There Could Be a Surprising Benefit to Non-Deadly Parasites in The World’s Ecosystems
When something’s messing with your insides and you feel like you’re going to hurl, the last thing you probably want to do is eat. Deer, caribou, and other ungulates (hoofed…
Climate Change Has Been Killing Rainforest Trees For Longer Than We Realized
Scientists have documented a worrying trend in the rainforests of Australia: Tree lifespans have halved in the last 35 years, and it appears to be due to the effects of…
A New Enzyme Found in Compost Just Set a Speed Record For Breaking Down Plastic
A plastic container thrown into landfill can take hundreds of years to break down naturally, but a newly discovered enzyme could eat up the waste in less than a day.…
The Cryptocurrency Crash Is Great News For The Rest of The World. Here’s Why
Cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin were meant to be used as digital cash. Instead, they’ve become popular as speculative investments. As well as being resource-intensive and inherently wasteful, cryptocurrencies are also incredibly…
New Kind of ‘Solar’ Cell Shows We Can Generate Electricity Even at Night
Conventional solar technology soaks up rays of incoming sunlight to bump out a voltage. Strange as it seems, some materials are capable of running in reverse, producing power as they…
Superconducting X-Ray Laser in California Achieves Temperatures Colder Than Space
A particle accelerator that slams electrons together here on Earth has achieved temperatures colder than those of outer space. Using the X-ray free-electron laser at the Department of Energy’s SLAC…
Scientists Just Measured a Mechanical Quantum System Without Destroying It
There’s a key aspect of quantum computing you may not have thought about before. Called ‘quantum non-demolition measurements’, they refer to observing certain quantum states without destroying them in the…
There’s an Unfortunate Causal Link Between Cleaner Air And Atlantic Hurricanes
As air pollution decreases in the western Northern Hemisphere, several new climate simulations suggest tropical cyclones in the Atlantic may increase. The forecast is troubling, though not necessarily a surprise.…
Climate Change Is a ‘Game Changer’ When It Comes to Heatwaves, Say Experts
All heatwaves today bear the unmistakable and measurable fingerprint of global warming, top experts on quantifying the impact of climate change on extreme weather said Wednesday. Burning fossil fuels and…
This Cosmic Timekeeping Method Proposes to Synchronize All Clocks on Earth
Modern technology pulses with a heartbeat measured in microseconds. From global positioning systems to communications networks, it’s vital every component falls into near-perfect synch. Based on standards determined by a…
Scientists Have Powered a Basic Computer With Just Algae For Over 6 Months
In a ghastly vision of a future cut off from sunlight, the machine overloads in the Matrix movie series turned to sleeping human bodies as sources of electricity. If they’d…
Mapping The Pacific’s Busiest ‘Blue Corridors’ Could Help Us Save Fish Populations
Large fish in the open sea have declined by at least 90 percent over the past century due to overexploitation. To pull fish like tuna, swordfish, and marlin back from…
Physicists Found a Way to Trigger The Strange Glow of Warp Speed Acceleration
Every time you take a step, space itself glows with a soft warmth. Called the Fulling–Davies–Unruh effect (or sometimes just Unruh effect if you’re pushed for time), this eerie glow…
Odds Are Now 50/50 That We’ll Exceed 1.5 °C Warming Within Just 5 Years
There is an even chance that global temperatures will temporarily breach the benchmark of 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels in one of the next five years, the United Nations…
Basically Half of All Known Bird Species Are Grappling With Population Declines
Thousands of wild bird species are growing ill or dying from habitat loss, climate change, and overexploitation, according to new research. A new estimate from researchers around the world has…
We May Finally Soon Have The Ideal Building Block For Quantum Computers
We already have quantum computers of a sort, but at the moment they’re not practical or reliable or large-scale enough to fully realize the massive potential of the technology. To…
The Ocean Is Starting to Lose Its Memory, Scientists Warn
The oceans that surround us are transforming. As our climate changes, the world’s waters are shifting too, with abnormalities evident not only in the ocean’s temperature, but also its structure,…