For a science headline to capture the wider public’s imagination, it generally helps if it involves at least one of the following six things:
- An out-of-control experiment
- Space,
- The End Of Life As We Know It
- A non-western nation
- A weird animal,
- Sex
So it came as no surprise to see how quickly Foton-5, the spacecraft of Russia’s troubled biomedical research institute, made headlines around the world. The Washington Post website literally managed to hit 5 out of 6 crowd pleasers with the headline: “There is a lizard sex satellite floating in space and Russia no longer has it under control.”