Global warming is causing forest die-offs today, just as it did during the Permian-Triassic extinction event INA FASSBENDER/AFP via Getty Images After a sharp rise in atmospheric carbon dioxide levels 252 million years ago, the death of forests led to a long-term shift in Earth’s climate, with greenhouse conditions persisting for millions of years. Scientists…
Workers Have Died in Extreme Heat as OSHA Has Debated Protections The June heat dome contributed to the deaths of at least three people. They have died as federal regulators have weighed whether to finalize the nation’s first heat protection rule for workers By Ariel Wittenberg & E&E News A construction worker drinks water during…
A third of homes in Australia now have rooftop solar panels zstockphotos/iStockphoto/Getty Images Power grids around the world are increasingly under threat from cyberattacks because of the vulnerabilities of home solar installations. As distributed energy resources like rooftop solar become more prevalent, grids are increasingly reliant on smart inverters, which manage connections to local power…
A Thought Experiment Reveals the Fingerprints of Climate Change Came Early Climate change left its signature on the atmosphere early in the industrial revolution, reveals a thought experiment investigation By Ben Santer, Susan Solomon, David W. J. Thompson & Qiang Fu Ashley Cooper/Getty Images Physicists are fond of Gedankenexperimente—thought experiments that are difficult or impossible…
Bryan Johnson in Don’t Die: The Man Who Wants to Live Forever Netflix NetflixBryan Johnson is an unusual fellow by anyone’s standards. A millionaire venture capitalist and anti-ageing evangelist, he wants to push his lifespan and “healthspan” to the very limits by taking a daily cocktail of nearly 100 drugs and following a strict fitness…
As summer settles in and temperatures climb in the Northern Hemisphere, it’s impossible to forget just how much the sun affects life on our planet. It’s overwhelmingly the source of all our light and heat, providing just enough to maintain the delicate climatic balance we enjoy. That’s not a coincidence; life on Earth evolved under…
Energy drinks may perk you up, but high consumption could be damaging your teeth Shutterstock/francesco de marc Fortifying energy drinks with a calcium concoction could reduce the damage they do to teeth, but it isn’t clear whether this would affect their taste. Studies suggest that dental enamel, teeth’s protective outer covering, starts to dissolve when…
A twisting ribbon of hydrogen gas, many times hotter than the surface of the sun, has given scientists a tentative glimpse of the future of controlled nuclear fusion—a so-far theoretical source of relatively “clean” and abundant energy that would be effectively fueled by seawater. The ribbon was a plasma inside Germany’s Wendelstein 7-X, an advanced…
A nurse administering a flu shot Tess Crowley/Chicago Tribune/Getty Images On 26 June, the US Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) rolled back recommendations for flu shots containing a rare preservative falsely linked to autism. While the move is unlikely to affect vaccine access, it exemplifies the US government’s wider effort to upend the vaccine…
CLIMATEWIRE | The rollbacks in clean energy incentives in Republicans’ budget planswill put the brakes on U.S. greenhouse gas emissions reductions by throttling the growth of renewables and electric vehicles, analyses from four research firms showed. The extent of the Republican cuts is still being determined as the House takes up the Senate version of…
