Vanguard feels and smells like a new RV. It has long, gray banquettes that convert into bunks, a microwave cleverly hidden under a counter, a functional steel sink with a French press and crockery above. A weird little toilet hides behind a curtain.
But you can’t just fire up Vanguard’s engine and roll off the lot. Once it is sealed and moved to its permanent home beneath the waves of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary early next year, Vanguard will be the world’s first new subsea habitat in nearly four decades.
Teams of four scientists will live and work on the seabed for a week at a time, entering and leaving the habitat as scuba divers. Read our story about some of their potential missions.
—Mark Harris
Cloning isn’t just for celebrity pets like Tom Brady’s dog
This week, we heard that Tom Brady had his dog cloned. The former quarterback revealed that his Junie is actually a clone of Lua, a pit bull mix that died in 2023.
Brady’s announcement follows those of celebrities like Paris Hilton and Barbra Streisand, who also famously cloned their pet dogs. But some believe there are better ways to make use of cloning technologies, such as diversifying the genetic pools of inbred species, or potentially bringing other animals back from the brink of extinction. Read the full story.
—Jessica Hamzelou