The Arctic Crisis: A Call to Action Amidst Global Warming Challenges

The degradation of the Arctic tundra has triggered a terrible chain reaction that can only lead to greater mayhemThe problems that now afflict attempts to establish a military presence in the far north of Canada and Greenland provide timely warnings about the miseries that lie ahead for the rest of the planet as global warming continues its remorseless spread.The Arctic has suffered especially early impacts because temperatures here are rising faster than in any other part of our planet. Crucially, this process threatens to trigger even greater climatic mayhem. Continue reading...

NASA's Lucy Mission Prepares for Crucial Flyby of Asteroid Donaldjohanson

The Lucy mission is on a 12-year journey to explore a peculiar set of asteroids that lead and follow Jupiter as it orbits the Sun. As it journeys to these Trojan asteroids, the probe is preparing for… [+4662 chars]

Massive Star Meets an Unexpected Fate: A Journey from Luminosity to Black Hole

Massive Star Goes Out With a Whimper Instead of a Bang (Artist's Illustration) This illustration shows the final stages in the life of a supermassive star that fails to explode as a supernova but ins… [+4461 chars]

NASA Astronaut Don Pettit Celebrates 70th Birthday in Space: A Remarkable Journey Back to Earth

Astronauts Return to Earth on US Astronaut's 70th Birthday

Landing on the steppes of Kazakhstan coincides with US astronaut Donald Pettit’s 70th birthday.

Everglades Restoration: A Key to Florida's Ecological and Economic Health

The Everglades restoration is crucial for Florida Bay's health. High salinity threatens seagrass. A project elevating Tamiami Trail helps water flow. An early wet season is promising. A reservoir project will store and clean water. This will improve the entire system. Restoration boosts Florida's economy. It provides water and reduces flood risk. Protecting the environment secures Floridians' wealth.

Neuroscientists Pioneering Technology to Restore Speech Through Brainwaves

Californian researchers and groups such as Precision Neuroscience use implants and AI to make advances in ‘voice prosthesis’

Unlocking the Secrets of Adaptive Evolution in Stick Insects

Understanding the material basis of adaptive evolution has been a central goal in biology dating back to at least the time of Darwin. One focus of current debates is whether adaptive evolution relies… [+3704 chars]

Astronauts Get Groomed in Space: The Ingenious Onboard Barbershop of the ISS

NASA astronaut Catherine Coleman gives ESA astronaut Paolo Nespoli a haircut in the Kibo laboratory on the ISS in 2011. (Credit: NASA) Although we tend to see mostly the glorious and fun parts of ha… [+1701 chars]

New Model Suggests Slow Rotation of the Universe May Resolve Hubble Tension

In 1929, astronomer Edwin Hubble published a paper demonstrating that the universe is expanding . It gave rise to the Hubble constant , the number that describes how fast the universe is expandin… [+2752 chars]

Harnessing the Power of Rain: Groundbreaking Study Reveals New Method to Generate Electricity from Falling Water

Raindrops may seem harmless as they slide down windows or trickle through gutters. But inside each drop lies a powerful secret. When water flows through certain surfaces, it creates electrical charge… [+6694 chars]

Astronomers Discover Potential 'Dark Galaxy' That Might Solve Cosmic Mystery

Astronomers may have just stumbled across a ghost galaxy hiding in plain sight a small, starless, fast-moving cloud of gas that checks all the boxes for whats known as a dark galaxy. And if the disco… [+2364 chars]

NASA's PUNCH Mission Takes Vibrant First Images of the Sun

Check out the vibrant first photo from PUNCH, a NASA mission that is hitting the ground running with some neat shots of the Sun. PUNCHshort for the Polarimeter to Unify the Corona and Heliospherelau… [+2726 chars]

Growing Safety Concerns for the International Space Station as Retirement Approaches

The International Space Station (ISS) has been orbiting Earth since 1998, housing groups of astronauts in the microgravity environment around 250 miles above the surface of the planet. All of that ti… [+3162 chars]

Astronomers Spark Excitement with Potential Discovery of Life on Distant Planet K2-18b

Few forms of media can still grab the general public’s lapels and say, “The world has changed in an important way, and you should know about it, now” like a push notification from The New York Times.… [+6759 chars]

The Legacy of David Hilbert: How the Nazi Regime Altered the Course of Mathematics

In 1934, David Hilbert, by then a grand old man of German mathematics, was dining with Bernhard Rust, the Nazi minister of education. Rust asked, How is mathematics at Göttingen, now that it is free … [+10989 chars]

The Cognitive Cost of AI: Are We Losing Our Intelligence?

Recent research suggests our brain power is in decline. Is offloading our cognitive work to AI driving this trend?Imagine for a moment you are a child in 1941, sitting the common entrance exam for public schools with nothing but a pencil and paper. You read the following: “Write, for no more than a quarter of an hour, about a British author.”Today, most of us wouldn’t need 15 minutes to ponder such a question. We’d get the answer instantly by turning to AI tools such as Google Gemini, ChatGPT or Siri. Offloading cognitive effort to artificial intelligence has become second nature, but with mounting evidence that human intelligence is declining, some experts fear this impulse is driving the trend. Continue reading...

Exploring Quasicrystals: A Surprising Discovery in 3D Printed Metal Alloys

When is a crystal not a crystal? When it’s a quasi-crystal, a paradoxical form of metal recently found in some 3D printed metal alloys by [A.D. Iams et al] at the American National Institute for Stan… [+2351 chars]