Category: Science and Nature

A dropped bag of Cheetos dramatically disturbed a delicate cave ecosystem in Carlsbad Caverns National Park, New Mexico, according to a Facebook post from park officials on  September 6. This cavern is almost entirely cut off from the outside world so introducing anything alien can be catastrophic. “The cave has 90 to 100 percent humidity so

When Kamie Loeser took over as the director of water and resource conservation in Butte County, in Northern California, she was immediately tasked with navigating a once-in-a-lifetime drought. It was October 2021. California had just seen its second-driest year on record, and Lake Oroville, a major reservoir in Butte County, was at its lowest level

Wesley L. Harris’s life is a testament to the power of mentorship and determination. Harris, born in 1941 in Richmond, Virginia, grew up during the tumultuous years of the Civil Rights Movement and faced an environment fraught with challenges. His parents, both of whom only had a third-grade education, walked to Richmond from rural Virginia

Four decades after the first IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation (ICRA) in Atlanta, robotics is bigger than ever. Next week in Rotterdam is the IEEE ICRA@40 conference, “a celebration of 40 years of pioneering research and technological advancements in robotics and automation.” There’s an ICRA every year, of course. Arguably the largest robotics

Static electricity occurs in part due to nanoscale imperfections on object surfaces. Credit: Deposit Photos The first documentation of static electricity dates back to 600 BCE. Even after 2,600 years’ worth of tiny shocks, however, researchers couldn’t fully explain how rubbing two objects together causes it. But according to a team at Northwestern University, the

A possible painting of the dicynodont made by the San in the early 1800s. Credit: Julien Benoit, CC-BY 4.0 Somewhere in the Koesberg Mountains of South Africa, located deep in the arid Karoo region north-east of Cape Town, there’s an exquisite cave painting of a curious creature. The creature, known as the “Horned Serpent,” bears

Princeton engineers created a tougher cement-based material by mimicking the structure of human bone. The material uses tubes to control crack propagation, enhancing damage resistance without adding external materials. This innovation could lead to stronger construction materials for civil infrastructure. Engineers at Princeton have created a cement-based material…  » …

Recent research highlights the potential of microRNAs as cost-effective and less invasive biomarkers for early diagnosis and prognosis of Alzheimer’s disease. Studies by teams from Boston University and other institutions demonstrate that blood-based microRNAs can predict the progression from mild cognitive impairment to dementia and could align with existing Alzheimer’s biomarkers for earlier intervention…  » …

A picture may be worth a thousand words, but how many numbers is a word worth? The question may sound silly, but it happens to be the foundation that underlies large language models, or LLMs — and through them, many modern applications of artificial intelligence. Every LLM has its own answer. In Meta’s open-source Llama

Women. They are much tougher than many give them credit for. History has known some incredibly tough and unbelievably valiant women. Just think of the names that come to mind: Joan of Arc, Amelia Earhart, Rosa Parks, and Florence Nightingale. The list goes on, too, with modern-day tough women, including the likes of athletic heroes