Sci/Tech

May 23, 2023 – A safe supply of clean water is necessary for human survival – yet 2.2 billion people around the world lack access to this basic human right. A global crisis is looming on water security, which has been escalated by climate change. Now, researchers across the globe are collaborating to tackle the […]

Two years of heavy exposure to TCE, a liquid chemical that lingers in the air, water and soil, may increase the risk of Parkinson’s disease by 70%.  Previous research has linked TCE, or trichloroethylene, to certain cancers, but a new study publishing in JAMA Neurology on May 15, 2023, is believed to be the first […]

With its primary mission over, the CubeSat will zoom by Earth late Tuesday, May 16, and NASA’s Eyes on the Solar System app will track it, providing a chance to say farewell. NASA’s Lunar Flashlight mission to the Moon has ended, but the briefcase-size spacecraft will soon fly past Earth before heading into deep space. On […]

Knowing how the frequency and intensity of wildfires has changed over time offers scientists a glimpse into Earth’s past landscapes, as well as an understanding of future climate change impacts. To reconstruct fire records, researchers rely heavily on sediment records from lake beds, but this means that fire histories from arid regions are often overlooked. […]

As tick-borne illnesses continue to rise, Cal Poly Humboldt faculty and students are at the forefront of studying potential arachnid-transferred diseases. Biology professor Jianmin Zhong is working alongside students in his tick research lab to learn more about a novel bacterium found in certain varieties of ticks. The research team, which includes both undergraduate and […]

WASHINGTON, May 9, 2023 — For millennia, Indigenous communities have timed their cultural, agricultural, and spiritual practices around Earth’s regular cycles — wet and dry, hot and cold, lush and barren seasons reliably indicated by seasonal changes in their environments. What happens when climate change upends these natural cycles, which are also called “ecological calendars”? […]

As Earth spins around the Sun, our planet’s slight tilt creates seasons. Now, research from two NASA space missions has found how the same tilt also influences seasonal differences in space weather – conditions in space produced by the Sun’s activity. Space weather events produce the beautiful glow of the northern and southern lights, but, […]

A new study published online Wednesday, May 3, in the journal Nature documents the first observation of an aging star swallowing a planet. After running out of fuel in its core, the star began to grow in size, shrinking the gap with its neighboring planet, eventually consuming it entirely. In about 5 billion years, our […]

DALLAS, April 26, 2023 — U.S. adults who reported feeling discriminated against at work had a higher risk for developing high blood pressure than those who reported low discrimination at work, according to new research published today in the Journal of the American Heart Association, an open access, peer-reviewed journal of the American Heart Association. According to the 2023 […]

April 19, 2023 Certain stem cells have a unique ability to move between growth compartments in hair follicles, but get stuck as people age and so lose their ability to mature and maintain hair color, a new study shows. Led by researchers from NYU Grossman School of Medicine, the new work focused on cells in […]

University of California, Davis, scientists are teaming up with UC Berkeley and UC San Francisco researchers on a $70-million donor-funded initiative that aims in part to cut climate change-causing emissions from cattle by using the genome-editing tool CRISPR on microbes in the cows’ gut. Professor Ermias Kebreab, known for his innovative research using feed additives […]

The demand for battery-grade lithium, nickel, cobalt, manganese and platinum will climb steeply as vehicle electrification speeds up and nations work to reduce greenhouse gas emissions through mid-century. This surge in demand will also create a variety of economic and supply-chain problems, according to new Cornell University research published in Nature Communications. In the new paper, senior […]

April 11, 2023 – For millennia, humans have been fascinated by the mysteries of the cosmos. Unlike ancient philosophers imagining the universe’s origins, modern cosmologists use quantitative tools to gain insights into its evolution and structure. Modern cosmology dates back to the early 20th century, with the development of Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity. […]

The field of plate tectonics is not that old, and scientists continue to learn the details of earthquake-producing geologic faults. The Cascadia Subduction Zone — the eerily quiet offshore fault that threatens to unleash a magnitude-9 earthquake in the Pacific Northwest — still holds many mysteries. A study led by the University of Washington discovered […]

A new study suggests that predatory dinosaurs, such as Tyrannosaurus rex, did not have permanently exposed teeth as depicted in films such as Jurassic Park, but instead had scaly, lizard-like lips covering and sealing their mouths. Researchers and artists have debated whether theropod dinosaurs, the group of two-legged dinosaurs that includes carnivores and top predators like T. rex and Velociraptor, as […]

April 3, 2023 – Over the past 20 years, coronaviruses in wild bat populations have led to three major disease outbreaks in humans: SARS in 2002, MERS in 2012 and COVID-19. The latter triggered an ongoing global pandemic. In turn, this has focused greater attention on zoonotic diseases, infectious diseases that are transmitted from animals […]

An international team of researchers has used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to measure the temperature of the rocky exoplanet TRAPPIST-1 b. The measurement is based on the planet’s thermal emission: heat energy given off in the form of infrared light detected by Webb’s Mid-Infrared Instrument (MIRI). The result indicates that the planet’s dayside has a […]

In summer 2021, a stunning heat wave swept western North America, from British Columbia to Washington, Oregon and beyond into other inland areas where the climate is generally mild. Temperature records were set by tens of degrees in many places, wildfires broke out, and at least 1,400 people died. Scientists blamed the event largely on […]

Stonehenge is an astonishingly complex monument, which attracts attention mostly for its spectacular megalithic circle and “horseshoe”, built around 2600 BC. Over the years, several theories have been put forward about Stonehenge’s meaning and function. Today, however, archaeologists have a rather clear picture of this monument as a “place for the ancestors”, located within a […]

March 23, 2023 – If we were to ask a room full of women how many of them had never experienced mansplaining, very few would raise their hands. Or even no one at all. Similarly, if we were to ask a room full of men how many of them had manterrupted a woman, not many of them […]