Category: Science News

An artist’s depiction of a system showing its host star, transiting planet and misaligned protoplanetary disc NASA/JPL-Caltech/R. Hurt, K. Miller (Caltech/IPAC) A world seen orbiting a 3-million-year-old star about 520 light years from Earth is one of the youngest known planets, offering a window into early planet formation. The star is an early-stage dwarf star,…

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It hasn’t been a good year for people who care about climate change. A hoped-for peak in carbon emissions has failed to emerge, meaning we continue to warm the planet at an accelerating rate (see “Humanity has warmed the planet by 1.5°C since 1700”). Meanwhile, the election of Donald Trump for a second term as…

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Can AI replicate individual humans? gremlin/Getty Images An experiment simulating more than 1000 real people using the artificial intelligence model behind ChatGPT has successfully replicated their unique thoughts and personalities with high accuracy, sparking concerns about the ethics of mimicking individuals in this way. Joon Sung Park at Stanford University in California and his colleagues…

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Source: Global Biogeochemical Cycles Human-caused climate change is driving an increase in extreme weather. Heat waves, droughts, and extreme precipitation are occurring more frequently, growing more intense, and directly affecting ecosystem function. For instance, the 2003 European heat wave—the continent’s hottest summer in centuries—caused a substantial die-off of Sphagnum moss in alpine bogs, and the…

Read More “Dry Heat, Wet Heat, and Wetland Methane Emissions” »

California’s San Andreas Fault is renowned for its large and destructive earthquakes. But some stretches of the fault slide in slow motion, with minimal or no earthquake activity. These “creeping” fault segments slip steadily, releasing stresses that would otherwise accumulate and trigger large earthquakes. “This has very important implications for where to expect earthquakes versus…

Read More “Creeping Faults May Have Simpler Geometries” »

Editors’ Highlights are summaries of recent papers by AGU’s journal editors. Source: AGU Advances Plate tectonics is a part of mantle convection. However, planetary evolution includes both thermal and compositional effects. During seafloor spreading, for example, the upper mantle material is fractionated into basaltic crust and a harzburgite layer. Recent seismological studies and geodynamic models…

Read More “Compositional Anomalies Complicate Our Model of Mantle Convection” »

The sun’s upper atmosphere, or corona, in ultraviolet light ESA & NASA/Solar Orbiter/EUI Team These fiery images are the clearest views we have ever had of the sun, taken by the Solar Orbiter spacecraft. Solar Orbiter, a joint mission between the European Space Agency (ESA) and NASA, is the most advanced instrument to orbit the…

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Insurance companies operate in a fast-paced, data-driven world, where staying ahead means not only delivering exceptional services but also producing high-quality content and conducting in-depth research to support decision-making, compliance, and innovation. Balancing these demands with core business activities can be a challenge. Enter Kolabtree—your one-stop platform to hire expert freelancers for writing and research…

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Heart cockles come in many colours and host photosynthetic algae inside their shells Dakota McCoy A heart-shaped mollusc has evolved tiny windows that work like fibre-optic cables, the first known example in nature. Heart cockles (Corculum cardissa) are bivalve molluscs a bit like clams that have a symbiotic relationship with photosynthetic algae that live inside…

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There is a lot to keep track of when working in space NASA via Getty Image Astronauts aboard the International Space Station (ISS) had slower memory, attention and processing speed after six months, raising concerns about the impact of cognitive impairment on future space missions to Mars. The extreme environment of space, with reduced gravity,…

Read More “Being in space makes it harder for astronauts to think quickly” »