January 24, 2020 – This Copernicus Sentinel-2 image features an area in the Santa Cruz Department of Bolivia, where part of the tropical dry forest has been cleared for agricultural use. Since the 1980s, the area has been rapidly deforested owing to a large agricultural development effort where people from the Andean high plains (the […]
Sci/Tech
Snakes could be the original source of the new coronavirus outbreak in China
Chinese cobra (Naja atra) with hood spread. Briston/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA Haitao Guo, University of Pittsburgh; Guangxiang “George” Luo, University of Alabama at Birmingham, and Shou-Jiang Gao, University of Pittsburgh January 23, 2020 – Snakes – the Chinese krait and the Chinese cobra – may be the original source of the newly discovered coronavirus that has […]
Galileo now replying to SOS messages worldwide
January 23, 2020 – As well as providing global navigation services, Europe’s Galileo satellite constellation is acontributing to saving more than 2000 lives annually by relaying SOS messages to first responders. And from now on the satellites will reply to these messages, assuring people in danger that help is on the way. This ESA-design ‘return […]
American College of Physicians Calls for Comprehensive Reform of U.S. Health Care
Washington, D.C. January 20, 2020—The American College of Physicians (ACP) today issued a bold call to action challenging the U.S. to implement systematic reform of the health care system, and released an ambitious new vision for a better health care system for all and expansive policy recommendations for how to achieve it. The series of policy papers […]
XMM-Newton maps black hole surroundings
January 21, 2020 – Material falling into a black hole casts X-rays out into space – and now, for the first time, ESA’s XMM-Newton X-ray observatory has used the reverberating echoes of this radiation to map the dynamic behaviour and surroundings of a black hole itself. Most black holes are too small on the sky […]
Taking the Temperature of Dark Matter
January 16, 2020 – Warm, cold, just right? Physicists at the University of California, Davis, are taking the temperature of dark matter, the mysterious substance that makes up about a quarter of our universe. We have very little idea of what dark matter is, and physicists have yet to detect a dark matter particle. But […]
NASA, NOAA Analyses Reveal 2019 Second Warmest Year on Record
January 15, 2020 -According to independent analyses by NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Earth’s global surface temperatures in 2019 were the second warmest since modern recordkeeping began in 1880. Globally, 2019 temperatures were second only to those of 2016 and continued the planet’s long-term warming trend: the past five years have […]
WMO Confirms 2019 as second hottest year on record
Geneva, January 15, 2020 – The year 2019 was the second warmest year on record after 2016, according to the World Meteorological Organization’s consolidated analysis of leading international datasets. Average temperatures for the five-year (2015-2019) and ten-year (2010-2019) periods were the highest on record. Since the 1980s each decade has been warmer than the previous […]
Aerosol spread from Australian fires – video
January 9, 2020 -Ferocious bushfires have been sweeping across Australia since September, fueled by record-breaking temperatures, drought and wind. The country has always experienced fires, but this season has been horrific. A staggering 10 million hectares of land have been burned, at least 24 people have been killed and it has been reported that almost […]
How does your body respond to feelings of moral outrage? It depends on your politics.
January 8, 2020 – When you see someone being unfair, disloyal or uncaring toward others, do you feel a sense of moral outrage in the form of a twisting stomach, pounding heart or flushing face? And is it possible that your body’s response depends on your political affiliation? Researchers with USC’s Brain and Creativity Institute set out […]
NASA Planet Hunter Finds Earth-Size Habitable-Zone World
January 7, 2020 – NASA’s Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS) has discovered its first Earth-size planet in its star’s habitable zone, the range of distances where conditions may be just right to allow the presence of liquid water on the surface. Scientists confirmed the find, called TOI 700 d, using NASA’s Spitzer Space Telescope and […]
Half of women with heart failure get the wrong treatment
Jan. 6, 2020 – More women than men die of heart failure. The reason is that only 50 per cent of the heart failure cases among women are caused by having a heart attack, which can be treated with modern methods. For the other half of women experiencing heart failure, the cause is generally related to having […]
Study Confirms Climate Change Impacted Hurricane Florence’s Precipitation and Size
STONY BROOK, January 2, 2020 — A study led by Kevin Reed, PhD, Assistant Professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences (SoMAS) at Stony Brook University, and published in Science Advances, found that Hurricane Florence produced more extreme rainfall and was spatially larger due to human-induced climate change. Previous research has suggested that human […]
New study estimates the global extent of river ice loss as Earth warms
January 2, 2020 – More than half of Earth’s rivers freeze over every year. These frozen rivers support important transportation networks for communities and industries located at high latitudes. Ice cover also regulates the amount of greenhouse gasses released from rivers into Earth’s atmosphere. A new study from researchers in the University of North Carolina […]
North Atlantic Current may cease temporarily in the next century
The North Atlantic Current transports warm water from the Gulf of Mexico towards Europe, providing much of north-western Europe with a relatively mild climate. However, scientists suspect that meltwater from Greenland and excessive rainfall could interfere with this ocean current. Simulations by scientists from the University of Groningen and Utrecht University showed that it is […]
'Cotton Candy' planet mysteries unravel in new Hubble observations
December 27, 2019 – When astronomers look around the solar system, they find that planets can be made out of almost anything. Terrestrial planets like Earth, Mars, and Venus have dense iron cores and rocky mantles. The massive outer planets like Jupiter and Saturn are mostly gaseous and liquid. Astronomers can’t peel back their cloud […]
Close to half of US population projected to have obesity by 2030
Boston, MA, Dec. 19, 2019 – About half of the adult U.S. population will have obesity and about a quarter will have severe obesity by 2030, according to a new study led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The study also predicts that in 29 states, more than half of the population will […]
Light pollution can suppress melatonin production in humans and animals
Dec. 19, 2019 – Melatonin sets the internal clock. Researchers from Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB) in an international team have analyzed data on the impact of light pollution on melatonin formation in humans and vertebrates. They found that even the low light intensities of urban skyglow can suppress melatonin production. Melatonin […]
Thawing permafrost affecting northern Alaska's land-to-ocean river flows
AMHERST, Mass. Dec. 18, 2019 – A new analysis of the changing character of runoff, river discharge and other hydrological cycle elements across the North Slope of Alaska reveals significant increases in the proportion of subsurface runoff and cold season discharge, changes the authors say are “consistent with warming and thawing permafrost.” First author and […]
WHO prequalifies first biosimilar medicine to increase worldwide access to life-saving breast cancer treatment
Geneva December 18, 2019 – Today the World Health Organization (WHO) prequalified its first biosimilar medicine – trastuzumab – in a move that could make this expensive, life-saving treatment more affordable and available to women globally. Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women. 2.1 million women contracted breast cancer in 2018. […]