WEIRD SCIENCE
Sao Paulo plunged into darkness after forest fire smoke filled the sky. By Sarah Sloat – Recently thousands of people took to Twitter to share the hashtag #PrayforAmazonia. The viral movement came as the skies above Sao Paulo blackened with the smoke from …
With cities facing both rapid growth and radical, permanent climate change, urban authorities are faced with an increasingly vulnerable population Cooling goo sidewalks and other strange new weapons in the war on urban heat Cities is supported by About this content By Oliver …
They could have been the “Adam and Eve of chemical evolution.” By Yasmin Tayag – Hydrogen cyanide is best known as a poison, historically deployed as a murder weapon in gas chambers and by federal executioners. But much further back in Earth’s past, …
The eerie silence above may tell us something ominous about the future of our own civilization. By Thomas Moynihan – It is 1950 and a group of scientists are walking to lunch against the majestic backdrop of the Rocky Mountains. They are about …
By Michael Irving – An artist’s impression of a collision between Jupiter and a large, ancient planetoid that would have disrupted its core. (Credit: K. Suda & Y. Akimoto/Mabuchi Design Office/Astrobiology Center, Japan). Jupiter is a gigantic ball of churning gas clouds, and …
Paul Ridden – A special report from the IPCC entitled Climate Change and Land will form the basis of scientific input for upcoming climate and environment negotiations. (Credit: kevron2002/Depositphotos). A Special Report of Climate Change and Land by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate …
By Michael Irving – Researchers have shown that amino acids, the building blocks of life, stack themselves readily under the right conditions. (Credit: elenathewise/Depositphotos). Exactly how life sprung out of non-living matter is one of biology’s biggest mysteries. But with continued research …
Discovery raises new questions about the amount of plastic waste permeating the air, water, and soil virtually everywhere on Earth. By Maanvi Singh in San Francisco – Trail markers on the trail near Colorado’s highest peak, Mount Elbert, in the Rocky Mountains. Photograph: …
By Michael Irving – A new theory suggests that dark matter originated before the Big Bang. (Credit: Andreus/Depositphotos). Few things are as mysterious as dark matter, the strange substance that appears to outnumber ordinary matter by a ratio of five to one. Now, …
There could be an alien world out there with your name on it…! By Scott Snowden – As part of its 100th anniversary commemorations, the Paris-based International Astronomical Union is organizing the IAU100 NameExoWorlds, a global competition that allows any country in the …
