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Elon Musk says Inspiration4 crew had 'challenges' with the toilet, promises upgrade [cnet.com]:

SpaceX's Inspiration4 orbital mission [cnet.com] with four non-professional astronauts was by all accounts quite a triumph for space history, space tourism and fundraising for St. Jude Children's Research Hospital. However, there may have been some tense moments when it came to using the toilet on board the Crew Dragon spacecraft.

SpaceX founder Elon Musk tweeted Monday night [twitter.com] that the Inspiration4 crew had some "challenges" with the loo. He promised upgrades for future missions.

For better or worse, Musk didn't elaborate on the exact challenges. The all-civilian crew of four consisted of billionaire Shift4 Payments founder Jared Isaacman, St. Jude physician assistant and childhood cancer survivor Hayley Arceneaux, geoscientist Sian Proctor and aerospace industry professional Chris Sembroski.

SpaceX hasn't revealed much about how the toilet works, but Isaacman told Insider in July [businessinsider.com] that the facilities were located near the spacecraft's large cupola window [cnet.com] with a curtain to allow for a wee bit of privacy. He described the toilet as having "one hell of a view."

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Toilets in space can be tricky. The International Space Station got a new toilet [cnet.com] last year. It uses a suction system to keep waste from floating about and incorporates upgrades to better accommodate female astronauts.

European Space Agency astronaut Thomas Pesquet took a flight to the ISS on a Crew Dragon earlier this year and tweeted a photo of the toilet [twitter.com] on his ride, calling it "one of the most secret yet useful systems on the spacecraft."

Inspiration4 spent three days in orbit before returning to Earth with a splashdown on Saturday. That's three days of using the bathroom in microgravity while in very close quarters with others. Upon hearing of the mission's potty problems, bidet company Tushy said its product engineers were standing at the ready [twitter.com] to develop the first ever space bidet, the Tushy Ass Blast 9000.

Anything that improves the toilet situation will no doubt be welcomed by the next crew to board the Dragon.

Fossilized footprints show humans made it to North America much earlier than first thought [cnn.com]:

Fossilized footprints show humans made it to North America much earlier than first thought

Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more [cnn.com].

The commonly held view is that people arrived in North Americafrom Asia via Beringia, a land bridge that once connected the two continents, at the end of the Ice Age around 13,000 to 16,000 years ago. But more recent -- and some contested -- discoveries [cnn.com] have suggested humans might have been in North America earlier.

Now, researchers studying fossilized human footprints in New Mexico say they have the first unequivocal evidence that humans were in North America at least 23,000 years ago.

"The peopling of the Americas is one of those things that has been for many years very contentious and a lot of archeologistshold views with almost religious zeal," said Matthew Bennett, a professor and specialist in ancient footprints at Bournemouth University and author of a study on the new findings that published in the journal Science on Thursday.

"One of the problems is that there is very few data points,"he added.

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