CNN reports that wastewater-based epidemiology “has proven to be so reliable in dozens of pilot projects across the U.S. that the government has invested millions to create the National Wastewater Surveillance System, or NWSS, a network of 400 testing sites spread across 19 states that is coordinated by the U.S. Read more…
A few years ago, a novel measurement technique showed that protons are probably smaller than had been assumed since the 1990s. The discrepancy surprised the scientific community; some researchers even believed that the Standard Model of particle physics would have to be changed. Physicists at the University of Bonn and Read more…
About a tenth of the global oil and gas industry’s methane emissions have been found to come from a group of “ultra-emitter” sites located mostly in Turkmenistan, Russia and the US. Methane is a powerful greenhouse gas that governments recently agreed to slash by 2030. While huge plumes of methane Read more…
Engineers from the University of Delaware developed a method for effectively capturing 99 percent of carbon dioxide from the air using an electrochemical system powered by hydrogen, a press statement reveals. The new system, outlined in a new paper in the journal Nature Energy, was actually born out of a Read more…
Astronomers have discovered a captive asteroid shadowing Earth in its orbit. The asteroid, known as 2020 XL5, is only the second of its type ever seen, shepherded by Earth’s gravity into an orbit that is locked in synchrony with our planet’s. It has not shared our orbit for long — Read more…
Almost no corals on the planet will escape severe bleaching once global heating reaches 1.5C, according to a new study of the world’s reefs. Reefs in areas currently regarded as cooler refuges will be overwhelmed at 1.5C of heating, and just 0.2% of reefs will escape at least one bleaching Read more…
Using a novel polymerization process, MIT chemical engineers have created a new material that they say is stronger than steel and as light as plastic, and can be easily manufactured in large quantities. The new material is a two-dimensional polymer that self-assembles into sheets, unlike all other polymers, which form Read more…