Frigid terrain on the Norwegian archipelago of Svalbard, where researchers recently documented microplastic pollution in falling snow. (Credit: Sejsejlija/Shutterstock)
When it snows in the Arctic, there's another kind of flake drifting down alongside the ice crystals. Tiny bits of degraded plastic, commonly called microplastics, have been found swirling among the snow in otherwise pristine Arctic environments.
Microplastic pollution has previously been found everywhere from city streets ...read more
The full moon has been associated with aberrant behavior for centuries. (Credit: Aron Visuals/Unsplash)
It’s sometimes called the "Transylvania effect.” In the dark sky, the clouds shift, revealing the full moon’s eerie silver gleam, and the people on Earth below go mad. It’s a story that gets repeated by doctors, teachers and police officers. The science, though, says something different.
Blaming the full moon
for strange behavior is a time-honored tradition. In th ...read more
Most of our planet baked in July — earning the title for hottest month on record, according to two analyses, and in a tie in a third. (Source: NASA GISTEMP)
Two analyses out today show that in July, Earth endured its hottest month on record.
A third analysis shows last month in a tie with August 2016 for the dubious title of Earth's hottest month in records dating back to the 1880s.
Also out today: An update from the National Snow and Ice Data Center shows that Arctic sea ice is c ...read more
Parasites aplenty riddled humans and their dogs at a swampy site in Bronze Age England. From left: Microscopic eggs of a fish tapeworm, giant kidney worm and Echinostoma worm found in ancient feces from the Must Farm site. (Black scale bar represents 20 micrometers.) (Credit: M. Ledger, Department of Archaeology, Cambridge University)
Around 3,000 years ago, people were going about their
business in a marshy corner of eastern England known as The Fens.
These Fenland folk had just built ...read more
(Credit: Wyss Institute at Harvard University)
If you have two functioning legs and a reliable nervous system, walking and running are generally thoughtless tasks. But if you’re a soldier hauling massive amounts of gear on your back for an extended period of time, putting one foot in front of the other can get exhausting.
That’s where the idea for a soft, futuristic "exosuit" came about in 2011 – when DARPA funded a project, called Warrior Web. The U.S. Army partnered wit ...read more
A massive planet slamming into Jupiter in its infancy could create the fuzzy core that astronomers observe in the gas giant today. (Credit: K. Suda & Y. Akimoto/Mabuchi Design Office/Astrobiology Center, Japan)
In 2016, NASA’s Juno spacecraft arrived at Jupiter with the goal of peering through Jupiter’s dense clouds to reveal the giant planet’s inner secrets. Along with the stunning pictures Juno has sent back, it’s also used its instruments to gaze deep into Jupit ...read more
A large gallstone. (Credit: eleonimages/Shutterstock)
Up to 25 million Americans suffer from gallstones. The unwanted pebbles form in the gallbladder and can grow to be as large as a golf ball. They can block bile ducts and cause severe abdominal pain, infection and even death.
For decades, doctors have known they appear when excess cholesterol and calcium salts accumulate in the bile — a yellowish-brown liquid that helps the small intestine break down lipids. What holds the particl ...read more
Most Mars landers or rovers use parachutes as part of their landing procedure, but Mars’ thin atmosphere makes even this low-tech approach a perilous one. (Credit: ESA/ATG medialab)
ExoMars is a planned mission to Mars set to launch in the summer of 2020. But a recent series of parachute test failures may threaten that launch date.
ExoMars is being built by a joint operation between the European and Russian space agencies (ESA and Roscosmos). It was designed as a two-part mission, t ...read more
Increasing numbers of drones in urban areas means air traffic control is needed. (Credit: Volodymyr Goinyk/Shutterstock)
Highways in the sky are one step closer to becoming reality as NASA conducts the final planned tests of its traffic management system for unmanned drones in Corpus Christi, Texas this week. The system would act like air traffic control for drones, tracking them to help avoid collisions and ensure smooth flight paths.
Testing the cloud-based system’s capabilities in ...read more
Less moisture in the atmosphere means plants grow more slowly. (Credit: OhEngine/Shutterstock)
Water shortage troubles are common in the arid West and South Africa. But they’re not the only places enduring dry spells. In a new study today, scientists say the atmosphere itself is suffering from a major drought. The lack of moisture in the air is sucking water from dirt and plants, leading to reduced crop yields and impaired plant growth worldwide, and likely adding to global warming.
...read more
