Sea ice in the Weddell Sea, Antarctica Sergio Pitamitz/VWPics/Alamy For the second year in a row, Antarctic sea ice has reached near-record low levels. This reinforces concerns that human-caused climate change has initiated a lasting “regime shift” in the amount of ice that forms in the Southern Ocean each year. “Last year we were talking…
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Part of a mountain and glacier alongside Dickson Fjord in Greenland in August 2023 (left), and the same spot after a landslide in September 2023 Søren Rysgaard/Danish Army On 16 September 2023, seismic monitoring stations around the world detected a strange signal that faded over time but remained detectable for nine days. “We were like,…
Read More “Greenland landslide caused freak wave that shook Earth for nine days” »
Illustration of the end-Permian extinction event, when extreme temperatures may have killed off forests RICHARD JONES/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY The Great Dying at the end of the Permian Period 250 million years ago may have been amplified by El Niño events far stronger and longer lasting than any today. These mega El Niños caused wild swings…
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This is a real photo of Joe Biden giving a speech SHAWN THEW/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock People can generally spot when videos of famous politicians giving speeches are actually AI-generated deepfakes. But we have more trouble discerning counterfeits from reality when listening to audio or reading supposed text transcripts. “Audio deepfakes are, in my opinion, a little more…
Read More “The deepfakes of Trump and Biden that you are most likely to fall for” »
Ten unexpected things were honoured at the 34th Annual Ig Nobel prizes today, each so extremely surprising that, in the event’s long tradition, it makes people laugh, then think. The awards gala happened at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, in a lecture hall filled with paper airplanes thrown by audience members respectful of the Ig…
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Biomarkers in blood can point towards certain conditions Evgeniy Salov/Alamy Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) could one day be diagnosed with a blood test, after researchers have linked eight genetic markers to the condition. People with ALS – the most common form of motor neuron disease – experience problems with walking, speaking, swallowing and breathing, which…
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The Landslide Blog is written by Dave Petley, who is widely recognized as a world leader in the study and management of landslides. As Super Typhoon Yagi roared onshore on 10 September 2024, landslides were triggered across a swathe of Vietnam. The most serious event occurred at Lang Nu (locally written Nậm Lúc), in Lao…
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Source: Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems A remotely controlled research vessel has gathered some of the first comprehensive measurements from within the massive crater left by the Hunga volcano (formerly known as Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha‘apai) after it erupted 2 years ago. The underwater eruption of the Tongan volcano in January 2022 sent a plume of ash and…
Read More “Exploring an Underwater Volcano from 16,000 Kilometers Away” »
Last month, Claire Ryder had a connecting flight through Dubai International Airport. She remembers looking out the window as her plane touched down. “It did look quite dusty,” said Ryder, a meteorologist at the University of Reading in the United Kingdom. The long-haul aircraft that propel our intercontinental journeys are enormous, but delicate, machines—airborne dust…
In 2023, researchers with the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) returned from a drilling expedition in the Atlantic with a notable prize: a tube of rock more than three quarters of a mile (1.2 kilometers) long containing material from Earth’s mantle. “I was really impressed with how deep they got, how much recovery they were…
Read More “Lost City’s Plumbing Exposed by the Longest Mantle Core Ever Drilled” »
