A brush with kelp may help some killer whales clean up nicely. A group of killer whales (Orcinus orca ater) residing in the Salish Sea off the coast of British Columbia and Washington tear short stalks of bull kelp (Nereocystis luetkeana) with their teeth and use the pieces to groom one another, researchers report June…
AI Could Be Harnessed to Cut More Emissions Than It Creates Power-hungry AI and associated data centers could make the grid cleaner, eventually cutting more climate-change-causing emissions than they produce By Sara Schonhardt & E&E News John M Lund Photography Inc/Getty Images CLIMATEWIRE | Artificial intelligence could cut global climate pollution by up to 5.4…
Groups of killer whales exhibit strong social behaviour Shutterstock/Tory Kallman Orcas off the west coast of North America are grooming each other with kelp, in a rare sighting of marine mammals manufacturing and using tools. For several years, scientists have been keenly observing 80 endangered killer whales in the segment of the Pacific Ocean between…
Dealing with plastic waste is a real headache. But with a little help, bacteria can turn plastic into a painkiller. Genetically engineered Escherichia coli bacteria converted a broken-down plastic bottle into the active ingredient in pain medicines like Tylenol and Panadol, scientists report June 23 in Nature Chemistry. The approach could help reduce plastic pollution…
Illustration of TRAPPIST-1, a red-dwarf star with at least seven orbiting planets Mark Garlick/Alamy The search for atmospheres around the TRAPPIST-1 star system, one of the most promising locations for life elsewhere in the galaxy, might be even more difficult than astronomers first thought because of short-lived radiation blasts from the star. TRAPPIST-1, first discovered…
The Proba-3 spacecraft succeed at creating solar eclipses, kicking off a two-year mission to study the sun’s mysterious outer atmosphere, the corona.
Rachel Feltman: For Scientific American’s Science Quickly, I’m Rachel Feltman. H5N1 bird flu has been making a lot of headlines since last year, and for good reason: since March 2024 this subtype of bird flu has infected upwards of 1,000 herds of dairy cattle, raising concerns about the virus’s ability to pass between mammals. This…
The island of Helgoland plays an almost mythological role in the history of quantum mechanics Shutterstock/Markus Stappen I have been to more scientific conferences than I care to count, but a recent meeting held on the island of Helgoland to celebrate the centenary of quantum mechanics is one of the strangest – in a good…
Majestic First Images from Rubin Observatory Show Universe in More Detail Than Ever Before Astronomy fans can zoom in practically forever into the stunning first images from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory By Meghan Bartels edited by Lee Billings This image shows a small section of NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s total view of the…
The Trifid (upper-right) and Lagoon (centre) Nebulae as viewed with the Vera C. Rubin Observatory NSF-DOE Vera C. Rubin Observatory A pink-and-blue feast of stellar nurseries and a dense cluster of our neighbouring galaxies appear in the first glimpses of space from the Vera C. Rubin Observatory, which is set to transform our understanding of…
