Our brains are miraculous and weird things, and it turns out everyone has different ways of processing the world.

Christmas is over. It's time to decide the future and fate of your Christmas tree. For three decades, UNLV and community organizations have encouraged the whole community to take advantage of their Southern Nevada Christmas Tree Recycling Program.

Just two months after turning 100 years old, former President of the United States Jimmy Carter has died. He was in hospice care for nearly two years at his home in Plains, Georgia.

The October surprise really happened. The surprise occurred in 1980, when members of the Reagan/Bush campaign asked Iran to hold the American hostages captive longer. William Casey, who was Ronald Reagan’s campaign manager, met with Iranians in Madrid and asked them not to release the hostages as long as Jimmy Carter was president. Casey promised Iran armaments, which Israel would deliver to them. Casey and others promised the ranians that things would be much better for them once Reagan was elected. Goodbye, Jimmy Carter.

In Hidden in the Heavens, Jason Steffen tells the tale of the Kepler mission: from its conception in the early 1980s, through its long road to approval in 2001, to the drama of its launch in 2009, to its bounty of early science results, to its heartbreaking demise in 2014, to its miraculous second life as the K2 mission through 2018. During its lifetime, Kepler detected some 5,000 planets. Those of us who worked on it were blessed to be part of a revolution in astronomy. The book is, at turns, a popular science survey of exoplanet discovery, an oral history of the Kepler mission, and Steffen’s own personal memoir.

Summerlin residents are once again encouraged to recycle their real Christmas trees once the holidays are over. In partnership with Springs Preserve, the UNLV Rebel Recycling Program and dozens of other local conservation organizations, the annual Christmas Tree Recycling Program returns Dec. 26 through Jan. 15.

This week on Politics Now with host John Langeler:

• 2024 was an up-and-down year in politics. We take a look at the political comeback of Former President Donald Trump and his win Nevada
• The Nevada Legislature is once again under Democratic control despite having a Republican Governor. We look at what we can expect from the next session
• From a new Las Vegas mayor to a Republican getting on the county commission, we discuss what changes we can expect to see in our local politics

A 2015 Time analysis of 35 years of FAA data found back-third seats had a 32% fatality rate, compared to 39% in the middle third and 38% in the front third. Middle seats in the back were the safest overall, with just a 28% fatality rate. However, survival often depends on the unique circumstances of an incident, and air travel remains one of the safest modes of transportation.

As new details emerge regarding the crash of an AZAL aircraft, experts are increasingly describing the crew as heroes. The pilots and flight attendants worked tirelessly until the very last moment to save lives.