SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN - It was a cloudy July afternoon in Alaska's Kobuk Valley National Park, part of the biggest stretch of protected wilderness in the U.S. We were 95 kilometers (60 miles) from the nearest village and 400 kilometers from the road system. Nature doesn't get any more unspoiled. But the stream flowing past our...
EARTH.COM - Researchers at the University of California, Riverside, have made an exciting discovery in the ongoing war between plants and their fungal mold adversaries. In a recent study, the team revealed a novel defense mechanism plants employ against the notorious gray mold, a fungus responsible for extensive damage to a wide array of crops...
QUANTA MAGAZINE - Earth’s fate rests on a coin flip. In 5 billion years, our sun will balloon into a red giant star. Whether Earth survives is an “open question,” said Melinda Soares-Furtado, an astrophysicist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. Sure, Earth could be swallowed by the sun and destroyed. But in some scenarios...
POPULAR SCIENCE - While refrigerators store food at safe temperatures and keep it fresh, they can also be a breeding ground for fuzzy gray mold that spoils fruit. Most molds thrive in warm temperatures, but many can grow in the refrigerator by producing spores. The spores can go airborne and accumulate inside the refrigerator and...
EOS - The folks next door can have a big impact on the livability of a neighborhood. If they’re loud, pushy, and obnoxious, they can force you out of even the most comfortable of homes. That truism applies to planets as well as people. The wrong kind of neighbor can kick an Earth-like planet out...
NATURE - Budget pressures at NASA, specifically arising from the increasing costs of several planetary science mission programmes, have rendered the Venus orbiter VERITAS as collateral damage. Currently on subsistence funding, mission scientists worry about the impact of ongoing delays on Venus exploration. Perpetually shrouded by dense, toxic clouds and sizzling with temperatures hot enough...
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA - This time last year, nobody knew how our bodies regulate age-related decline or why some people still hadn’t gotten sick from COVID-19. The origins of the human species remained murky and the world’s avocado supply was more vulnerable to disease. What a difference a year makes. Thanks to the tireless curiosity...
INDY100 - A 'white gold' mine containing $540 billion in treasures has been discovered at the bottom of a giant lake in Southern California. The Salton Sea, which is the largest lake in the US state was being studied by scientists as part of research funded by the Department of Energy. The study aimed to...
UNILAD - This is what the discovery of $540 billion 'white gold' under a lake could mean for the US and the rest of the world. I detested science lessons and dropped them as swiftly as I could age 16; alas, if I'd known it could've led to me stumbling across a whopping $540 billion...
SPACE.COM - A new theory that suggests dark matter is made up of particles that strongly interact with each other via a so-called "dark force." If true, this may finally explain the extreme densities we see in dark matter haloes surrounding galaxies. The existence of particles called self-interacting dark matter (SIDM) acts as an alternative...
USA TODAY - Southern California's Salton Sea may be sitting atop a lithium gold mine that, if extracted, could power a staggering 375 million electric vehicle batteries, according to a new report. It's not exactly a secret that lithium is present in the hot brine located in the shallow, landlocked body of water's vast underground...
YAHOO - An extensive underground lithium reserve has been discovered beneath California's Salton Sea, according to a report backed by the U.S. Department of Energy and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. The Characterizing the Geothermal Lithium Resource at the Salton Sea report found that the lithium beneath the sea could create more than 375 million...
NPR / KQED - Fruit Fly Threat Being Fought In Different Manner In California Four decades ago, California went to war against an enemy that wasn’t human. The adversary was the Mediterranean fruit fly, an invasive pest that threatened to destroy California’s agricultural economy. To fight the fly, the state launched controversial aerial pesticide spraying...
NBC PALM SPRINGS - Christiana Green runs four farmers markets across the Coachella Valley with vendors selling all kinds of produce. “It could decimate our farmers markets and the availability of the freshest food available,” she said. Green is talking about a large infestation of the Oriental Fruit Fly (Bactrocera dorsali) which were recently found...
FAST COMPANY - Scientists use the term “luxury effect” to refer to the fact that the wealthier and whiter your neighborhood becomes, the likelier your block is to be green. Having a greater disposable income gives people the resources to increase the plant biodiversity of where they live. Research shows that increased vegetation yields a...
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE - The mineral-rich stew bubbling thousands of feet beneath the shores of Southern California’s Salton Sea contains one of the largest lithium deposits in the world, with enough of the valuable metal to make batteries for more than 375 million electric vehicles, according to a long-awaited analysis published Tuesday. “It’s pretty exciting how...
INTERESTING ENGINEERING - Researchers have discovered up to 10 previously unknown species of now-extinct trilobites in Thailand's least explored region. Fossils hidden for 490 million years were uncovered by researchers from the University of California along the coast of Ko Tarutao island. This discovery has the potential to bridge gaps in our knowledge of animal...
POPULAR SCIENCE - Geologists have discovered 10 new species of trilobite in a relatively unstudied area of Thailand. These extinct sea creatures were hidden for 490 million years and are helping scientists create a new map of the animal life during the late Cambrian period. They are described in a monograph that was published in...
NPR / KCRW - A giant tumbleweed roughly the size of a Volkswagen beetle was spotted hurtling its way down a four-lane road in California this week. The jaunty brown bundle of brush was captured on video and posted on Tuesday on X, formerly known as Twitter, where it has gathered a number of fans...
NEWSWEEK - Researchers have uncovered the fossils of numerous extinct sea creatures that lived hundreds of millions of years ago—and they could help solve an ancient geographical puzzle, according to a recently published study. The fossils represent various types of a strange class of prehistoric marine animals known as trilobites. A team of scientists collected...