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An oddly shaped object hurtling through space led Israeli astrophysicist Avi Loeb to write a book proposing the existence of outer space civilizations.Dinosaurs might still roam the Earth if a giant ancient asteroid had taken a slightly different course. If Prof. Avi Loeb had followed his expected trajectory, he’d have become a philosopher rather than Harvard University’s longtime chair of astronomy and founding director of its Black Hole Initiative. And if a shiny space object dubbed ‘Oumuamua hadn’t deviated from an orbit shaped by the Sun’s gravity, Loeb wouldn’t have written his bestselling Extraterrestrial: The First Sign of Intelligent Life...

If you make a face like a kid swallowing cough syrup at the mere suggestion of Brussels sprouts, you might have the DNA of a “super taster,” a genotype that makes the bitter chemicals in these foods taste practically intolerable, according to recent research to be presented at the American Heart Association’s Scientific Sessions 2019 this weekend in Philadelphia. Everyone inherits two copies of a taste gene called TAS2R38. The particular variants you’re born with determine how sensitive or not you are to bitter tastes from certain chemicals such as glucosinolates, commonly found in cruciferous vegetables like Brussels sprouts, cabbage,...