This Week in Science: The Stranded Astronauts Only Got Paid $5 a Day

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.  The stranded Space Station astronauts came home Tuesday, and it had people wondering how much they’d get paid for all that overtime.  The answer is . . . $5 a day.  (???)  They’re on salary, making around $150,000 a year.  So they don’t get overtime.  They just get $5 a day for incidentals while “traveling.” 

They were up there 286 days, so that’s $1,430 each.  NASA did note that meals, lodging, and transportation are also covered.

2.  In scary robot news:  Boston Dynamics posted a new video of its Atlas robot, walking, running, crawling, cartwheeling, and BREAKDANCING.  Here’s the video.  It breakdances at :45.

3.  In STUPID robot news:  A.I. is good at lots of stuff now.  But a study found it still sucks at reading clocks.  It gets confused by the hour and minute hands.

4.  In bacon news:  Could the cure for cancer be tricking our body into thinking it’s PORK?  (???)  Researchers in China figured out how to make our immune system think cancer cells are pig cells.  So it attacks the tumor and knocks it out.

5.  In gadget news:  A team at Cornell is working on a ring that translates sign language in real time.  They say it could revolutionize the way hearing-impaired people communicate with the world.

6.  In astronomy news:  A study found our whole universe might exist inside a black hole.  (???)  The oldest galaxies are twice as likely to spin clockwise than counter-clockwise.  If the universe was born by getting flushed down a black hole, it might explain why clockwise is more common.

7.  And finally:  Kids today might not go through a traditional mid-life crisis when they’re older.  But it’s not exactly good news.  The path of happiness used to be U-shaped, but it’s flattening out.

We used to be happy as young adults . . . go through a mid-life crisis . . . then rebound and feel happy again.  But polls show young people are more stressed than ever.  So it’s starting to feel like one long slog toward retirement.  Researchers say the trend started when smartphones arrived.