Iris on science · June 14th

Green tea, rooibos, kombucha and pure fruit juice each bring a modest amount of research‑backed antioxidants; the studies are mostly observational, so the health boost is likely small but real. Using those liquids as a base, you can turn any tea into a frozen snack that’s lower‑calorie than store‑bought popsicles.

Pick a caffeine‑free option like rooibos for kids, or a probiotic‑rich kombucha if you like a tangy bite. For a richer texture, swap half the liquid for full‑fat coconut milk and add a natural sweetener such as maple syrup.

Herbs such as mint, basil, lavender, rosemary or lemon balm (young leaves work best) blend nicely, and a handful of fresh or frozen fruit—blueberries, for example—adds flavor and color. Toss in edible flowers if you want a pretty finish.

A simple recipe: blend coconut milk, blueberries, a cup or two of chopped lemon balm, and maple syrup; pour into molds and freeze 12–24 hours. The result is a creamy, herb‑infused “herbsicle” that feels like a treat and carries a whisper of the tea’s antioxidant benefits.

So I've been looking into this situation with Google and SpaceX, and it's pretty interesting. Google invested $900 million in SpaceX back in 2015, and they still hold a 6.11% stake in the company. If SpaceX's IPO goes well and they reach their valuation of $1.75 trillion, Google's stake could be worth around $122 billion. That's a huge potential profit for Google, and it could even double their profits for the year.

The thing is, SpaceX is not in great financial shape. They lost $4.9 billion last year, and their losses are expected to increase this year. The xAI part of the business is struggling, with low infrastructure utilization and significant legal troubles. The only profitable part of the company is Starlink, but it's not clear if that growth can be sustained in the long term.

Despite all these issues, SpaceX is aiming for a valuation that's extremely high, with a revenue multiplier of over 90. For comparison, a revenue multiplier of ten is considered very high. Some analysts think SpaceX is worth around half of their target valuation, which would be $780 billion. But others, including me, think that's still too high, and a more realistic valuation would be between $112 billion and $224 billion.

Google has a lot to gain from SpaceX's IPO, so they're likely to try to boost the company's image and hype up their valuation. It's also worth noting that Google has a significant stake in Anthropic, a competitor to xAI. They initially invested $3 billion and then added another $10 billion, which has likely increased their stake to around 15-20%. This could be important because it gives Google a vested interest in the success of both SpaceX and Anthropic.

Overall, it seems like Google is trying to pump up SpaceX's valuation to maximize their own profits, but it's not clear if this will work. The company's financial issues and high valuation targets make it a risky bet, and some people think the whole thing could collapse.

Although Star City is very much its own show, with its own conflicts, aesthetics, and narrative drive, these episodes are running parallel to For All Mankind Season 1. And, it turns out, not all those parallels are just connected to the timeline. Some character arcs are echoed in the basic setup of Star City, including the notion that the loved ones and families of the astronauts, or cosmonauts, are an integral part of the unfolding story. And, with Star City Episode 4, the series is, purposefully or not, using a similar plot device that occurred in For All Mankind, Season 1, Episode 3, mirroring the events and character dynamics in both shows. In Star City Episode 4, “Dark Forest,” the origin of Tanya (Ruby Ashbourne Serkis) and Valya’s (Adam Nagaitis) couplehood is revealed in a flashback. And, suddenly, the parallels to Gordo (Michael Dorman) and Tracy (Sarah Jones) in For All Mankind are very, very strong. Spoilers ahead. Just like For All Mankind Season 1 Episode 3, Star City Episode 4 flashes back to an earlier moment in the 1960s, to tell the story of how Tanya and Valya first met. Although the series is currently taking place in 1970, “Dark Forest” begins in 1964, when Tayna and Valya first have a meet-cute at a party. And it’s here we learn that Valya has been under observation by a Western agent for quite some time. The genuine romance between Tanya and Valya unfolds throughout the flashback, which eventually results in Valya getting blackmailed by the agent because Tanya had previous ties to dissident anti-Soviet groups, or at least, hippie-ish groups that were deemed anti-Soviet enough to get a cosmonaut into trouble. What Star City does with this flashback is give a ton of weight to the relationship between Valya and Tanya, while also helping to contextualize their current dysfunction. Again, this is shades of Tracy and Gordo, but from another perspective. In 1961, Tracy and Gordo had their meet-cute via flashback, when Tracy pretended not to know anything about flying, but was actually a very experienced pilot. Then, in 1970, after the USSR put Anastasia Belikova (now a major Star City character) on the Moon, NASA started recruiting women for the space program, which unfolds in the events of “Nixon’s Women,” the FaMk episode with Tracy and Gordo’s relationship origin. Tracy's being brought into NASA creates a lot of tension in For All Mankind Season 1, and although Tanya isn’t becoming a cosmonaut or anything in Star City, she is, like Gordo, committing adultery and coming up with a double standard when she suspects that Valya is stepping out on her. (He’s not, he’s just getting hassled by spymakers who are blackmailing him!) The point is, like For All Mankind, Star City has given one of its central couples an entirely new dimension, thanks to a well-placed flashback. This fact is made all the more interesting if you watch Star City Episodes 3 and 4 side-by-side with For All Mankind Season 1 Episodes 3 and 4. The impacts of what Anastasia did hugely changed the lives of Tracy and Gordo (and everyone else) in For All Mankind, but the details of how that happened, as revealed in Star City — including that Belikova was not the first choice for that mission — make the pivots in 1970 in FaMk all the more interesting. Gordo and Tracy probably didn’t think they had all that much in common with their Soviet counterparts. But it turns out that across the globe, the lives of various future (fictional) space pioneers were inexorably linked.

  Satellite alerts suggest deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon is continuing to fall, putting the country on pace for one of its lowest forest-clearing years in more than a decade. The decline comes as climate scientists warn that a likely strong El Niño could still bring a difficult fire season, even if clear-cutting remains low. New data from Brazil’s National Institute for Space Research, or INPE, show that its DETER alert system detected 370 square kilometers (143 square miles) of deforestation in the Amazon in May. That was down from 960 square kilometers in May 2025, a decline of about 61%. Data from INPE’s DETER and Imazon’s SAD detection systems showing deforestation in the Legal Amazon (“Amazonia”) from Aug 1 to May 31 since 2008. Image by Mongabay Data from INPE’s DETER and Imazon’s SAD detection systems showing deforestation in the Legal Amazon (“Amazonia”). Image by Mongabay May is an important month in the Amazon deforestation calendar. It often marks the transition toward the drier season, when forest clearing and burning tend to increase across parts of the southern and eastern Amazon. Monthly satellite figures can vary because of cloud cover, timing and the way alerts are processed, but the latest data extend a longer downward trend. Over the past 12 months, DETER registered 3,182 square kilometers of deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon. That compares with 4,633 square kilometers during the same period a year earlier. The total is the lowest for any 12-month period in the DETER record dating…This article was originally published on Mongabay

The same biological signals that help predict lifespan in humans also appear in dogs, according to new research from the Dog Aging Project—a finding that could help scientists better understand aging in both species.

UC researchers are investigating whether leaf protein and sugar extracted from plant fiber could help sustain people if major global shocks disrupt food production. Te Whare Wānanga o Waitaha | University of Canterbury (UC) Associate Professor David Denkenberger, who has spent more than a decade studying food resilience in extreme scenarios, says the work is part of a broader effort to identify practical ways to prevent mass starvation if global food systems are severely disrupted.

The world relies on a modest number of countries to keep watch over the ocean. That arrangement is starting to fail. Europe and Asia must now decide whether to let the system unravel, or to take it up together.

When a star dies, it generates an explosion of elemental nuclei and hurls them into space. Those elements, called cosmic rays, travel at nearly the speed of light, and eventually some of them encounter manmade detectors. Recording how many of each of these elements show up helps scientists better understand cosmic processes—but despite incredible research advances over the last century, uncertainty around how these elements transform as they travel across the light-years has left fundamental questions about our galaxy's composition unanswered.

Jemima Kang, Nick Haslam and Mike Conway/The University of Melbourne/The Conversation Category: ADHD & Autism, Brain Health, Body and Mind Tags: University of Melbourne, ADHD, Autism, Autism spectrum disorder, Depression, Anxiety, Online, mental health

NASA is racing to build a permanent settlement near the lunar south pole. The space agency claims its Moon base will cover “hundreds of square miles,” meaning mobility will be key. Enter Pegasus, one of two Lunar Terrain Vehicles (LTVs) chosen by NASA to fly to the Moon with the first Artemis astronauts. Category: Space Systems, Engineering