Sci/Tech

A team of astronomers, with the help of the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), have observed a new type of stellar explosion — a micronova. These outbursts happen on the surface of certain stars, and can each burn through around 3.5 billion Great Pyramids of Giza of stellar material in only a […]

CAMBRIDGE, Massachusetts (April 19, 2022)—The need for resilient renewable energy is stronger than ever, as demand for clean electricity grows and worsening climate impacts challenge the aging power grid. Fortunately, states can show climate leadership and meet 100% of their electricity needs with renewable energy by 2035, according to “On the Road to 100% Renewables,” […]

Five hundred million years ago, the oceans teemed with trillions of trilobites — creatures that were distant cousins of horseshoe crabs.  All trilobites had a wide range of vision, thanks to compound eyes — single eyes composed of tens to thousands of tiny independent units, each with their own cornea, lens and light-sensitive cells. But […]

An enormous comet — approximately 80 miles across, more than twice the width of Rhode Island — is heading our way at 22,000 miles per hour from the edge of the solar system. Fortunately, it will never get closer than 1 billion miles from the sun, which is slightly farther from Earth than Saturn; that will be in 2031. […]

Deuterium, the heavy brother of hydrogen, is considered a promising material of the future – because of its wide range of applications: in science, for energy generation, or in the production of pharmaceuticals. However, the extraction of deuterium from its natural isotope mixture has so far been complex and expensive. With a porous material developed […]

Highly energetic particles called muons are ever present in the atmosphere and pass through even massive objects with ease. Sensitive detectors installed along the Tokyo Bay tunnel measure muons passing through the sea above them. This allows for changes in the volume of water above the tunnel to be calculated. For the first time, this […]

WASHINGTON, April 13, 2022 – Achieving the perfect al dente texture for a pasta noodle can be tough. Noodles can take different times to fully cook, and different recipes call for different amounts of salt to be added. To boot, sometimes noodles will stick to each other or the saucepan. In Physics of Fluids, by […]

Researchers at the CEU Cardenal Herrera University (CEU UCH) in Valencia, the Institute of Biomedicine of Valencia (CSIC) and the Autonomous University of Barcelona have detected the first case of SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in a European river otter in Spain. It is a specimen of Eurasian river otter (Lutra lutra), whose remains were found near a […]

An international team of astronomers have used ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory’s Very Large Telescope (ESO’s VLT), to track Neptune’s atmospheric temperatures over a 17-year period. They found a surprising drop in Neptune’s global temperatures followed by a dramatic warming at its south pole.“This change was unexpected,” says Michael Roman, a postdoctoral research associate […]

A research team led by scientists at Georgetown University has found that humans give viruses back to animals more often than previously thought. In a study published in Ecology Letters, the authors describe nearly 100 different cases where diseases have undergone “spillback” from humans to wild animals, much like how SARS-CoV-2 has spread in mink farms, lions and […]

After decades of drought, water levels in Lake Powell, the second-largest humanmade reservoir in the United States, have shrunk to its lowest level since it was created more than 50 years ago, threatening millions of people who rely on its water supply. Satellite images allow us to take a closer look at the dwindling water […]

To combat forest loss in the tropics, a new study uses crowdsourcing to identify the drivers of deforestation. The resulting dataset can be used to create high-resolution maps and help policymakers apply the best protection measures. Every year, 10 million hectares of forest disappear worldwide, predominantly driven by human activities such as agriculture expansion, building […]

On January 15, the volcano Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai devastated the nation of Tonga. The eruption triggered tsunamis as far afield as the Caribbean and generated atmospheric waves that travelled around the globe several times. Meanwhile, the volcano’s plume shot gas and ash through the stratosphere into the lower mesosphere. Just two months after the eruption, […]

Aerosols carried in wildfire smoke plumes that are hundreds of hours old can still affect climate, according to a study out of the University of California, Davis. The research, published in the journal Environmental Science and Technology, suggests that wildfire emissions even 10 days old can affect the properties of aerosols — suspended liquid or […]

A Kaiser Permanente analysis of pregnant patients who tested positive for the coronavirus found more than double the risk of poor outcomes including preterm birth, venous thromboembolism (blood clot), and severe maternal morbidity, which includes conditions such as acute respiratory distress syndrome and sepsis. The study was published in JAMA Internal Medicine on March 21. An analysis […]

As an intergovernmental organization mandated to develop and implement space programs in full respect with European values, we deeply deplore the human casualties and tragic consequences of the aggression towards Ukraine. While recognizing the impact on scientific exploration of space, ESA is fully aligned with the sanctions imposed on Russia by its Member States. ExoMars […]

The energy requirements of the Internet, the devices and systems using it and the servers that support it are responsible for greenhouse gas emissions equal to that of the global airline industry, and this carbon cost is growing rapidly with the expansion of blockchain-enabled transactions: The carbon footprint of a single Ethereum transaction is equivalent to nearly 329,000 credit […]

As a step toward improving our ability to identify and manage the harmful effects of bias in artificial intelligence (AI) systems, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recommend widening the scope of where we look for the source of these biases — beyond the machine learning processes and data used to […]

Most asteroids that have impacted Earth were discovered many years, often many millions of years, after the event. The evidence? Roughly 200 known craters scar Earth’s surface, telling an impactful story of how our planet, and life on it, has been dramatically shaped by violent collisions with ancient space rocks. On occasion – five in […]

Satellites captured the tree loss from Hurricane Michael in 2018. This is where fires were burning in 2022. Forwarn/USDA Forest Service David Godwin, University of Florida The wildfires that broke out in the Florida Panhandle in early March 2022 were the nightmare fire managers had feared since the day Hurricane Michael flattened millions of trees […]