theSkimm - Have You Seen the Panda Cam? 🐼

Remember when you were proud of your dog for fetching a stick? Meet Monza and Luca, two Lagotto Romagnolos, who — with the help of their humans and researchers at Michigan State University and the University of Florida — discovered two new species of truffles in the American Southeast. The prized fungi were named the Tuber canirevelatum or “dog-found” truffle (an homage to Monza) and the Tuber cumberlandense, which is a nod to the spot where Luca found the delicacy. Monza and Luca, our future plates of pasta thank you.

• Women’s college basketball teams will finally get paid for participating in and winning March Madness games. Starting with the 2025 tournament, a total of $15 million will be awarded to the women’s teams, and that number will increase to $25 million by 2028. Though this is probably where we should mention that the pool for the men’s basketball teams is over $200 million…and they have been paid for years. 

• This month, Pittsburgh’s first women’s sports bar, aptly named Title 9, will open — so fans can root for their favorite teams, without having to nod politely as someone mansplains penalty kicks. It’s part of a growing trend, as women’s sports viewership continues to skyrocket. We’ll drink to that.

• If you’ve also made women’s rugby your entire personality since the 2024 Paris Games (relatable), here’s something to cheer about: Ahead of its kickoff in March, the US’s first professional women’s rugby league (aka Women’s Elite Rugby) released the names, colors, and crests for its six inaugural teams — and, well, they didn’t have to go so hard, but we’re so glad they did.

• The era of uncomfortable scooting and even more uncomfortable Pap smears may finally be over. In a move that’s, oh, only 84 years late, women can now use a simple swab at doctor’s offices and medical facilities to collect their own samples for cervical cancer screenings. And, before you ask: Yes, self-collection may be just as effective as traditional Pap tests at preventing cervical cancer in women 25 and older, according to more than two decades of research and countries like Australia, the Netherlands, and Sweden, where it’s common practice. Goodbye speculums — can’t say we’ll miss you.

• Speaking of things that shouldn’t be as torturous as they are: There could be a gentler (and cheaper) alternative to IVF. Enter in vitro maturation (IVM), which “involves collecting immature eggs from the ovaries and maturing them in the lab.” Instead of a week or two of hormonal injection hell, there’s just one or two days, as well as the potential for fewer side effects, fewer visits to a provider for bloodwork and monitoring, and prices that more women and families can actually afford. Of course, if maturing an egg in a dish sounds, shall we say, complicated, it is — which is why IVM has historically generated fewer mature eggs and embryos than IVF. But thanks to advances in technology, those stats are changing.

• Look at research confirming what we already knew — which is that the US economy would fall apart without women. (Kidding, but also not at all.) According to a new report from Bank of America, US women are outpacing men in income and spending growth. That’s all good and great, except for one small issue: Women are still (emphasis on still) making less money than men.

• What’s that about Silicon Valley being one big boys’ club? According to recent data, a record number of women are running startups worldwide. Between 2001–2005 and 2021–2023, startup rates for women increased from 6.1% to 10.4% across 30 countries.

Good night, bears. Good night, chairs. And good night to all other stamps everywhere. Last month, the US Postal Service announced that it’ll release a collection of stamps in 2025 based on the iconic picture book by Margaret Wise Brown and illustrator Clement Hurd. Maybe this’ll be the motivation we need to send out that year’s worth of thank-you cards…

The National Zoo’s Giant Panda Cam is back. We repeat, the National Zoo’s Giant Panda Cam is back.