This petri dish contains fungus samples collected from the International Space Station. (Credit: NASA/JPL)
Anywhere humans go, we bring companions along, in the form of bacteria and mold. Some of them, like gut bacteria, are essential for healthy living. Others are mere tagalongs. As hospitals well know, even the spaces meant to be most clean still teem with microbial life, and the International Space Station is no exception.
Astronauts have been cataloging the presence of microbes in sp ...read more
(Credit: Lizard/Shutterstock)
Crack open an oyster shell and the inner face shimmers in a rainbow of kaleidoscopic colors. This smooth material, known as mother-of-pearl, is beautiful and resilient – so resilient that it has inspired the creation of virtually shatterproof glass.
“Our bioinspired glass is 2-3 times more impact resistant than laminated glass and tempered glass -- the 'standards' for impact-resistant transparent materials,” says McGill University engineer F ...read more
(Credit: meyer_solutions/Shutterstock)
Deepfake videos are hard for untrained eyes to detect because they can be quite realistic. Whether used as personal weapons of revenge, to manipulate financial markets or to destabilize international relations, videos depicting people doing and saying things they never did or said are a fundamental threat to the longstanding idea that “seeing is believing.” Not anymore.
Most deepfakes are made by showing a computer algorithm many images of ...read more
Airplane contrails, also known as the ice clouds formed by airplane farts, could contribute substantially to climate change. This will be accentuated in the future as air travel ramps up. (Credit: Gajus/Shutterstock)
More than 40,000 airplanes crisscross the skies above the U.S. every day. The engines propelling the metal birds through the wild blue yonder leave behind distinct line-shaped clouds known as contrails. The wispy clouds form when water vapor from fuel combustion condenses and cr ...read more
Imagine a smoldering hot day in downtown Boston: temperatures have reached over 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and the sidewalks and streets are absorbing the strong heat from the sun and radiating it back into the air. Days like this are becoming hotter and more frequent. This “silent storm” causes more deaths in the US than all other weather hazards combined. Heat impacts human health, infrastructure, and the environment.
The Urban Heat Island (UHI) Effect
Urban areas trap heat insi ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine