a habitable planet, report says

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Venus has Earth-like plate tectonics, indicating possibility of hosting life once

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Comets that bounce around the universe could be delivering the ingredients for life to alien planets

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TikTok's newest shopping feature is destroying the planet

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Two dozen superhabitable planets identified — some older, a little larger, slightly warmer and possibly wetter than Earth

IANS

NASA's James Webb Space Telescope will spend its first year looking for primordial galaxies, gold-forging explosions, and habitable planets

Morgan McFall-Johnsen

I have a quirky habit that helps me calm down when stressed. I like to rub ribbons — they're my comfort object.

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