(NASA, ESA, and L. Frattare (STScI)/Wikimedia Commons)

The 4th is over. Put down the fireworks and pick up some science!

• I only knew about Charon, but it turns out Pluto has four other known moons. The astronomer who found the last two decided to crowdsource their names instead of selecting names for them himself (as, under International Astronomical Union rules, he’s allowed to). And the winning names are: Kerberos and Styx. (Much to the chagrin of legions of Trekkies, led by William Shatner, who voted for Vulcan.)
• In other space-related news: Lone Signal is a company that basically lets you tweet to the stars. Not like celebrity stars, but red-dwarf-17-light-years-away stars.
• Remember from a few months back the news about a baby believed to be born with and cured of HIV? Now two HIV-positive men may have had their infections cleared out with bone marrow transplants.
• When it comes to ticks, you have more to look out for than just Lyme disease. Researchers have identified a fifth tick-bone disease, this one caused by a bacterium called Borrelia miyamotoi. It’s symptoms are very similar to those of infection with the Lyme spirochete, Borrelia burgdorferi.
• Want to see evolution in action? Just look at what cholera is doing to us.
• And want to know what the dopamine — the sex, drugs, and rock -n’-roll neurotransmitter — in your brain is doing for you? A lot more than you realize.
• Sometimes it’s really hard to track down the source of a new or emerging virus, like the not-yet-pandemic Middle Eastern Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV). It’s also really hard to take spit samples from a camel to look for MERS-CoV. “They’re ornery. They’re strong, they’re fast, they bite really hard.”
• Scientists in Japan have created functional human mini-livers from induced pluripotent stem cells, stem cells created by taking mature cells (say, skin cells) and turning back their clocks until they revert to a primordial state from which they can turn into any kind of cell in the body.
• Gentlemen, you have taste receptors in your testes. And without them, you can’t make sperm.
• If you were a hawkmoth, you’d fend off hungry bats by vibrating your genitals at them. Researchers think this has the effect of either jamming the bats’ sonar or giving bats a heads-up that they have determined prey on their hands.
• A young woman who lost the lower part of her left leg has built a prosthetic leg out of Legos:

• There’s a lot of physics to keeping you from wiping out on that gigantic waterslide at the amusement park.
• Researchers at MIT are developing a nanotech-based coating that builds better bonds betwixt bones & implants (like replacement hips) and which could potentially reduce implant failures.
• Science says the key to getting out of a room full of zombies is to keep your head, don’t get stressed, and remain rational. (And, I would add, always carry a chainsaw.
• The oceans seethe with viruses, some of which make us question our definition of what a virus is.
• Do the mice prefer Manet or Mondrian? We may never know, but we do know that mice can tell one art style from another.
• Earthquakes in Japan can rock the fjords of Norway. It’s happened at least once.
• Genes from historic wheat strains could help agricultural scientists create wheat able to resist a devastating from of fungal wheat stem rust.
• There’s a new tool for encouraging science education: rap battles.
• In case you didn’t get enough BOOM on the Fourth of July, Ars Technica has collected videos from five spectacular but harmless US space launch failures. Or watch this epic failure of a Russian Proton-M rocket that was supposed to take off from Kazakhstan.