Tag: Science

EPFL researchers have developed the first comprehensive model of the quantum-mechanical effects behind photoluminescence in thin gold films; a discovery that could drive the development of solar fuels and batteries.

Earth's magnetic field protects us from the dangerous radiation of space, but it is not as permanent as we might believe. Scientists at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly present new information about an 'excursion' 41,000 years ago where our planet's magnetic field waned, and harmful space rays bombarded the planet.

A team of geologists and planetary scientists from the California Institute of Technology, the University of California Santa Cruz, New York University, and NASA Goddard Space Flight Center reports evidence that Io's volcanic activity has been ongoing since the beginning of the solar system. In their study, published in the journal Science, the group studied sulfur isotopes in Io's atmosphere to determine how long the moon has been volcanically active.

Bosses worried about turnover or wondering how long a new hire will stick around can now turn to AI for a heads-up on who might be next out the door.

A remote Indonesian volcano sent a tower of ash spewing into the sky Friday, after nearly half a dozen eruptions earlier this week forced thousands to evacuate when molten rocks rained down on their villages.

Analysis of mooring observations and hydrographic data suggest the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation deep water limb in the North Atlantic has weakened. Two decades of continual observations provide a greater understanding of the Earth's climate regulating system.

Observing proteins precisely within cells is extremely important for many branches of research but has been a significant technical challenge—especially in living cells, as the required fluorescent labeling had to be individually attached to each protein.

What is the mass of a neutrino at rest? This is one of the big unanswered questions in physics. Neutrinos play a central role in nature. A team led by Klaus Blaum, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics in Heidelberg, has now made an important contribution in "weighing" neutrinos as part of the international ECHo collaboration. Their findings are published in Nature Physics.

Finding water on distant planets and moons in our solar system is a challenge, especially when the instrument is thousands of kilometers away from the surface, but scientists presenting at the European Geosciences Union General Assembly describe how ground-penetrating radar is used to discover bodies of water below the surface of distant planets and they are on their way to Jupiter.

Indonesian authorities were on alert Friday for more eruptions from a remote island volcano that forced thousands to evacuate this week, as nearby residents began clearing debris after molten rocks rained down on their villages.

It is in three core approaches to delivering value to readers that I find a definition of ‘academic journalism’.

Wild Seasons will look at how seasonal events are changing amid the climate crisis.

As a partner on the International Public Policy Observatory, The Conversation is making an impact.

We receive many thousands of pitches every year – most would be improved by reading these tips.

Professor Sir Eric Thomas was a former VC of the University of Bristol and a patron and key supporter of The Conversation UK.

Register now for our live event on Thursday, 30 November at Waterstones - Tottenham Court Road in London.

With its IPPO partners, The Conversation is addressing some of the biggest policy challenges.

Women’s Health Matters is a comprehensive resource designed to empower women and provide them with the information they need to make informed decisions about their health and wellbeing.

The Conversation has been following the trials and tribulations of semaglutide (Wegovy) as it made its way from lizard venom to blockbuster drug.

We’ve put together a mini-series on birth and early motherhood, an area many of our readers felt they wanted more evidence-based information on.

From a simple set of in situ or synthetic data, a general unified model has been developed to calculate turbulent fluxes and evaporation rates on any rocky body with an atmosphere.

Concert tunes don’t make the same seismic noise as the exuberant crowd does.

A new study suggests melting gabbros may have helped form Earth’s first continents, riling a long-standing debate.

High-resolution mass spectrometry provides innovative analyses of dissolved organic matter.

The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides. Silvan Leinss from Gamma Remote Sensing has very kindly captured and downloaded webcam images from the Corvatsch skiing station on the day of the Piz Scerscen rock avalanche. The camera was pointed […]

A new method for observing electrically aligned ice crystals in localized storms can detect the onset of electrification and lightning in developing storms.

Scientists aim to integrate observations from deep-soil-warming experiments worldwide to better understand how ecosystems vital to food security and environmental health will react to climate change.

Scientists call for improved understanding of how our influence on deep subsurface fluids and microbes might affect the larger Earth system.

Es probable que las temperaturas globales superficiales del aire se mantengan elevadas durante el comienzo del verano debido a la persistencia del evento de El Niño.

The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides. A low key announcement made in Indonesia yesterday caught y attention this morning. It was made by PT Archi Indonesia Tbk (ARCI), a listed mining company, about two gold mine areas run […]

Note: this blog post has been put together over the course of the week I followed the happenings at the conference virtually. Should recordings of the Great Debates and possibly Union Symposia mentioned below, be released sometime after the conference ends, I'll include links to the ones I participated in. This year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) started on Monday April 15 both on premise in Vienna and online as a fully hybrid conference. This year, I decided to join virtually for the whole week, picking and chosing sessions I was interested in. At the time of publication this blog post was still an evolving compilation - a kind of personal diary - of the happenings from my perspective. As this post will get fairly large, you can jump to the different days, via these links (bolded days have been added

Open access notables Glacial isostatic adjustment reduces past and future Arctic subsea permafrost, Creel et al., Nature Communications: Sea-level rise submerges terrestrial permafrost in the Arctic, turning it into subsea permafrost. Subsea permafrost underlies ~ 1.8 million km2 of Arctic continental shelf, with thicknesses in places exceeding 700 m. Sea-level variations over glacial-interglacial cycles control subsea permafrost distribution and thickness, yet no permafrost model has accounted for glacial isostatic adjustment (GIA), which deviates lo

This is a re-post from Andrew Dessler at the Climate Brink blog In 2023, the Earth reached temperature levels unprecedented in modern times. Given that, it’s reasonable to ask: What’s going on? There’s been lots of discussions by scientists about whether this is just the normal progression of global warming or if something we don’t understand is happening — in other words, we’ve broken the climate.

On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "Is the science settled?". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there. At a glance Science, in all of its aspects, is an ongoing matter. It

This is a re-post from Yale Climate Connections The June general election in Mexico could mark a turning point in ensuring that the country’s climate policies better reflect the desire of its citizens to address the climate crisis, with both leading presidential candidates expressing support for renewable energy. Mexico is the 10th-most populated country with the 15th-largest economy and is also the 11th-most climate-polluting country in the world. In international surveys conducted in 2022 and 2023, Mexico had one of the highest percentages of citizens worried about human-caused climate change at 92%, compared to just 63% of Americans.*

A listing of 31 news and opinion articles we found interesting and shared on social media during the past week: Sun, April 7, 2024 thru Sat, April 13, 2024. Story of the week Our story of the week is about adults in the room setting terms and conditions of good behavior. Here it's not parents telling children what to do but instead the widely adopted, mutually agreed system of coercive behavior modification we call "rule of law." Legislators providing courts of justice with laws to apply are how we formalize overcoming widely harmful selfish actions— or negligent inactions. These are our proxy adults telling us what we can't do or must do— our aspirations for better nature given teeth. We could wish that we were all so perfect as to never need grownup guidance of a kind leading t

Skeptical Science is partnering with Gigafact to produce fact briefs — bite-sized fact checks of trending claims. This fact brief was written by Sue Bin Park in collaboration with members from our Skeptical Science team. You can submit claims you think need checking via the tipline. Did global warming stop in 1998? While 1998 was an abnormally warm year, annual average temperatures have trended steadily upward in the decades since. As a strong El Nino year, 1998 featured a significant spike in global temperatures. El Nino is the warm

Open access notables Global carbon emissions in 2023, Liu et al., Nature Reviews Earth & Environment Annual global CO2 emissions dropped markedly in 2020 owing to the COVID-19 pandemic, decreasing by 5.8% relative to 2019 (ref. 

This year's General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) will take place as a fully hybrid conference in both Vienna and online from April 15 to 19. I decided to join the event virtually this year for the full week and I've already picked several sessions I plan to attend. Among them are two sessions, I'll be presenting in. This blog post provides an overview of my itinerary. Monday The week kicks off right away at 8:30 in the morning with a Union Symposia (US2) about the Climate emergency, human agency: making sense of the current state of scientific knowledge on climate change to strengthen climate literacy.

On February 14, 2023 we announced our Rebuttal Update Project. This included an ask for feedback about the added "At a glance" section in the updated basic rebuttal versions. This weekly blog post series highlights this new section of one of the updated basic rebuttal versions and serves as a "bump" for our ask. This week features "The Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO) is not causing global warming". More will follow in the upcoming weeks. Please follow the Further Reading link at the bottom to read the full rebuttal and to join the discussion in the comment thread there. At a glance Oscillat