On Facebook ads, users may dislike ‘likes’
Scroll through your Facebook feed, and you’ll get pelted by advertisements begging for a click. Like any other type of post, these ads allow you to react. Often, you’ll notice that one or more of your friends has already “liked” them. ⌘ Read more

Mathematicians debunk GPS assumptions to offer improvements
The summer holidays are ending, which for many concludes with a long drive home and reliance on GPS devices to get safely home. But every now and then, GPS devices can suggest strange directions or get briefly confused about your location. But until now, no one knew for sure when the satellites were in a good enough position for the GPS system to give reliable direction. ⌘ Read more

Research investigates variable star population of globular cluster NGC 1851
Astronomers have performed photometric observations of a young globular cluster known as NGC 1851. The new observational campaign provides more insights into the variable star population of this cluster and validates the membership of these variables. The findings were published August 20 on the pre-print server arXiv. ⌘ Read more

Some bats are surviving and thriving with blood sugar levels that would be lethal for other mammals
Humans must regulate blood sugar concentrations to stay healthy and to fuel our cells. Too little or too much can cause serious health complications, and high blood sugar is a hallmark of the metabolic condition, diabetes. New research from the Stowers Institute for Medical Research may enable potential solutions to metabolic disease by turning to evolution and to bats. ⌘ Read more

Study finds limits to storing CO₂ underground to combat climate change
Imperial College London research has found limits to how quickly we can scale up technology to store gigatonnes of carbon dioxide under Earth’s surface. ⌘ Read more

AI tools like ChatGPT popular among students who struggle with concentration and attention
Since their release, AI tools like ChatGPT have had a huge impact on content creation. In schools and universities, a debate about whether these tools should be allowed or prohibited is ongoing. ⌘ Read more

Population genetic insights into the conservation of common walnut (Juglans regia) in Central Asia
Understanding species distribution, differentiation and the factors affecting genetic diversity is important for sustainable conservation and effective management, as well as the rational utilization of species germplasm. ⌘ Read more

Kagome superlattice method offers new way to tune graphene’s electronic properties
A research team has introduced a novel method for selectively tuning electronic bands in graphene. Their findings, published in Physical Review Letters, showcase the potential of artificial superlattice fields for manipulating different types of band dispersions in graphene. ⌘ Read more

‘Alarming’ rise in deadly lightning strikes in India: scientists
Climate change is fueling an alarming increase in deadly lightning strikes in India, killing nearly 1,900 people a year in the world’s most populous country, scientists warn. ⌘ Read more

Fires in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state under control: authorities
Fires that have razed thousands of hectares of forest in Brazil’s Sao Paulo state have been brought under control, authorities said Monday, though an alert for fresh blazes remained in place. ⌘ Read more

SpaceX Polaris Dawn launch pushed back after helium leak
SpaceX on Monday pushed back the historic launch of an all-civilian crew on an orbital expedition set to mark a new chapter in space exploration with the first spacewalk by private citizens. ⌘ Read more

Microscopic fossilized shells reveal ancient climate change patterns
At the end of the Paleocene and beginning of the Eocene epochs, between 59 to 51 million years ago, Earth experienced dramatic warming periods, both gradual periods stretching millions of years and sudden warming events known as hyperthermals. ⌘ Read more

Locked in a glacier: Virus adaptations to extreme weather provide climate change insights
Ancient viruses preserved in glacial ice hold valuable information about changes in Earth’s climate, a new study suggests. ⌘ Read more

Japan’s space agency ends Moon probe operation
Japan’s space agency said on Monday it had ended its Moon lander operation after losing communication with the uncrewed spaceship last week. ⌘ Read more

Australia gives millions of workers ‘right to disconnect’
Australia gave millions of workers the legal right to “disconnect” on Monday, allowing them to ignore unreasonable out-of-hours calls, emails and texts from their bosses. ⌘ Read more

Big polluters urged to pay as key Pacific summit opens in Tonga
Emissions-belching nations were challenged to stump up for climate-related damage as a key Pacific islands summit opened on Monday, with low-lying Tuvalu declaring: “If you pollute, you should pay.” ⌘ Read more

The moon was once covered by an ocean of molten rock, data from India’s space mission suggests
Data from India’s recent Chandrayaan-3 mission supports the idea that an ocean of molten rock once covered the moon. Scientists from the mission have published their new findings in the journal Nature. ⌘ Read more

Letting teachers choose what they want to learn supports teacher morale—and yields better teaching
Student achievement is highly correlated with having qualified teachers who feel empowered and motivated to provide quality education for their students. Such teachers should be in every classroom. ⌘ Read more

NASA decides to keep 2 astronauts in space until February, nixes return on troubled Boeing capsule
NASA decided Saturday it’s too risky to bring two astronauts back to Earth in Boeing’s troubled new capsule, and they’ll have to wait until next year for a ride home with SpaceX. What should have been a weeklong test flight for the pair will now last more than eight months. ⌘ Read more

South Africa’s scarce water needs careful management—study finds smaller, local systems offer more benefits
South Africa is a water-scarce country, the 30th driest in the world. Using water wisely will become more and more important as the population grows and droughts related to climate change increase. A lack of clean, fresh water has a negative impact on people’s health and on the amount of food that can be grown. ⌘ Read more

Bird species are disappearing at an alarming rate in Kenya, study finds
Sub-Saharan Africa has a vast amount of uncultivated, arable land—about 2 million km2, accounting for about 50% of the global total. This land is a critical habitat for many animal species, including birds. ⌘ Read more

Nontoxic ceramic could replace lead-based electronic components
The ceramic produced in Prof. Igor Lubomirsky’s lab at the Weizmann Institute of Science seemed too good to be true. It belongs to a class of materials that are the backbone of many essential technologies but that unfortunately also create an environmental problem because they usually contain lead, which is highly toxic. ⌘ Read more

Experts meet as final global plastic treaty talks near
With months until crunch talks on the world’s first binding treaty on plastic pollution, experts are meeting in Bangkok to discuss financing options and problematic plastics. ⌘ Read more

Whaling: why the practice will not go away
The detention in Greenland of anti-whaling campaigner Paul Watson pending possible extradition to Japan has turned the spotlight on the widely condemned practice of hunting whales. ⌘ Read more

Carbon emissions from forest soil will likely grow with rising temperatures
The soils of northern forests are key reservoirs that help keep the carbon dioxide that trees inhale and use for photosynthesis from making it back into the atmosphere. But a unique experiment led by Peter Reich of the University of Michigan is showing that, on a warming planet, more carbon is escaping the soil than is being added by plants. ⌘ Read more

Calls for a new ‘digital vaccination’ for children to tackle fake news and disinformation
A new report published August 23, 2024 has called for a “digital vaccination” for all children, to tackle the tsunami of fake news and disinformation, and close the digital divide. ⌘ Read more

Aoudad and bighorn sheep share respiratory pathogens, research team discovers
A team of researchers at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine and Biomedical Sciences (VMBS) has discovered that aoudad—an animal in the sheep and goat family—can catch and spread many of the same respiratory pathogens that can impact desert bighorn sheep, a native species in Texas that often shares its habitat with aoudad. ⌘ Read more

A mechanism that transfers energy from nitrogen to argon enables bidirectional cascaded lasing in atmospheric air
To produce light, lasers typically rely on optical cavities, pairs of mirrors facing each other that amplify light by bouncing it back and forth. Recently, some physicists have been investigating the generation of “laser light” in open air without the use of optical cavities, a phenomenon known as cavity-free lasing in atmospheric air. ⌘ Read more

Could we ever harness quantum vacuum energy?
The fabric of spacetime is roiling with vibrating quantum fields, known as vacuum energy. It’s right there, everywhere we look. But could we ever get anything out of it? ⌘ Read more

World’s second largest diamond found in Botswana
A massive 2,492-carat diamond—the second largest in the world—has been discovered in Botswana, the Canadian mining company that found the stone announced Thursday. ⌘ Read more

AI tackles one of the most difficult challenges in quantum chemistry
New research using neural networks, a form of brain-inspired AI, proposes a solution to the tough challenge of modeling the states of molecules. ⌘ Read more

Thwaites Glacier won’t collapse like dominoes as feared, but it doesn’t mean the ‘Doomsday Glacier’ is stable
Antarctica’s Thwaites Glacier got its nickname the “Doomsday Glacier” for its potential to flood coastlines around the world if it collapsed. It is already contributing about 4% of annual sea-level rise as it loses ice, and one theory suggests the glacier could soon begin to collapse into the ocean like a row of dominoes. ⌘ Read more

Materials scientists develop road map for designing responsive gels with unusual properties
Soft polymers with the combined properties of electrolytes and traditional polymers offer some unique and desirable properties that can be drastically changed on demand. ⌘ Read more

500 young sturgeon released into Saginaw River system
Five hundred young sturgeon were released at four locations into the Saginaw River system last week as part of an ongoing effort by the Michigan Department of Natural Resources and Michigan State University to rebuild the giant fish’s population. ⌘ Read more

Some wild horses mysteriously vanish for months on North Carolina’s Outer Banks. Where do they go?
A ghost of sorts appeared on the northern end of North Carolina’s Outer Banks—a wild stallion that goes by the name Dash. ⌘ Read more

Research team designs AI approach to drought zoning in Canada
A recent study by the University of Ottawa and Laval University shows that climate change may cause many areas in Canada to experience significant droughts by the end of the century. In response, the researchers have introduced an advanced AI-based method to map drought-prone regions nationwide. ⌘ Read more

Modeling study suggests heat-related deaths in Europe could triple by century’s end under current climate policies
Deaths from heat could triple in Europe by 2100 under current climate policies, mostly among people living in southern parts of the continent, according to a study published in The Lancet Public Health journal. ⌘ Read more

Using AI to link heat waves to global warming
Researchers at Stanford and Colorado State University have developed a rapid, low-cost approach for studying how individual extreme weather events have been affected by global warming. Their method, detailed on Aug. 21 in Science Advances, uses machine learning to determine how much global warming has contributed to heat waves in the U.S. and elsewhere in recent years. ⌘ Read more

Study reveals devastating power and colossal extent of a giant underwater avalanche off the Moroccan coast
New research by the University of Liverpool has revealed how an underwater avalanche grew more than 100 times in size, causing a huge trail of destruction as it traveled 2,000km across the Atlantic Ocean seafloor off the North West coast of Africa. ⌘ Read more

Modeling study finds highest prediction of sea-level rise unlikely
In recent years, the news about Earth’s climate—from raging wildfires and stronger hurricanes, to devastating floods and searing heat waves—has provided little good news. ⌘ Read more

Human-wildlife overlap expected to increase across more than half of land on Earth by 2070
As the human population grows, more than half of Earth’s land will experience an increasing overlap between humans and animals by 2070, according to a University of Michigan study. ⌘ Read more

Life from a drop of rain: New research suggests rainwater helped form the first protocell walls
One of the major unanswered questions about the origin of life is how droplets of RNA floating around the primordial soup turned into the membrane-protected packets of life we call cells. ⌘ Read more

US Congress members’ wealth statistically linked with ancestors’ slaveholding practices
According to a new study, as of April 2021, US Congress members whose ancestors enslaved 16 or more people had a net worth that was five times higher than that of legislators whose ancestors did not have slaves. Neil Sehgal of the University of Pennsylvania, US, and Ashwini Sehgal of Case Western Reserve University, US present these findings in the open-access journal PLOS ONE on August 21, 2024. ⌘ Read more

To kill mammoths in the Ice Age, people used planted pikes, not throwing spears, researchers say
How did early humans use sharpened rocks to bring down megafauna 13,000 years ago? Did they throw spears tipped with carefully crafted, razor-sharp rocks called Clovis points? Did they surround and jab mammoths and mastodons? Or did they scavenge wounded animals, using Clovis points as a versatile tool to harvest meat and bones for food and supplies? ⌘ Read more

Freeze-frame: Researchers develop world’s fastest microscope that can see electrons in motion
Imagine owning a camera so powerful it can take freeze-frame photographs of a moving electron—an object traveling so fast it could circle the Earth many times in a matter of a second. Researchers at the University of Arizona have developed the world’s fastest electron microscope that can do just that. ⌘ Read more

Quality control: Neatly arranging crystal growth to make fine thin films
Table salt and refined sugar look white to our eyes, but that is only because their individual colorless crystals scatter visible light. This feature of crystals is not always desirable when it comes to materials for optical and electrical devices, however. ⌘ Read more

Study shows continuous manufacturing reduces cultivated meat costs
A new study demonstrates the first cost-effective method for producing cultivated meat. The study shows that continuous manufacturing addresses the key challenges of scalability and cost, potentially making cultivated meat accessible to everyday consumers and contributing to a more sustainable and ethical food system. ⌘ Read more

Pilot study uses recycled glass to grow plants for salsa ingredients
Tortilla chips and fresh salsa are tasty in themselves, but they could be even more appealing if you grow the ingredients in a sustainable way. Researchers report that cilantro, bell pepper and jalapeño can be cultivated in recycled glass from discarded, pulverized bottles like those from beer or soda. The pilot study found that partially substituting soil in a planter with recycled glass fragments speeds up plant development and re … ⌘ Read more

Chalk-based coating creates a cooling fabric
In the scorching heat of summer, anyone who spends time outside—athletes, landscapers, kids at the park or beachgoers—could benefit from a cooling fabric. While there are some textiles that reflect the sun’s rays or transfer heat away from the body, current options require boutique fibers or complex manufacturing processes. But now, researchers report a durable chalk-based coating that cools the air underneath treated fabric by up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit … ⌘ Read more

How does organic farming benefit honey bees?
Organic farming and flower strips promote the health of honey bees. In their vicinity, colonies grow stronger and are generally healthier. This is most likely because the insects have a diverse and continuous food supply there and are less exposed to pesticides. ⌘ Read more