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Science Quickly

Cosmic Discoveries Soar as Earthly Health Decisions Stir Alarm

Science Quickly

Scientific American

Science

4.41.4K Ratings

🗓️ 11 August 2025

⏱️ 9 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Rogue planets drifting through space might be forming their own planetary systems. NASA’s Europa Clipper mission has completed a key radar test ahead of its journey to study Jupiter’s icy moon. Plus, a major shift in U.S. health research funding occurs as Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., cancels nearly $500 million in funding for mRNA vaccine development. E-mail us at sciencequickly@sciam.com if you have any questions, comments or ideas for stories we should cover! Discover something new everyday: subscribe to Scientific American and sign up for our daily newsletter.  Science Quickly is produced by Rachel Feltman, Fonda Mwangi, Kelso Harper and Jeff DelViscio. This episode was edited by Alex Sugiura. Shayna Posses and Aaron Shattuck fact-check our show. Our theme music was composed by Dominic Smith.  Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

Here's the truth about AI.

0:02.0

AI is only as powerful as the platform it's built into.

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ServiceNow puts AI to work for people across your business,

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removing friction and frustration for your employees,

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providing intelligent tools for your service agents to make customers happier.

0:19.0

All built into a single platform you can

0:21.9

use right now. That's why the world works with ServiceNow. Visit ServiceNow.com

0:27.8

slash UK slash AI for people. Happy Monday listeners. For Scientific American Science Quickly, I'm Rachel Feltman. Let's kick off the week with our usual science news roundup.

0:52.5

Let's start with some space news.

0:55.0

Have you ever heard of rogue planets?

0:57.0

They sound pretty cool, and they are.

1:00.0

The term refers to exoplanets that roam free instead of orbiting a star.

1:05.0

Some of them may be objects that formed like stars, coalescing in the wake of a giant gas clouds collapse, but never

1:11.9

gaining enough mass to actually start the process of nuclear fusion. Others may get their start

1:17.4

in the usual planetary way, forming from the gas and dust around a star, before getting ejected

1:23.0

out into open space for some reason or another. According to a pre-print study made available last month, the life of a rogue planet might not

1:31.8

always be as lonely as it sounds.

1:34.4

Some of them may be able to form little planetary systems of their own, Sandstar.

1:40.0

The researchers behind the new study, which still has to go through peer review, used instruments

1:44.8

on the James Webb Space Telescope to gather information about eight different rogue planets,

1:50.0

each with a mass around five to ten times greater than Jupiter's.

...

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