Speaking of animal comps… New Zealand’s hugely popular bird of the year poll is underway, and there’s anger over the kākāpō’s “hiatus” from running this time around. As the world’s fattest parrot/2-time winner, organisers have decided to make way for birds “that may be overshadowed by their flashier, chonkier or louder cousins”…     

Those genealogy DNA tests can throw up some interesting results… Case in point: Hannah Masterson, a teacher in Wollongong, got her results back and spotted a familiar face – her workmate Sharon Anderson. Keep your family close and your colleagues closer…

So you know that space mission last month where they crashed a small craft into an asteroid to see if they could alter its path? It worked… Designed to test a potential strategy to defend Earth against objects that might send us the way of the dinosaurs, NASA boss Bill Nelson said it was “a watershed moment for planetary defence and all of humanity”. No biggie, then…