At the tail end of winter in 2015, the ground in the Wimmera in northeastern Victoria had been a little, dry but conditions weren’t too bad for farmers. The crop season was going well. The start of September looked promising. It was cool, and there were decent rains A few weeks later, summer weather had arrived early. At the start ...

Ah, the Australian summer. When the temperatures top 40℃ and only the bravest or most foolhardy would venture outside in bare feet, there’s a cherished old saying: “It’s so hot outside, you could fry an egg on the footpath!” But what does the science say? Does this claim stack up, or it half-baked? To answer this question, we need to ...

Key takeaways: Roving the Red Planet. Perseverance landed on Mars in February 2021 and has been gathering data on the planet’s geology and climate and searching for signs of ancient life.​​​​​​ What lies beneath. The rover’s subsurface radar experiment, co-led by UCLA’s David Paige, has returned images showing unexpected variations in rock layers beneath the Jezero crater. Probing the past. The variations could indicate ...

Key takeaways: World’s water tainted. Synthetic PFAS, which have been linked to cancer and other diseases, have contaminated nearly every drop of water on the planet. Unbreakable bond. These chemicals contain a carbon-fluorine bond that is almost impossible to break, making it extremely difficult to eradicate them from water supplies. Off with their heads! Researchers devised a “guillotine” solution that uses moderate heat ...

The agency’s newly upgraded “Eyes on the Solar System” visualization tool includes Artemis I’s trajectory along with a host of other new features. NASA has revamped its “Eyes on the Solar System” 3D visualization tool, making interplanetary travel easier and more interactive than ever. More than two years in the making, the update delivers better controls, improved navigation, and a ...

Gene variants associated with a person’s blood type may be linked to their risk of early stroke, according to a new meta-analysis published in the latest online issue of Neurology. Non-O blood types have previously been linked to a risk of early stroke, but the new findings by University of Maryland School of Medicine study showed a stronger link between ...

Scientists develop a simple, fast, and energy-efficient synthesis method for producing exceptional carbon nano-onions from fish scales. Thanks to their low toxicity, chemical stability, and remarkable electrical and optical properties, carbon-based nanomaterials are finding more and more applications across electronics, energy conversion and storage, catalysis, and biomedicine. Carbon nano-onions (CNOs) are certainly no exception. First reported in 1980, CNOs are ...

The discovery of Mbiresaurus in Zimbabwe has led the group of researchers to propose a new theory on dinosaur migration, as Africa was once part of the supercontinent called Pangea. The climate across ancient Pangea continent is thought to have been divided into strong humid and arid latitudinal belts, with more temperate belts spanning higher latitudes and intense deserts across ...

The unearthing of one of the earliest dinosaurs ever found is a major win for the Natural History Museum of Zimbabwe. The Mbiresaurus skeleton is almost complete, making it a perfect reference material for further finds. It is also the first sauropodomorph find of its size from Zimbabwe, where most of the earlier sauropodomorph finds are usually of medium- to ...

An international team of paleontologists led by Virginia Tech has discovered a skeleton of new long-necked dinosaur Mbiresaurus raathi, that fills a critical geographic gap in the fossil record of the oldest dinosaurs. The skeleton, mostly intact, was first found by a graduate student in the Virginia Tech Department of Geosciences and other paleontologists during two excavations over the course ...

Changes in cell chemistry from blue light exposure observed in fruit flies could also potentially cause detrimental effects on our body, including accelerated aging. Too much screen use has been linked to obesity and psychological problems. Now a new study has identified a new problem – a study in fruit flies suggests our basic cellular functions could be impacted by ...

NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope has captured the first clear evidence for carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of a planet outside the solar system. This observation of a gas giant planet orbiting a Sun-like star 700 light-years away provides important insights into the composition and formation of the planet. The finding, accepted for publication in Nature, offers evidence that in ...

NASA will target Saturday, Sept. 3 at 2:17 p.m. EDT, the beginning of a two-hour window, for the launch of Artemis I, the first integrated test of NASA’s Orion spacecraft, Space Launch System (SLS) rocket, and the ground systems at the agency’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida. Mission managers met Tuesday to discuss data and develop a forward plan to address ...

Large pieces of plastic can break down into nanosized particles that often find their way into the soil and water. Perhaps less well known is that they can also float in the air. It’s unclear how nanoplastics impact human health, but animal studies suggest they’re potentially harmful. As a step toward better understanding the prevalence of airborne nanoplastics, researchers have ...

Using sophisticated electronic tags, scientists have assembled a large biologging dataset to garner comparative insights on how sharks, rays, and skates – also known as “elasmobranchs” – use the ocean depths. While some species spend their entire lives in shallow waters close to our shores on the continental shelf, others plunge hundreds of meters or more off the slope waters ...

A new analysis of remains from medieval Cambridge shows that local Augustinian friars were almost twice as likely as the city’s general population to be infected by intestinal parasites. This is despite most Augustinian monasteries of the period having latrine blocks and hand-washing facilities, unlike the houses of ordinary working people. Researchers from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Archaeology ...

New research reveals more about the magnitude of January eruption, as researchers call for better preparedness. The eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in January created an initial wave 90 metres high – almost the height of the Statue of Liberty (93m) University of Bath tsunami expert calls for better warning systems to detect volcanic eruptions, saying systems are ...

Rising temperatures are harmful to wheat yields. However, crop yields do not provide a holistic vision of food security. The impacts of climate change on wheat price, livelihood and agricultural market fundamentals are also important to food security but have been largely overlooked. An international research team has now estimated the comprehensive impact of climate change and extreme climate events ...

Summer is in full swing in the U.S., and people are turning up their air conditioners to beat the heat. But the hydrofluorocarbon refrigerants in these and other cooling devices are potent greenhouse gases and major drivers of climate change. Today, scientists report a prototype device that could someday replace existing “A/Cs.” It’s much more environmentally friendly and uses solid ...

Recent study shows that during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic, the proportion of working-aged UAmerican adults without health insurance did not change despite increases in unemployment, and the prevalence of unhealthy behaviors decreased. The findings, published by Wiley online in CANCER, studied individuals with and without a history of cancer. While cancer survivors often have high health care ...