Electric vehicles promise to help us move away from fossil fuels, but they present a new problem: how to get enough lithium that EV batteries require (SN: 5/7/19). Materials scientist Chong Liu of the University of Chicago has some ideas. […]
Having an extra trained professional by your side can make a pregnancy easier. Among a group of pregnant individuals covered by Medicaid, those who used a doula in addition to a medical team had a lower risk of having a […]
Satellites interfere with radio astronomy – Scientific news, October 5, 1974 In the past, satellites and probes launched by NASA and others successfully avoided conflict with the radio frequency bands reserved for radio astronomy. But now there is trouble. The […]
An asteroid heading toward Earth can be deflected without ever touching a spacecraft. The trick is to use X-rays to deflect the space rock, researchers report Sept. 23 Nature Physics. In laboratory experiments, scientists heated the surfaces of free-falling artificial […]
Above the cloud tops, storms blow with a complex and frenetic light show of high-energy radiation. A view from a refurbished spy plane flying 20 kilometers up revealed storms glowing and flickering in gamma rays, high-energy light invisible to the […]
As dust from the Sahara blows thousands of kilometers across the Atlantic Ocean, it becomes progressively more nutritious for marine microbes, a new study suggests. Chemical reactions in the atmosphere grind iron minerals into dust, making them more soluble in […]
Dozens of runaway stars were caught escaping from a dense star cluster in a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way. The cluster of fast-moving stars may mean that such runaways had a greater influence on cosmic evolution than previously thought, […]
As artificial intelligence explodes in popularity, two of its pioneers have been awarded the 2024 Nobel Prize in Physics. The award goes to John Hopfield and Geoffrey Hinton “for fundamental discoveries and inventions enabling machine learning with artificial neural networks,” […]
Naloxone has saved thousands of lives by reversing opioid overdoses. But its success depends on someone nearby who can administer the medicine quickly (SN: 5/3/24). Many people are alone when they overdose. A new implant may one day solve this […]
Displacement is in the nature of a river. But when a river breaks from its channel and carves a new path across the landscape, devastating floods can descend on communities with little or no warning. For decades, researchers have struggled […]