Fromage, Formaggio, Käse, Queso: cheese—one of the Old World’s great romance stories. In the heart of Paris, a new museum has opened dedicated to the ages-old craft of cheesemaking in France, the second most prolific producer on the continent (behind Italy). At the newly-opened Musee du Fromage, visitors can learn about the history of cheese […] The post The First Ever Cheese Museum Opens in Paris: See, Learn, and Taste, of Course appeared first on Good News Network.

Books SFF in translation Five Works of Korean SFF in Translation A romance complicated by relativity, a building that is literally its own country, a near-future pandemic, a glamorous department store that sells dreams, and a righteous rebellion against a necromantic… By Anton Hur | Published on July 17, 2024 Comment 0 Share New Share Nothing annoys me more than a book with lukewarm speculative elements that’s labeled “literary speculative fiction” in a kind fence-straddling manner meant to appeal to literary fiction snobs who feel disdain toward genre fiction—that’s genre-baiting! That is not cool! You are never going to convince me that Hwang Sok-yong writes “speculative fiction” no matter how many ghosts he puts into a novel! No. I want spaceships and dragons and women in Ellen Ripley jumpsuits carrying huge Ellen Ripley guns, I want science fiction and fantasy, goddammit. Here are my five favorite works of Korean SFF in English translation. I’m Waiting for You by Kim Bo-youngTranslated by Sophie Bowman and Sung Ryu I will never forgive the Anglosphere for sleeping on this incredible book when it came out in English translation. The book is essentially two very different novellas put into a single book, with the titular story being a science fiction story of a young engaged couple who are trying to reunite on the same planet so they could get married and start their lives but keep running into relativity snafus. I wonder if it’s meant to be an allegory of the division of the Korean peninsula, with families torn apart for what they thought would be a brief time and are still waiting to this day to be reunited (over seven decades and counting). Oh, and the other novella is a mythical fantasy story about cosmic creation that simply blew my mind. Tower by Bae Myung-hoonTranslated by Sung Ryu What if there was a building so big and tall that it was literally its own country? The book is a work of witty political satire, yes, but it also surprises with its emotional heft and resonance, thanks to some extremely real and down-to-earth characters. Sometimes I wonder if this novel was too smart for the Korean readership at the time as it did not make much of a dent when it was first published and soon went out of print. Translator of legend Sung Ryu (who literally translates legends and is also legendary) fished it out of a pile at a used book store, fell in love with it, and made it her personal mission to give it a second life in English. Proving how every book is a miracle and a translated book even more so. To the Warm Horizon by Choi Jin-youngTranslated by Soje Reading this dystopian novel is a bit like reading Octavia Butler’s The Parable of the Sower or Hilary St. John Mandel’s Station Eleven—books that in retrospect seem eerily prescient. This sharply written and concisely translated story is about a near-future pandemic that leaves humanity devastated and distrustful, in the midst of which two young women find love in each other (but not before a series of horrific events). While the book was released during the COVID-19 pandemic, the Korean novel was written just a couple of years before that, and the translator Soje was working on it way before the entire world started associating “corona” with a virus instead of beer. The Dallergut Dream Department Store by Miye LeeTranslated by Sandy Joosun Lee What if dreams were sold in a glamorous department store that you could go shopping in, or better yet, you could work for? I love quirky, cozy fantasy stories about interviewing for jobs, getting along with co-workers, serving customers, but like, fantasy jobs and fantasy co-workers and fantasy customers. There’s something about heightening the quotidian mundane into something fantastic, it makes the world around us come alive and the imagination sing, like how a caricature or animation of a thing is somehow more vivid and intense than the thing itself. Clearly, I’m not the only one who feels this way; if you live in Korea, you will see this book everywhere, and now you can read it in English! Blood of the Old Kings by Sung-il KimTranslated by Anton Hur Did you really think I could write an article about Korean SFF in translation without mentioning at least one of my own books? When Tor contacted me out of the blue about translating this novel about a righteous rebellion against a necromantic empire, I immediately began to scream my head off—Tor! Every sci-fi geek’s dream publisher! I absolutely fell in love with this book because of its epic scale, its thriller-like pacing, and its slew of powerful women characters (my favorite trope) doing incredibly courageous things. I have never had so much fun translating a book, ever, and I can’t wait until readers get to pick it up this fall. Some extra good news: it’s a trilogy! [end-mark] The post Five Works of Korean SFF in Translation appeared first on Reactor.

We graduate with the Bayside gang to follow their adventures on campus in Saved By The Bell: The College Years. We explore what made the original Saved By The Bell so special and why this CONTINUE READING... The post Remember That Show? Ep. 17: Saved By The Bell The College Years appeared first on The Retro Network.

An inch. One inch, and President Donald J. Trump would be dead. One slight turn of the head. One slight turn of the head saved Donald J. Trump’s life. The fact that Donald J. Trump is alive today is a miracle. There is no other way to see it. His assassin had a clear line of sight. He was 135 meters from Trump. He got off multiple rounds. And Trump was wounded. Barely grazed in the ear, bleeding profusely, Trump rose from the ground, pumped his fist, and shouted, “Fight!” Whatever the reason—and who knows the reasons of God?—God decided that Donald J. Trump would live on Saturday. And that demands an answer of us: Can we, as Trump has now said, unify? Can we come together as Americans? Because if that assassin’s bullet had been one inch the other way, our country would have found itself in an unprecedented crisis. The leading candidate for the candidacy, the ex-president of the United States, a man targeted by his political opposition more than any figure our lifetimes, would have been murdered on national television. What would have come next? It is almost impossible to imagine. Given the obvious questions about the failures of the Secret Service to secure the roof from which the assassin fired his deadly shots, given the crisis of confidence in our institutions, given the fact that Joe Biden has run an entire campaign on the basis that Trump is an existential threat to the republic—could we ever come together again? Or would the assassination of Trump have ushered in an era of extreme violence in our politics? Would it have presaged the breaking apart of our social bonds, the actual dissolution of our national ties? God didn’t just save Donald J. Trump on Saturday. He may have saved the United States as well. What comes next? What should come next is a realization that Americans are, in fact, compatriots. That we share a country and a future together. The language of dissolution—the line that “if (INSERT CANDIDATE) wins the presidency, there will never be another election”—must stop. It is a lie. It was always a lie. Neither candidate on the ballot is Hitler. Neither candidate wishes to end America’s elections or send his opponents to concentration camps. I want Donald Trump to win. I’ve given money to his campaign. I think Joe Biden is the worst president in modern history. But I do not believe that Joe Biden will end America itself if he wins. America will continue to exist, and my political side will continue to fight for its principles. Joe Biden had the opportunity to deliver such a message in the hours after the Trump assassination attempt—and he failed signally. He reminded Americans of “the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics” but didn’t say the one phrase that might have given such a statement credibility: “everyone, including me.” And indeed, just the next day, he gave an interview to NBC’s Lester Holt in which he denied any role in ramping up the hysterical tone of America’s political rhetoric. Instead, he suggested, that hysterical tone was all the fault of Donald Trump. In essence, it was Trump’s own fault someone tried to shoot him. This is an absurdity. More than that, it is morally disgraceful. This week, Trump has the opportunity to do what Biden wouldn’t: unify the country. He says he wants to do just that. And he can do so by reminding us of the better angels of our nature and by decrying the catastrophist rhetoric that has infected our politics. He can point out that while he disagrees with Joe Biden—while he thinks Biden is the worst president in American history—Joe Biden will not be the end of America. We will continue to live together, to work together and to be a nation. God gave us all another chance on Saturday. We ought to take it. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post God’s Hand on Donald J. Trump appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The Biden administration has intervened to prevent the Secret Service from briefing a House committee investigating the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump, a member of the committee told Family Research Council. “After the Secret Service agreed to brief members of the House Oversight Committee on Tuesday, the Department of Homeland Security took over communications with the committee and has since refused to confirm a briefing time,” said a statement from the Oversight Committee emailed to FRC from Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz.. “The Oversight Committee has a long record of bipartisan oversight of the Secret Service, and the unprofessionalism we are witnessing from the current DHS leadership is unacceptable.” “We were scheduled for a first briefing today,” confirmed Rep. Michael Cloud, R-Texas, but “DHS has stepped in between the communications now of the Secret Service and the Oversight Committee, and are now trying to control the communication between the two committees.” “Already they’re obfuscating, it would seem,” said Cloud. The briefing to the House Oversight Committee would precede a full committee hearing on the Trump assassination attempt with the director of the Secret Service, Kimberly Cheatle, next Monday, July 22, at 10 a.m. Cloud noted that Chairman James Comer, R-Ky., has issued subpoenas to assure Cheatle shows up. At least three congressional committees are now investigating the near-fatal shooting in Butler, Pa. last Saturday. In addition to the House Oversight Committee hearing, Chairman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, announced the House Judiciary Committee plans to question FBI Director Christopher Wray next Wednesday. And the House Committee on Homeland Security, led by Rep. Mark Green, R-Tenn., will interview the leaders of the DHS, FBI, and Secret Service. “The United States Secret Service has a no-fail mission, yet it failed on Saturday when a madman attempted to assassinate President Trump, killed an innocent victim, and harmed others. … [Q]uestions remain about how a rooftop within proximity to President Trump was left unsecure,” said Comer. “Americans demand answers from Director Kimberly Cheatle about these security lapses and how we can prevent this from happening again.” Several questions hang over the Secret Service’s handling of the near-fatal shooting by 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks, who fired eight shots from the top of the AGR International Inc. factory. Tim Miller, a former Secret Service agent and founder of Lionheart International Services Group, told Perkins, “One of the first things you start with as a site agent, and we learned this in November of 1963,” is to ask, “‘Where are the high places where someone with a rifle could shoot and kill the president?’” “Unfortunately, the biggest thing that we look at from day one was missed,” said Miller. Cheatle admitted she placed agents inside the building from which the shooter staged his attempted murder instead of on top of it, because the structure had a sloped roof. Apparently, the Secret Service inside the building could not hear the shooter climbing the side of the business and walking on the roof above them. Numerous eyewitnesses alerted law enforcement to the presence of a man on the roof with a rifle. A policeman from the Beaver County Emergency Services Unit took a picture of Crooks and called in a suspicious presence at 5:45 p.m., 28 minutes before the shooting, according to local reporter Nicole Ford of WPXI. Rep. Cory Mills, R-Fla., told CNN Tuesday morning that the Secret Service’s serial failures were so amateurish that authorities must investigate whether they were “intentional,” or merely incompetence. “The amount of negligence, the amount of mistakes that were made here, I have a very difficult time not leading myself towards [thinking] this was intentional instead of fecklessness.” He called for Congress to establish a “J-13 commission,” apparently similar to the January 6 Committee. “These are not difficult advances,” said Mills, a former military sniper. “This is not a political thing,” he said. The American people need “a proper investigation on all levels to ensure this doesn’t happen again and our president can be safe.” “I’ve been making my own calls to Secret Service agents that I know that are willing to talk to me off the record. And there are a lot of severe problems,” revealed Biggs on “Washington Watch with Tony Perkins” Tuesday. “I would like to find out who is the lead agent who got there and ran the advance. I want to see what the agent asked for as far as material, manpower, etc., and whether he was denied some of that. The other thing I would like to know is where [were] the counter snipers? Were they green-lighted, or were they told that they were going to have to hold? And if they were told they were going to have to hold, I want to know who the supervisor was who made the determination to hold. And when they saw the actual shooter.” Like many others, Biggs blamed a politically correct culture focused on “equity” rather than quality in hiring Secret Service agents. “Cheatle has put a focus on DEI,” said Biggs. Cheatle announced she aimed to assure that 30% of Secret Service agents are female by 2030. In 2021, more women than men graduated from the service’s training classes. “This is all about DEI,” said Biggs. He charged Cheatle with laying aside “merit-based hirings” and becoming “willing to take anybody that she thinks” meets “her diversity goals.” “That’s not the way their mission is designed,” said Biggs. “The DEI hires are so bad.” Several female Secret Service agents appeared unable to cover Trump’s head on Saturday evening, or even to holster their pistols safely. Miller said, due to the director’s laser-like focus on DEI—which the Biden-Harris administration has made a whole-of-government undertaking—members of preferred classes “are not being evaluated” thoroughly before being hired. “They’re actually saying, ‘Oh, well, you’re this particular group, so come on in.’ And I think that will compromise the mission.” “There are a lot of problems and challenges,” said Miller. “And it starts with saying, ‘We’re not going to hire the brightest and the best. We’re only going to hire’” members of specified demographic groups. These groups tend to vote overwhelmingly for the Democratic Party. The Biden administration doubled down on its decision to elevate accidents of birth in the hiring process. “Our strength comes from our diversity,” stated Secret Service Chief of Communications Anthony Guglielmi. The Biden administration has strongly supported Cheatle, who spent 27 years in the Secret Service, including several years on then-Vice President Biden’s security detail, insisting her leadership is not to blame. “I have 100% confidence in the director of the United States Secret Service, a dedicated, career-long law enforcement officer,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas told NPR. But Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., said he posed probing questions to Mayorkas “within hours” of the shooting. “He didn’t have a lot of those answers,” said Johnson, who called the impeached secretary’s responses “concerning.” Trump’s security team transformed dramatically between his shooting and the moment he entered the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee. On Monday evening, Trump strode into the Fiserv Forum to the strains of Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA,” flanked by at least 10 male Secret Service agents and one female. Critics say the Biden administration has a history of treating the American people as enemies, unworthy of knowing the inner workings of their own government. “This is coming from the same administration who was labeling Catholics as terrorists, people who go to school board meetings as terrorists, yet they fail to protect a former president of the United States and a political opponent. We’ve seen this administration target political opponents before,” said Cloud. A Senate committee is set to receive a briefing on Wednesday. “It’ll be just the tip of the iceberg,” Sen. Roger Marshall, R-Kan., told “Mornings with Maria” Wednesday morning. Next Monday’s House Oversight Committee hearing will be livestreamed on the committee’s website, oversight.house.gov. Biggs acknowledged the heroism and how “the first agent hops up on that podium right away [and] doesn’t look towards where the shot came from. He’s going in to provide cover,” he recounted, even at the potential cost of his life. Comer also saluted “the brave Secret Service members who put their lives at risk to protect President Trump and for the American patriots in the audience who helped innocent victims.” “There was good, bad, and ugly in this incident with Donald Trump,” said Biggs. But the bad and the ugly leave disturbing questions House Republicans promise to investigate until the end. “What we saw play out on Saturday night is the greatest indicator that we have a problem that we are refusing to look in the eye and deal with,” said Miller, “and that’s going to lead to nothing but danger and destruction down the road.” Originally published by The Washington Stand. The post Biden Administration Stonewalls Congressional Investigation Into Trump Shooting appeared first on The Daily Signal.

The conservative nonprofit Consumers’ Research launched a campaign on Tuesday going after investment firm Morgan Stanley Capital International for “embracing” an anti-Israel stance in its environmental, social, and corporate governance ratings. The Consumers’ Research six-figure ad campaign features a new website, a national mailer, digital marketing ads, and a mobile billboard outside of MSCI’s headquarters in New York City. The campaign came after a coalition of Republican state attorneys general opened an investigation over allegations that MSCI had implemented policies from the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel. “MSCI is yet another example of a massive investment firm pushing their anti-Israel agenda instead of following their fiduciary duty,” Will Hild, executive director of Consumers’ Research, told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “It’s especially appalling, given the attack on [Israel] last October.” (Consumers’ Research/MSCILies) In March, the Jewish News Syndicate reported that MSCI’s ESG policies allegedly downgraded several companies that “it said committed ‘human rights violations’ simply for conducting business in Judea and Samaria and eastern Jerusalem.” Soon after, the coalition of 18 attorneys general, led by Florida Attorney General Ashley Moody, sent MSCI Chairman and CEO Henry A. Fernandez a letter expressing “great concern” over the Jewish News Syndicate report. “In other words, it appears that MSCI is embracing the BDS movement’s false narrative of Israeli occupation and taking actions designed to pressure companies to Boycott Israel—specifically by downgrading those companies’ EGS scores if they do business in Israel,” the letter reads. “According to [the Jewish News Service], MSCI deducted ESG points from an Israeli company specifically because of the company’s “participation in the construction of security and surveillance barriers designed to protect Israelis from terrorists,” the letter reads. “It is unthinkable to us that MSCI would stand by this position following the terrorist attacks on Israel last October. MSCI is not the only asset management company to receive scrutiny for anti-Israel bias. In April 2023, Consumers’ Research also launched a campaign against another investment firm, Morningstar, for also assigning ESG scores to negatively impact companies with connections to Israel. This campaign was announced after 17 state attorneys general sent a letter in August 2022 highlighting concerns that a Morningstar subsidiary, Sustainalytics, “may be furthering the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel.” This letter came after then-Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt opened an investigation in July 2022 after Morningstar conducted an internal review and admitted to its anti-Israel bias. Anti-Israeli bias has become more pronounced across cities and college campuses following the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack. Between Oct. 7 and Jan. 7, incidents of antisemitism skyrocketed 360% to a total of 3,291 incidents, compared with the same period in 2022-2023, which saw 712 incidents, according to data from the Anti-Defamation League. Conservative groups and lawmakers have attacked this bias within finance firms, particularly by pushing back on ESG. In July 2022, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, proposed legislation to ban state fund managers from taking ESG practices into consideration when investing state funds, saying its been “utilized to impose an ideological agenda on the American people.” “The American people are sick and tired of the ESG elites allowing their personal progressive politics to interfere with their legal fiduciary duties,” Hild told the Daily Caller News Foundation. “If MSCI can’t do their job without applying an unfair double standard to Israel, then they shouldn’t be trusted by their customers or the American people.” Originally published by Daily Caller News Foundation The post Conservative Group Goes After Investment Giant, Accusing It of Anti-Israel Bias appeared first on The Daily Signal.

NBC anchorman Lester Holt interviewed President Joe Biden on the first day of the Republican convention. In the past, that would be seen as impolite, for one party’s nominee to intrude on the other party’s convention week. That’s why NBC offered that deal to Donald Trump—should he choose to accept it. Holt’s interview wasn’t a sappy softball interview, but the versions that aired on “NBC Nightly News” and “Today” were carefully emptied of Biden’s anger. Holt’s evening introduction said the interview “comes as President Biden decries political violence, but [he’s] not backing down in his characterization of former President Trump.” Biden clearly wasn’t interested in “lowering the temperature” after Trump was shot. He’s worried that Democrats still want to force him into quitting the race. You’re left with whirling hypocrisy. As NBC’s Peter Alexander tried to explain it, the challenge is “how sharply he can make the case against Donald Trump that he is a threat to democracy, while still casting himself as a calming force.” Trump will kill democracy, but have a nice day? To his credit, Holt focused on Biden’s fierce words, that he told his supporters before the shooting that Trump was an “existential threat” and they should put Trump in the “bull’s-eye.” Biden said it was a mistake, and then launched into an attack on Trump, saying he had many lies in the debate and that “I’m not the guy who said I want to be a dictator on Day One.” That would be a lie. When Sean Hannity asked if Trump would be a dictator (as Democrats claim), he joked, “Only on Day One.” Holt didn’t do any “fact-checking in real time,” even as sites like PolitiFact softly said Biden was “missing context” here and there. Despite these smears, Alexander’s story on “Today” touted Biden lamenting the ugliness of the political climate, decrying “big Trump signs saying ‘F Biden’ and a little kid standing there putting up his middle finger. That’s the kind of stuff that’s just inflammatory and a kind of viciousness.” That’s inflammatory and vicious? And saying Trump is an “existential threat” to America is not? But the most shameless NBC omission was Biden’s bitter outbursts at Holt and at the press: “Why don’t you guys ever talk about the 18 to 28 lies he told? Where are you on this? Why does the press never talk about that?” He leaned in at Holt: “Twenty-eight times confirmed that he lied in that debate. … Seriously, you won’t answer the question, but why won’t the press talk about all the lies that he has told?” Holt sheepishly said, “We’ve reported many of the issues.” Biden said, “No, you haven’t.” To assert that the media didn’t trash Trump for “lies” in the debate strongly suggests you didn’t watch them at all. Then when Holt noted Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, attacked Biden, he shot back, “What’s with you guys? Come on, man!” Once again, Biden obviously wants the “bull’s-eye” of press attention on Trump, not on him. But there are rougher questions Biden could receive. I’d try this: “At the debate, you mocked Trump as a convicted felon, but during these weeks after the debate, your son Hunter has been a close adviser to you, and he is also a convicted felon. So why do you think you can trash-talk Trump as a felon when your own top adviser is a convicted felon?” Imagine the volcanic Biden outburst at a real hardball. This interview may have helped with Democrats, but it underlines that when Biden doesn’t look like a feeble bumbler, he often looks like an egotistical, mean-spirited, groin-kicking jerk. COPYRIGHT 2024 CREATORS.COM We publish a variety of perspectives. Nothing written here is to be construed as representing the views of The Daily Signal. The post NBC Omits Biden Scolding Lester Holt as a Trump Enabler appeared first on The Daily Signal.

Baltimore School Revolt Over AP African-American Studies Course

Springtime in Canada. Its large lakes have spent many many months completely frozen, but they are finally starting to thaw. From the shore it may not look like much, but a little prodding reveals that the ice is made up of tightly-packed, vertically floating candle-shaped ice sticks. Not something you see every day.Candle ice, also known as needle ice, is a form of rotten ice, but that doesn’t sound nearly as appealing. The formation of candle ice starts in winter, when the body of water freezes. The crystallization into sticks is due to supercooling, the cooling of water below freezing without solidifying. Large ice crystals then form very rapidly. Interestingly, the presence of wind during the crystallization can lead to the formation of horizontal candle sticks, making the ice look darker.Come springtime, melting begins at the border of individual columnar crystals where the ice contains more impurities. This separates the thick ice sheet into a packed mass of candle ice.     To get the beautiful vertical candles you therefore need: supercooling, relatively still water, and the presence of some impurities in the water. That’s why this type of crystallization most often happens in lakes in very cold places: in Canada, Alaska, Lakes Michigan and Superior, Japan, and Russia, like the beautiful Siberian Lake Baikal, the oldest and deepest lake in the world. IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Candle ice is also known to make a beautiful clinking sound when disturbed, as if the lake had turned into a floating chandelier. A feast for the eyes and the ears.  IFLScience is not responsible for content shared from external sites.Just a word of caution: only explore a lake of candle ice by boat (kayak or canoe), or in a wetsuit if you can brave the cold. Its lack of horizontal structure means it will not support you if you try to walk on it!Now, go book your tickets to Canada for next spring. 

Astronomers have made new discoveries in the atmosphere of Venus, adding to the compelling complexity and debate over recent discoveries of the molecule phosphine there, and what it means. The unexpected presence of phosphine continues to perplex scientists, but the idea of life in the clouds of Venus continues to be a tantalizing possibility.From the start, the discovery of phosphine in the atmosphere of Venus has been a revolutionary (and much debated) find. The reason for the uncertainty, however, is simple. Phosphine is a biosignature, which means that its presence could indicate life (and we don't mean Missy Elliot) – and as far as we can tell, there is no life on Venus or among its clouds. Multiple follow-up investigations have observed the presence of this molecule. Now, the team has presented new evidence for this molecule even deeper in the cloud of Venus, and possibly ammonia too.There are a number of weirdnesses in Venus's atmosphere. Phosphine is just a new one that's come along.Dr Dave ClementsThe potential presence of this molecule deeper in the planet's clouds has been introduced before. Recent analysis of data from NASA’s Pioneer Venus Multiprobe launched in 1978 found compelling hints for the presence of phosphine at around 55 kilometers (34 miles) of altitude in the clouds. The higher the pressure a molecule experiences, the broader the line will appear in the light spectrum, and such a feature was seen on the phosphine line.“We haven't properly sorted out the atmospheric modeling for this yet, but there are some broad lines at the level that suggest parts per million level of phosphine at around 55, 56, 57-kilometer altitude, consistent with the pioneer Venus probe data,” Dr Dave Clements, from Imperial College London, told IFLScience.                       The observations come from the JCMT-Venus project, which uses the James Clerck Maxwell Telescope to detect and monitor not just phosphine but a variety of other molecules, including sulfur dioxide (SO2) and water. Dr Clement’s PhD student Wei Tang looked at the variation of water (using heavy water as a tracer) in the atmosphere of the second closest planet to the Sun.“There are a number of weirdnesses in Venus's atmosphere. Phosphine is just a new one that's come along," Dr Clements told IFLScience. "Amongst the other strange things is the way that the amount of water and the amount of SO2 in the atmosphere vary over time. It's not known why. The variations haven't been to a great extent, but it's known that there are variations on time scales from at least days to years."The team is continuing the analysis of the data they have collected over three observation campaigns. There are challenges when it comes to confirming the presence of these molecules, so they are making sure that their analysis is not creating lines where it shouldn’t as well as using other independent observations to make the results very robust, including data from Pioneer Venus Multiprobe, which had also seen hints of ammonia.In fact, ammonia might be the next big thing for Venus. The team also report the first tentative detection of ammonia up in the clouds. While ammonia can be easily produced even in a high school lab, its presence on a rocky planet is considered a good biosignature because there is no significant known source of ammonia in terrestrial worlds that does not come from life. This doesn’t mean that it is certain that there’s life on Venus – it means that we do not know yet how it came to be. We're trying not to overstate, but yeah, it's really exciting.Prof Jane Greaves“There are other models coming along all the time, other explanations saying ‘Oh, you could get ammonia and phosphine and all sorts of other unexpected chemicals this way unrelated to life’ so we're trying not to overstate, but yeah, it's really exciting,” Professor Jane Greaves, from the University of Cardiff, told IFLScience.Still, it was the possibility of life that inspired Greaves and the team to check for ammonia. Chemist William Bains has suggested the possibility for living organisms to use this chemical to counteract the acidity of the clouds of Venus, making little droplets of water livable.“If there are any microbes in the Venus clouds, they might make certain gases that you wouldn't expect. And ammonia came up as they could use it as a way to neutralize the acid,” Professor Greaves told IFLScience. “We've detected it slightly above the region which we think is warm enough for life. Either it hasn’t got anything to do with life or the gas is perhaps produced by something living but it drifts upwards where it's a bit easier for us to detect.”The observations come from the Green Bank Telescope in the US, however, given the brightness of Venus, it was hard to calibrate the instrument, so the team is being cautious and calling this a tentative observation of ammonia.So no confirmation of life yet, but the work done by Greaves, Clements, and their team is extremely exciting and tells us just how complex Venus is as a planet. It is not just “Earth’s evil twin” but a changing world with volcanoes, bone-crushing atmospheres, hellish temperatures, and something truly bizarre going on in its clouds. There's much more to find out about this fascinating world, and luckily both NASA and the European Space Agency (ESA) are planning to go back there soon.NASA's DAVINCI mission, which is also set to study Venu's atmosphere, is currently on schedule to launch at the end of the decade, and this mission will certainly look for phosphine as it flies through the clouds of Venus.The goal of EnVision, the European mission, is to understand the relationship between the peculiar atmosphere and geological activity, in particular, to find out where Venus went "wrong" compared to Earth.But we will not have to wait that long for more Venus insights. The team is continuing observation campaigns across multiple telescopes, and not just in the range to see phosphine. Currently, there is a real push to understand Venus and its atmosphere better.In terms of close encounters, the Rocket Lab Probe, part of the Morning Star Missions, is expected to launch in January 2025 and be the first private mission to another planet. It will enter Venus's atmosphere and hopefully detect some of these intriguing molecules. On top of that, the team hopes to convince ESA's JUICE mission to turn the spacecraft instruments on as it flies by Venus next year on its way to Jupiter.Papers on the new insights on phosphine, water, and ammonia on Venus are in preparation and the results were presented in a special session presented at at the National Astronomy Meeting this week.