Nature
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what it will take to reopen Three Mile Island safely
Microsoft announced on 20 September that it had struck a 20-year deal to purchase energy from a dormant nuclear power plant that will be brought back online. And not just any plant: Three Mile Island, the facility in Londonderry Township, Pennsylvania, that was the site of the worst-ever nuclear accident on US soil when a partial meltdown of one of…
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Scientists successfully ‘nuke asteroid’ — in a lab mock-up
Scientists and science-fiction writers have long asked whether a nuclear explosion could change the course of an asteroid headed for Earth (artist’s impression).Credit: Detlev Van Ravenswaay/Science Photo Library A blast of X-rays from a nuclear explosion should be enough to save Earth from an incoming asteroid, according to the results of a first-of-its-kind experiment. The findings, published1 on 23 September…
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how conquest and carnage have decimated landscapes worldwide
The Burning Earth: A History Sunil Amrith W. W. Norton (2024) In the 1620s, King Charles I of England commissioned a Dutch water engineer, Cornelius Vermuyden, to drain the flat fenlands of East Anglia, which he considered a desolate wasteland. Locals were outraged. These wetlands, writes historian Sunil Amrith in The Burning Earth, “sustained a richness of human and more-than-human…
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Wildfires are spreading fast in Canada — we must strengthen forests for the future
At the end of July, a wildfire driven by extreme winds blazed through Jasper National Park in Canada, forcing the evacuation of 25,000 citizens and visitors. For a month, more than 350 firefighters worked to control the fire, which grew to cover 33,000 hectares, making it the largest wildfire in the park in at least 100 years. Last year’s fire…
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how close are we to a vaccine — or a cure?
At a major HIV conference in July, scientists announced that a seventh person had been ‘cured’ of the disease. A 60-year-old man in Germany, after receiving a stem-cell transplant, has been free of the virus for almost six years, researchers reported. Seventh patient ‘cured’ of HIV: why scientists are excited The first such instance of eliminating HIV from a person…
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Mysterious Oropouche virus is spreading: what you should know
The Southern house mosquito (Culex quinquefasciatus; artificially coloured) can transmit Oropouche virus to humans, but the main vector is the midge Culicoides paraensis.Credit: Dennis Kunkel Microscopy/Science Photo Library Once confined to the Amazon region, the mysterious virus that causes the disease called Oropouche fever has been expanding its range since late 2023, spurring international concern. The virus has already caused…
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Can floating homes make coastal communities resilient to climate risks?
Sea levels are changing rapidly and could rise by 1 metre or more by 2100 without drastic reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions1. Low-lying coastal areas — home to nearly one billion people — are at high risk of erosion and flooding2. In July, for example, torrential rain, coupled with high tides and worsening erosion, inundated coastal areas in Lagos, flooding around…
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Winds of change: reshaping Tenerife’s energy economy
“When harvesting wind energy, keeping an eye on turbines is crucial, particularly on an island as windy and tropical as Tenerife. There’s a lot of humidity and salt from the sea, as well as sand from the Sahara Desert. These conditions test the turbines, which easily accumulate dirt or rust. This picture was taken in May at the headquarters of…
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‘Fire clouds’ from super-hot wildfires are on the rise as Earth warms
A suspected arson on 24 July ignited the Park Fire in California, which had exploded to more than 140,000 hectares less than three days later.Credit: Josh Edelson/AFP/Getty The monstrous fires that are now charring vast areas of western North America aren’t just colossal and fast-moving, they have also created their own thunderstorms — an example of exotic fire behaviour that…
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Mental maps help monkeys to navigate without sensory input
RESEARCH BRIEFINGS 29 July 2024 Cognitive maps are internal representations of the external environment. Evidence from monkeys shows that a cognitive map can support the mental navigation of an array of landmarks without sensory input. Source link
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