Sea cucumbers with coral and fish in Mo’orea. Credit: Georgia Institute of Technology (Cody Clements) Corals are foundational for ocean life. Known as the rainforests of the sea, they create habitats for 25% of all marine organisms, despite only covering less than 1% of the ocean’s area. Coral patches the width and height of basketball … Read more
A comparison of experimental annular dark field (ADF)-scanning transmission electron microscopy (STEM) and electron ptychography in uncorrected and aberration-corrected electron microscopes. In the ADF-STEM image from the uncorrected STEM (top left), the resolution was sufficient to visualize the lattice of the sample but too poor to resolve individual atoms. In contrast, the ptychographic phase image … Read more
Credit: Fraunhofer FHR Following a hugely successful mission and almost 30 years in orbit, ESA’s ERS-2 reentered Earth’s atmosphere at approximately 18:17 CET (17:17 UTC) on 21 February 2024. Predicting the exact time and location of ERS-2’s natural reentry was made more difficult by the lack of new observations of the satellite during its final … Read more
Gini Coefficient by Country 2024. Credit: https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/gini-coefficient-by-country. Inequality among people has become an increasingly salient issue globally, with data indicating a rise in inequality levels across many countries in recent years. This, in turn, has generated concerns both from the perspective of the sustainability of economic growth, as well as from the perspective of social … Read more
Ringtail. Credit: Jonathan Armstrong, Oregon State University Secretive species can pose special conservation challenges simply because they are so skilled at staying under the radar that researchers have uncovered comparatively little about their basic needs. One such species is the ringtail, a relative of the raccoon that has cultural significance to many Indigenous peoples in … Read more
A catalase reaction in a reaction chamber produces gas which pushes ink along a channel. The flow rate is directly tied to the concentration of catalase, itself connected to the original concentration of the analyte. Credit: Tokyo Metropolitan University Researchers from Tokyo Metropolitan University have engineered a new micro total analysis system that quantifies a … Read more
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain A team of bio-scientists affiliated with a host of institutions across the U.S. has developed a gene editing technique to produce newborn pigs immune to porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome, also known as blue-ear pig disease. The paper is published in The CRISPR Journal. In the 1980s, blue-ear pig disease had … Read more
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Paul Maley has spent much of his life chasing solar eclipses. He has witnessed 83 solar eclipses from 1960 to 2023. On April 8, he plans to see the 84th aboard a cruise ship in Mexico, located right in the path of totality—the swath where the moon fully blocks the sun. … Read more
Credit: CC0 Public Domain Japan’s Moon lander has produced another surprise by waking up after the two-week lunar night, the country’s space agency said Monday. The unmanned Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) touched down last month at a wonky angle that left its solar panels facing the wrong way. As the sun’s angle shifted, … Read more
Hylaeus derectus male. This little bee (3–5 mm) bee is only known thus far from near Mt Nadarivatu on Viti Levu, Fiji. It was collected from a canopy-flowering mistletoe. Credit: James Dorey Photography In 1934, American entomologist Elwood Zimmerman, then an undergraduate student at Berkeley, participated in the “Mangarevan expedition” to Polynesia. Among the samples … Read more
