Scientists attending the Planetary Defense Conference in Maryland this week will take part in a scenario developed by NASA that supposes an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. "This exercise will help us develop more effective communications with each other and with our governments," says NASA Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson.

China is moving to build a research base near the moon's south pole as well as a permanent space station in the next decade, Xinhua reports. In the short term, the China National Space Administration plans to send an unmanned lunar lander to the moon this year to gather samples to bring back to Earth, according to CNSA chief Zhang Kejian.

The exomoon candidate reported to be orbiting Kepler-1625b last year probably doesn't exist, according to a pair of independent studies, one set to be published in The Astrophysical Journal Letters and the other published in Astronomy & Astrophysics. The original study's authors acknowledged the tentative nature of their findings when they described the object last year.

A recording of Dean Martin's "Volare," transmitted wirelessly by Harvard University researchers using a semiconductor laser, was the first radiofrequency transmission of its kind, according to a study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. "The research opens the door to new types of hybrid electronic-photonic devices and is the first step toward ultra-high-speed Wi-Fi," says senior author Federico Capasso.

The Rita Allen Foundation recently named seven early-career biomedical scientists who will receive grants of as much as $110,000 annually for up to five years for research on antiviral immunity, brain development, gene regulation, and the links among cancer, inflammation and chronic pain. The foundation has funded nearly 150 early-career scientists since 1976, and some have gone on to win the Nobel and other prizes.