WATCH: an arresting view from space of powerful Hurricane Fernanda churning in the Pacific as day turns to night

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

The GOES-16 weather satellite acquired the imagery used in this animation showing Hurricane Fernanda swirling in the eastern Pacific Ocean for 24 hours, starting on Saturday, July 15. (Note: The animation repeats several times.) As of Saturday, Fernanda was a powerful Category 4 hurricane with sustained winds close to 130 miles per hour. (Source: RAMMB/CIRA SLIDER. Please note that The GOES-16 data are preliminary and non-operational.) As of Monday afternoon, winds of about 125 miles ...read more

The “Eleven Dimensional” Brain? Topology of Neural Networks

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

Last month, a neuroscience paper appeared that triggered a maelstrom of media hype: The Human Brain Can Create Structures in Up to 11 Dimensions The human brain sees the world as an 11-dimensional multiverse Scientists find mysterious shapes and structures in the brain with up to ELEVEN dimensions The paper, published in Frontiers in Computational Neuroscience, comes from the lab of Henry Markram, one of the world’s most powerful neuroscientists. As well as being head of the Blue Brain ...read more

What Would It Take to Wipe Out All Life on Earth?

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

(Credit: Shutterstock) The first exoplanet was spotted in 1988. Since then more than 3,000 planets have been found outside our solar system, and it’s thought that around 20 percent of Sun-like stars have an Earth-like planet in their habitable zones. We don’t yet know if any of these host life – and we don’t know how life begins. But even if life does begin, would it survive? Earth has undergone at least five mass extinctions in its history. It’s long been thought ...read more

Acidifying Oceans Favor Sea Vermin

Posted on Categories Discover Magazine

A common triplefin, one of the fish species that may dominate temperate habitats in the near, acidic future. Photo c/o Wikimedia Scientists predict that in the next twenty years, the amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) in our atmosphere will rise from the roughly 404 ppm it is now to over 450 ppm—and as a result, ecosystems worldwide will change. Many impacts will be particularly felt in our planet’s oceans. As atmospheric CO2 levels rise, more of the gas dissolves in ...read more