The Harder They Fall

There’s been a lot of news about shortages of personal protective equipment, but this is where the rubber meets the road. Reuters reported the hard news: “Coronavirus: World Braces for Condom Shortage After Malaysia Lockdown Shuts Top Producer.” The government ordered Karex Berhad, the planet’s largest condom maker, to close its three Malaysian factories, leaving a worldwide shortfall of 100 million condoms. “We are going to see a global shortage of condoms everywhere, which is going to be scary,” says Chief Executive Goh Miah Kiat, who needs to keep his chin up.

Best known for its Durex brand, the company manufactures one out of every five condoms in the world. Or did, until the Wuhan virus raised its ugly head. But this is a pressing issue. We’ve got millions of people sheltering-in-place, under lockdown, with nothing much to do except, well, comfort each other. And we’ve got a drooping condom supply. Something’s gotta give. 

Wondrous Fungus

It is fascinating how many problems nature solves. Oceans eat oil spills, microbes eat plastic, and apparently shrooms eat nuclear accidents. “You Should Know About this Chernobyl Fungus that Eats Radiation,” declares Popular Mechanics. And it is good news. Scientists have discovered a “radiation extremophile” fungus living in the Chernobyl complex that uses high amounts of melanin “to both resist radiation and turn it into energy.”

nasa biotechnologist Kasthuri Venkateswaran plans to bring the radiation-eating fungus aboard the International Space Station to see what happens. “This has great potential for future space travel, where deadly amounts of cosmic radiation are one of the big obstacles scientists must navigate in order to safely send people into outer space,” notes Popular Mechanics. Elon Musk will no doubt want to pack extremophile fungi and weed for his SpaceX Starship flight to Mars.

Uranus Toot

Uranus is weird. No, really. According to nasa.gov, “Unlike any other planet in our solar system, Uranus spins almost perfectly on its side — like a pig on a spit roast — completing a barrel roll once every 17 hours.” Its magnetosphere (magnetic field) “wobbles like a poorly-thrown football.” Now scientists are reexamining data from 1986, when Voyager 2 did a Uranus flyby. “Unbeknownst to the entire space physics community [at the time], 34 years ago Voyager 2 flew through a plasmoid, a giant magnetic bubble that may have been whisking Uranus’s atmosphere out to space.” (As Instapundit put it, “A mysterious gas is escaping Uranus.”) Explains nasa: “These giant bubbles of plasma, or electrified gas, pinch off from the end of a planet’s magnetotail — the part of its magnetic field blown back by the Sun like a windsock.” According to the readings, Voyager 2 smelt what Uranus dealt, but nobody knew it until this year. Clearly, nasa needs Eric Swalwell to consult on the Voyager 3 flyby.

Illustrations ©2020 Allison Smith for The Limbaugh Letter; The Harder They Fall photo ©2020 Reuters/Bazuki Muhammad; Wondrous Fungus photo ©2020 Shutterstock/Ondrej Bucek/Stephan Morris; Depart, Art Illustration ©Barbara Kelley; Sidelined Sit-In photo ©2020 Daily Orange/Corey Henry/Photo Editor