The only limits to creating a planet that future generations will be proud of are our imaginations and our social systems. In moving toward a better Anthropocene, the environment will be what we make it.
In 2012, the dangers of human-caused climate disturbance became undeniable, making this the fundamental moral issue of our time.
The solid iron core is actually crystalline, surrounded by liquid. But the temperature at which that crystal can form had been a subject of long-running debate. Experiments outlined in Science used X-rays to probe tiny samples of iron at extraordinary pressures to examine how the iron crystals form and melt. Seismic waves captured after earthquakes…
The latest attempt to build machines that can learn to recognize objects or even develop cognitive skills is caled Spaun. Its full name is the Semantic Pointer Architecture Unified Network, but Spaun sounds way more epic. It’s the latest version of a techno brain, the creation of a Canadian research team at the University of…
Childhood abuse and maltreatment can shrink important parts of the brain, a new study of adults suggests. Reduced brain volume in parts of the hippocampus could help to explain why childhood problems often lead to later psychiatric disorders, such as depression, drug addiction and other mental health problems, the researchers say. This link could help…
You could call them early bloomers: In 2010 and 2012, plants in the eastern U.S. produced flowers earlier than at any point in recorded history, a new study says. This result, according to the research team, has a bit of a literary twist: It comes from data collected by U.S. environmental writers Henry David Thoreau…
Emily Baldwin, deputy editor of Astronomy Now magazine, said the asteroid, which is known as 2005 YU55, posed no threat. She told the Sunday Times: “It is a great opportunity to make close-up, detailed observations. Studies of asteroids are important not only to learn about the potential threat an impact may have on Earth but also…