Thousands of people got a particularly crummy gift this Christmas: A warning that they could have been exposed to dangerous bloodborne diseases like HIV and viral hepatitis while receiving care at the hospital.
New research shows that as many as 700,000 microscopic fibres are released into the environment each time we do the laundry. It’s a problem with no easy solution in sight.
The 1967 Outer Space Treaty was one of the few things the US and the Soviet Union managed to agree on at the height of the Cold War. Among other things, it forbid both nations from bringing space microbes back to Earth, or spreading Earth germs to other planets.