Space smell! Science selling secrets! Copper popularity! Alcoholism genes! Pregnant running! Infant sleeping! Bullies exposed! Dinosaur footprints explained! And fat black widows! It's your Tuesday Science Watch, where we watch science—successfully!

  • What does outer space smell like? A NASCAR race. Not making that up.
  • A scientist who used to work for Dow Chemical has been convicted of "conspiring to steal company secrets and sell them to firms in China." Scientist selling stolen secrets! Hisssssssssss!
  • Copper prices are near an all time high. Copper thefts are skyrocketing. Copper is an element. Coppper! Science.
  • Researchers are on a quest to identify the genes associated with alcoholism, so that they may one day be better able to treat the devilish disease. Sorry glue-sniffers, you are way down the list.
  • "Pregnancy and running can go hand in hand." Hand in hand falling down into a snow pile, and can't get up! Haha. Don't act like you wouldn't laugh at that though.
  • These safe sleeping guidelines could greatly reduce the chance that your infant will die. But ask yourself: is it not better to let your child taste the wild air of freedom, than to wrap them so tightly in "safety" that they never know the life-affirming thrill of the unknown? Sleep wildly, infants! Live, or die!
  • Amazing breakthrough of the day: social scientists now say that teens who want to climb the social ladder are the most likely to become bullies. So your mom was right to say that they're really just expressing their own insecurity. And your dad was right to say "punch them."
  • Did you know that dinosaur footprints have a SECRET? Yes, it's true. "Dr. Peter Falkingham has discovered that dinosaurs only created lasting footprints if the soil conditions were perfect to do so — and entirely depending on the animal's weight. Dubbed the 'Goldilocks Effect' — as all conditions have to be 'just right' for a print to be created — this work could help to bring ancient environments to life, by showing how a great number of animals can walk over an area, but only a few leave behind tracks." Can't see how that is relevant to my life.
  • Black widow spiders are just like people: when they get around a lot of food, they just eat and eat and get lazy and slothful and wasteful. And kill the worthless dudes who knocked them up.

[Photo: Hubble]