What happened
Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said yesterday that the Pentagon will introduce testosterone screenings for soldiers over the age of 30. The screenings will be available to troops under 30 by request, and any soldier found to have lower testosterone levels will have the option to undergo hormone treatment. The new policy is designed so soldiers “have the right testosterone levels to operate at” their “absolute best,” Hegseth said in a video on X.

Who said what
The secretary’s messaging “blends known science” on testosterone with “broader and less substantiated claims,” The Associated Press said. The new policy shows the secretary “takes direction from the far corners of the manosphere,” Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-Pa.), an Air Force veteran, told the outlet. Hegseth “did not address” whether the “thousands” of women who “serve in frontline combat roles” would also be “subjected to hormone testing,” Politico said. 

What next?
The screenings will be “conducted annually as part of service members’ periodic health assessments,” said Task & Purpose. But Hegseth has not disclosed when the screenings will begin.

What happened
More than 100 wildfires are burning out of control in Canada, sending plumes of smoke south across the border to blanket parts of the Northeast and Midwest, and turning skies orange. Poor air quality triggered health warnings across multiple states including New York, Michigan and Massachusetts. In Canada, Toronto’s air quality briefly registered as the worst of any city in the world. 

Who said what
The “primary health concern” with wildfire smoke is fine particulate matter, which can “bypass the body’s defenses” when inhaled, Canadian physician Dr. Farhan M. Asrar said on The Conversation. The “best thing to do” is to keep a close eye on the air quality in your area, Heatmap News said. This summer’s wildfire activity in Canada is “nowhere near the hyperactivity of 2023,” CNN said, but “planet-heating fossil fuel pollution is increasing the chance of prolonged smoke seasons.”

What next?
Forecasters expect air quality to remain low across the Midwest and Northeast today and possibly Friday. It’s “too early to determine the weekend outlook,” The Wall Street Journal said.

Astronomers have detected a type of sugar found in raspberries and self-tan lotions near the center of the Milky Way. A study published in the journal Nature Astronomy reveals evidence of erythrulose, a simple sugar, in interstellar gas and the dust clouds between stars.

The discovery may conjure up images of a “civilization of pale safety-conscious frugivores” in outer space, said The Guardian. But for astronomers, it’s significant because it shows that “compounds important for life can form in the frigid expanse between the stars.”

Sugar “does more than sweeten tea and powder doughnuts,” said The Associated Press. “Different varieties fuel our cells and even make up DNA,” so scientists are “itching to know how sugars form because they are a key ingredient for life as we know it.” 

Erythrulose itself “isn’t essential for life but can easily convert to a form that’s thought to be crucial to kick-starting life on Earth,” said the AP. And it’s “especially tantalizing” to think that erythrulose might have acted as a “feedstock” for the more complex sugars that evolved into nucleic acids, the “building blocks of modern-day DNA and RNA,” said Nature.

That’s why the “detection of erythrulose is so relevant for the origins of life,” said study co-author and astrophysicist Izaskun Jiménez-Serra to Live Science. And if we can discover even more complex sugars in the Milky Way, more light could be shed, said astrophysicist Anthony Remijan to Nature. An “actual building block of RNA and DNA — that would be the next big thing.”