Fault lines: a section of the Haiyuan fault that was ruptured by the 1920 earthquake. (Courtesy: Liu-Zeng Jing) On 16 December 1920 at about 7 p.m. local time, a magnitude-7.9 earthquake ripped along 240 km of fault in north-central China, razing two cities to the ground and severely damaging five others. It was one of
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A girl aged nine years old died after undergoing an asthma attack and has been considered as the first individual in the UK who died due to air pollution. Air pollution has been listed as the cause of death of Ella Adoo-Kissi-Debrah, a UK resident living near Lewisham’s South Circular Road in southeastern London. She expired last
A Canadian astronaut will take part in a lunar mission for the first time in 2023, as part of the NASA-led Artemis project, the minister for innovation, science and industry announced Wednesday. “I am proud to announce another first: Canada will join the US on the first crewed mission to the Moon since the Apollo
It’s a typical December scenario: The family trip to the tree lot. The Fraser Fir tied to the roof of the car. Dad under the branches screwing the stand to the trunk. And the inevitable wobbling of the 7-foot holiday embellishment as it threatens to topple over and onto the floor, scattering needles everywhere. When
An Amazon.com Inc worker prepares an order in which the buyer asked for an item to be gift wrapped at a fulfillment center in Shakopee, Minnesota, U.S., November 12, 2020. Amazon.com Inc | Reuters Amazon is pushing for front-line employees to get priority access to the Covid-19 vaccine. Dave Clark, Amazon’s senior vice president of
A cancer cell (green; artificially coloured) and an immune cell called a T cell. Obesity puts a strain on the body’s antitumour immune brigade. Credit: Steve Gschmeissner/SPL Cancer 16 December 2020 Changes triggered by obesity help to give tumour cells the upper hand in the struggle for nutrients. Excess weight can increase the risk of
SAN FRANCISCO — AST & Science LLC announced plans Dec. 16 to become a publicly traded company through a special purpose acquisition company. In what is becoming a trend in the industry, AST & Science is merging its business with New Providence Acquisition Corp. as it prepares to trade on the Nasdaq exchange in the
Institutional Investor Hall of Famer Richard Bernstein sees a risky market dynamic. He’s questioning why so many investors prefer momentum names in technology when the economy is getting ready to boom. “The whole innovation disruption thing is becoming a sucker’s bet,” the Richard Bernstein Advisors CEO and CIO told CNBC’s “Trading Nation” on Wednesday. “Fundamentals
Vortex flow: still from a simulation video showing how air from a sneeze can envelope a face shield. (Courtesy: Fujio Akagi/Isao Haraga/Shin-ichi Inage/Kozaburo Akiyoshi) Vortex rings created when a person sneezes can transport virus particles to the noses of people wearing face shields – according to fluid dynamics simulations done by Fujio Akagi and colleagues
The burning of Madagascar forests intensified this year since the pandemic lockdown started to clear forests to grow food crops and fell trees for firewood. Hunting also intensified as the critically-endangered Madagascar lemur became food. An article from National Geographic describes how the world is losing the critically-endangered Madagascar lemur in the face of the pandemic lockdown.
Facebook Chairman and CEO Mark Zuckerberg testifies at a House Financial Services Committee hearing in Washington, U.S., October 23, 2019. Erin Scott | Reuters Facebook ran ads and published a new website Wednesday decrying Apple over a privacy change that it claims will “[threaten] the personalized ads that millions of small businesses rely on to
1. Rollison, D. E., Viarisio, D., Amorrortu, R. P., Gheit, T. & Tommasino, M. An emerging issue in oncogenic virology: the role of beta human papillomavirus types in the development of cutaneous squamous cell carcinoma. J. Virol. 93, e01003-18 (2019). CAS Article Google Scholar 2. Strickley, J. D. et al. Immunity to commensal papillomaviruses protects
SAN FRANCISCO – Now that it’s spun out of Analytical Graphics Inc., Comspoc operates more like a startup focused on space situational awareness, space domain awareness and space traffic coordination and management than a corporate business unit, Travis Langster, Comspoc vice president and general manager, told SpaceNews. “We have the ability to move at a
Growing up in North Richmond, California, Denny Khamphanthong didn’t think much of the siren that wailed once a month at 11 a.m. every first Wednesday. The alarm is a test of the community’s emergency warning system, which has alerted residents to numerous incidents over the years at the nearby Chevron oil refinery. One accident there
Peter Endig | AFP | Getty Images Amazon is encouraging front-line employees in California to get weekly Covid-19 tests, as the state rolls out new emergency workplace protections for the coronavirus. “In accordance with Cal/OSHA’s new Covid-19 emergency regulations, we encourage all Amazon employees to get tested for Covid-19 at least once a week starting
Walensky is a prominent HIV/AIDS researcher, with expertise in virus testing and prevention. Excitement over Biden’s pick to lead US health agency A renowned HIV/AIDS researcher, Rochelle Walensky, will become the head of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) after Joe Biden takes over as president — and scientists are thrilled. “Collectively,
SAN FRANCISCO – Satellite data could play a role in monitoring, reporting and verifying compliance with emissions trading systems also known as cap and trade, Stephanie La Hoz Theuer, a member of the International Carbon Action Partnership (ICAP) Secretariat, said at the virtual American Geophysical Union fall meeting. ICAP is an international forum based in
American shale producers are likely being kept up at night over what could be in store for their industry over the next four years, if pledges made by some lawmakers in Congress and President-elect Joe Biden are anything to go by. U.S. Energy Secretary Dan Brouillette seems to think so. Asked by CNBC’s Hadley Gamble
Taken from the December 2020 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. Intuition is a funny thing. Loosely defined as the ability to know something without recourse to “conscious reasoning”, it is the notion that we can rely on “gut instinct” or
A gorilla named Bua Noi has been living in Thailand since 1988 and spent her life in an enclosure in Pata Zoo, a facility located above a mall in Bangkok through the help of the singer Cher. The singer, Cher recently wrote to Thailand’s environment minister, Varawut Silpa-Archa, wherein she expressed her concerns over the
Russia on Monday successfully test-launched its heavy lift Angara A5 space rocket for the second time, the country’s military and space officials said. The rocket lifted off Monday morning from the Plesetsk cosmodrome in northwest Russia. “It flies, damn it!” Dmitry Rogozin, head of Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, tweeted after the launch. Еще больше видео!
The Mars InSight lander is equipped with a domed seismometer (left) and a probe for measuring heat flow (right).Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech NASA’s InSight mission has finally peered inside Mars — and discovered that the planet’s crust might be made of three layers. This is the first time scientists have directly probed the inside of a planet
A monorail train displaying Google signage moves past a billboard advertising Apple iPhone security during the 2019 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S., on Monday, Jan. 7, 2019. Bloomberg | Bloomberg | Getty Images Apple is making a huge change to settings on users’ iPhones in the name of privacy, and it
WASHINGTON — Small launch vehicle developer Astra Space fell just short of reaching orbit on its second launch attempt Dec. 15, but the company is “beyond ecstatic” with the performance of the rocket. Astra’s Rocket 3.2 vehicle lifted off from Pacific Spaceport Complex – Alaska at 3:55 p.m. Eastern. The company did not provide a
As sustainability professionals, we’ve been talking for years about how consumers are increasingly influenced by values and sustainability. We search the data for proof points that people would prefer to buy from a more sustainable company. Indeed, even when we find the proof points, we also find a large action gap between what people say and
The experimental measurement of the fine-structure constant. © Pierre Cladé, Saïda Guellati-Khélifa and Tatsumi Aoyama The most precise measurement ever of the fine-structure constant has placed new constraints on theories that predict the existence of “dark sector” particles. The new value, which researchers in France measured using clouds of cold rubidium atoms, provides a stringent
Scientists have found the genetic basis of ornaments in male swordtail fishes. Males of many species have striking and beautiful ornamentation, which are, aside from helping find female mates, otherwise impractical. Scientists mapped these ornaments’ genetic bases in fish. Nature has innumerable examples of ornaments from mostly the males of various species. Such examples include peacock tail feathers, male rhinoceros beetle
You can now play a video game called Quantum Odyssey, which teaches all you need to rigorously understand quantum computation. Understanding the logic (set of rules, laws) followed by the building blocks of our Universe is no trivial matter – even more, to use this very logic and create meaningful computation, such as solving a
Nature’s 10 is this journal’s annual list of ten people who helped to shape science in a given year. They might have been involved in making noteworthy discoveries, brought attention to crucial issues or gained notoriety for controversial actions. It is explicitly not an award or a ranking. Instead, it’s a way to highlight key
UK Science Minister Amanda Solloway remembers Peake’s Dec. 15, 2015 mission to the ISS as a turning point for British space exploration. Five years ago today, Maj. Tim Peake stepped off a gangway into a Soyuz rocket, fastened his seat belt and took to the skies from a remote desert in Kazakhstan. As he did
A range of innovations and ideas are changing the way construction projects are carried out. Jung Getty | Moment | Getty Images Infrastructure giant Balfour Beatty is to expand its deployment of technology that can manage power use at its sites and, it’s hoped, cut carbon emissions in the process. The system, dubbed EcoNet, has
European Executive Vice-President Margrethe Vestager. JOHANNA GERON | AFP | Getty Images LONDON — Tech giants could soon face hefty fines and stricter controls over their behavior as part of new wide-sweeping rules in the European Union. The European Commission, the executive arm of the EU, on Tuesday presented two new pieces of legislation that
The Hayabusa2 capsule that landed in the desert in South Australia.Credit: AP/Shutterstock Japan’s mission to bring asteroid dust back to Earth has succeeded. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA) confirmed on 14 December that a capsule from spacecraft Hayabusa2, which landed in the Australian desert last week, contained black grains from asteroid Ryugu. “The confirmation
Safe, but separate: The author’s daughter taking an exam at home during distance learning. (Courtesy: Amara Graps) Since 10 March 2020, when Latvia went into lockdown, my 11-year-old daughter Vija has attended only 16 in-school sessions. It’s an understatement to say that my work as a space entrepreneur and senior scientist at the Planetary Science
A team of scientists found 20 new species and recorded 1,204 plants and animals in the misty forests of Zongo Valley Bolivia in an expedition done in March 2017. The expedition was organized by an international conservation organization, Conservation International, and was called the Rapid Assessment Program of the organizations. [embedded content] Trond Larsen, the
WASHINGTON — NASA has selected three astronauts for a future SpaceX commercial crew mission to the International Space Station as it leaves open the possibility of exchanging seats with Russia. NASA and the European Space Agency jointly announced Dec. 14 they had assigned NASA astronauts Raja Chari and Tom Marshburn and ESA astronaut Matthias Maurer
Most environmentally oriented eyes on the Biden administration are focused — appropriately — on mitigating climate change, creating jobs and transitioning to a clean energy future. Count me among them. So, I’m not holding out hope for a federal circular economy policy any time soon (I’ll let the EU take the lead on that front).
Apple Chief Executive Tim Cook on Saturday called on governments and businesses to implement stronger climate targets starting next year, during remarks at the United Nations’ Climate Ambition Summit. “We call on companies and governments around the world to do all we can to make 2021 the year we turn the corner for good,” Cook
Pedestrians cross a street decorated with Christmas lights in Orchard road shopping district in Singapore on December 8, 2020. Roslan Rahman | AFP via Getty Images SINGAPORE — The last three months of the year are typically synonymous with malls and stores teeming with customers who stand in long, snaking queues to pay for their
Making ready for the first Artemis mission around the Moon and back, the space station is getting a new doorway to space, and how to know when and where you can look up to spot the station … a few of the stories to tell you about – This Week at NASA! Download Link: https://images.nasa.gov/details-Making%20Ready%20for%20the%20First%20Artemis%20Mission%20Around%20the%20Moon%20on%20This%20Week%20@NASA%20%E2%80%93%20November%2027,%202020
Just inside France’s border with Germany, enclosed between the Rhine River and the Grand Canal of Alsace, lies an island that is becoming a haven for biodiversity. The site, to the north of Basel, Switzerland, is being made into a conservation area in a joint project between the National Nature Reserve of the Petite Camargue
SAN FRANCISCO — BAE Systems is developing miniature spectrometers to provide high-resolution weather data from a constellation of satellites in low Earth orbit. The company is drawing on experience gained building the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS) instrument to develop miniature sensors with applications for weather and climate monitoring. In a six-month $376,000 study completed in
“More of the same, and a lot of it,” says CFRA Research energy analyst Stewart Glickman of a newly unveiled plan from Exxon Mobil to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions. But Glickman, and others analysts even more critical of Exxon, say there is a logic and consistency to the oil giant’s position that was reiterated
Google CEO Sundar Pichai speaks on stage during the annual Google I/O developers conference in Mountain View, California, May 8, 2018. Stephen Lam | Reuters Google is delaying employees’ return to offices to September 1, and will expect employees to report to work in-person for at least three days a week thereafter, according to an
Taken from the December 2020 issue of Physics World. Members of the Institute of Physics can enjoy the full issue via the Physics World app. Inside view Kellie Gerardi returning from a successful microgravity research flight. (CC BY 4.0 Kellie Gerardi) When the Apollo 11 astronauts landed on the Moon in 1969 the whole world
Human activities are damaging our marine environment, and ocean pollution threatens human health, a study revealed. The research was conducted by an international research team that published their results in the journal Annals of Global Health. They wrote about the widespread damage inflicted upon the oceans by the actions of humans, which in turn also cause damage to human health. The researchers
Living cells can harbour protein aggregates with the properties of soft glasses. Credit: EYE OF SCIENCE/SPL Biophysics 14 December 2020 Odd protein droplets that behave like liquids make a smooth shift to having the properties of a solid. Some living cells contain protein clusters that behave like liquid droplets. But these droplets gradually stiffen with
Under the new 10-year agreement, the Space Enterprise Consortium, known as SpEC, is projected to award up to $12 billion worth of projects. WASHINGTON — NSTXL, a company that helps commercial businesses compete for government contracts, has been selected to manage the U.S. Space Force’s Space Enterprise Consortium for the next 10 years. Based in