The deadly heat wave that hit Africa's Sahel region in early April would not have occurred without human-induced climate change, according to a study by the World Weather Attribution (WWA) group published Thursday ..read more

The Lyrid meteor shower is underway. But with a nearly full moon in the sky during the peak, it might be tough to see clearly ..read more

Dubai's airport, one of the world's busiest, witnessed major disruption for the third day in a row on Thursday after the heaviest rains on record drenched the desert United Arab Emirates ..read more

Making ever smaller and more powerful chips requires new ultrathin materials: 2D materials that are only 1 atom thick, or even just a couple of atoms. Think about graphene or ultra-thin silicon membrane for instance ..read more

Many of us would love the superpower to fly, and for good reason: Flight offers a crucial evolutionary advantage. Flying enables an animal to travel large distances quickly, in search of food and new habitats, while expending far less energy than walking. Through flight, insects colonized the planet and fostered the massive diversification of flowering plants by acting as efficient pollinators. They also enabled the evolution of other creatures like reptiles, birds, and mammals by serving as ample food supply ..read more

A new ancient species of snake dubbed Vasuki Indicus, which lived around 47 million years ago in the state of Gujarat in India, may have been one of the largest snakes to have ever lived, suggests new research published in Scientific Reports. The new species, which reached an estimated length of between 11 and 15 meters, was part of the now extinct madtsoiidae snake family, but represented a distinct lineage that originated in India ..read more

A geo-environmental scientist from Japan has composed a string quartet using sonified climate data. The 6-minute-long composition—titled "String Quartet No. 1 "Polar Energy Budget"—is based on over 30 years of satellite-collected climate data from the Arctic and Antarctic and aims to garner attention on how climate is driven by the input and output of energy at the poles ..read more

Flow-through reactors packed with enzymes can produce certain chemicals in a gentle and careful way. However, their performance has so far been limited. A research team from the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon and RWTH Aachen University has now been able to increase the yield a thousandfold ..read more

Prof. Zhang Ying's group from the Institute of Physics of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), in collaboration with domestic universities and the Los Alamos National Laboratory in the United States, has experimentally observed current-driven antiskyrmion sliding ..read more

In response to the escalating fire crises in the Amazon, a timely study has revealed alarming shortcomings in the emergency fire bans implemented by the Brazilian Government. Initially seen as a promising solution in 2019, these bans have consistently fallen short in subsequent years, revealing a pressing need for strategies that address the underlying causes of each type of fire ..read more