Topline:
Earth, Mars and Venus all looked pretty similar when they first formed. Today, Mars is dry, cold, and dusty; Venus has a hot, crushing atmosphere. Why did these sibling planets turn out so different?
Among the factors:
Read more ... as scientists dive into what led to so much change for these sibling planets.
Ask which planet in the solar system is Earth's closest sibling, and many people might point to Mars. It orbits nearby, just a little farther from the Sun. It was born at the same time and with the same stuff as Earth. And it is thought to have once had rivers and lakes, even oceans. NASA has sent rovers to its surface to help us learn whether the 'red planet' could have once hosted life.
This story is part of NPR's Science of Siblings series exploring the ways our siblings can influence us, from our money and our mental health all the way down to our very molecules. We'll be sharing these stories over the coming weeks.
But there are planetary scientists who would tell you to look in the other direction, to a planet that's far less explored but is actually closer to Earth in size, looks, composition and actual distance ... that is, toward Venus.
Scientists who study Venus affectionately call themselves Venusians. They like to refer to Venus as Earth's twin.
Martha Gilmore is a proud Venusian and a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Wesleyan University. She says that in the past, our planet would not have looked so different from its two neighbors.
"If you were an alien visiting our solar system 4 billion years ago, you would see three rocky planets, each of which had oceans," Gilmore says.
Those planets — Earth, Mars, and Venus — look very different from each other today. Earth is a temperate, blue-green marble transformed by living things. Meanwhile, its siblings have migrated to two extremes: Mars is a dry, cold, dusty planet with a paper-thin atmosphere, and Venus is the hottest planet in the solar system, covered in a thick atmosphere that quickly destroys even nonliving visitors from Earth.
That's not an exaggeration: Ten probes that have made it to the Venusian surface; none of them have lasted more than two hours. Venus experiences temperatures over 800 degrees Fahrenheit and pressures that are more than 75 times that of what we experience on Earth.
So what happened to those ancient oceans on our two closest planets — and why is the surface of Venus such a harsh environment today?
Temperature and pressure are what set Venus apart from Earth. Gilmore says these differences stem from a couple of factors: distance from the sun, and the internal heat of the planet itself.
All planets are born with a certain amount of heat from when they were created, says Gilmore, who explains this phenomenon to her students using a holiday dinner.
"It's like Thanksgiving. You have a hot potato, you know, baked potato and you've got peas and you want to eat that potato, but it's too hot. But the peas, they're ready to go because they have radiated out their heat because they're small."
Mars is a smaller potato, so it lost its heat faster. Venus and Earth were similarly sized spuds, so they should have cooled at the same rate.
But other than internal heat, there was something else keeping Venus warm: the sun. Because Venus sits much closer to the sun, it receives more of its energy. And that extra bit of energy, delivered over billions of years, is a big reason that Venus's atmosphere became far more intense than what we experience on Earth.
Atmospheres act like "cozy blankets," Gilmore says. On Earth, for example, the atmosphere helps keep the planet habitable by shielding life from radiation and also keeps the surface at temperatures that we humans can live in. And to have a stable atmosphere, a planet needs a few things: volcanism, sufficient mass, and oceans.
"You have to be hot enough, big enough to have volcanism," says Gilmore, because volcanoes are powered by a planet's internal heat. Those volcanoes pump out the gasses that make up an atmosphere. But once that atmosphere is in place, a planet has to also be big enough that its gravity can actually "hold on to [that] blanket."
While Mars started out similar to Venus and Earth, its smaller size meant that its gravity wasn't strong enough to hold onto the small amount of atmosphere it had developed when it had oceans in its early life. And as Mars cooled down its volcanic activity slowed down ... and eventually stopped.
The problem is, planets actually need volcanoes to constantly replenish their atmospheres, because those atmospheres are constantly being lost to space, Gilmore explains.
"At the top of our atmosphere right now, there are all kinds of nasty rays that are eroding the atmosphere away, like cosmic rays and solar rays," she says.
So Mars's atmosphere was slowly eaten away — becoming so thin that water could no longer remain liquid on the surface. Some of it escaped to space, and some of it ended up frozen in ice.
Meanwhile, Venus was so close to the sun that its oceans boiled away. Volcanoes also continued to pump out stuff like carbon dioxide — which is a potent greenhouse gas.
Earth's atmosphere also has carbon dioxide, but our oceans help moderate its heat-trapping effects by sucking up excess carbon and eventually turning it into rock. That's why it's so crucial to take care of our oceans, Gilmore says.
"Once you get rid of an ocean, you turn off the major mechanism to store carbon dioxide in rock," Gilmore says. "And therefore, it just stays in the atmosphere. And the greenhouse effect takes over, and you get a super, super hot blanket."
The runaway greenhouse effect that makes Venus uninhabitable to life as we know it on Earth is something scientists worry about when studying the effects of climate change. Currently humans pump out 100 times more greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere than volcanoes do annually.
Studying Venus could give scientists insights of what a world looks like when there are no carbon sinks left. But it also happens to be the closest 'Earth-like' planet that researchers know of.
Hundreds of planets found outside of our solar system are Earth-sized and may be habitable. But these planets are so far away that sending spacecraft to investigate them will not be feasible for many generations.
Venus, Gilmore says, is much closer by. It's somewhere that we visited before, and can visit again. Earth is scientists' first data point on what a habitable planet can look like — but Venus's past could give us a glimpse of another planet that was once habitable before it was altered forever.
More from the Science of Siblings series:
Copyright 2024 NPR. To see more, visit npr.org.
Topline:
Whether you’re looking to connect with a reporter or have an interview coming up, here’s a cheat sheet to help you talk with journalists, including our staff from LAist.
Why it matters: Reporters come to you for a reason. They may be intimidating because they have a mic or a camera, but you have a perspective they need. Media outlets also want to expand their audiences, and that includes you.
Read on... for our cheat sheet on how to talk with journalists.
LAist reports on local issues for — and with — communities across Southern California, but chances are most readers have never spoken with a journalist before. Your stories and experiences power our reporting, so it’s important that people know what to expect when they speak with a reporter.
That’s what this guide is for.
Below are some tips from our newsroom on what to keep in mind when talking to a journalist.
Tell the story you want to tell about yourself.
Be honest. Truthfulness and facts are central to journalistic ethics.
Also know your worth. Reporters come to you for a reason. They may be intimidating because they have a mic or a camera, but you have a perspective they need. Media outlets also want to expand their audiences, and that includes you.
Contact reporters by social media or send them a personal email — at LAist, contact information is available on our staff page. If you meet a reporter, get their business card. It will usually have a direct phone number to talk with them.
Probably not. Journalists are often working with a limited word count or air time. They will likely use one short sound bite or quote from you. It’s also possible they will not use your interview at all. Reporters and their editors decide what will get published.
Probably not. It is against journalistic ethics to have sources review a story before it’s published. Imagine if a journalist were to do a piece about government corruption. You wouldn’t want the government agency to review the story and edit it. Editors review stories for accuracy.
It depends on the type of story. Some stories are short and may air on the radio or be published online the same day you talk to the reporter. Other times a reporter might work on a story for several weeks or months. It’s OK to follow up with the reporter who talked to you and ask when the story might be done and ask them to let you know where you can read or hear it.
You are welcome to ask reporters about their fact-checking process or how they make sure a story is accurate. Not all outlets have fact-checkers. If the story is an investigative story or a long-form or magazine format, designated fact-checkers are more common. At LAist, reporters and editors are responsible for verifying information.
Your story is your own and during an interview you have full control over what you say to a reporter. Answer questions in any way that makes you feel most comfortable, and you can always decline to answer a question.
You don't have to disclose your immigration status to a reporter. If it's directly relevant to the story, a trustworthy reporter will explain that and also tell you how they'd handle the information. You can decline to answer.
It's a great question and relates directly to media literacy — meaning how well you can spot misinformation, disinformation and bias. The reality is that we all have points of view. Here are some tools to check on where a publication falls across the political spectrum:
You can come to an agreement with reporters ahead of the conversation about how your words can be used:
It's worth noting that different newsrooms may use these terms slightly differently. You should confirm with the reporter that you have as shared understanding of the meaning.
No and no. You will not pay or get paid to be in a news story because this is against journalistic ethics. Anyone who receives payment for a story could be swayed to bend the truth.
If you feel that the reporter misrepresented your story, you can ask for a correction or an update to clarify a point. Reporters want to get the story right and they don't want to incorrect or misleading information to go unchecked. That said, corrections deal with information that is factually incorrect, so you should be ready to explain what was wrong and why. Under California law, you have 20 days to demand a correction and the publisher has to respond within a set period of time.
Think about the main points you want to get across in your interview. What are the most critical things for the reporter to know? Some people like to organize their thoughts into three major points. If you are not used to telling your story, you may want to have a friend ask you some questions to practice. Depending on the story, a reporter may also ask if you have any pictures to share that they can use to help tell the story.
You can reach out to LAist reporters through the contact information listed on their bios. All our editorial staff, including the teams reporting, editing and producing news, are listed here.
Aside from contacting journalists directly, you can share your story with LAist through short surveys and meeting us in person. Learn more here.
This guide was originally written by former LAist early childhood producer Stefanie Ritoper, with contributions from Mariana Dale. Cato Hernández and David Rodriguez also contributed to this guide.
Topline:
Paradise Dynasty and Burritos La Palma have teamed up on a limited-edition Birria XLB — birria de res folded into a soup dumpling skin.
Why it matters: Two of the defining food obsessions of the past decade in Southern California — birria and XLB — are meeting in one bite, and the collab feels less like a gimmick and more like a natural expression of how L.A.'s Asian and Latino food cultures have always cross-pollinated.
Why now: The Birria XLB drops publicly May 11 at Paradise Dynasty's South Coast Plaza and Americana at Brand locations.
File this under things that could only happen in L.A.
Paradise Dynasty, the Singapore-based chain known for its signature eight-flavor xiao long bao, has teamed up with Burritos La Palma — the SoCal burrito institution whose birria de res recipe traces back over 45 years — to create a limited-edition birria soup dumpling. The Birria XLB will be available starting Monday (May 11) for a limited time at Paradise Dynasty locations.
I've eaten my weight in both soup dumplings and burritos, so naturally, I'm a fan of both.
Paradise Dynasty has been on a steady ascent as a major player in L.A.'s dumpling scene, with locations at South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa and The Americana at Brand in Glendale.
Meanwhile, Burritos La Palma — known for its simple, savory burritos and finely crafted flour tortillas — has been capturing hearts and stomachs since Alberto Bañuelos opened the first eatery in L.A. in 2012. It’s since grown to several spots across L.A. and Orange County, earning a Michelin Bib Gourmand award in 2024 for its high-quality, Zacatecan-style handmade flour tortilla burritos at an affordable price.
So what exactly is a birria soup dumpling? A delicate wrapper, lightly packed with tender birria de res — slow-braised beef stewed in chilies and spices — juicy, savory and gone in one bite.
It all began with a call from Paradise Dynasty, when Jason Kuo, district manager for Paradise Dynasty USA, reached out to Bañuelos, calling it, simply, a perfect match between the two dishes.
Kuo said the idea came straight from the community.
"When we started asking guests and people around us what flavor they would want to see in a soup dumpling, birria kept coming up again and again — it was very clear. If we're going to do birria, it has to be done right. Burritos La Palma was the first name that came to mind."
Bañuelos was "beyond thrilled" to have been approached.
"We come from a small town in Mexico, and to be able to elevate to the level of Paradise Dynasty and that culinary perfection, I can't even really put it into words," he said.
It took months of R&D to get the right consistency. Bañuelos said the process required dialing down the moisture and upping the spice potency and landed on serving a fresh red salsa with thin slivers of serrano peppers alongside — a riff on the black vinegar and pickled ginger traditionally served with soup dumplings.
I got a chance to try the dumplings ahead of the public launch and was struck by how well the combination worked. The juicy nature of birria is almost turbocharged in dumpling form, its savory, herbaceous flavors fully encapsulated in the thin skin, creating an exceptional texture in every bite. The dish hits even harder when dipped in the light tomato-based salsa — a rush of freshness that cuts through the richness, with a spike of heat from fresh serrano. (Feel free to skip the peppers if spice isn't your thing.)
But what's most impressive is how organic it all feels. This isn't fusion for fusion's sake — it's a natural meeting of two dishes that are deeply embedded in the Southern California diet, each playing to the other's strengths.
It feels like a logical meeting of the minds — birria and soup dumplings have both been part of L.A.'s culinary zeitgeist for the better part of a decade, and it makes sense that these worlds should collide.
When asked whether a collaboration like this could happen anywhere else, Bañuelos was quick: "It has to start in L.A. You just can't compete."
You can try Birria XLB at:
Address: 3333 Bristol Street, Costa Mesa (Near Bloomingdales)
Phone: (714) 617-4630
Address: 177 Caruso Ave, Glendale
Phone: (858) 351-4177
Topline:
Nine Democratic House members from California are demanding information about how the Trump administration is treating unaccompanied migrant children who are pregnant and in federal custody.
Why now: They signed a letter last week, along with 39 other House Democrats, to Trump officials expressing their concern that the girls are not receiving adequate medical care or access to abortion.
How we got here: The letter comes in the wake of an investigation by the California and Texas Newsrooms, public media collaboratives in those states. LAist is part of The California Newsroom.
The joint investigation found that the federal government is detaining pregnant migrant girls in a single group home in South Texas. Doctors and reproductive-health researchers interviewed for the investigation said prenatal care is severely limited in that region.
Nine Democratic House members from California are demanding information about how the Trump administration is treating unaccompanied migrant children who are pregnant and in federal custody. They’ve signed a letter, along with 39 other House Democrats, to Trump officials expressing their concern that the girls are not receiving adequate medical care or access to abortion.
The letter comes in the wake of an investigation by the California and Texas Newsrooms, public media collaboratives in those states. LAist is part of The California Newsroom.
The joint investigation found that the federal government is detaining pregnant migrant girls in a single group home in South Texas. Doctors and reproductive-health experts interviewed for the investigation said prenatal care is severely limited in that region.
The letter says the detention violates federal regulations because the children are “entitled to the full range of medical care, including reproductive health care.”
Rep. Gil Cisneros, who represents the central San Gabriel Valley, says he worries that pregnant migrants who are apprehended in California will be put at risk if they’re sent to a part of Texas that is short on obstetric care. Of particularly concern: High-risk pregnancies are common among minors.
“If they were in California," he said, "they would be able to have more choices of the type of health care that they would get when it comes to reproductive health care.”
Rep. Judy Chu, who represents the West San Gabriel Valley, wrote in a statement that “this administration is so intent on restricting abortion that it is using immigration detention as a tool to control these girls’ bodies.”
Mark Betancourt is a regular contributor to The California Newsroom.
Topline:
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating how the Los Angeles Unified School District responds to educators accused of sexual misconduct with students.
Why now: The department accuses the district of maintaining a policy that “automatically” reassigns teachers to other schools when they are accused of sexual misconduct with students and cites a 2024 agreement with the teacher’s union.
The district’s policy: A Los Angeles Unified spokesperson wrote in a statement that it’s “not true” that staff being investigated for sexual misconduct are reassigned to other school sites. “‘Reassignment’ typically means an employee is directed to remain at home and away from students and schools during an investigation,” the spokesperson wrote.
LAUSD protocol related to employee misconduct says administrators must remove accused employees from their classroom or worksite whenever there is a risk to the safety of students or staff. The 110-page document also lists several other requirements for allegations related to sexual misconduct, including contacting law enforcement and the agencies that license teachers.
What's next: The Department’s Office for Civil Rights is investigating whether the district’s policy violates Title IX, a law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs. The Trump administration has also recently targeted LAUSD's desegregation policy and transgender student protections.
The U.S. Department of Education is investigating how the Los Angeles Unified School District responds to educators accused of sexual misconduct with students.
The department accuses the district of maintaining a policy that “automatically” reassigns teachers to other schools when they are accused of sexual misconduct with students and cites a 2024 agreement with the teachers union.
A Los Angeles Unified spokesperson wrote in a statement that it’s “not true” that staff being investigated for sexual misconduct are reassigned to other school sites.
“‘Reassignment’ typically means an employee is directed to remain at home and away from students and schools during an investigation,” the spokesperson wrote.
United Teachers Los Angeles called the DOE's accusations a “fundamental misunderstanding” of the district’s reassignment policy.
“[Employees] are not reassigned to another classroom or to any other setting where they would interact with students,” read a statement provided by the union. “This policy protects both students and staff and creates conditions for a thorough and appropriate investigation of allegations.”
The federal investigation, overseen by the department’s Office for Civil Rights, will assess whether the district’s policy violates Title IX, a law that prohibits sex-based discrimination in federally funded education programs.
Kimberly Richey, the assistant secretary for civil rights, wrote in a statement that Title IX requires schools to address claims of sexual misconduct in a “timely manner.”
“It is unconscionable that the district would simply ignore Title IX’s procedural requirements to protect teachers who cause life-changing harm to their kids,” Richey wrote. “The Trump administration will always fight to uphold the law, protect the safety of all students and restore common sense to our schools.”
The Trump administration also has recently targeted LAUSD's desegregation policy and transgender student protections.
Last year, the office failed to resolve any cases related to sexual harassment, sexual violence or racial harassment, according to a report released by Sen. Bernie Sanders in late April. Sanders is the top-ranking Democrat on the Senate Education Committee.
In March 2025, the Trump administration pushed to cut over half of OCR’s nearly 600 staff members, which contributed to a growing backlog of cases. Those employees were placed on administrative leave pending the result of legal challenges, and many were later brought back.
The Education Department has also withheld records related to civil rights investigations, prompting a lawsuit from investigative nonprofit newsroom ProPublica.
LAUSD protocol related to employee misconduct says administrators must remove accused employees from their classroom or worksite whenever there is a risk to the safety of students or staff.
The 110-page protocol document also lists several other requirements for allegations related to sexual misconduct, including contacting law enforcement and the agencies that license teachers.
“Los Angeles Unified takes all allegations of sexual misconduct and harassment with the utmost seriousness,” a spokesperson wrote in a statement. “Our primary responsibility is to ensure the safety, dignity and well-being of every student and staff member in our care.” The statement also said the district follows Title IX procedures and continuously reviews its policies, training and reporting systems.
The UTLA settlement outlines several circumstances where an employee can be reassigned, including a law enforcement investigation of misconduct, sexual harassment of a student, behavior toward a student perceived to be motivated by a sexual interest and communicating with a student for non-school-related purposes.
School employees are “mandated reporters” who must, by law, notify local law enforcement or child welfare agencies of suspected child abuse or neglect. California Attorney General Rob Bonta reminded K-12 school district leaders in late April of their legal obligation to prevent sexual misconduct and protect students.
There have been few comprehensive studies of sexual misconduct in schools. A 2004 report to the Department of Education estimated 1-in-10 students experiences sexual misconduct, ranging from inappropriate comments to physical abuse.
A new California law requires schools to train students and staff to recognize and report misconduct and write new policies on “appropriate behavior.” It also will create a new database of educators credibly accused of abuse.
More than 1,000 lawsuits related to sexual abuse that date to the 1940s have been filed against California school districts since the enactment of a 2019 law that gave victims a three-year window to sue.
LAUSD has authorized $750 million in bonds to pay for sexual misconduct settlements related to suits stemming from the law.
