Science and Technology News

Australia’s “black summer” of devastating bushfires is finally coming to a close, but bitter arguments over how to tackle climate-fuelled disasters are raging on. …read more

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High wind delayed Northrop Grumman’s supply run to the International Space Station on Friday. …read more

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Scientists have discovered thousands of exoplanets, including dozens of terrestrial—or rocky—worlds in the habitable zones around their parent stars. A promising approach to search for signs of life on these worlds is to probe exoplanet atmospheres for “biosignatures”—quirks in chemical composition that are telltale signs of life. For example, thanks to photosynthesis, our atmosphere is nearly 21% oxygen, a much higher level than expected given Earth’s composition, orbit and parent star. …read more

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Every cell in our body has a computer-like control system that sends biological signals through thousands of circuits to monitor the cell’s needs and regulate its responses. …read more

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The Breakthrough Listen Initiative today released data from the most comprehensive survey yet of radio emissions from the plane of the Milky Way Galaxy and the region around its central black hole, and it is inviting the public to search the data for signals from intelligent civilizations. …read more

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Emerging technologies and new strategies are opening a revitalized era in the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence (SETI). New discovery capabilities, along with the rapidly-expanding number of known planets orbiting stars other than the Sun, are spurring innovative approaches by both government and private organizations, according to a panel of experts speaking at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in Seattle, Washington. …read more

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The molecular blueprint of life is stored in DNA within the genome. The digital revolution in biology, driven by DNA sequencing, enables scientists to read the genomes of the many microbes and multicellular organisms that populate our world. Today, DNA sequences of over 200,000 microbial genomes are deposited in digital genome databases and have exponentially increased the understanding of how DNA programs living systems. Using this incredible treasure trove of molecular building blocks, bioengineers learn to sequence and synthesize long DNA molecules and to breed useful microbes with the help of computers. …read more

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Wildlife need to move to survive: to find food, reproduce and escape wildfires and other hazards. Yet as soon as they leave protected areas like national forests or parks, they often wind up on a landscape that is very fragmented in terms of natural boundaries and human ones. …read more

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The low-pressure area that had once been Tropical Cyclone Francisco has been lingering in the Southern Indian Ocean since Feb. 6 when it weakened below tropical cyclone status. Since then, Francisco’s remnants moved into an area of warm waters and low wind shear allowing the low-pressure area to re-organize, consolidate and re-form. NASA’s Aqua satellite provided forecasters with a visible image of the zombie storm. …read more

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A new study led by the University of Hawai’i (UH) at Mānoa has helped refine understanding of the amount of hydrogen, helium and other elements present in violent outbursts from the Sun, and other types of solar “wind,” a stream of ionized atoms ejected from the Sun. …read more

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