This Week in Science: Cheap Diamonds, Farty Cows, and Spiders on Mars

It’s time for “Nerd News,” covering the most important news for your brain.

Here’s a quick rundown of this week in science . . .

1.  Diamonds might not be that “rare” someday soon.  Researchers in South Korea figured out how to make them without having to put them under tremendous pressure, so it’s a lot cheaper and easier.  It takes nature billions of years.  But their new process created diamonds in under two-and-a-half hours.

2.  Our solar system has only had eight planets since Pluto got downgraded in 2006.  But now researchers at Caltech think they’ve discovered new evidence of a different “Planet 9” out beyond Neptune.  They think they might be able to find it with a new telescope in Chile next year.

3.  In other space news:  The Voyager 1 space probe is back from the dead . . . NASA is worried China might try to take over the Moon . . . and a photo of carbon dioxide deposits on Mars had people joking there might be spiders up there.

4.  In health news:  A new process might help bones heal faster and three times stronger than current methods.  And a study found female patients are less likely to DIE when treated by female doctors.

5.  In hot people news:  A study found being around an attractive woman tends to make men more honest, but other women less honest.

6.  And in hot planet news:  If you want to point the finger at one company for plastic waste, it’s Coca-Cola.  11% of all the branded plastic litter collected in a study was made by them.  PepsiCo was next at 5%.

But in more promising climate news:  A team at M.I.T. figured out how to use light to evaporate water without heat, which could be huge for desalinization plants.  And researchers in Australia think we it might be possible to significantly reduce methane emissions by just breeding cows to fart less.