Three main factors converge to intensify hurricanes. The first is that as the world in general warms, so too do the oceans. Water evaporating off the surface rises, releasing heat that fuels the developing hurricane. The warmer a patch of ocean water is, the more energy a cyclone has to exploit. If a hurricane like … Read more
TESS light curve for TOI-837. Credit: arXiv (2024). DOI: 10.48550/arxiv.2404.13750 European astronomers have performed photometric and spectroscopic observations of a distant giant exoplanet known as TOI-837 b. As a result, they found that TOI-837 b is a young Saturn-sized planet containing a massive core, which challenges current core formation theories. The findings are presented in … Read more
Electron microscopy showing the parasitic Ca. Nha. antarcticus: the small circular shape, attached to its host, Hrr. lacusprofundi. Credit: Joshua N Hamm. A parasite that not only feeds off its host, but also makes the host change its own metabolism and thus biology: NIOZ microbiologists Su Ding and Joshua Hamm, Nicole Bale, Jaap Damsté and … Read more
The International Center for Agricultural Research in Dry Areas (ICARDA) has sought to develop drought-resistant breeds of cereals to combat years of dryness in Morocco. In the heart of sun-soaked Morocco, scientists are cultivating a future where tough crops defy a relentless drought, now in its sixth year. “Look at these beautiful ears of wheat,” … Read more
Atoms inside of an optical cavity exchange their momentum states by “playing catch” with photons. As the atoms absorb photons from an applied laser, the whole cloud of atoms recoil rather than the individual atoms. Credit: Steven Burrows/Rey, Thompson, and Holland Groups Precisely measuring the energy states of individual atoms has been a historical challenge … Read more
Male chicks of the domestic chicken play more than females. Credit: Rebecca Oscarsson Play is widespread, but far from ubiquitous, across the animal kingdom. Especially common in mammals, play is also known to occur in taxa as diverse as birds, fish, octopuses, and even insects. But what is its function, given that natural selection never … Read more
Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Amazonia is the home of the largest variety of birds in the world. In such a unique environment, craft cultures have flourished by translating the beauty and creativity of environmental materials like feathers into stunning pieces of art. An article titled “The Material Creativity of Affective Artifacts in the Dutch Colonial … Read more
ROC curves of the retrained and original models on datasets from 20 plant species. A ROC curves of the retrained CPAT-plant model and its comparison with the original models for human and mouse. B ROC curves of the retrained LncFinder-plant model and comparison with the original models for human, mouse, and wheat. C ROC curves … Read more
The skull of Shanidar Z, which has been reconstructed in the lab at the University of Cambridge. Credit: BBC Studios/Jamie Simonds A new Netflix documentary has recreated the face of a 75,000-year-old female Neanderthal whose flattened skull was discovered and rebuilt from hundreds of bone fragments by a team of archaeologists and conservators led by … Read more
Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain The Colorado River’s future may be a little brighter than expected, according to a new modeling study from CIRES researchers. Warming temperatures, which deplete water in the river, have raised doubts the Colorado River could recover from a multi-decade drought. The new study fully accounts for both rising temperatures and precipitation … Read more
