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The gap has widened between countries’ pledges for reducing climate-altering greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 and what is needed to keep planet warming in check, the UN warned. Based on current pledges, global average temperatures could rise by three to five degrees Celsius (5.4 to 9.0 degrees Fahrenheit) this century — way above the two…
It is possible to create steam within seconds by focusing sunlight on nanoparticles mixed into water, according to new research. That observation, reported by scientists at Rice University in Texas, suggests myriad applications in places that lack electricity or burnable fuels. A sun-powered boiler could desalinate sea water, distill alcohol, sterilize medical equipment and perform…
The “uncrackable codes” made by exploiting the branch of physics called quantum mechanics have been sent down kilometres of standard broadband fibre. This “quantum key distribution” has until now needed a dedicated fibre separate from that used to carry data. The technique, reported in Physical Review X, shows how to unpick normal data streams from…
Atmospheric volumes of greenhouse gases blamed for climate change hit a new record in 2011, the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) reported. The volume of carbon dioxide, the primary greenhouse gas emitted by human activities, grew at a similar rate to the previous decade and reached 390.9 parts per million (ppm), 40% above the pre-industrial level,…
If we hope to understand creationism, we need to abandon the trope that only the ignorant can oppose mainstream evolutionary science. It is a comfortable delusion, a head-in-the-sand approach to improving evolution education in the United States. In the end, it stems from a shocking ignorance among evolutionists about the nature of creationist beliefs.
You know we’ve found something new and interesting when scientists don’t really know how to classify it. Using the Subaru Telescope an international team of astronomers has discovered a “super-Jupiter” so massive that it seems they’re not quite sure whether to call it a planet or a low-mass brown dwarf (in other words, a star…
A team of NASA scientists and their colleagues have found evidence from meteorites that Mars and Earth had a similar origin, but then the two planets evolved quite differently. Based on their analyses of two Martian meteorites, researchers have concluded that water in the Martian interior originated from planetary building blocks similar to those that…
China, India, South Africa and Brazil said a climate deal planned for 2020 won’t be a “new regime,” threatening confrontation with the U.S. which wants to eliminate a firewall between developed and developing nations. The four nations reined in expectations for the Durban Platform, a mandate agreed last December at United Nations treaty talks in…
New research says it’s not just humans who go through midlife crises: Chimps and orangutans also experience a dip in happiness around the middle of their lives, and these ruts may act as natural motivators. “There may be different things going on at the surface, but underneath it all, there’s something common in all three…
Are there dark doings near the center of the Milky Way? That may be so when it comes to the collision of dark matter particles. Although such particles are invisible, we could still theoretically see the mess they make when they collide. It’s this idea that leads physicists to scour the galaxy for some glimmer…