News

In August, a dry lightning storm over California sparked an intense wildfire that raged through communities in the Santa Cruz mountains. After the CZU Lightning Complex Fire was contained, local officials advised some residents returning to their homes to not use the drinking water. Benzene, a known carcinogen, had been detected in the water supply. The chemical probably was released by plastic pipes that melted during the fire. Scientists call events like this “natech,” or natural hazard-induced technological disasters. Coined in 1994, the term originally applied to industrial incidents such as chemical or fuel spills that occur after hurricanes, earthquakes and other natural hazards. But natech’s definition has recently expanded, says resilience scientist David Yu of Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind. It now covers any disaster arising from damage caused by a natural hazard to infrastructure that relies on technology, he says. That includes disasters involving electricity an

Indigenous Bolivian Amazon dwellers are helping to bolster recent findings that normal body temperature, around 37° Celsius, or 98.6° Fahrenheit, might not be so normal anymore. The horticulturist-forager Tsimane people in the South American nation have experienced a half-degree drop, on average, in body temperatures over a decade and a half, anthropologist Michael Gurven and colleagues report October 28 in Science Advances . The new finding echoes the half-degree drop in average body temperature reported earlier this year in a Stanford University study of three U.S. population cohorts over 157 years. In that research, normal body temperature fell by 0.03° C per decade. Body temperature serves as a sort of surrogate for basal metabolic rate, or the number of calories required to keep the body working while at rest. Higher rates have been linked to shorter life spans and lower body mass. Body temperature — which also reflects circadian rhythms , immune function, the presence or abse

Clouds may be ecosystems —   Science News , November 14, 1970 Clouds in the sky may contain living microbial ecosystems…. [Research] determined that metabolic activity, in the form of CO 2 uptake into organic material, occurred in [airborne] dust over a 24-hour period, whereas it did not occur in sterilized control dust. Update The atmosphere is rich in microbial life. One census documented some 28,000 bacterial species in samples of water from clouds above a mountain in France, scientists reported in 2017. Research building over the last decade or so has supported the claim that some bacteria may indeed be metabolically active within their hazy abodes. One species of B­acillus , for example, eats sugar floating in the atmosphere to build a coating — perhaps to shield itself from ultraviolet radiation and low temperatures ( SN: 2/7/15, p. 5 ). Some scientists suspect cloud bacteria contribute to Earth’s carbon and nitrogen cycles, and even influence weather ( SN: 6/18/11, p.

Mars’ water is being skimmed off the top. NASA’S MAVEN spacecraft found water lofted into Mars’ upper atmosphere, where its hydrogen and oxygen atoms are ripped apart , scientists report in the Nov. 13 Science . “This completely changes how we thought hydrogen, in particular, was being lost to space,” says planetary chemist Shane Stone of the University of Arizona in Tucson. Mars’ surface was shaped by flowing water , but today the planet is an arid desert ( SN: 12/8/14 ). Previously, scientists thought that Mars’ water was lost in a “slow and steady trickle,” as sunlight split water in the lower atmosphere and hydrogen gradually diffused upward, Stone says. But MAVEN, which has been orbiting Mars since 2014, scooped up water molecules in Mars’ ionosphere, at altitudes of about 150 kilometers. That was surprising — previously the highest water had been seen was about 80 kilometers ( SN: 1/22/18 ). That high-up water varied in concentration as the seasons changed on Mars, with the

When one of Hye-Sook Park’s experiments goes well, everyone nearby knows. “We can hear Hye-Sook screaming,” she’s heard colleagues say. It’s no surprise that she can’t contain her excitement. She’s getting a closeup look at the physics of exploding stars, or supernovas, a phenomenon so immense that its power is difficult to put into words. Rather than studying these explosions from a distance through telescopes, Park, a physicist at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in California, creates something akin to these paroxysmal blasts using the world’s highest-energy lasers. About 10 years ago, Park and colleagues embarked on a quest to understand a fascinating and poorly understood feature of supernovas: Shock waves that form in the wake of the explosions can boost particles, such as protons and electrons, to extreme energies. “Supernova shocks are considered to be some of the most powerful particle accelerators in the universe,” says plasma physicist Frederico Fiuza of SLAC Natio

Dance of the doomed particles Scientists are puzzled by an unexpectedly large gap in the energy levels of an exotic “atom” called positronium, which consists of an electron and a positron, Emily Conover reported in “ Positronium result baffles physicists ” ( SN: 9/12/20, p. 14 ). Reader Lee Skinner asked why the electron and its antimatter counterpart, the positron, don’t just annihilate each other when they collide. Eventually, the electron and positron do annihilate one another, Conover says. As a result, positronium doesn’t stick around forever. “The two particles do a little orbital dance with each other for a period of time before they meet up and annihilate,” she says. “That’s actually part of how the researchers made the measurement, though I didn’t have the space to include those details in the story.” The team measured how long it took electrons and positrons to annihilate, which depends on the atoms’ energy level. “Timing that annihilation revealed whether the positr

Two fields of science seem to stand as far apart as possible — botany and astrophysics. In one field, scientists may amble through bosky glens seeking elusive, rare vegetation. In the other, teams may use massive, multimillion-dollar machines to blast targets into smithereens and study some of the most dramatic events in the known universe, including how stars are born and die. Yet both species of scientist are driven by a desire to discover, and a refusal to quit despite the difficulty of a quest that can take decades and promises no sure rewards. In this issue, we delve into the world of botanists trying to save the last plants of their kind from extinction . This is native soil for life sciences writer Susan Milius . In thinking about what makes the plant partisans  tick, “what struck me was that a practice of observation, or maybe a passion for observation, favors serendipity,” Milius told me. She notes that Norma Etta Pfeiffer, who discovered the rare Thismia americana in 1912,

The atmospheric light show nicknamed STEVE may be even weirder than skywatchers thought. STEVE, short for Strong Thermal Emission Velocity Enhancement, is a sky glow that appears south of the northern lights ( SN: 3/15/18 ). STEVE’s main feature is a mauve band of light formed by a stream of plasma flowing westward through the atmosphere — a different phenomenon from the one that gives rise to auroras ( SN: 4/30/19 ). But STEVE’s purple arc is often accompanied by a “picket fence” of vertical green stripes. That fence looks similar enough to the shimmering green curtains seen in the aurora borealis that scientists thought at least this part of STEVE could be a type of aurora. Recently, studies of the picket fence’s color have cast doubt on its origins. Auroras form when electrons from the magnetic bubble, or magnetosphere, surrounding Earth cascade into the atmosphere ( SN: 2/7/20 ). Those electrons make nitrogen in the air glow blue and oxygen glow green. While STEVE’s green pick

Atlantic hurricanes are taking longer to weaken after making landfall than they did 50 years ago, thanks to climate change. Over the past 50 years, increasingly warm ocean waters have juiced up the storms, giving them more staying power after they roar ashore, scientists report in the Nov. 12 Nature . That could potentially extend storms’ destructive power farther inland, the researchers say. As ocean waters warm, tropical cyclones — called hurricanes in the Atlantic Ocean — are likely to gain in intensity , studies show ( SN: 9/28/18 ). They can also hold more moisture , leading to seemingly unremitting rainfall ( SN: 9/13/18 ). And they may move more slowly , allowing more time to dump that rain on coastal communities. All of this increases the potential hazard on land ( SN: 6/6/18 ). Once a storm hits land, its energy begins to dissipate. But that relief is coming later than it once did, report physicists Lin Li and Pinaki Chakraborty, both of the Okinawa Institute of Science and

Some immune defenses of the brain may have their roots in the gut. A new study in mice finds that immune cells are first trained in the gut to recognize and launch attacks on pathogens, and then migrate to the brain’s surface to protect it , researchers report online November 4 in Nature . These cells were also found in surgically removed parts of human brains. Every minute, around 750 milliliters of blood flow through the brain, giving bacteria, viruses or other blood-borne pathogens an opportunity to infect the organ. For the most part, the invaders are kept out by three membrane layers, called the meninges, which wrap around the brain and spinal cord and act as a physical barrier. If a pathogen does manage to breach that barrier, the researchers say, the immune cells trained in the gut are ready to attack by producing a battalion of antibodies. The most common route for a pathogen to end up in the bloodstream is from the gut. “So, it makes perfect sense for these [immune cells] t

November is beginning to feel a lot like last March. In Europe, where the coronavirus was largely under control for much of the summer and fall, cases are skyrocketing nearly everywhere. Twenty countries, including the United Kingdom and France, have shuttered restaurants, introduced curfews or generally urged people to stay at home, though most schools and universities are staying open for now.  Cases are surging across the United States, too, where more than 100,000 new infections are being reported each day. Already in November, more than half of states have set records for the most cases in a week, and in places such as Minnesota, Utah and Wisconsin, some hospitals are nearing capacity. In North Dakota, nearly 1 in every 14 people has already contracted the coronavirus, with 2,254 cases reported November 8 alone in a state of 762,000 people.  To make matters worse, “the virus is going into its sweet spot at a time that we’re exhausted by it,” says Jeffrey Shaman, an infectious d

It’s official: 2020 now has the most named storms ever recorded in the Atlantic in a single year. On November 9, a tropical disturbance brewing in the northeastern Atlantic Ocean gained enough strength to become a subtropical storm. With that, Theta became the year’s 29th named storm, topping the 28 that formed in 2005. With maximum sustained winds near 110 kilometers per hour as of November 10, Theta is expected to churn over the open ocean for several days. It’s too early to predict Theta’s ultimate strength and trajectory, but forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration say they expect the storm to weaken later in the week. If so, like most of the storms this year, Theta likely won’t become a major hurricane. That track record might be the most surprising thing about this season — there’s been a record-breaking number of storms, but overall they’ve been relatively weak. Only five — Laura, Teddy, Delta, Epsilon and Eta — have become major hurricanes with w

Just how hot is your chili pepper? A new chili-shaped device could quickly signal whether adding the pepper to a meal might set your mouth ablaze. Called the Chilica-pod, the device detects capsaicin , a chemical compound that helps give peppers their sometimes painful kick. In general, the more capsaicin a pepper has, the hotter it tastes. The Chilica-pod is sensitive, capable of detecting extremely low levels of the fiery molecule, researchers report in the Oct. 23 ACS Applied Nano Materials . The device could someday be used to test cooked meals or fresh peppers, says analytical chemist Warakorn Limbut of Prince of Songkla University in Hat Yai, Thailand. People with a capsaicin allergy could use the gadget to avoid the compound, or farmers could test harvested peppers to better indicate their spiciness, he says.       A portable, chili-shaped gadget determines chili peppers’ spice levels by measuring capsaicin — the fiery molecule that helps give peppers their kick. The “Chili

To err is human, which is really not a very good excuse. And to err as a scientist is worse, of course, because depending on science is supposed to be the best way for people to make sure they’re right. But since scientists are human (most of them, anyway), even science is never free from error. In fact, mistakes are fairly common in science, and most scientists tell you they wouldn’t have it any other way. That’s because making mistakes is often the best path to progress. An erroneous experiment may inspire further experiments that not only correct the original error, but also identify new previously unsuspected truths. Still, sometimes science’s errors can be rather embarrassing. Recently much hype accompanied a scientific report about the possibility of life on Venus. But instant replay review has now raised some serious concerns about that report’s conclusion. Evidence for the gas phosphine, a chemical that supposedly could be created only by life (either microbes or well-trained

The race to greenlight a COVID-19 vaccine in the United States has entered its final sprint, with one leading candidate becoming the first to release preliminary results showing its vaccine is more than 90 percent effective at preventing people from getting sick from the coronavirus. The long-awaited announcement came in a Nov. 9 news release detailing the results from an interim analysis of an ongoing Phase III clinical trial comparing the vaccine developed by global pharmaceutical company Pfizer and German biotech company BioNTech with a placebo. COVID-19 cases are soaring globally, and some countries are reverting to lockdowns and other drastic measures to curb the virus’ spread. As of November 9, more than 50 million people have been infected worldwide — including more than 10 million in the United States — and more than 1.2 million people have died from the disease. “We are a significant step closer to providing people around the world with a much-needed breakthrough to help b