THE DAILY MAIL - California's Central Valley is no stranger to wildfires, earthquakes and flooding, but the geological problem that is really rocking the housing market is none of the above. The issue that is having a huge effect on property prices in California's Central Valley is the ever-sinking ground. Scientists have been worried about...
YALE - The murky world at the bottom of the oceans is now a little clearer, thanks to a new study that tracks the evolution of marine sediment layers across hundreds of millions of years. It is a story of world-building on a grand, yet granular, scale, accomplished by a succession of marine animals that...
CBS NEWS - Sinking ground in California's Central Valley is causing property values to sink, according to a new study by UC Riverside. "When we see droughts, we see larger subsidence, we see more extraction of groundwater, we see larger subsidence, and that's a sign for many other problems, like water availability, job availability and...
SFGATE - California’s Central Valley is still sinking. This reality has had scientists worried for more than a century, but a recent study reveals the troubling phenomenon may now be affecting the local housing market. The rapidly lowering ground — as much as 1 inch per year — has caused property values in the region...
SCIENCE NEWS - A beautiful menace is on the move in the United States. Polka-dotted, red-and-gray-winged insects are gliding along sidewalks, climbing on plants and crawling up buildings. Spotted youngsters are leaping away to avoid a sticky end at the bottom of a shoe. Welcome to spotted lanternfly season. An invasive plant hopper native to...
LOS ANGELES TIMES - If you suffer from arachnophobia, this is the time of year when you’re most likely to run into one of your worst nightmares: a tarantula. It’s mating season for most of the 29 species of tarantulas in the United States, 10 of which can be found in California, according to Los...
INTERESTING ENGINEERING - Quantum computing’s ability to solve problems that would take classical computers millennia has captured global interest. But the path to functional, scalable quantum machines has been riddled with fundamental challenges. At the heart of the problem lies the qubit, the quantum version of a digital bit. Qubits can exist in multiple states...
GOOD NEWS NETWORK - A new chemical probe protects healthy cells from DNA damage, preserving them from one of the 8 hallmarks of aging. The story of this potentially paradigmatic development begins where so much of human health begins: the mitochondria. These organelles are disrespectfully monikered as “the powerhouses” of the cell, but they do...
INTERESTING ENGINEERING - From Alzheimer’s to heart failure, many chronic diseases have been linked to damage in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA). Now, scientists at the University of California, Riverside, may have found a way to halt the damage before it begins. The team has developed a chemical probe that targets damage in mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA), a...
EARTH.COM - Wild tomatoes rooted on the raw lava of Fernandina and Isabela Islands have done something biologists once filed under “nearly impossible,” reviving a molecular defense that disappeared from their relatives millions of years ago during species evolution. The phenomenon has been traced to a tiny tweak in the plants’ chemistry, and it now...
THE HILL - Efforts to clean up air pollution in China and across East Asia may have inadvertently contributed to a spike in global warming, a new study has found. The decline in aerosol emissions — which can cool the planet by absorbing sunlight — have added about 0.05 degrees Celsius in warming per decade...
EARTH.COM - Today’s flagship processor packs more than 100 billion transistors, yet squeezing them any closer is turning design into a wrestling match with quantum physics. As the footprints of silicon switches approach the dimensions of a few dozen atoms, stray electrons tunnel across barriers that once looked rock‑solid, wasting power and scrambling signals. Physicists...
DAILY GALAXY - In an unexpected discovery, researchers have found that wild tomatoes in the Galápagos Islands seem to be evolving in reverse. This fascinating phenomenon, previously thought to be rare, suggests that evolution isn’t always a straightforward process. The finding, which challenges conventional wisdom, could lead to exciting breakthroughs in genetic research. Tomatoes Turning...
POPULAR MECHANICS - The famous ape-to-man illustration, known as The March of Progress, depicts evolution as a one-way street toward evolutionary perfection—but nature isn’t always so simple. Many organisms have displayed what appears to be “reverse evolution,” or regression, where ancient attributes of past ancestors seem to reappear down the evolutionary line. Cave fish, for...
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Some tomatoes growing on the Galápagos Islands appear to be going back in time by producing the same toxins their ancestors did millions of years ago. Scientists describe this development—a controversial process known as “reverse evolution”—in a June 18 paper published in the journal Nature Communications. Tomatoes are nightshades, a group of...
ZME SCIENCE - On the Galápagos Islands, wild tomatoes are producing molecules not seen since the Ice Age, reversing a genetic trajectory millions of years in the making. In a study published in Nature Communications, researchers from the University of California, Riverside and the Weizmann Institute of Science have documented a rare and striking example...
THE WEEK - Some tomatoes have evolved to possess the characteristics of their ancestors. While it is rare, there have been instances of species displaying traits from further back in evolution. But for the first time, scientists have now been able to prove it through genetic evidence. And there's potential for similar evolutionary changes in...
EARTH.COM - Sagging beams and hollow‑sounding walls can signal a menace that quietly drains bank accounts around the world – termites. Building owners and insurers spend close to $5 billion a year fixing damage and fighting infestations. Now, a team of researchers led by Dong‑Hwan Choe at the University of California, Riverside (UCR) say they...
SMITHSONIAN MAGAZINE - Just south of Greenland, in the northern Atlantic Ocean, a strange area of water has been confounding scientists for years. While the rest of the ocean warms, that patch has been mysteriously cooling. Researchers have offered different theories behind this “cold blob,” such as changes in ocean circulation patterns or aerosol pollution...
IFLSCIENCE - Something’s stirring in the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) – and a strange “hole” of cold water in the North Atlantic may provide new clues about what’s up. But is the system on the brink of full-blown collapse, or will it keep churning on despite mounting pressure? The AMOC is “the conveyor belt...