What’s so bad about wetlands? These mucky, sometimes mosquito-ridden landscapes have a bad reputation, but they offer benefits to their neighborhoods too. Researchers say “accidental” wetlands—pockets of cities that have turned into swamps through flooding and neglect—might be a valuable resource to both the environment and the humans around them.
It’s hard to guess exactly how many accidental wetlands there are, say Monica Palta of Arizona State University an ...read more
(Credit: Kai Gradert/Unsplash)
Recent weather conditions in Europe have been a boon to the renewable energy grid there, pushing prices briefly negative overnight as high winds forced turbines into overdrive.
Energy prices in the U.K. dipped into the negatives for five hours on June 7, according to Argus, an industry analytics firm, and Danish wind farms supplied more than 100 percent of the country’s needs, both situations indicating a need for utility companies to sell off excess p ...read more
You probably haven’t eaten this fruit before, but you may have one of its ancestors in your house right now. (Credit: petrOlly/Flickr)
In the wilds of Kazakhstan, there’s an unassuming tree that bears an unassuming fruit. Like many plant species, development encroaches on its usual territory while climate change makes it harder for the tree to thrive and bear healthy yields of fruit.
You probably haven’t eaten this fruit before, but you may have one of its ancestors in your h ...read more
Ohio State University’s Big Ear Observatory caught one of the most promising SETI signals ever back in 1977. Astronomers are still debating if it came from aliens, or something closer to home. (Credit: NRAO/AUI/NSF)
In 1977, Ohio State University math professor Jerry Ehman walked into the Big Ear Observatory and looked over the past few nights’ observations. At the time, the radio telescope was the only observatory exclusively devoted to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence ...read more
The white dwarf Stein 2051 B, and the background star, visible as a small dot, that allowed its mass to be measured. (Credit: NASA, ESA, and K. Sahu (STScI))
For the first time, astronomers have measured the mass of a star by observing the way its mass deforms light passing by it.
It’s an observation that Einstein predicted but thought could never actually happen, due to the incredibly precise alignment between distant astronomical objects it entails. But using modern observing tools, re ...read more
Author Vishay SinghPosted on Categories Discover Magazine
