The Washington Post - USA (2022-06-07)

C8 EZ RE THE WASHINGTON POST.TUESDAY, JUNE 7 , 2022

ACROSS

1 Multivitamin

mineral

5 Joined the choir

9 Corn discard

12 Rachael Ray

sauteing

initialism

13 Ranch rope

15 “Knives Out”

actress de Armas

16 Foam ball brand

17 Kampala’s

country

18 Pro Bowl org.

19 *Social media

time-out

22 Pinnacles

25 Church topper

26 *Channel bottom

30 Frozen rain

31 How-__: DIY

guides

32 “Life of Pi”

director Ang

33 Jazz poet

Scott-Heron

34 *Area of

Hersheypark

with the

Candymonium

roller coaster

40 Half an umlaut

41 “Blue Bloods”

actor Cariou

42 Thumbs-up at

NASA

44 Land measures

47 *Bit of trickery

on a return

50 Move in a breeze,

as a flag

53 Printer brand

54 “Shoo!,” and

an instruction

that goes with

the last words

of the answers

to the starred

clues

58 Skeptical laugh

59 “__ Rouge!”:

Kidman film

60 Written reminder

64 MSNBC journalist

Melber

65 Came

afterward

66 Actor McGregor

67 “Science Guy”

Bill

68 Papaya discard

69 Many an

auctioned

auto, for short

DOWN

1 Super chill,

informally

2 “Now __ seen

everything!”

3 Neither’s partner

4 Dunkin’ serving

5 Stuffing herb

6 Many a

Moroccan

7 Spanish boys

8 “Wonder

Woman” star Gal

9 Cocktail party

bite

10 Among one’s

records

11 “Swan Lake,”

for one

13 “Star Trek”

captain Jean-__

Picard

14 Doesn’t fight

back

20 Inquire

21 Dessert that

quivers

22 Play a role

onstage

23 Shoe with

lots of holes

24 Netting material

27 Rorschach test

component

28 Fish that

can swim

backward

29 Handed out

cards

33 Group with

fortysomethings

35 Poetic opening

36 Halloween garb

37 Spill the __:

gossip

38 Fistfuls of dollars

39 Thumbs-down at

NASA

43 Jeong of

“Community”

44 Crocheted

coverlet

45 “Ramona the

Pest” novelist

Beverly

46 Blues and folk

singer/song-

writer Foster

48 German article

49 Warm-up act

51 Jackets named for

a British school

52 Shake awake

55 Chimney part

56 Hurried, quaintly

57 Finish

61 Be indebted to

62 Slight touch

63 Ambient music

pioneer Brian

LA TIMES CROSSWORD By Robin Stears

MONDAY’S LA TIMES SOLUTION

© 2022 Tribune Content Agency, LLC. 6/7/22

kidspost

TODAY’S NEWS

Crowds of French and international

visitors — including World War II

veterans in their 90s — arrived in

Normandy, France, on Monday to pay

tribute to the nearly 160,000 troops

from Britain, the United States, Cana-

da and elsewhere who landed there on

D-Day, June 6, 1944, to bring freedom

from Nazi occupation.

Several thousand people attended a

ceremony at the American Cemetery

overlooking Omaha Beach. Ray Wal-

lace, 97, a former paratrooper with the

82nd Airborne Division, was one of

the dozens of U.S. veterans there.

“I remember the good friends that I

lost there. So it’s a little emotional,” he

said, with sadness in his voice.

On D-Day, Allied troops landed on

the beaches code-named Omaha,

Utah, Juno, Sword and Gold, carried

by 7,000 boats. On that single day,

4,414 Allied soldiers lost their lives,

2,501 of them Americans. More than

5,000 were wounded. The invasion

was considered a turning point in

World War II. By the end of the sum-

mer, the Allies reached Paris and liber-

ated it from four years of Nazi control.

— Associated Press

JEREMIAS GONZALEZ/ASSOCIATED PRESS

Crosses mark the graves of U.S.

soldiers who died 7 8 years ago in

the D-Day invasion in France.

W orld War II

veterans attend

tribute for D -Day

CHIP SAYS

The planets Saturn and Jupiter each have 53 confirmed

moons. They have dozens more provisional moons, but

those moons’ existence has to be confirmed by

additional observations over a longer period of time.

KIDSPOST.COM

Read our special report

about NASA’s plans for

heading back to the

moon, then on to Mars.

TODAY

Pretty skies are partly sunny, and high

temperatures may reach the low 80s.

ILLUSTRATION BY ALICE LAI, 7, BETHESDA

BY LELA NARGI

Dig a hole in the ground, stick in a
seed, and water it. Weeks later you’ll
have a nice tomato or pepper or lettuce
leaf to eat. But not on the moon.
The moon’s surface is regolith. On
some parts of the moon, this rocky dust
settled after lava flowed from now-
extinct volcanoes. I t does not contain
microbes such as fungi and bacteria and
nematodes that make nutritious soil on
Earth. But new research shows that
something can grow in regolith: a weed
called mouse-ear cress ( Arabidopsis
thaliana). For the first time, researchers
at the University of Florida grew 12 tiny
cress plants in lunar regolith brought
back on three Apollo missions in the
1960s and ’70s.
But astronauts who may start return-
ing to the moon in 2025 won’t be raising
their own food anytime soon. The cress
doesn’t grow very well after it’s used up
the nutrients that all seeds contain,
explains Ralph Fritsche. He’s senior
project manager for space crop produc-
tion and exploration food systems at
NASA’s Kennedy Space Center. As its
roots dig into regolith, “it either encoun-
ter[s] things that are detrimental to
growth, or it [doesn’t get] enough posi-
tive things” to help it grow, Fritsche says.
There were other challenges to getting
those cress seedlings to grow. For exam-
ple, “As soon as you wet [regolith], it
turns into almost a pre-concrete,” says
Fritsche. Roots can’t penetrate it to
access the water or air or minerals they
need. Nutrients had to be added to turn
the regolith into “a usable soil for
plants,” he says.
Mamta Nagaraja is NASA’s deputy
program scientist for space biology. She
says there will be many more hurdles to
farming on the moon. For starters,
figuring out where to grow plants.
Should it be in greenhouses or in the
same habitats where the astronauts will
live? “We wouldn’t just plant in the
ground,” Nagaraja says.
Scientists also need to work out how

plants can get the right amount of

sunlight. Being able to scrub carbon

dioxide from the air so there’s enough

oxygen for plants and humans is critical.

So is figuring out how to pollinate

plants, with or without bees. And so is

understanding how radiation affects

plants and seeds.

“The whole reason for space farming

would be to grow food that astronauts

can consume. Is there any difference in

the nutritional value of those plants

when they’ve been exposed to these

elements of space?” Nagaraja says.

Designing watering systems has also

been tricky. Astronauts in the Interna-

tional Space Station have been experi-

menting with recycling human urine.

But so far, attempts to get water where

the plants need it and to mix it with air

in the root zone haven’t worked. Says

Nagaraja, “The plants don’t get the

water the way we think they will, or they

don’t get the water at all.”

The difficulties in farming on the

moon can seem so huge it’s hard to

imagine when it might be possible. But

little by little, researchers chip away at

the many problems. One day, Nagaraja

imagines astronauts “putting together a

nice salad. That’s got to be so refreshing

— to have a nice fresh tomato” in space,

she says.

Plants can grow in soil brought from the moon

TYLER JONES/UF/IFAS

TYLER JONES/UF/IFAS

ABOVE: A plant called cress grows in

soil that Apollo astronauts collected

from the moon decades ago. RIGHT:

Molecular biologist Anna-Lisa Paul

harvests the plant to analyze its genes.

Adapted from an

online discussion.

Dear Carolyn:

My mother-in-law

is reaching the

point where she

probably

shouldn’t live

alone anymore but doesn’t need

or want to be in a nursing home.

My spouse and I are planning to

ask her to move in with us. The

only thing holding me back is

that I know when this happens,

my mother, who is 10 years

younger than my spouse’s

mother, will assume that she

also gets to move in with us

when she needs to.

I don’t want that for a variety

of reasons: My mother-in-law is

great with our kids and my mom

is not, my mother-in-law will

respect our privacy and pitch in

with housework to the extent

she’s capable and my mom will

not, etc.

How could I go about

explaining this to my mom? Or

do I just have to suck it up and

let my mom move in when and if

the time comes?

— Holding Me Back

Holding Me Back: Don’t explain

it now, because you don’t know

what the future will bring. You

don’t want her to nurture any

false hopes, I understand. But

getting ahead of it involves

delivering a message she might

find hurtful — and if 10, 15 years

go by and she has no reason to

move in with you, for whatever

reason, then you will have hurt

her needlessly.

Sometimes it really is a valid

plan to wait out a difficult

potential problem and hope it

solves itself.

Plus: Your kids may have

grown and gone by the time

your mom needs care. You or

your spouse could be infirm. You

may have downsized your home

by then. Your mother-in-law

could still be living with you.

You may have the means for an

in-law apartment by then. Your

mom might mellow. Or, or, or.

I also don’t think you have to

suck it up and invite your mom

to live with you when the time

comes just because you did this

with your mother-in-law. You

can have integrity and still take

each situation as it comes and

make your decisions on the

merits. Look up equality vs.

equity.

Just prepare to withstand any

emotional fallout. “Right” does

not mean “easy.”

Re: Moving in: Mother may need

help, eventually, but she does not

get to define that as needing

YOUR help on HER terms. “I

want X done, and it sure would be

convenient if you would believe

that X is your responsibility.”

Nope. That’s overstepping.

— Anonymous

Dear Carolyn: Do I have to wear

the tacky and silly “I’m 70” tiara

that my college friends sent me

for our weekly Zoom, which

coincides with my birthday?

— I’m 70

I’m 70: No.

But don’t be where all fun goes

to die, either. Be a good sport

about refusing to be a good

sport.

H appy birthday!

Update: I ended up wearing it,

trying to be a good sport. The

dear friend who sent it died

months later of a long

illness.

I would wear that plastic tiara

all day, every day if it would only

bring her and her mischievous

sense of humor back.

Moral of the story: Appreciate

and love your friends, because

we never know when we will

part forever. (But don’t start me

on the gift of the Christmas

pattern soup tureen for the

childless woman isolating alone

during the pandemic.)

— I’m 71

Write to Carolyn Hax at

[email protected]. Get her

column delivered to your inbox each

morning at wapo.st/gethax.

 Join the discussion live at noon

Fridays at washingtonpost.com/live-

chats.

How can a couple move one m other

into their home, but not the other?

Carolyn

Hax

NICK GALIFIANAKIS/ILLUSTRATION FOR THE WASHINGTON POST