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Categories: Environmental: Water, Space: Cosmology
Published Rooting out how plants control nitrogen use
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Nitrogen is such a crucial nutrient for plants that vast quantities of nitrogen-containing fertilizers are spread on farmlands worldwide. However, excess nitrogen in the soil and in drainage run-off into lakes and rivers causes serious ecological imbalances. A recent study has uncovered the regulatory mechanisms at work when plants utilize nitrogenous fertilizers in their roots, a positive step in the quest to generate crops that require less fertilizer while still producing the yields needed to feed the world.
Published Webb reveals never-before-seen details in Cassiopeia A
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The explosion of a star is a dramatic event, but the remains the star leaves behind can be even more dramatic. A new mid-infrared image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope provides one stunning example. It shows the supernova remnant Cassiopeia A (Cas A), created by a stellar explosion seen from Earth 340 years ago. Cas A is the youngest known remnant from an exploding, massive star in our galaxy, which makes it a unique opportunity to learn more about how such supernovae occur.
Published How to see the invisible: Using the dark matter distribution to test our cosmological model
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Astrophysicists have measured a value for the 'clumpiness' of the universe's dark matter (known to cosmologists as 'S8') of 0.776, which does not align with the value derived from the Cosmic Microwave Background, which dates back to the universe's origins. This has intriguing implications for the standard cosmological model.
Published Scientists discover a way Earth's atmosphere cleans itself
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Human activities emit many kinds of pollutants into the air, and without a molecule called hydroxide (OH), many of these pollutants would keep aggregating in the atmosphere.
Published Fully recyclable printed electronics ditch toxic chemicals for water
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Engineers have produced fully recyclable printed electronics that replace the use of chemicals with water in the fabrication process. By bypassing the need for hazardous chemicals, the demonstration points down a path industry could follow to reduce its environmental footprint and human health risks.
Published Hubble sees possible runaway black hole creating a trail of stars
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source There's an invisible monster on the loose, barreling through intergalactic space so fast that if it were in our solar system, it could travel from Earth to the Moon in 14 minutes. This supermassive black hole, weighing as much as 20 million Suns, has left behind a never-before-seen 200,000-light-year-long 'contrail' of newborn stars, twice the diameter of our Milky Way galaxy. It's likely the result of a rare, bizarre game of galactic billiards among three massive black holes.
Published New pesticide exposure test developed to protect inexperienced cannabis farmers
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Chemists created a more reliable, robust and efficient way to monitor pesticide exposure and help protect the health and safety of agricultural workers, especially for emerging sectors like the cannabis industry.
Published Hubble unexpectedly finds double quasar in distant universe
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The early universe was a rambunctious place where galaxies often bumped into each other and even merged together. Using NASA's Hubble Space Telescope and other space and ground-based observatories, astronomers investigating these developments have made an unexpected and rare discovery: a pair of gravitationally bound quasars, both blazing away inside two merging galaxies. They existed when the universe was just 3 billion years old.
Published Underground water could be the solution to green heating and cooling
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source About 12% of the total global energy demand comes from heating and cooling homes and businesses. A new study suggests that using underground water to maintain comfortable temperatures could reduce consumption of natural gas and electricity in this sector by 40% in the United States. The approach, called aquifer thermal energy storage (ATES), could also help prevent blackouts caused by high power demand during extreme weather events.
Published Civil engineers use public satellite images to study why the Jagersfontein dam failed
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Study by civil engineers finds that the history of the Jagersfontein dam deviates from best engineering practice.
Published Preventing urban flooding in the face of climate change
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Planners have come up with many innovative ways to prevent flooding caused by heavy downpours -- from planting rain gardens to installing green roofs. But in many cases, nothing works quite as well as a simple hole in the ground -- a detention basin.
Published A new measurement could change our understanding of the Universe
(via sciencedaily.com) When it comes to measuring how fast the Universe is expanding, the result depends on which side of the Universe you start from. A recent study has calibrated the best cosmic yardsticks to unprecedented accuracy, shedding new light on what's known as the Hubble tension.
Published Ocean warming intensifies viral outbreaks within corals
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A groundbreaking three-year study in the South Pacific has found evidence that ocean warming can trigger outbreaks of 'dinoflagellate-infecting RNA viruses' that attack symbiotic algae inside corals. Coral reef viruses have gained greater attention since being implicated in 2021 as a possible cause of stony coral tissue loss disease that has decimated Florida and Caribbean reefs for almost a decade.
Published Galaxy clusters yield new evidence for standard model of cosmology
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source A new study probing the structure and evolution of galaxy clusters shows good agreement with the predictions of standard cosmological models.
Published Path to net-zero carbon capture and storage may lead to ocean
(via sciencedaily.com) Engineering researchers have developed a novel way to capture carbon dioxide from the air and store it in the 'infinite sink' of the ocean. The approach uses an innovative copper-containing polymeric filter and essentially converts CO2 into sodium bicarbonate (aka baking soda) that can be released harmlessly into the ocean. This new hybrid material, or filter, is called DeCarbonHIX (i.e., decarbonization through hybrid ion exchange material). The research has demonstrated a 300 percent increase in the amount of carbon captured compared with existing direct air capture methods.
Published Scientists observe flattest explosion ever seen in space
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Astronomers have observed an explosion 180 million light years away which challenges our current understanding of explosions in space, that appeared much flatter than ever thought possible.
Published 'Taffy galaxies' collide, leave behind bridge of star-forming material
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source The Gemini North telescope, one half of the International Gemini Observatory, operated by NSF's NOIRLab, captured a dazzling image of UGC 12914 and UGC 12915, which are nicknamed the Taffy Galaxies. Their twisted shape is the result of a head-on collision that occurred about 25 million years prior to their appearance in the image. A bridge of highly turbulent gas devoid of significant star formation spans the gap between the two galaxies.
Published Astronomers witness the birth of a very distant cluster of galaxies from the early Universe
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Astronomers have discovered a large reservoir of hot gas in the still-forming galaxy cluster around the Spiderweb galaxy -- the most distant detection of such hot gas yet. Galaxy clusters are some of the largest objects known in the Universe and this result further reveals just how early these structures begin to form.
Published Deep ocean currents around Antarctica headed for collapse, study finds
(via sciencedaily.com) Antarctic circulation could slow by more than 40 per cent over the next three decades, with significant implications for the oceans and the climate.
Published How cosmic winds transform galactic environments
(via sciencedaily.com) Original source Much like how wind plays a key role in life on Earth by sweeping seeds, pollen and more from one place to another, galactic winds -- high-powered streams of charged particles and gases -- can change the chemical make-up of the host galaxies they form in, simply by blowing in a specific direction.