For years, the Dead Sea presented scientists with a genuine puzzle. Its upper waters, warmed by relentless sun and thickened by evaporation, seemed to shed salt each summer rather than accumulate it, while the lakebed far below kept gaining a fresh crust of crystals regardless of season. According to a 2016 study published in Limnology…
Representative Image (AI-generated) As rising temperatures, flooding and erosion put sea turtle nests at greater risk, conservationists often step in to move vulnerable eggs to safer parts of the beach. The practice can prevent an entire clutch from being destroyed by high tides, extreme heat or other immediate threats. But a new two-year study suggests…
In Canada, wood waste from logging and areas affected by wildfires is finding an unexpected fate. A new pilot in the country has begun converting this material into a lightweight, biodegradable wood foam designed to replace products made with plastic foam, according to information released by the University of British Columbia (UBC). While discarded plastic…
On a hot roof in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a small experimental device sat in the sun without a fan, compressor or electrical connection. Its job was simply to get colder than the air around it. Water moved through one part of the device, heat escaped through another, and layers of insulating material helped keep the cooling…
A cocoa processor in Dong Nai, Vietnam, has turned a long-standing waste problem into part of the solution for one of its biggest production headaches. Trong Duc Cocoa Company, the country’s second-largest cocoa producer, generates around 5,000 tons of empty fruit pods every year after extracting fresh beans. Rather than letting that waste pile up,…
In 1971, Apollo 15 astronauts found an unusual white rock on the Moon (Image Credit: NASA) When Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin explored the Moon in 1971, they were looking for rocks that could reveal how the lunar surface formed. During their mission, they spotted an unusually bright fragment near Spur Crater,…
A worker prepares the well on a Boston-area horse farm to lower Eden’s electrode (Image Credit: Bob O’Connor via IEE Spectrum) What if the rocks beneath our feet could one day be turned into a giant hydrogen factory, not by drilling up an existing fuel reserve, but by sending controlled bursts of electricity deep underground?…
PC: Eocene penguin fossils as archives of Antarctic weathering and climate change: insights from micro-X-ray fluorescence elemental mapping Fifty-five million years ago, Antarctica looked nothing like the frozen continent we know today. Its coastlines were warm and humid, its shores home to some of the earliest penguins ever to exist, and its rocks were quietly…
The method, called Extreme Event Aware, or “η-learning”, does not need previous extreme events to create these scenarios. (Representational AP photo) What would a once-in-a-century storm look like if it was stronger than anything recorded before? Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) have developed a machine-learning method that can generate realistic scenarios for…
Representative Image (AI-generated) For humans to travel deeper into space and remain there for months or even years, they will need much more than powerful rockets. Astronauts must have a continuous supply of oxygen, water and food, while waste and carbon dioxide must be carefully managed. On short missions, these needs can largely be met…