Listener supported WNYC Studios.

This is Science Friday. I'm Ira Flato.

And I'm Flora Lichten.

First, a quick look at the news this week.

Ira, what caught your eye?

Yeah, there was something really hard to believe that I discovered, and that is out of every 10 new cars sold in Norway, nine are

electric. Wow. Yeah, and they're aiming to make it 100% electric by the end of this year. I mean,

and this isn't the country that's known

for its oil and gas production. So how did they pull it off? It's the old story of slow and steady.

They set a goal back in 2017, and they didn't ban gas cars. No, but they did tax them, gas and

diesel fuel. And this is the good part. They offered a bunch of incentives to buy electric cars. They gave you free parking, discount on tolls. They even waived the VAT and import taxes. And the best part, you can even drive in the bus lane on the highway. I'm sold.

So if you put it all together, that comes to about one third of all the cars on the road are electric.

And I think that's pretty impressive.

So what impressed you this week, Flora?

Well, a story I really liked came from our friends at the show Radio Lab.

So they teamed up with the International Astronomical Union, and they ran this contest to name one of Earth's quasi-moons, which I learned is apparently not a moon, but also not not a moon.

It's like a hunk of rock that orbits the sun, but is close enough

to a planet to seem like a moon. So anyway, they picked one near Earth that has a name that is not

so catchy. It's like a string of a bunch of digits. And they held this contest, and they got thousands

of name submissions from people across the world. And this week, their panel picked a winner.

And, drum roll, please?

Cardia. Cardia. Cardia, which is the Roman goddess of doorways and transitions, a kind of guardian

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