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Tech NewsFeral Cats Are an Ecological Disaster
If you’re like me, your brain is so riddled with cat virus that you never want to hear anything negative about our whiskered overlords. But sometimes, the truth is so dark it simply begs to be thrust into the light. This is one of those times. Cats are an ecological disaster—they’re shaping up to be … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceHealth
Retro-Style Disease Posters Turn Doctors Into Superheros
And why not? Doctors are, after all, on the front lines of a pitched battle against an invisible enemy most of us are powerless to stop. Without them, our teeth would be falling out and we’d be losing limbs over minor scrapes. We’re so accustomed to the wonders of modern medicine we take for granted … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceHealth
Indonesia’s Awful Fire Season Killed Up to 100,000 People
This time last year, tens of thousands of fires were raging across Indonesia’s peat forests, spewing carbon like coal plants and sending smoke halfway around the planet. But those fires weren’t just bad for our atmosphere: they were awful for the people who breathe it. A new study out of Harvard and Columbia Universities estimates … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
Pluto Is Emitting X-Rays, and That’s Really Weird
Something very strange is going on around Pluto. The icy world that sits some 3.6 billion miles from the sun appears to be emitting x-rays—high energy radiation associated with gases with temperatures of a million degrees. That makes Pluto the furthest known x-ray source in our solar system. If confirmed, the finding could reshape our … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech NewsA Newly Explored Undersea Volcano Is Teeming With Alien Life Forms
Earlier this month, a three-crew submarine dove to Cook seamount, a 13,000-foot-tall extinct volcano off the coast of Hawaii that had never been visited by humans. They discovered dazzling geologic features and a rich array of marine life—including a rare and adorably dopey octopus, and some beautiful purple corals that may be new species. Seamounts, … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
Trump’s Environmental Policy: You’re Fired, Earth
Trump never was much for the environment. The man who calls global warming a Chinese hoax and questions the existence of California’s drought has made it clear he has better things to do than worry about his Florida properties going underwater. But today, we got a little more insight into the environment nightmare that awaits … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
There’s Now an ‘Underwater Yellowstone’ off the Coast of Cape Cod
As the election looms, Obama’s plan to save the planet kicks into high gear. Last month, POTUS vastly expanded Hawaii’s Papahānaumokuākea Marine National Monument, turning it into the world’s largest marine protected area. Today, speaking at the State Department’s Our Oceans conference, he unveiled the first Marine National Monument in the Atlantic, which has been … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & SpaceflightWatch China Launch a Second Space Station Into Orbit
China’s second prototype space station, Tiangong-2, is set to launch into orbit today, according to state media reports. The launch comes five years after China sent up its first space lab, Tiangong-1, and serves as a reminder to the west that China’s space-based capabilities are growing fast. At roughly 15 meters long and weighing eight … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
The Sixth Mass Extinction Will Be Like Nothing In Earth’s History
The sixth mass extinction—the one that seven billion humans are doing their darnedest to trigger at this very moment—is shaping up to be like nothing our planet has ever seen. That’s the conclusion of a sweeping new analysis, which compared marine fossil records from Earth’s five previous mass extinction events to what’s happening in the … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
Polar Bears Are Definitely Screwed
As Arctic sea ice flirts with its lowest levels in recorded history, polar scientists are taking the opportunity to remind us that it isn’t just humans who are screwed because of melting ice caps. Remember polar bears, global warming’s first darling poster child? They’re still around, and they’re not happy with what we’ve done to … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
The Largest 3D Map of the Galaxy Contains Over a Billion Stars
Some may call it excessive, unreasonable, exhibitionist. What kind of masochist wants to stare at a billion pinpricks of light all at once, anyway? Why, the scientifically inclined one, of course. The astronomer who’s hellbent on picking apart the universe and reducing your life to a clump of dust needs absurdly detailed star charts in … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & Spaceflight
The Amazing Place the Rosetta Spacecraft Is Going To Die
In two weeks, the European Space Agency will crash-land its prized Rosetta spacecraft, marking a dramatic end to the whirlwind two-year science mission that saw humanity’s first-ever comet landing. It’ll be 48 action-packed hours as Rosetta descends to its ultimate resting place on Comet 67P—and to get you properly excited for that event, we wanted … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceSpace & SpaceflightAstronomers Just Witnessed a Rare Stellar Rebirth For the First Time
At the heart of the Stingray Nebula some 2,700 light years from Earth lies a small, aging star known as SAO 244567. Astronomers have been observing it on and off for decades, and they can now confirm they’ve witnessed something amazing: a never-before-seen stellar rebirth. From 1971 to 2002, the surface temperature of SAO 244567 … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
North Korea Asks for Help in the Wake of Its Devastating Flood
In a rare admission that life isn’t paradise within its borders, North Korea is asking for international aid in wake of devastating floods that state media claims to have impacted tens of thousands. Information released Sunday by the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs confirms that North Korea is dealing with a … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
Full Moons May Trigger Enormous Earthquakes
Attention, moon-fearing humans: your long-held suspicion that the full moon can interfere with life on Earth seems to have a scientific basis after all. No, the moon still doesn’t make you crazy, horny, or murderous. But it seems it can help trigger large earthquakes. Since the 19th century, scientists have debated whether the gravitational tug … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
La Niña Might Not Be Coming After All
After promising biblical rains and instead giving California crabs, El Niño passed away quietly last spring. But while early data suggested La Niña would rise to fill the chasm El Niño’s departure had left in our meteorological newsfeeds, NOAA is now starting to think La Niña might not happen at all. As early as last … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
This Proposal to Torch Dead Forests For Fuel Is Nuts
Drought and bark beetle infestations have not been kind to western forests in recent years. California alone has an estimated 66 million dead trees speckling its landscapes and waiting to become wildfire fuel. To prevent that from happening and help us kick our coal habit at the same time, a pair of scientists has put … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
Tech News
Elon Musk Is Having a Very Hard Time After Last Week’s Explosion
The cause of the enormous blaze last week that destroyed a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket as well as Mark Zuckerberg’s $95 million internet satellite remains unknown. And it could take SpaceX a long time to solve the mystery, judging from the way Elon Musk has been tweeting this morning. For the first time since the … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
ScienceBiology
We Just Found Out There’s More Than One Species of Giraffe
It seems we’ve been wrong about giraffes since, well, forever. The long-necked, charismatic treetop-munching herbivores you’ll remember from childhood trips to the zoo are not, as biologists long assumed, a single species. In fact, they are four. That is the startling conclusion of a first-of-its-kind genetic analysis of giraffes, which finds that populations from different … Continued
By Maddie Stone -
EartherClimate Change
Enjoy a Gloriously Detailed Look at the Arctic Before It Melts Away
A series of beautiful digital terrain maps, created by the US National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), are immortalizing something that might soon be lost: the magnificent, ice-carved landscapes of the Arctic. These recently unveiled topographic maps of Alaska are the first publicly-released products from the ArcticDEM project, a White House-mandated … Continued
By Maddie Stone
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