Global Warming

David Attenborough's stark warning about the future of humanity independent.co.uk/news/people/da… #climate #climatechange #populationgrowth

Sea otters hold hands when they sleep so they don't drift apart, a behavior known as rafting. 📽: Vancouver Aquarium

Once extinct in the wild, Przewalski’s horses are roaming free again on Kazakhstan’s steppe — their native habitat — for the first time in over 200 years. 🐴 This first-ever #WorldHorseDay, learn more about the historic return of the world’s last truly wild horse.

Injecting aerosols into the stratosphere to reflect sunlight could prevent vital ocean currents from shutting down - but only if we start soon, a modelling study suggests. #Echobox=1752220768" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">newscientist.com/article/248734…

An astronaut on the ISS captured one of the rarest and most impressive types of giant jets above Earth. This is a powerful electrical discharge almost 100 kilometers high, breaking through the atmosphere from a thundercloud to the edge of space and forming a bright branching pattern. Unlike ordinary lightning, this discharge does not strike downwards, but shoots upwards for thousands of meters. Such jets are extremely rare, and filming by an astronaut from orbit is even more rare.

New dinosaur fossil tracks on the Isle of Skye reveal that the once-balmy environment was home to both fierce theropods and massive sauropods. sciencenews.org/article/dinosa…

Honeybees in the US may have just experienced their most severe die-off on record, a loss of 1.6 million, or 55 per cent of all US colonies – and we don’t know exactly why. #Echobox=1744322181" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">newscientist.com/article/247520…

Scientists have created a super-thin "light sail" for flights to the stars! It is made of a film 1000 times thinner than a hair, with billions of microscopic holes. These holes are arranged in a special way - this way the sail reflects light better. Artificial intelligence helped to find the perfect design in a matter of days, although manually it would have taken 15 years! With such a sail, a tiny probe will be accelerated by a laser to 20% of the speed of light and will fly to Alpha Centauri in 20 years instead of tens of thousands. The project is supported by the Breakthrough Starshot initiative. The technology is already working in the laboratory - now scientists are scaling the sail to the size of a football field. This is not only for space: the discovery will help create super-light materials and new optical devices.

This experiment shows that neutrinos are at least one million times lighter than an electron go.nature.com/4csU1NT

A fossilised left leg unearthed in South Africa belongs to one of the smallest adult hominins ever discovered – smaller even than the so-called “hobbit”, Homo floresiensis. #Echobox=1744416317" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">newscientist.com/article/247390…

Worlds largest battery - beatiful pumped storage. Last week I visited Anji in central China. Its home to Changlongshan pumped storage plant. Deep inside the mountains water is pumped 400 meters by solar and wind power  from a lower to an upper reservoir. When the sun is not shining or the wind is not blowing or there is peak energy demand, energy from the hydro turbines is released into the grid. The plant is huge, but fit well into the terrain showing we can build big and respect nature all the same. It creates a seemless system of solar, wind and hydro 24 hours a day. This is the future of green energy!

Vaccines have granted families in wealthy countries the luxury of forgetting what measles, polio, rubella, and other preventable diseases are like. We're looking at how many millions of lives vaccines have saved. Read the full story: go.nature.com/4icUcyi

An analysis of proteins in a jaw, found by fishermen off Taiwan’s coast, indicate that the fossil comes from a Stone Age population called Denisovans. sciencenews.org/article/deniso…

Closest image of the surface of the planet Mercury ever captured, by NASA’s Messenger Spacecraft.

Honeybees in the US may have just experienced their most severe die-off on record, a loss of 1.6 million, or 55 per cent of all US colonies – and we don’t know exactly why. #Echobox=1744226022" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">newscientist.com/article/247520…

New archaeological finds in Malta add to an emerging theory that early Stone Age humans cruised the open seas. sciencenews.org/article/stone-…

The largest ever mammalian brain map could help scientists understand behaviours, consciousness and even what it means to be human. #Echobox=1744210998" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">newscientist.com/article/247497…

“I’ve never thought that this would be accomplished in my lifetime” Researchers have successfully sequenced the complete genomes of six ape species go.nature.com/4lpDn5Q

Cellulose, the main component of paper, can be turned into clear, waterproof objects such as cups that are almost indistinguishable from plastic, but break down more quickly #Echobox=1744240455" target="_blank" rel="nofollow noopener">newscientist.com/article/247582…

The amazing “piglet squid” (Helicocranchia sp.) gets its nickname for its small round body, wiggling tail, and siphon that looks like the nose of a pig. 📽: MBARI

NASA’s Curiosity rover recently shared a video showing the night sky as seen from Mars, with stars that truly look otherworldly