Reddit is one of the biggest and most active forums on the web. With millions of distinct sub-forums (called subreddits), it’s the go-to news hub for finding news and discussion on almost any topic.
It can also be overwhelming to scroll through. It’s hard to figure out which subreddits offer the best information, and its ever-changing algorithm means you may still miss the posts you want to see.
I look at the top science-related posts of this week, across a number of different science focused subreddits. Here’s what’s hot in the world of science — with links to the full discussion if you want to read more.
Space: The first private lander has touched down on the Moon
Firefly Aerospace is a private company, based in Texas, that creates launch vehicles for space missions. It’s had a rocky history, going bankrupt in 2017 before being re-launched in 2018. But on March 2nd, 2025, their Blue Ghost lander made history by being the second privately owned spacecraft to successfully touch down on the Moon.
(The first privately owned spacecraft to pull off a successful Moon landing was Odysseus, built by Intuitive Machines, early last year.)
Blue Ghost will next run a series of different experiments, testing a collection process for lunar rock, radiation-resistant circuitry, and methods for reducing the impact of sharp-edged lunar dust.
Reddit comments in /r/space celebrate the news, while also decrying that this hasn’t received more publicity. But should this be a highlight, in our time of current climate and political change?
Science: Women with ADHD-diagnosed partners have higher rates of depression
A study of 100 heterosexual couples where the man was diagnosed with ADHD found that the women were more likely to be depressed and reported a lower social and psychological quality of life.
However, women who frequently engaged in health-promoting activities — such as exercising, setting aside personal time, or socializing with close friends — reported fewer depressive symptoms and better overall well-being. Furthermore, those whose partners consistently took ADHD medication reported a higher quality of life than those whose partners were inconsistent with treatment.
On Reddit, however, commenters called out that this is a correlational study, and doesn’t prove causation (it’s just as likely that women with depression are more likely to be attracted to ADHD-diagnosed men). Some also share their personal experiences of dating with ADHD, either in themselves or in their partner.
They also call out the quoted article from the PsyPost story: “spouses of people suffering from untreated medical conditions would suffer from a lower quality of life than those who treat those conditions.”
Psychology: Stress before pregnancy could increase the odds of having a girl
When researchers tracked pregnant women to look at their stress, anxiety, and depression levels, they found that about 1 in 6 mothers showed physical symptoms, like high blood pressure. But fascinatingly, those stressed women were slightly less likely to have daughters (about 4/9 odds).
The lead researcher noted that male fetuses may be slightly more vulnerable to spontaneous abortion, if the uterus isn’t providing an adequate environment.
Some Redditors bring up interesting historical comparisons: there are well-documented stories of queens struggling to bear a royal son, while soldiers returning after war (when stress levels decrease) tend to have more sons than daughters.
One comment sums it up best: “hard times create women”.
Environment: Trump orders that 280 million additional acres of public forests be opened for logging
From the Guardian:
Donald Trump has ordered that swathes of America’s forests be felled for timber, evading rules to protect endangered species while doing so and raising the prospect of chainsaws razing some of the most ecologically important trees in the US.
280 million acres, by the way, is 1,080,627 square miles, or 28.5% of the total US land area. So this executive order essentially pushes for the ability to cut every single tree in every single park, if it’s got viable timber.
Trump claims that this is needed to reduce the U.S. dependence on foreign timber.
The top Reddit comments are mainly from foreign Redditors, like Canadians, calling out this as a flawed policy and chastising Americans for putting Trump in power.
Health: Robert F. Kennedy Jr. calls for people to get vaccinated amid the recent measles outbreak
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the newly appointed head of U.S. Health and Human Services (HHS), put out an op-ed piece in Fox News on Sunday, supporting the use of the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine. He noted that the choice to vaccinate is still a personal one, however, and has downplayed the severity of the current measles outbreak, claiming that it happens every year and is not unusual.
Top Reddit comments on the topic are mainly anti-RFK, pointing out the anti-vaccine rhetoric of calling them “jabs” (although this was just language from The Independent, not from RFK’s original op-ed piece) and wondering whether this piece will be enough to change anyone’s mind.
Futurology: A survey of AI users shows that people are usually polite to the robot, “just because.”
Future, the company that owns TechRadar, published the results of a survey showing that most people tend to be polite to ChatGPT and other AI systems (71% of Brits are polite, versus 67% of U.S. citizens).
Of the people who are polite to the AI, 82% of them said that they do it “just because it’s the nice thing to do”, as opposed to out of fear of a future robot uprising.
This might even be helpful for AI users; there’s some evidence that polite prompts provide better responses from ChatGPT and other similar algorithms.
The top comment on the Reddit discussion sums it up nicely: “It takes effort for some of us to be assholes.”
Thanks for tuning in!
Is there an area of science that you feel isn’t well represented here, and deserves more attention? Let me know in the comments and I’ll include it for future weeks!