The ocean circulation system may not be as bad as previously thought. A vital oceanic artery known as the Florida Current, a signal of the ocean’s ability to regulate Earth’s climate, has apparently been weakening for decades. But this latest decline may not be as severe as suspected. The current has actually remained stable over…
While SpaceX’s Starlink satellites are enabling Internet access and mobile communications around the globe, they are also posing a threat to radio astronomy, a new study suggests. In several wavelength bands, the inadvertent leakage of electromagnetic radiation from the latest generation of satellites is more than 30 times brighter than emissions from earlier versions, Cees…
Bhavin Shastri still gets excited when he sees a laser pointer and has been fascinated by them since he was about 10 years old. “I was amazed that a beam of light could retain its brightness, concentrated in a small spot even after traveling a great distance,” says Shastri. “A laser pointer in my hand…
Dust pollution is known to contribute to asthma and heart and lung disease. But dust blowing from the Great Salt Lake in Utah can cause an additional unwanted shock. Metals in dust and sediments around the Great Salt Lake are more reactive than dust from nearby lake beds, researchers report in November. Atmospheric Environment. When…
Betelgeuse, Betelgeuse! The red supergiant that marks Orion’s left shoulder may have a tiny, unseen companion. Two independent studies found evidence of a star the same mass as the sun, orbiting Betelgeuse about once every 2,100 days. “It was very surprising,” says astrophysicist Morgan MacLeod of the Harvard & Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge,…
Imagine Victorian London, but its skies are filled with airplanes. Steam robots crowd the streets, mingling with people in hats and cloaks. This kind of retrofuturistic mash-up is the fantasy realm of steampunk, a genre of literature, film, and other creative media. Theoretical physicist Nicole Yunger Halpern sees her specialty, the field of quantum thermodynamics,…
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? “I remember standing there just looking at it,” says Zeng, a climate scientist at the University of Maryland. He…
A red dwarf star known as Barnard’s Star, located just six light-years from our solar system, has at least one — and possibly a handful — of small rocky planets orbiting it, a new study suggests. . Barnard’s Star, which is about one-sixth the mass of our sun, is the closest individual star to our…
Naloxone has saved thousands of lives by reversing opioid overdoses. But its success depends on someone nearby who can administer the medicine quickly (SN: 5/3/24). Many people are alone when they overdose. A new implant may one day solve this problem. Inserted under the skin and powered by a battery, the device can detect the…
Satellites interfere with radio astronomy – Scientific news, October 5, 1974 In the past, satellites and probes launched by NASA and others successfully avoided conflict with the radio frequency bands reserved for radio astronomy. But now there is trouble. The offenders are two large US satellites launched in May…. When one of the satellites is…
