A year after a 90 metre-wide spinning sheet of ice drew global attention, another disc appears to be forming in the same river
What goes around comes around.
An ice disc appears to be forming in the same Maine river where an unusually large one formed last winter and quickly gained international fame.
Continue reading...Last decade was also hottest yet in 150 years of measurements, say scientists
The year 2019 was the second hottest on record for the planet’s surface, according to latest research. The analyses reveal the scale of the climate crisis: both the past five years and the past decade are the hottest in 150 years.
The succession of records being broken year after year is “the drumbeat of the Anthropocene”, said one scientist, and is bringing increasingly severe storms, floods, droughts and wildfires.
Continue reading...Study of nearly 3,000 women suggests body may ‘choose’ not to invest in ovulation
Women who have sex more often are less likely to have an early menopause, according to research that raises the intriguing possibility that lifestyle factors could play a more significant role than previously thought in determining when the menopause occurs.
The study, based on data collected from nearly 3,000 women who were followed for 10 years, found that those who reported engaging in sexual activity weekly were 28% less likely to have experienced menopause at any given age than women who engaged in sexual activity less than monthly.
Continue reading...A 111cm-wide Rafflesia was recently discovered but these giants are in danger
The largest single flower ever recorded was found recently in Sumatra, Indonesia, measuring a reported 111cm (3.64ft) across. This was a specimen of Rafflesia tuan-mudae and beat the previous largest flower record of 107cm for Rafflesia arnoldii, also in Sumatra.
Rafflesia is not only a giant flower, but it has no leaves, stems or proper roots. It cannot photosynthesise and instead sucks the food and water out of a particular vine using long thin filaments that look like fungal cells. It gorges itself on the vine for a few years before bursting out into a flower bud, swells for several months before blooming into a flower that looks like a bright red bucket with big thick lobes. It gives off a whiff of rotting meat that, together with its gigantic size, helps attract pollinating flies. Rafflesia also steals some of the DNA from the vine it lives on, using it for its own genetic code for reasons that are not clear.
Continue reading...Apocalyptic scenes give glimpse of what would be normal conditions in 3C world
The bushfires ravaging Australia are a clear sign of what is to come around the world if temperatures are allowed to rise to dangerous levels, according to scientists.
“This is what you can expect to happen … at an average of 3C [above pre-industrial levels],” said Richard Betts, professor of geography at Exeter University. “We are seeing a sign of what would be normal conditions in a 3C world. It tells us what the future world might look like. This really brings home what climate change means.”
Continue reading...Week-long storage boosts time organs are usable and distances over which they can be moved
Human livers from organ donors can now be preserved for a week, researchers have revealed, a dramatic improvement on previous techniques, which could only keep the organs usable for a matter of hours.
The technology could boost the number of livers available for transplantation and offer new approaches to treating diseases such as liver cancer.
Continue reading...Impact of increase in shrubs and grasses not yet known but scientists say it could increase flooding in the region
Shrubs and grasses are springing up around Mount Everest and across the Himalayas, one of the most rapidly heating regions of the planet.
Related: 1.9 billion people at risk from mountain water shortages, study shows
Continue reading...China’s viral pneumonia outbreak may have jumped species barrier, raising fears of pandemic
The finding that the outbreak of viral pneumonia in China that has struck 59 people may be caused by a coronavirus, the family of viruses behind Sars, which spread to 37 countries in 2003, causing global panic and killing more than 750 people, means that health authorities will be watching closely.
China says the illness is not Sars (severe acute respiratory syndrome), nor Mers (Middle East respiratory syndrome), both of which are caused by coronaviruses, and so far it appears milder than both. Unlike Sars, it does not appear to spread easily between humans and unlike Mers, which has a mortality rate of about 35%, nobody has died.
Continue reading...Ninth-century Rök stone may deal with fear of cold climate crisis in Scandinavia
One of the world’s most famous runestones is now believed to have been erected by Vikings fearing a repeat of a previous cold climate crisis in Scandinavia, a study has concluded.
The Rök stone, raised in the ninth century near Lake Vättern in south central Sweden, bears the longest runic inscription in the world, with more than 700 runes covering its five sides.
Continue reading...Researchers use 3D glasses, films and food to test whether cuttlefish use stereopsis to find prey
There are some questions in science that can only be answered by strapping a pair of 3D glasses to an unsuspecting cuttlefish and setting it loose in an underwater movie theatre.
That, at least, was the thinking of a team of researchers who set themselves the task of working out how the marine molluscs know how far away prey is before launching their explosive, tentacled attacks.
Continue reading...‘It’s right up in our face’ – close proximity of stellar nursery to our solar system stuns scientists
Astronomers have discovered a gigantic, undulating wave of dust and gas where newborn stars are forged over a 50 million billion mile stretch of the Milky Way.
The gaseous structure, which holds more mass than 3m suns, runs directly behind our solar system as viewed from the heart of the galaxy, but has eluded observation until now.
Continue reading...Brain scans of Romanian orphans adopted in UK show early neglect left its mark
Children who experience severe deprivation early in life have smaller brains in adulthood, researchers have found.
The findings are based on scans of young adults who were adopted as children into UK families from Romania’s orphanages that rose under the regime of the dictator Nicolae Ceauşescu.
Continue reading...Fears of new epidemic after people taken to hospital in Wuhan with viral pneumonia
A mysterious respiratory illness that has infected dozens of people in a central Chinese city is not Sars, local authorities have said.
The 2002-03 epidemic of severe acute respiratory syndrome started in southern China and killed more than 700 people. Fears of a recurrence arose this month after a number of people were taken to hospital with unexplained viral pneumonia in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province.
Continue reading...Space programme seeks to bounce back after 2019 project ended with a crash landing on the lunar surface
India plans to make a fresh attempt at an unmanned mission on the moon this year, the head of the country’s space programme has said, after a 2019 bid ended in a crash landing.
Work was going “smoothly” on the Chandrayaan-3 mission to put a rover probe on the moon’s surface, Indian Space Research Organisation chairman K Sivan said. “We are targeting the launch for this year but it may spillover to next year,” Sivan said. Indian sources said authorities had set November as a provisional target for launch.
Continue reading...Program developed by Google Health tested on mammograms of UK and US women
An artificial intelligence program has been developed that is better at spotting breast cancer in mammograms than expert radiologists.
The AI outperformed the specialists by detecting cancers that the radiologists missed in the images, while ignoring features they falsely flagged as possible tumours.
Continue reading...Tests to study behaviour of flames in zero gravity suggest fires could be more dangerous on moon than Earth
Playing with fire can be dangerous and never more so than when confined in a space capsule floating 250 miles above the Earth. But in the past week astronauts onboard the International Space Station have intentionally lit a series of blazes in research designed to study the behaviour of flames in zero gravity.
The scientists behind the experiment, called Confined Combustion, say it will help improve fire safety on the ISS and on future lunar missions by helping predict how a blaze might progress in low gravity conditions.
Continue reading...More than a million cases were reported in south-east Asia last year with poorer households most at risk
The global toll of dengue fever is becoming well known, with rising temperatures contributing to severe outbreaks that made 2019 the worst year on record for the disease.
In 1970 only nine countries faced severe dengue outbreaks. But the disease, which is spread by mosquitoes that can only survive in warm temperatures, is now seen in more than 100 countries. There are thought to be 390m infections each year
Continue reading...The biophysicist was guilty of illegal practice in trying to alter the genetic makeup of twins Lula and Nana
The scientist who created the world’s first “gene-edited” babies has been sentenced to to three years in prison by a court in China.
He Jiankui said in November 2018 that he had used gene-editing technology known as Crispr-Cas9 to change the genes of twin girls, causing a backlash in China and globally about the ethics of his research and work.
Continue reading...Katharina Wirnitzer was in the midst of training for the Bike Transalp race, one of the world’s toughest endurance events, when she began investigating whether a vegan diet was suitable for athletes.
The year was 2003 and veganism was a long way from the current boom, which has established it as one of the most in-vogue dietary trends. But Wirnitzer, a sports scientist at the University of Innsbruck, had become intrigued by the resurgence of ancient theories linking plant-based diets with improved athletic performance.
Continue reading...Scientists reach remote Thwaites glacier, vanishing at increasing rate, for mission
An international team of scientists has reached the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica and is preparing to drill through more than half a kilometre of ice into the dark waters beneath.
The 600-metre deep borehole will allow researchers to lower down a torpedo-shaped robotic submarine that will explore the underside of the ice shelf to better understand why it is melting so fast.
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