Aurelia Butler

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    in Heart

    Climate change could double U.S. temperature-linked deaths by mid-century

    Heat-related deaths in the United States are on the rise. But how bad will it be 20, 30 or 40 years from now? Scientists now have a clue.

    Currently, an estimated 8,000-plus deaths in the United States every year are associated with extreme temperatures, both hot and cold. Within the next few decades, that number could double or even triple, largely due to heat, researchers report September 20 in JAMA Network Open.

    “As the climate warms, the frequency, duration and intensity of heat waves is increasing. Understanding how this will impact our health is crucial,” Sameed Khatana, a cardiologist at the University of Pennsylvania, says. Our bodies are capable of bearing sweltering temperatures, but as temperatures rise, this ability is pushed to its limit (SN: 6/21/24). More

  • 100 Shares189 Views

    in Space & Astronomy

    A neutrino mass mismatch could shake cosmology’s foundations

    As the youthful universe congealed under the pull of gravity, matter knotted itself into galaxies, galaxy clusters and filaments, weaving a dazzlingly intricate cosmic web. This web’s structure is thanks, in part, to the handiwork of neutrinos — lightweight, subatomic particles that surge through the cosmos in unimaginable numbers.

    Because they streak about at high speeds and rarely interact with other matter, the particles weren’t easily caught in the gravitational molasses of that latticework. So their presence swept away the cobwebs, hindering the formation of fine details in this cosmic filigree. More

  • 100 Shares99 Views

    in Heart

    Earth’s ancient ‘greenhouse’ conditions were hotter than thought

    Over the last 485 million years, Earth has been both a lot colder and a lot hotter than once thought.

    A new temperature timeline that combines geologic data with computational simulations reveals a rich, detailed and dramatic picture of the ebb and flow of icehouse and greenhouse conditions on Earth throughout this span of time, which includes most of the Phanerozoic Eon. The timeline shows Earth’s average temperature dropping to as low as 11° Celsius and rising to as high as 36° C, researchers report in the Sept. 20 Science. More

  • 163 Shares169 Views

    in Space & Astronomy

    How to spot tiny black holes that might pass through the solar system 

    Black holes about the size of a hydrogen atom could be careening through the solar system unnoticed. But their days of stealth may be numbered.

    Two teams of researchers propose methods to search for these tiny, hypothetical objects, which would have the mass of an asteroid. Because they would have formed in the universe’s infancy, they are known as primordial black holes.

    If they exist, primordial black holes in this mass range could explain some or all of the universe’s dark matter (SN: 8/7/16). That unknown invisible source of mass exerts gravitational influence on galaxies and, perplexingly, seems to outweigh normal matter by about 6 to 1. Extensive searches for subatomic particles that could explain dark matter have come up empty, putting new focus on primordial black holes (SN: 8/26/24).  More

  • 88 Shares179 Views

    in Heart

    Can solar farms and crop farms coexist?

    Transcript

    James McCall: Solar production in the US really started to pick up around 2012. As solar really became mainstream, there was a lot more concerns of land use changes.

    Ravi Sujith: If you look at the type of land that’s been converted for solar installations, over 60 percent of those landscapes are converted croplands.

    Chong Seok-Choi: They both require flat areas with a lot of sun, and that’s close to transmission infrastructures. So in this context, it is important for us to figure out how to combine farming and solar power production so that both can exist in harmony. More

  • 125 Shares99 Views

    in Heart

    Mega El Niños kicked off the world’s worst mass extinction

    A barrage of intense, wild swings in climate conditions may have fueled the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history. A re-creation of how ancient sea surface temperatures, ocean and atmosphere circulation, and landmasses interacted revealed an Earth plagued by nearly decade-long stints of droughts, wildfires and flooding.

    Researchers knew that a spike in global temperatures — triggered by gas emissions from millions of years of enormous volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia — was the likely culprit behind a mass extinction roughly 252 million years ago (SN: 8/28/15). But it was the resulting catastrophic “mega El Niños” that whiplashed ecosystems, ultimately wiping out some 90 percent of all ocean species and 75 percent of those on land, researchers report in the Sept. 13 Science. More

  • 125 Shares119 Views

    in Heart

    How much is climate change to blame for extreme weather?

    This video was supported by funding from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute.

    TRANSCRIPT

    Maria Temming: In 2021, a historic heat wave baked the Pacific Northwest killing hundreds of people and fueling wildfires. Researchers later reported that human-caused climate change made this heat wave at least 150 times more likely.

    But how do scientists figure out how much climate change is to blame for a specific weather event?

    Researchers use a variety of techniques for this work, which is called extreme event attribution. One method compares the world we have today–which has warmed 1.2 degrees Celsius since the Industrial Revolution –with what the world would look like without climate change. Researchers estimate what that second world would look like based on historic trends in weather data and climate models. More

  • 125 Shares129 Views

    in Physics

    A quantum computer corrected its own errors, improving its calculations 

    For the first time, a quantum computer has improved its results by repeatedly fixing its own mistakes midcalculation with a technique called quantum error correction.

    Scientists have long known that quantum computers need error correction to meet their potential to solve problems that stump standard, “classical” computers (SN: 6/22/20). Quantum computers calculate with quantum bits, or qubits, which are subject to quantum physics but suffer from jitters that result in mistakes. 

    In quantum error correction, multiple faulty qubits are combined to make reliable qubits, called logical qubits, which are then used to perform the calculation. Previous efforts found that error correction made calculations worse, rather than better, or detected errors but didn’t actually fix them (SN: 10/4/21). More