In this conversation, Jason and Mindy discuss various topics including a resilient plant that could grow on Mars, the smell of space, childhood nicknames, and the importance of obstacles in life's journey.

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PLANTING EVIDENCE:

⇒ Scientists say they have discovered an amazingly resilient plant that may someday help astronauts colonize Mars. Chinese botanists put the desert-dwelling moss “Syntrichia caninervis” through a series of tests simulating the harsh Martian environment, and found that it is not only radiation-tolerant, it can also survive extreme conditions that would kill most other plants. The plant is “a promising candidate pioneer plant for colonizing extraterrestrial environments, laying the foundation for building biologically sustainable human habitats beyond Earth.”

SPACE HAS A SMELL _ according to Former NASA astronaut Mike Hopkins, who once spent 166 days aboard the International Space Station. In a tell-all, “ask-me-anything” Reddit interview a few years back, Hopkins said, “Space has a smell. And I don’t mean inside the space station. When a visiting vehicle docks with the space station, there is ‘space’ between the two vehicles. Once the pressure is equalized and the hatch is opened, you have this metallic ionization-type smell. It’s quite unique and very distinct.

WHAT’S WORDS WORTH:

Ick. “The ick” is now officially a thing. And by ‘a thing’ I mean it has made it into the dictionary. The ick is among the 3,200 new additions in the newest version of the Cambridge Dictionary, which definitely includes some Gen Z slang words that are going to make some of us feel old. In addition to the ick, which is “the sudden feeling that you dislike someone or something or are no longer attracted to someone because of something they do”, here are some of the other new additions to the Cambridge Dictionary…

Boop: Popularized in “Schitt’s Creek”, it refers to a gentle hit or touch on a person’s or animal’s nose or head, showing that you like them, or as a joke.”

Face Journey: A series of expressions that appear on someone’s face showing different emotions that they are experiencing as a reaction to something. 

Chef’s kiss: When you put your fingers and thumb together, kiss them, then pull your hand away as a way of showing that you think of something or someone as excellent. 

Speedrun: This gaming term means “to complete a computer game as quickly as possible”, but offline, it means “to complete something much faster than it is usually done.”

• Side Quest: This gaming term means “a part of a computer game that has its own aim and story but is not part of the main game”, but IRL it means “an activity that is done in addition to another activity and is less important than it.”