Weekend Reads 12/19/15

The Hunt for Alien Molecules

Most of the wiggles in the Horsehead data were easily attributable to common chemicals such as carbon monoxide, formaldehyde and neutral carbon. But there was also a small, unidentified line at 89.957 gigahertz. This was a mystery—a molecule completely unknown to science.

Insurer now offering “troll insurance” for victims of online harassment

The policy money can be used to pay a reputation management team that would restore the person's public image, or even to hire a forensic specialist to trace the origins of the trolling.

Car calls 911 after alleged hit-and-run, driver arrested

The driver told the dispatcher that "everything was fine," before the dispatcher said, "Ok but your car called in saying you'd been involved in an accident. It doesn't do that for no reason. Did you leave the scene of an accident?"

Why Is the Press Corps So Smitten With Donald Trump?

I doubt that any candidate in history running in a genuinely contested primary has gotten the kind of lopsided coverage Trump has. In the past month, he's gotten more coverage than every other Republican candidate combined. In the past week, he's gotten an astonishing 3x the coverage of every other candidate combined.