A new study, published this week in Nature, shows that thunderstorms can also produce radioactivity by triggering nuclear reactions in the atmosphere. This may sound like the plot of a blockbuster science fiction disaster. But in reality, it’s nothing to worry...
November 23, 2017
The first observation of a super-hydrated phase of the clay mineral kaolinite could improve our understanding of processes that lead to volcanism and affect earthquakes. In high-pressure and high-temperature X-ray measurements that were partly conducted at DESY...
November 23, 2017
Researchers using NASA's Magnetospheric Multiscale mission (MMS) discovered tornado-like swirls of plasma create a magnetosphere tumultuous enough to let harmful high-energy particles from the Sun slip into near-Earth space. The discovery is important for...
November 23, 2017
When our Sun erupts with giant explosions—such as bursts of radiation called solar flares—we know they can affect space throughout the solar system as well as near Earth. But monitoring their effects requires having observatories in many places with many...
November 20, 2017
Climate scientists studying three decades of ozone measurements from seven satellites see a positive trend in global recovery after international efforts to curb ozone-depleting substances. The part of Earth’s atmosphere with high concentrations of ozone gas...
November 20, 2017
An international team of astronomers led by Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) has made a bizarre discovery; a star that just keeps shining. Supernovae, the explosions of stars, have been observed in the thousands and in all cases they marked the death of a star. But in...
November 19, 2017
A temperate Earth-sized planet has been discovered only 11 light-years from the Solar System by a team using ESO’s unique planet-hunting HARPS instrument. The new world has the designation Ross 128 b and is now the second-closest temperate planet to be...
November 19, 2017
Productivity and stability of forest ecosystems strongly depend on the functional diversity of plant communities. UZH researchers have developed a new method to measure and map functional diversity of forests at different scales – from individual trees to...
November 19, 2017
A strange visitor, either asteroid or comet, zipping through our solar system at a high rate of speed is giving astronomers a once-in-a-generation opportunity to examine up close an object from somewhere else in our galaxy. "It’s a really rare...
November 19, 2017
The excess positrons arriving at Earth must have a more exotic origin than nearby pulsars, report researchers. Their results are based on observations from the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) gamma-ray observatory in Mexico, which detects the shower of...
November 18, 2017
Using more than half a century of observations, Japanese astronomers have discovered that the microwaves coming from the Sun at the minimums of the past five solar cycles have been the same each time, despite large differences in the maximums of the cycles. In...
November 18, 2017
Two new studies from The University of Texas at Austin have significantly improved scientists' ability to predict the strength and duration of droughts caused by La Niña - a recurrent cooling pattern in the tropical Pacific Ocean. Their findings, which...
November 17, 2017
At the base of the Transantarctic Mountains lies a geological oddity. Don Juan Pond is one of the saltiest bodies of water on the planet, filled with a dense, syrupy brine rich in calcium chloride that can remain liquid to -50 °C (-58 °F), far below the...
November 17, 2017
An international team of astronomers, including a University of Southampton expert, has discovered a new type of explosion in a distant galaxy. The explosion, called PS1-10adi, seems to prefer active galaxies that house supermassive black holes consuming the gas and...
November 16, 2017
Proposals to reduce the effects of global warming by imitating volcanic eruptions could have a devastating effect on global regions prone to either tumultuous storms or prolonged drought, new research has shown. Geoengineering - the intentional manipulation of the...
November 16, 2017
Trees in metropolitan areas have been growing faster than trees in rural areas worldwide since the 1960s. This has been confirmed for the first time by a study on the impact of the urban heat island effect on tree growth headed by the Technical University of Munich...
November 14, 2017
Researchers at LMU and TUM in Munich are up for best paper at SC17 after simulating one of the largest, most violent earthquakes in history. Just before 8:00 a.m. local time on December 26, 2004, people in southeast Asia were starting their days when the third...
November 13, 2017
In a recent interview with AgWeb, the president and CEO of Hackett Financial Advisors, Shawn Hackett, explains why he thinks our civilization will have to come up with new ways of growing food over the next 5 years. Read more