Preserving Mexico’s spruce forests can help monarch butterflies
An experiment to grow new forests in central Mexico offers hope that crucial winter habitat for millions of migrating monarch butterflies may survive into the next century. When scientists decided to plant hundreds of small oyamel firs (Abies religiosa) about 100 kilometers from their native habitat, they weren’t sure how many trees would survive. Today, […]
How tiny phytoplankton travel long distances up the ocean
It’s one of the most massive migrations on Earth: a huge biomass of tiny plankton traveling from the deep sea to the surface. However, not all of these organisms have limbs to propel themselves up. So how some of them manage to undergo such a long journey has been a mystery. Now, a team of […]
NASA’s Europa mission is a homecoming for a planetary astronomer
Planetary astronomer Bonnie Buratti remembers exactly where she was the first time she heard that Jupiter’s icy moon Europa might host life. It was the 1980s, and Buratti was a graduate student at Cornell University studying images of the planet’s moons taken during the Voyager 1 and 2 flybys in 1979. Even in those first […]
How much is climate change to blame for extreme weather?
This video was supported by funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. TRANSCRIPTION Maria Temming: In 2021, a historic heat wave swept the Pacific Northwest killing hundreds of people and fueling wildfires. Researchers later reported that human-induced climate change made this heat wave at least 150 times more likely. But how do scientists figure out […]
The Webb Telescope’s look at a stellar nursery also finds minor planets
A distant stellar nursery holds a cluster of newborn worlds the size of Jupiter, the smallest of which is surrounded by a disk of dust that may one day form moons. The detailed discovery, made thanks to the unprecedented sensitivity of the James Webb Space Telescope, could provide new insights into the formation of stars […]
Can solar farms and agricultural farms coexist?
Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? McCall: Argivoltaics is a term for the co-location of solar and agricultural activities, such as grazing, crop production and […]
Some bacteria in your mouth can divide into 14 cells at once
Among the more than 500 species of bacteria that thrive in the human mouth, one seems to play by its own rules. Instead of reproducing by dividing into two, as most bacteria do, Corynebacterium matruchotii divides into 14 cells simultaneously, researchers report on Sept. 10. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. This video shows […]
Mayo is surprisingly great at understanding nuclear fusion experiments
The texture of mayonnaise inspires love and hate. Either way, it’s perfect for physics experiments. The classic seasoning is useful for understanding how materials behave, not only when spread on sandwiches or spread on potato salads, but also when used in nuclear fusion experiments. Mechanical engineer Arindam Banerjee of Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and […]
Climate change could double US temperature-related deaths by mid-century
Heat deaths in the United States are on the rise. But how bad will it be 20, 30 or 40 years from now? Scientists now have a clue. Currently, about 8,000 more deaths in the United States each year are associated with extreme temperatures, hot and cold. Within the next few decades, that number could […]