In September, news about the possibility of floating, cloud-based life on Venus caused a storm in the science world as tumultuous as the sulfur clouds that rain acid down on the second planet from the Sun.

This article first appeared on Salon.

A paper published in Nature Astronomy by a group of international astronomers explained how they detected phosphine (PH?), a gaseous molecule composed of one phosphorus and three hydrogen atoms, in the upper atmosphere of Venus. Researchers saw phosphine's signal in spectrograms from two radio telescopes they used to capture the data, and estimated there were 20 parts per billion of the compound in Venus' clouds.

Saturday, at a campaign stop in Marietta, GA, Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel struggled to explain to voters why they should cast ballots in the upcoming Senate runoffs when, as one voter expressed, "it's already decided."

McDaniel was appealing to voters to return to the polls on January 5 and cast their ballots for incumbent Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler. If Democrats defeat those candidates in Georgia, the party will control the House, Senate and White House at the onset of President-elect Joe Biden's presidency.