Amid all of these concerns, the city has been turning to drones to monitor pollution hotspots, in addition to those spraying water to suppress PM2.5. “Drones are useful for accessing areas that are hard to monitor manually, like crowded urban zones or industrial regions,” says R Subramanian, air quality head at the Center for Study […]
Read MoreSaturn as captured by the Voyager program. Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images Once the Voyagers’ planetary journeys were over, it was possible to begin a new mission phase. After their last planetary stops, both probes reached escape velocity for the solar system, allowing them to be released from the sun’s gravity. Since 2012 for Voyager 1, and […]
Read MoreElsewhere, Mars is looking to get to the literal root of the problem by improving the resilience of the all-important cocoa plant. The food giant is working with the USDA and UC Davis to genome sequence pathogens for the diseases wreaking havoc on crop yields, including black pod disease. It hopes that by understanding the […]
Read MoreWe live in an Age of Uncertainty. Not just because of the global threats to societies, but many face unprecedented insecurity at a personal level, particularly the younger generations. None of us know what is going to happen, and we might as well face up to it. And that’s the first lesson in making predictions: […]
Read MoreHowever, modeling has shown that it is difficult to scatter enough stars toward the black holes to solve the final-parsec problem. Alternatively, each black hole might have a small disk of gas around it, and these disks might draw in material from a wider disk that surrounds the empty region carved out by the holes. […]
Read MoreRecycling is important, yes. But it is also utterly insufficient to meet our needs. We tend to think of it as the best alternative to using virgin materials. In fact, it often can be one of the worst. Consider a glass bottle. To recycle it, you have to smash it to pieces, melt down the […]
Read MoreBeliefs and practices about music’s ability to heal the mind, body, and spirit date back to the Upper Paleolithic period, about 20,000 years ago. Music was widely used by shamans and other healers to treat a variety of ailments, from mental disorders to injuries and illness. Only recently have we separated healing and music; we […]
Read MoreIn 2025, a small, indigenous nation that calls itself the “people of many colors” will go home for the first time in 80 years. Their return will drive a movement of indigenous peoples across the Amazon rainforest fighting for legal titles to their ancestral territories, and winning. These victories will have global significance. The Siekopai […]
Read MoreAccording to Bodoque, we need to improve flood-risk mapping too. There is a need to characterize vulnerability holistically, which implies considering the social, economic, physical, institutional, and cultural dimensions of what makes a community vulnerable to the weather. It is necessary to understand all components of what heightens people’s risk: not just their exposure to […]
Read MoreEvery year, I promise myself I’m not going to eat myself into a food coma: I’ll eat responsibly, front-load my belly with salad, and go light on the turkey and gravy. Instead, I wake up three hours after Thanksgiving dinner, sprawled out like Robinson Crusoe on the living room floor under a pile of my […]
Read MoreMore than 2 million years ago, a mutation reduced the power of the chewing muscles in human ancestors. That may indicate they were doing more food preparation, but also possibly making more controlled use of their mouths. Expanded nerve outlets in the thoracic vertebrae appeared in Homo erectus, indicating the millisecond control of breathing that […]
Read MoreIf you double the radius of a balloon, you increase the volume by a factor of eight (since volume is proportional to the radius cubed). But what about the material on the outside of the balloon? Let’s say I want to make everything fair and I increase the thickness of the material by a factor […]
Read More“I remember in Geneva, two months ago, we said, ‘Pay attention, because on this specific week there is a risk of shortage if there is any problem with one of the active reactors’—and that’s what happened,” recalls David Crunelle, a spokesman for Nuclear Medicine Europe (NMEU), an industrial association. Because of their very nature, it’s […]
Read MoreWe humans may be the only species that is aware of our mortality. We are obsessed with how to postpone the inevitable and, failing that, how to make the most of our lives. For much of our existence as a species, there was little we could do about either aging or death. In fact, for […]
Read MoreIn 2025, we will see AI and machine learning begin to amplify the impact of Crispr genome editing in medicine, agriculture, climate change, and the basic research that underpins these fields. It’s worth saying upfront that the field of AI is awash with big promises like this. With any major new technological advance there is […]
Read MoreIn the real world, we have more than a century of experience figuring out how to share the world with children in order to keep them safe while still allowing adults to engage in adult-only activities, particularly those involving sex, violence, and addictive substances. In 18th and 19th century America, there were essentially no restrictions […]
Read MoreIn 2025, we will see a fundamental transformation in the language of climate politics. We’re going to hear a lot less about “reducing emissions” from scientists and policymakers and a lot more about “phasing out fossil fuels” or “ending coal, oil, and methane gas.” This is a good thing. Although it is scientifically accurate, the […]
Read MoreMany places are becoming increasingly unlivable. And around one-quarter of humanity is already dealing with drought and associated food insecurity. By 2070, one-fifth of the planet could become too hot for normal human life, causing up to 3.5 billion people to move. Sea level rise alone could displace 410 million people globally by 2100. We […]
Read MoreElon Musk’s brain implant company, Neuralink, announced on Tuesday that it is launching a study to test its implant for a new use: allowing a person to control a robotic arm using just their thoughts. “We’re excited to announce the approval and launch of a new feasibility trial to extend BCI control using the N1 […]
Read MoreAt around 3 am on Sunday morning, in a drained plenary, the gavel slammed to bring COP29 to a close. Coming at the end of a convulsive final day in Baku, Azerbaijan, the conclusion of the Conference of the Parties was greeted by applause. It gave way, immediately, to discontent. The conference, whose primary focus […]
Read More
