Physics News

The kākāpō individual Hoki as an example of the green feather color polymorphism. Credit: Lydia Uddstrom, New Zealand Department of Conservation (CC-BY 4.0, creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) Aotearoa New Zealand’s flightless parrot, the kākāpō, evolved two different color types to potentially help them avoid detection by a now-extinct apex predator, Lara Urban at Helmholtz AI, Germany and colleagues … Read more

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Urban flooding is increasingly concerning in Canada, where water drainage systems are at risk of being overwhelmed. Natural watersheds have been greatly altered by construction disturbing the natural ways that water flows from rainfall, across the land and into water bodies. The result is that drainage infrastructure must cope with increased … Read more

Detrended TESS light curve (LC) of TOI-6651 from sector 17 (1800-second cadence) and 57 (200-second cadence) shown in green and blue points, respectively. The upper panel displays the full TESS LC plotted against time, while the lower panel presents the phase-folded LC with pink dots representing 25-minute binned data points. The black solid line in … Read more

The Greek-flagged Sounion was struck on August 21, 2024 by Yemen’s Huthi rebels. An abandoned tanker carrying more than one million barrels of crude oil could contaminate vast areas of the Red Sea in a severe, long-term environmental disaster if it breaks up or explodes, experts warn. The Greek-flagged Sounion, struck on August 21 by … Read more

A SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the Crew Dragon Resilience capsule sits on Launch Complex 39A at Kennedy Space Center ahead of the Polaris Dawn Mission in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The SpaceX Polaris Dawn mission, a daring multiday orbital expedition that will feature the first-ever spacewalk by private citizens, is targeting liftoff early Tuesday, though … Read more

Credit: CC0 Public Domain The world has not hit the brakes on methane emissions, a powerful driver of climate change. More than 150 nations have pledged to slash by 30% this decade under a global methane pledge, but new research shows global methane emissions over the past five years have risen faster than ever. The … Read more

AQM v7 prediction of PM2.5 concentration (unit: μg/m^3) overlaid with USEPA observations (colored circles) across the Northwestern U.S. at 00Z UTC on July 30, 2024. Credit: NOAA Environmental Modeling Center Imagine you’re a NOAA weather forecaster in the field during a raging, rapidly-spreading wildfire. Your title is incident meteorologist (or IMET), and your job is … Read more

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain Social media is negatively impacting the life satisfaction of Australian high school students, according to the latest findings from Australia’s largest survey of young people. The study found that non-binary students who regularly use social media reported the lowest levels of life satisfaction. Meantime, TikTok, Reddit and Twitch users who identified … Read more

Magnified images show the increase in blood stem cell production that occurred when a second wave of inflammatory signaling was delayed in zebrafish embryos. The blood stem cells are colored green. Credit: Clyde Campbell A decade ago, Raquel Espin Palazon discovered that inflammatory signaling pathways must switch on for embryos to produce blood stem cells. … Read more

This picture shows an artistic representation of the nano car built by the Feringa group, using four light driven motor molecules connected by a “chassis.” It stands in front of the Academy Building of the University of Groningen. Credit: Peter van der Sijde In 2016, University of Groningen Professor of Organic Chemistry Ben Feringa and … Read more