The Week In Numbers: The Most Expensive Experiment Ever, 700,000-Year-Old DNA, And More

NASA engineers work on the Mars rover Curiosity in a clean room to prevent cross-planetary contamination. Via Fairen et al.

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233 degrees Fahrenheit: the temperature at which NASA sterilized the Viking landers before they went to Mars (turns out that was probably unnecessary—if Earth microorganisms could survive on Mars, they’re probably already living there…)

€13 billion to €16 billion: the cost of the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor, the most expensive science experiment ever built (fusion energy, here we come!)

Inside ITER
Inside ITER Graham Murdoch

2022: the year the Italian Space Agency’s BepiColombo spacecraft will arrive at Mercury

BepiColombo Arriving at Mercury
Artist’s Rendition of BepiColombo Arriving at Mercury EADS Astrium

15 minutes: the amount of brain-zapping required to make the people around you start to look hot, according to a new study

700,000 years: the age of the horse DNA that scientists recently decoded, shattering the record for the world’s oldest sequenced genome by nearly tenfold

Przewalski's Horse

$2,000: the amount this dad spent to sequence his daughter’s genome at home in order to pinpoint the cause of her rare syndrome

5 months: the age at which babies can recognize each other’s moods, according to an adorable new study

Baby Talk

2 hours: the time it takes to build your own DIY waterzooka

man pointing a Homemade Water Blaster
Homemade Water Blaster Son of Alan

10–15 μl: the amount of blood (just a drop!) that Japanese scientists used to clone a healthy, fertile mouse from a living donor

Cloned Mouse

$500: the price to pre-order this cheaper, sportier Google Glass competitor

Recon Jet Hardware
Recon Jet Hardware Recon

43: the number of times Jose Canseco has recently tweeted about science and made our heads explode

Jose Canseco
Jose Canseco Wikimedia Commons/Bryan Horowitz

$200: the price of a new printed circuit board-based rotary motor that’s as strong as a gas-powered one, sans the emissions and noise

Three-Headed Lawn Monster
 
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