For times when wind and solar fall short, some utilities are turning to an old technology called pumped storage hydropower
Before he disappeared, Ettore Majorana made a strange prediction. Researchers are still hunting for the truth about him—and his namesake particles
Links between the complement and coagulation systems could lead to Long Covid therapies
To zoom in farther, Event Horizon Telescope wants to add more radio dishes to its network—and go to space
Greenhouse gases, El Niño, and cleaner air fueled record heat in 2023
Peeled-apart Indian Plate could be affecting earthquake hazards
The Globalist Podcast (December 5, 2023) – How the Israel-Hamas war is altering the political landscape in France, impacting US military aid to Ukraine and threatening to draw in more actors amid increasing tensions in the Middle East.
Also, papers, the latest on the Alaska Air-Hawaiian Airlines deal and business news.
It is vital to climate stabilisation, remarkably challenging and systematically ignored
St Augustine’s climate policy
Carbon dioxide removals must start at scale sooner than people think
On the other hand…
Not all tonnes are created equal
These systems, developed over 1,000 years ago, consist of the construction of underground channels that transport water across a large area that needs to be cooled. Vertical shafts drilled along the channel bring underground air to the surface, lowering above-ground temperatures.
In summer, people don’t leave their house until 8pm and festivals usually start at 10pm. Built on the banks of the Guadalquivir River during the Middle Ages, the Spanish city regularly records temperatures above 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) during July and August. And scientists expecting temperatures above 50°C in the near future.
When Chandrayaan-3 touched down, India pulled off a huge win for its own space programme and for international efforts to understand the Moon.
It’s hard to land on the Moon and keep your spacecraft intact. Just days ago, Russia’s Luna-25 mission crashed, dashing hopes for the country’s first trip to the Moon since 1976, when it was part of the Soviet Union. In April, a private Japanese effort also crash-landed on the lunar surface. That is one of the reasons the successful landing of the Chandrayaan-3 mission by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is so special.
Events in Hawaii show how much we have to learn about wildfire spread — but simple research steps can help to build resilience.
Driven by drought, high winds and extreme heat, fires in recent years have caused destruction and losses on a scale bigger than anyone is used to. The average annual global cost of wildfires is around US$50 billion, the World Economic Forum said in January. And by the end of the century, climate change might make catastrophic conflagrations 50% more common, according to the United Nations Environment Programme. Given the surge in urban development in and near forested areas, something has to be done to protect communities. As Maui’s experience shows, little is in place.
In a rapidly urbanizing world, what happens in cities matters — and sustainability success stories show what can be achieved when researchers and policymakers work together.
More than half of the world’s population lives in cities, and that proportion is set to grow. By 2050, another two billion people will be urban dwellers, the United Nations estimates. Cities lie at the nexus of all aspects of human development, from building thriving economies to coping with climate change.
The planet has warmed 1.2 ºC on average, but that’s enough to produce big extremes.
From wilting saguaros in Arizona and hot-tub-like temperatures off the coast of Florida to increased heat-related hospitalizations in Europe and agricultural losses in China, last month felt unusually hot. It was: several teams have now confirmed that July 2023 was the hottest month in recorded history. And there’s more to come.
July is typically the hottest month of the year, and this July shattered records going back as far as 1850 by around 0.25 °C. Overall, the average global temperature was 1.54 °C above the preindustrial average for July, according to Berkeley Earth, a non-profit group in California that is one of several organizations tracking global warming. It’s a seemingly small increase, but what many people across the world actually experienced was a bout of long and often brutal heat waves.
Pollution cuts have diminished “ship track” clouds, adding to global warming
Tropical forests host an unusually high diversity of tree species. Strong interactions between individuals are hypothesized to create these patterns. A tree is more likely to survive when surrounded by different tree species with different resource needs, diseases, and herbivores. Kalyuzhny et al. found patterns consistent with this mechanism in a long-term forest plot in Panama. Adult trees in this site are more distant from members of their own species than from other species and more distant than would be expected by chance or by the limits of seed dispersal. This study shows that distances between conspecifics are maintained in adult trees, helping to explain the high diversity of tropical forests.
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