THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. The North Atlantic Ocean has been running a fever for months, with surface temperatures at or near record highs. But cooling along the equator in both the Atlantic and eastern Pacific may finally be starting to bring some …
Read More »Scientists Plan ‘Doomsday’ Vault on Moon
This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. In the fall of 2016, soaring temperatures caused the permafrost encasing a remote Norwegian mountainside to thaw. An ensuing flood breached the entrance tunnel of the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, built into the mountain as a …
Read More »John McFall, the Astronaut Flag Bearer at the Paris Paralympics, Is Ready to Fly
This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian. John McFall’s sporting record alone would be enough to justify him being the flag bearer for the 2024 Paralympics. He won silver in the 100 meters (T42) and bronze in the 200 meters at the 2006 IPC …
Read More »Promising Mpox Drug Fails in Trials as Virus Spreads
As mpox continues to spread in Central Africa, a promising antiviral drug to treat the infection has failed to improve patients’ symptoms in a trial in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, the epicenter of the outbreak. In the trial, the drug tecovirimat, also known as TPOXX, did not alleviate …
Read More »Here’s What the Inside of an Airbus Factory Looks Like
This story originally appeared on WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian. This is the most important moment in the life of an airliner: when the new owner signs for it and picks it up, much like a driver picking up a new car from a dealer. The aircraft …
Read More »The US Grid Is Adding Batteries at a Much Faster Rate Than Natural Gas
While solar power is growing at an extremely rapid clip, in absolute terms, the use of natural gas for electricity production has continued to outpace renewables. But that looks set to change in 2024, as the US Energy Information Agency (EIA) has run the numbers on the first half of …
Read More »Struggling to Unlock Your Phone? You Might Have Lost Your Fingerprints
Mara Johnson-Groh, 33, a freelance science writer in British Columbia, Canada, lost her fingerprints about a decade ago when she started rock climbing—particularly her middle and ring fingers, where a lot of pressure is exerted on the rock. She says she regularly hears stories of fellow climbers having problems trying …
Read More »The Quantum Mechanics of the Greenhouse Effect
The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. In 1896, the Swedish physicist Svante Arrhenius realized that carbon dioxide (CO2) traps heat in Earth’s atmosphere—the phenomenon now called the greenhouse effect. Since then, increasingly sophisticated modern climate models have verified Arrhenius’ central conclusion: that every time the CO2 …
Read More »Your Guide to Surviving Extreme Weather
This story originally appeared on Grist and is part of the Climate Desk collaboration. No matter where you live, extreme weather can hit your area, causing damage to homes, power outages, and dangerous or deadly conditions. If you’re on the coast, it may be a hurricane; in the Midwest or …
Read More »Will the ‘Car-Free’ Los Angeles Olympics Work?
THIS ARTICLE IS republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. With the Olympic torch extinguished in Paris, all eyes are turning to Los Angeles for the 2028 Olympics. The host city has promised that the next Summer Games will be “car-free.” For people who know Los Angeles, this …
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