Mark Poynting and Matt McGrathBBC News Climate and Science Kevin Carter/Getty Images People head to the coast in San Diego on a hot summer’s day The waters of the north Pacific have had their warmest summer on record, according to BBC analysis of a mysterious marine heatwave that has confounded climate scientists. Sea surface temperatures…
John LaurensonBusiness reporter, Rotterdam AFP via Getty Images The Netherlands has raced to switch to wind and solar power In a Dutch government TV campaign called “Flip the Switch” an actress warns viewers about their electricity usage. “When we all use electricity at the same time, our power grid gets overloaded,” she says. “This can…
The number of people killed by bears in Japan this year has reached a record high, the country’s environment ministry has said. Seven people have died since April – the highest since 2006 when data was first recorded – with fatalities mostly in north-eastern regions and the northern prefecture of Hokkaido. A 60-year-old man cleaning…
A landmark deal to cut global shipping emissions has been abandoned after Saudi Arabia and the US succeeded in ending the talks. More than 100 countries had gathered in London to approve a deal first agreed in April, which would have seen shipping become the world’s first industry to adopt internationally mandated targets to reduce…
Imagine you are sailing the Strait of Gibraltar when an orca suddenly slams into your boat. Since 2020, these apex predators have been biting rudders, ramming and tipping boats and, in some shocking cases, sinking vessels. For sailors here, it is a terrifying experience. And it is happening with increasing frequency. A quick internet search…
Immunotherapy is a cancer treatment that harnesses the body’s own immune defenses to attack tumors. It has shown remarkable success against cancers of the lung, kidney, and bladder but has not worked as well for liver cancer. That gap is troubling because liver cancer cases have nearly tripled over the past four decades. To explore…
Scientists from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden and NASA have made a surprising discovery that challenges one of chemistry’s fundamental principles, while also offering new insight into Saturn’s mysterious moon Titan. In Titan’s intensely cold environment, substances that normally cannot mix are able to combine. This finding expands our understanding of how chemistry may…
Researchers from MIT and collaborating institutions have uncovered exceptionally rare traces of “proto Earth,” the ancient precursor to our planet that existed about 4.5 billion years ago. This primitive world took shape before a massive collision forever changed its chemistry and gave rise to the Earth we inhabit today. The discovery, described on October 14…
Did these cool creatures pull off the ultimate power play by domesticating themselves? Eman Kazemi/Alamy Cat Tales: A historyJerry D. Moore, Thames & Hudson Over the course of a weekend, I once saw one of my family’s cats, a Byronic individual named Solomon, maul my sister under the guise of play, throw up on my bedsheets…
For the first time, scientists have observed a tidal disruption event (TDE) — a phenomenon in which a black hole rips apart a passing star — taking place outside the central region of a galaxy. This unusual discovery revealed powerful and rapidly changing radio waves, showing that supermassive black holes can exist and stay active…
