Science

Burnt trees are seen after illegal fires were lit by farmers in Manaquiri, Amazonas state in September 2023. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon fell by half last year, according to figures released Friday, as President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s government bolstered environmental policing to crack down on surging destruction. However, the news was far … Read more

An aerial photograph of the newly-discovered Imperial Cult ruins by Douglas Boin, Ph.D., and his team. Credit: Douglas Boin, Ph.D. Douglas Boin, Ph.D., a professor of history at Saint Louis University, made a major announcement at the annual meeting of the Archaeological Institute of America, revealing he and his team discovered an ancient Roman temple … Read more

Credit: Eco-Environment & Health (2023). DOI: 10.1016/j.eehl.2023.10.002 Air pollution significantly impacts human health. Hainan Province in China aims to achieve world-leading ambient air quality by 2035, despite already having relatively good air quality in China. The existing Ambient Air Quality Standards (AAQS) offer insufficient guidance for further enhancing air quality in Hainan, which stands at … Read more

Credit: Vanderbilt University A front-end lens, or meta-imager, created at Vanderbilt University can potentially replace traditional imaging optics in machine-vision applications, producing images at higher speed and using less power. The nanostructuring of lens material into a meta-imager filter reduces the typically thick optical lens and enables front-end processing that encodes information more efficiently. The … Read more

Credit: CC0 Public Domain In 2023, as floodwaters rushed toward the San Joaquin Valley city of Corcoran—home to roughly 20,000 people and a sprawling maximum-security state prison—emergency workers and desperate local officials begged the state for help raising their levee. Corcoran had been sinking, steadily, for years because of persistent over-pumping of groundwater by major … Read more

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain Six months ago, an explosion ripped apart Kakhovka Dam in Ukraine, unleashing floods that killed 58 people, devastated the landscape along the Dnipro River and cut off water to productive farmland. The destruction of the dam— which Ukrainian officials and the European Parliament blame on Russia, even though the structure was … Read more

Left: Incidence of asthma-related emergency room visits by children in New York City neighborhoods, along with air quality data collected by a FRESH Air site in one of those neighborhoods. Right: One of the sensors distributed among schools and community centers as part of FRESH Air. Credit: Stephen Holler Climate change is one of the … Read more

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain In an effort to reduce costs and improve customer satisfaction, retailers have implemented self-checkouts in stores across the country. They have become increasingly popular, but some brands like Walmart are removing self-checkouts in some locations while adding more in others. There are many advantages and disadvantages of self-checkout for both the … Read more

Subjective rating scale for pink rib severity of lettuce midribs. Scores range from 1 (no discoloration) to 5 (severe discoloration); 3 is the limit of acceptability/salability (adapted from Cantwell 2016). Credit: Journal of the American Society for Horticultural Science (2023). DOI: 10.21273/JASHS05295-23 Lettuce (Lactuca sativa) is primarily produced in the United States in California, Arizona, … Read more