Someday, shadows and light could team up to provide power. A new device exploits the contrast between bright spots and shade to create a current that can power small electronics. “We can harvest energy anywhere on Earth, not just open spaces,” says Swee Ching Tan, a materials scientist at the National University of Singapore. Tan […] More
Tree StoryValerie TrouetJohns Hopkins Univ., $27 Once you look at trees through the eyes of a dendrochronologist, you never quite see the leafy wonders the same way again. Peel away the hard, rough bark and there is a living document, history recorded in rings of wood cells. Each tree ring pattern of growth is unique, […] More
For some corals, going bright may be part of their fight against bleaching. Higher-than-normal ocean temperatures can cause some corals to bleach and lose the beneficial algae that dwell within their cells. Those algae help feed the corals and give them their color, so bleached corals can become bone white, and may struggle to survive […] More
Increasingly powerful tropical cyclones in the North Pacific Ocean may be fueling a powerful north-flowing ocean current, helping to boost the amount of heat it ferries to northern latitudes. By enhancing the speed of some ocean whirlpools called eddies, and suppressing the spin of others, the passing storms may be accelerating the heat-carrying Kuroshio Current […] More
As many as 220 million people around the world may be at risk of drinking arsenic-contaminated groundwater, a new study finds. Combining climate, environmental and geologic data with machine learning, researchers made a global map, described in the May 22 Science, that predicts where groundwater arsenic concentrations are likeliest to exceed 10 micrograms per liter, […] More
Stay-at-home orders haven’t just curbed the spread of COVID-19. They’ve briefly cleared the air. Daily global carbon dioxide emissions dropped 17 percent, from about 100 million metric tons to about 83 million metric tons, in early April compared with average daily emissions in 2019, researchers report May 19 in Nature Climate Change. Among other changes, […] More
Physicists have harnessed the aloofness of quantum particles to create a new type of crystal. Some particles shun one another because they are forbidden to take on the same quantum state as their neighbors. Atoms can be so reluctant to overlap that they form a crystal-like arrangement even when they aren’t exerting any forces on […] More
Climate change is increasingly becoming part of everyday conversations. For those who want to join the discussions, there is no shortage of books that give detailed background and context on the subject. The question is, which to read? Science News staff members have reviewed several books published this year to guide you to which ones […] More
