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Humans Cause Most Dramatic Climate Change in 3 Million Years

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glacier - pixabay

The level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today is likely higher than it has been anytime in the past 3 million years. This rise in the level of carbon dioxide, a greenhouse gas, could bring temperatures not seen over that entire timespan, according to new research. The study researchers used computer modeling to examine the changes in climate during the Quaternary period, which started around 2.59 million years ago and continues into today. Over that period, Earth has undergone a number of changes, but none so rapid as those seen today, said study author Matteo Willeit, a postdoctoral climate … Read more

SCIENCE: AI Is Creepy-Good at predicting Early Death

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ai - pixabay

Medical researchers have unlocked an unsettling ability in artificial intelligence (AI): predicting a person’s early death. Scientists recently trained an AI system to evaluate a decade of general health data submitted by more than half a million people in the United Kingdom. Then, they tasked the AI with predicting if individuals were at risk of dying prematurely — in other words, sooner than the average life expectancy — from chronic disease, they reported in a new study. The predictions of early death that were made by AI algorithms were “significantly more accurate” than predictions delivered by a model that did … Read more

SPACE: Ultima Thule is a Frankenstein Beast

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Ultima Thule

Less than three months after the New Horizons spacecraft zoomed past a distant, cold space rock, scientists are beginning to piece together the story of how that object, nicknamed Ultima Thule, came to be. In a series of scientific presentations held March 18 at the 50th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference, mission scientists shared new data about the space rock’s topography and composition, which is helping them to refine scenarios about how the object formed. “Every single observation that we planned worked as planned,” Alan Stern, principal investigator of the New Horizons mission and a planetary scientist at the Southwest Research … Read more

SPACE: Could Carbon Monoxide Be a Sign Of Life?

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Scientists hunting for signs of alien life shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss carbon monoxide (CO), a new study suggests. The substance is highly poisonous to people and most other animal life here on Earth because it latches firmly onto hemoglobin, preventing this blood protein from carrying vital oxygen in the required quantities. And the gas hasn’t typically rated as a promising “biosignature” that astrobiologists should target in the search for ET. Indeed, many researchers regard CO as an anti-biosignature, because it’s a readily available source of carbon and energy that life-forms should theoretically gobble up. So, finding lots of … Read more

Fans Think Star Butterfly is Bisexual After Last Episode

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Disney Channel cartoon Star vs. the Forces of Evil has just revealed that its main character is bisexual, according to fans. In the show’s March 17 episode “Ransomgram,” magical princess Star Butterfly sparked joy among queer fans by gazing lovingly at both thunder goddess Brunzetta and an alternate universe version of her friend Marco. The bisexual flag’s colours—pink, purple and blue—were displayed prominently in these clips, which showed Star giving Brunzetta the same look she aimed at Marco after describing him as a “buff and rugged” man who lives in the “abs dimension.” Full Story at Pink News

Star Trek: Gay Couple Not Over, Rapp Says

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The gay relationship in Star Trek: Discovery hasn’t reached the end of its story, according to actor Anthony Rapp. The star, who plays Lieutenant Paul Stamets, told attendees of Los Angeles TV festival Paleyfest on Sunday (March 24) that when it came to his character’s relationship with Wilson Cruz’s Dr Hugh Culber, “we’re still in the midst of it.” “Things are continuing to evolve. We’re grateful we’re given something authentic and complicated [by the writers],” he said, according to Deadline. Full Story: Josh Jackman, Pink News

SPACE: The Earth is Basically a Mini Sun

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Our sun is a lifeless, fiery ball of gas fueled by a nuclear inferno. Earth, meanwhile, is a rocky, layered planet covered by water and teeming with life. Nevertheless, the elemental composition of these two celestial bodies is surprisingly similar. The elements in the sun and Earth are pretty much the same, though Earth had less of the sun’s more volatile elements, which evaporate at high temperatures, a new analysis reveals. This suggests that Earth formed from material in the solar nebula — the cloud of dust and gas that shaped the sun — but volatile elements such as helium, … Read more

STUDY: 1 Million People = 1 Vengeful God

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“For we know Him who said, ‘And I will execute great vengeance upon them with furious rebukes; and they shall know that I am the Lord, when I shall lay my vengeance upon them.’” Ezekiel 25:17. The God depicted in the Old Testament may sometimes seem wrathful. And in that, he’s not alone; supernatural forces that punish evil play a central role in many modern religions. But which came first: complex societies or the belief in a punishing god? A new study suggests that the formation of complex societies came first and that the beliefs in such gods helped unite … Read more

SPACE: Astronomers Identify “Chimneys” in the Galactic Center

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Milky Way Chimneys

The supermassive black hole at the center of our galaxy is a bit like the hearth at the center of a cozy pub. It’s a bright, warm gathering place around which all the quotidian life of the Milky Way swirls — and, according to a new study published today (Mar. 20) in the journal Nature, it might even have a chimney or two. In a recent study of the X-ray emissions seething out of the Milky Way’s galactic center, researchers noticed two unusual structures that have never been described before. Twin columns of superhot, X-ray-emitting plasma appeared to be billowing … Read more

SPACE: There’s a Hairy Blue Spider on Mars (Sort Of)

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David Bowie sang about his sci-fi persona Ziggy Stardust performing with the Spiders from Mars, and now it turns out there’s a “spider” on Mars after all. An image captured by a European Space Agency (ESA) orbiter recently showed what appears to be a very hairy, blue spider extending its “legs” across the Martian landscape. But in reality, the so-called spider is a sprawling pattern left behind on a ridge by a frenzy of dust devils, when hundreds or even thousands of whirling tornadoes formed in the area, ESA representatives said yesterday (March 14) in a statement The ESA-Roscosmos ExoMars … Read more