Everyone who thinks they’re being careful with COVID-19 had to swallow hard when they heard who tested positive: Lt. Gov. (and Dr.) Josh Green. Except for sipping coffee on a Sept. 5 drive from Kailua-Kona to Hawi with his security detail, Green said they were masked.

“‘Sometimes, it can sneak through’ is one of the lessons,” he added.

And if anyone thinks the LG gets a spacious place to isolate, he’s quarantining in his 9-year-old’s bedroom — one more reason to send a “get well soon” note of sympathy.

Signs of life seen from Mauna Kea

An astronomer who pointed a Mauna Kea telescope at clouds hovering slightly more than 30 miles above the hellish hot surface of Venus detected the presence of a toxic gas, phosphine, which indicates the possibility of microbial life there that does not rely on oxygen.

A paper detailing the 2017 discovery, made with the now-retired James Clerk Maxwell Telescope, was published this week in the journal Nature Astronomy. It’s exciting to see the search for extraterrestrial-life evidence continue — as the telescope’s replacement instrument, known as Namakanui, has been deployed in the last few months to take more measurements of Venus.