[NEWS] Five D-Brief links: Small Magellanic Cloud, Pluto, Neanderthals, Atacama, rogues

[rfmcdonald]

• D-Brief notes that the Small Magellanic Cloud is losing gas, diminishing its future capacity for starbirth.


• D-Brief notes evidence that the strange ridges of Pluto are legacies of glaciers.


• Neanderthals, a new analysis shared by D-Brief suggests, suffered from head trauma at rates similar to that of Homo sapiens.


• D-Brief notes how recent heavy rain in the Atacama Desert of Chile killed many of the local extremophile microbes adapted to desert conditions, with obvious implications for life on Mars.


• D-Brief notes the discovery of two rogue planets, OGLE-2012-BLG-1323 and OGLE-2017-BLG-0560.