Sci/Tech

COLUMBIA, Mo. December 5, 2022 – Nearly 10,000 years ago, humans settling in the Fertile Crescent, the areas of the Middle East surrounding the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, made the first switch from hunter-gatherers to farmers. They developed close bonds with the rodent-eating cats that conveniently served as ancient pest-control in society’s first civilizations. A […]

Solar Orbiter has spotted a ‘tube’ of cooler atmospheric gases snaking its way through the Sun’s magnetic field. The observation provides an intriguing new addition to the zoo of features revealed by the ESA-led Solar Orbiter mission, especially since the snake was a precursor to a much larger eruption. The snake was seen on 5 […]

RENO, Nev. – Modeling and mapping fire-vulnerable forest vegetation across millions of acres in      California, scientists at the University of Nevada, Reno are using a variety of new technologies with massive amounts of data and computational power. This research will help optimize fuel management to reduce fire risk, support carbon sequestration and improve water quality. […]

The kinetic impact of NASA’s DART spacecraft with the Dimorphos asteroid around its larger Didymos parent body has succeeded in shifting its orbit, meaning humankind’s first planetary defence test has been successful. Observations are continuing of the debris plume caused by the collision for as long as possible, as the asteroid system gradually recedes from Earth. As […]

Denver, Colo., USA, 66 million years ago, a 10-kilometer asteroid hit Earth, triggering the extinction of the dinosaurs. New evidence suggests that the Chicxulub impact also triggered an earthquake so massive that it shook the planet for weeks to months after the collision. The amount of energy released in this “mega-earthquake” is estimated at 1023 joules, […]

Billions of years ago, a version of our Earth that looks very different than the one we live on today was hit by an object about the size of Mars, called Theia – and out of that collision the Moon was formed. How exactly that formation occurred is a scientific puzzle researchers have studied for […]

Two of the great space observatories, the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope, have captured views of a unique experiment to smash a spacecraft into a small asteroid. Observations of NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) impact mark the first time that Webb and Hubble were used to simultaneously observe the same celestial […]

Sophia Antipolis, September 27, 2022 –   Drinking two to three cups of coffee a day is linked with a longer lifespan and lower risk of cardiovascular disease compared with avoiding coffee, according to research published today in the European Journal of Preventive Cardiology, a journal of the ESC.1 The findings applied to ground, instant and decaffeinated varieties. […]

ESA’s Hera mission team congratulates their counterparts in NASA’s DART mission team for their historic impact with the Dimorphos asteroid. Moving at 6.1 km per second, the car-sized Double Asteroid Redirect Test spacecraft struck the 160-m diameter asteroid at 01:15 CEST (00:15 BST) in the early hours of Tuesday morning, in humankind’s first test of the ‘kinetic […]

Countdown to impact as NASA’s Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) attempts humanity’s first-ever test of planetary defense! The DART spacecraft will intentionally crash into asteroid Dimorphos at 4:14 p.m. PT on Monday, September 26, 2022 to see if kinetic force can change its orbit. Why? If this test is successful, the same technique could be […]

September 22, 2022 – Astronomical observations from ground-based telescopes are sensitive to local atmospheric conditions. Anthropogenic climate change will negatively affect some of these conditions at observation sites around the globe, as a team of researchers led by the University of Bern and the National Centre of Competence in Research (NCCR) PlanetS reports. The quality […]

The vast majority of electric vehicle owners charge their cars at home in the evening or overnight. We’re doing it wrong, according to a new Stanford study. In March, the research team published a paper on a model they created for charging demand that can be applied to an array of populations and other factors. In the new […]

The NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope is showing off its capabilities closer to home with its first image of Neptune. Not only has Webb captured the clearest view of this peculiar planet’s rings in more than 30 years, but its cameras are also revealing the ice giant in a whole new light. Most striking about Webb’s new […]

Researchers have discovered a 380-million-year-old heart – the oldest ever found – alongside a separate fossilised stomach, intestine and liver in an ancient jawed fish, shedding new light on the evolution of our own bodies. The new research, published today in Science, found that the position of the organs in the body of arthrodires – an […]

Rings appear to be common around planets in the solar system, but the dramatic rings of Saturn have long puzzled astronomers, as has the steep tilt of the rings and the planet’s rotation axis relative to its orbit around the sun. Scientists now show that the rings and the tilt are intimately linked, and that […]

We’re all capable of slowing down the effects of a warming Earth, and it could be as simple as how we stock our pantries. An international team of scientists has evaluated the environmental impacts of more than 57,000 food products – the stuff you typically find as you wander the aisles of your local grocery. […]

September 6, 2022 – Exposure to air pollution in the first six months of life impacts a child’s inner world of gut bacteria, or microbiome, in ways that could increase risk of allergies, obesity and diabetes, and even influence brain development, suggests new CU Boulder research. The study, published this month in the journal Gut Microbes, is the […]

For the first time, astronomers have used the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope to take a direct image of an exoplanet. The exoplanet is a gas giant, meaning it has no rocky surface and could not be habitable. The image, as seen through four different light filters, shows how Webb’s powerful infrared gaze can easily capture […]

Geneva, 31 August 2022 – It is likely that the protracted La Niña event will last until at least the end of the year, becoming this century’s first “triple-dip“ La Niña, spanning three consecutive northern hemisphere winters (southern hemisphere summers), according to a new update from the World Meteorological Organization. The WMO El Niño/La Niña […]

New images of the spectacular Phantom Galaxy, M74, showcase the power of space observatories working together in multiple wavelengths. In this case, data from the NASA/ESA/CSA James Webb Space Telescope and the NASA/ESA Hubble Space Telescope compliment each other to provide a comprehensive view of the galaxy. The Phantom Galaxy is around 32 million light-years […]