‘It’s very clean that way’

To explore planets light years away from Earth, scientists wait for them to pass in front of their suns. They study the light from the suns as it streams through the atmospheres of these planets, searching for clues.That’s how the team found traces of either dimethyl sulfide (DMS) or dimethyl disulfide (DMDS) – or both – in the atmosphere of K2-18b.

On Earth, these compounds are only produced by living beings, particularly microbes such as marine phytoplankton. What’s more, what the scientists found suggests that the concentration of these chemicals in the K2-18b atmosphere was thousands of times higher than on Earth.“It was an incredible realisation seeing the results emerge and remain consistent throughout the extensive independent analyses and robustness tests,” said co-author Mans Holmberg, a researcher at the Space Telescope Science Institute in Baltimore, United States, in a media statement on the Cambridge University website.How reliable are the findings?

The scientists published their findings in the peer-reviewed Astrophysical Journal Letters publication, which means that other experts in the field who studied their paper found it convincing.But that does not mean that the scientists have found irrefutable evidence of life. Far from it.

Madhusudhan acknowledged that it is possible that the traces of DMS and DMDS found in the atmosphere of K2-18b are the outcome of chemical phenomena that are as of now, unknown to humanity.

“It’s important that we’re deeply sceptical of our own results, because it’s only by testing and testing again that we will be able to reach the point where we’re confident in them,” Madhusudhan said. “That’s how science has to work.”The European Medicines Agency recommended the

BioNtech Pfizer vaccinefor children over the age of five years and said the use of the vaccine for children is effective and safe. Euronews reported that the agency issued its recommendation in November 2021 and later recommended the Moderna vaccine for children ages 12 to 17.

, “only older people or those with specific diseases or illnesses making them susceptible to severe COVID were recommended to get boosters, and as a result, uptake in those groups was actually higher than in the US,” where outreach and advertising for the vaccinations focused on children as well as older people, said Babak Javid, an associate professor in the division of experimental medicine at the University of California-San Francisco.The New York Times found that in Europe “many countries do not recommend the vaccines for healthy children under 5, but the shots are approved for everyone 6 months and older,” meaning that they can be safely used by anyone who’s at least six months old.