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Oioi and welcome to This is Genius Science in 90 Seconds, here comes the future, right
on time.
And first up the Kepler space telescope has enjoyed another bumper haul - with the confirmation
of a whopping 715 new exoplanets to add to the 1,000 or so already confirmed. Excitingly,
the planets orbit just 305 stars, meaning all are in multi-planet systems. Not only
that, but the planets found are shrinking - 95% are smaller than neptune, which is around
4 times the radius of Earth, whilst four are less than 2.5 times the size of Earth and
orbit in their stars' habitable zones.
Next up and from deep space to a little closer to home, a research facility in Germany has
analysed the top five possible geoengineering techniques which could be used to slow global
warming - and have decided they're all stupid and dangerous. The Helmholtz Centre for Ocean
Research found that solutions such as pumping iron filings or lime into the oceans, mass
irrigation of deserts and reflecting sunlight, could all have devastating effects on the
world's weather patterns, but would probably not do much good at cooling it down.
And finally, A dutch University have joined Harvard scientists in reporting that they
*may* have detected dark matter, the so-far invisible substance that makes up some 27%
of the universe. Independently, the groups detected tiny X-ray spikes coming from various
galaxy clusters, which can't be explained by any existing model. It's likely to be a
new kind of particle, which they've called the sterile neutrino because it has mass,
but doesn't interact with anything else.
That's it for this week, check out the playlist for more on these stories.