Glaciers are melting faster, losing 31 percent more snow and ice per year than they did 15 years earlier, according to three-dimensional satellite measurements of all the world’s mountain glaciers. […] Using 20 years of recently declassified satellite data, scientists calculated that the world’s 220,000 mountain glaciers are losing more than 328 billion tons (298 Read more about Satellites show world’s glaciers melting much faster than ever[…]

[…] On April 20, the MOXIE device on Perseverance produced roughly 5 grams of oxygen. That’s a tiny step for NASA and its rover, but a potentially huge leap for humanity and our aspirations on Mars. This small amount of oxygen—extracted from the carbon dioxide-rich Martian atmosphere—is only enough to sustain an astronaut for about Read more about NASA Generates Oxygen on Mars, Setting Stage for Crewed Missions[…]

Google Earth has partnered with NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, the EU’s Copernicus Climate Change Service, and Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab to bring users time-lapse images of the planet’s surface—24 million satellite photos taken over 37 years. Together they offer photographic evidence of a planet changing faster than at any time in millennia. Shorelines creep Read more about Google Earth Now Shows Decades of Climate Change in Seconds[…]

The production of glass—one of humanity’s oldest materials—is getting a 21st century makeover. A new approach to glassmaking treats the material like plastic, allowing scientists to injection mold vaccine vials, sinuous channels for carrying out lab chemistry, and other complex shapes. “It’s a really exciting paper,” says André Studart, a materials scientist at ETH Zürich. Read more about Glass molded like plastic could usher in new era of complex glass shapes[…]

[…] The study, published in the journal Cell, compared ‘brain organoids’ – 3-D tissues grown from stem cells which model early brain development—that were grown from human, gorilla and chimpanzee stem cells. Similar to actual brains, the human brain organoids grew a lot larger than the organoids from other apes. […] During the early stages Read more about Scientists discover how humans develop larger brains than other apes[…]

It’s been well established by now that the agricultural systems producing our food contribute at least one fifth of global anthropogenic carbon emissions—and up to a third if waste and transportation are factored in. A troubling new report points to a previously overlooked source: an industrial fishing process practiced by dozens of countries around the Read more about 26 author report: bottom trawling for fish is responsible for one gigaton of carbon emissions a year—a higher annual total than (pre-pandemic) aviation emissions.[…]

A bit of seaweed in cattle feed could reduce methane emissions from beef cattle as much as 82 percent, according to new findings from researchers at the University of California, Davis. The results, published today in the journal PLOS ONE, could pave the way for the sustainable production of livestock throughout the world. “We now Read more about Feeding cattle seaweed reduces their greenhouse gas emissions 82 percent[…]

How do you flatten a sphere? For centuries, mapmakers have agonized over how to accurately display our round planet on anything other than a globe. Now, a fundamental re-imagining of how maps can work has resulted in the most accurate flat map ever made, from a trio of map experts: J. Richard Gott, an emeritus Read more about Astrophysicists re-imagine world map, designing a less distorted, ‘radically different’ way to see the world[…]

Researchers at the University of Maryland have turned ordinary sheets of wood into transparent material that is nearly as clear as glass, but stronger and with better insulating properties. It could become an energy efficient building material in the future. Wood is made of two basic ingredients: cellulose, which are tiny fibres, and lignin, which Read more about Scientists develop transparent wood that is stronger and lighter than glass[…]

Scientists around the world have noted that the Earth has been spinning on its axis faster lately—the fastest ever recorded. Several scientists have spoken to the press about the unusual phenomenon, with some pointing out that this past year saw some of the shortest days ever recorded. For most of the history of mankind, time Read more about The Earth has been spinning faster lately[…]

Nothing keeps time like the beating heart of an atom. But even the crisp tick-tock of a vibrating nucleus is limited by uncertainties imposed by the laws of quantum mechanics. Several years ago, researchers from MIT and the University of Belgrade in Serbia proposed that quantum entanglement could push clocks beyond this blurry boundary. Now, Read more about Physicists Made an Insanely Precise Clock That Keeps Time Using Entanglement[…]

Plants have the same variation in body clocks as that found in humans, according to new research that explores the genes governing circadian rhythms in plants. The research shows a single letter change in their DNA code can potentially decide whether a plant is a lark or a night owl. The findings may help farmers Read more about Plants can be larks or night owls just like us[…]

[..] The shift to online science communication from conventional news platforms has been going on for a while. There is a need for credible and accurate science reporting because the miscommunication of science in the media is causing lasting damage to the public’s understanding of science. Misinformation has consequences, as seen during the ongoing COVID-19 Read more about How use science to fight back against anti-maskers, climate deniers and anti-vaxxers? Let people read their research[…]

While traditional diamonds are formed over billions of years deep in the Earth where extreme pressures and temperatures provide just the right conditions to crystalize carbon, scientists are working on more expedient ways of forging the precious stones. An international team of researchers has succeeded in whittling this process down to mere minutes, demonstrating a Read more about Scientists Produce Rare Diamonds In Minutes At Room Temperature[…]

Airglow is the natural “glowing” of the Earth’s atmosphere. It happens all the time and across the whole globe. There are three types of airglow: dayglow, twilightglow and nightglow. Each is the result of sunlight interacting with the molecules in our atmosphere, but they have their own special way of forming. Dayglow forms when sunlight Read more about Aurora vs Airglow vs STEM[…]

Many hopes for a return to a semi-normal life after COVID-19 revolve around vaccines, but those injections have limits — they’re harder to deploy in low-income and rural areas where there’s no guarantee of easy distribution. Science may offer a more accessible alternative, though. Columbia University researchers have developed a nasal spray that has successfully Read more about Nasal spray might prevent COVID-19 infections – it does in ferrets[…]

Scientists have found evidence that frozen methane deposits in the Arctic Ocean – known as the “sleeping giants of the carbon cycle” – have started to be released over a large area of the continental slope off the East Siberian coast, the Guardian can reveal. High levels of the potent greenhouse gas have been detected Read more about ‘Sleeping giant’ Arctic methane deposits starting to release, scientists find[…]

MIT researchers have now found that people who are asymptomatic may differ from healthy individuals in the way that they cough. These differences are not decipherable to the human ear. But it turns out that they can be picked up by artificial intelligence. In a paper published recently in the IEEE Journal of Engineering in Read more about Artificial intelligence model detects asymptomatic Covid-19 infections through cellphone-recorded coughs[…]

A team of physicists led by Professor Patrick Windpassinger at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) has successfully transported light stored in a quantum memory over a distance of 1.2 millimeters. They have demonstrated that the controlled transport process and its dynamics has only little impact on the properties of the stored light. The researchers used Read more about Physicists successfully carry out controlled transport of stored light[…]

In the chart here we see global transport emissions in 2018. This data is sourced from the International Energy Agency (IEA). Road travel accounts for three-quarters of transport emissions. Most of this comes from passenger vehicles – cars and buses – which contribute 45.1%. The other 29.4% comes from trucks carrying freight. Since the entire Read more about Cars, planes, trains: where do CO2 emissions from transport come from?[…]

A team of US astrophysicists has produced one of the most precise measurements ever made of the total amount of matter in the Universe, a longtime mystery of the cosmos. The answer, published in The Astrophysical Journal on Monday, is that matter consists of 31.5 percent—give or take 1.3 percent—of the total amount of matter Read more about Super precise measurement of all matter in universe made[…]