Author: houssem23
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The second law of thermodynamics underlies nearly everything. But is it inviolable?
Extreme Climate Survey Science News is collecting reader questions about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? Most of those laws are pretty well understood, at least by the experts who study and use them. But one…
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A next-gen pain drug shows promise, but chronic sufferers need more options
Extreme Climate Survey Science News is collecting reader questions about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? As the years passed, Hodge had more frequent and more severe bouts of back pain. Any small movement could be…
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The historic ‘Wow!’ signal may finally have a source. Sorry, it’s not aliens
One of the most compelling potential signs of extraterrestrial communication might have an astrophysical explanation. Called the “Wow!” signal, the bright burst of radio waves has defied our understanding since its discovery in the 1970s. Now, scientists using archived data from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico suggest a new possible source for the signal:…
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Mantle waves buoy continents upward and bedeck them with diamonds
For billions of years, the continents have cruised across Earth’s surface like tectonic vessels, but they have not survived unscathed. Waves in the underlying layer known as the mantle can scour off the keels of continents, buoying their surfaces upward to form prominent landforms far from any active plate boundaries, researchers propose in the Aug.…
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Ancient DNA unveils a previously unknown line of Neandertals
Neandertals traveled at least two evolutionary paths on their way to extinction around 40,000 years ago, a new study suggests. Whether classified as a separate species or a variant of Homo sapiens, Neandertals have typically been viewed as a genetically consistent population. But an adult male’s partial skeleton discovered in France contains genetic clues to…
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2 spacecraft caught the waves that might heat and accelerate the solar wind
A lucky alignment of two sun-studying spacecraft may have finally solved a decades-old solar mystery. Data from NASA’s Parker Solar Probe and the European Space Agency’s Solar Orbiter suggest that plasma waves known as Alfvén waves inject energy into the solar wind as it leaves the sun’s outer atmosphere, potentially explaining why the solar wind…
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In an epic cosmology clash, rival scientists begin to find common ground
The biggest clash in cosmology might be inching closer to resolution, thanks to the James Webb Space Telescope. Scientists disagree over the universe’s expansion rate, known as the Hubble constant. There are two main methods for measuring it — one based on exploding stars called supernovas and the other on the universe’s oldest light, the…
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A quantum computer corrected its own errors, improving its calculations
For the first time, a quantum computer has improved its results by repeatedly fixing its own mistakes midcalculation with a technique called quantum error correction. Scientists have long known that quantum computers need error correction to meet their potential to solve problems that stump standard, “classical” computers (SN: 6/22/20). Quantum computers calculate with quantum bits, or qubits, which…
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California droughts may help valley fever spread
Long dry spells can give a lethal fungal disease a lift. While California droughts can temporarily keep cases of valley fever — a sometimes deadly illness caused by Coccidioides fungi — relatively low, cases skyrocket when rain clouds move back in, researchers report in the October Lancet Regional Health — Americas. Valley fever is on…
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Your medications can make it harder for you to beat the heat
Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? For some, chronic health conditions can add an extra one-two punch when it comes to regulating body temperatures. Not…