Science & TechnologyS


Better Earth

Ocean rift zone saw spreading happen in a sudden burst

John Timmer
Ars Technica
Sat, 11 Jul 2026 21:43 UTC
ocean floor new crust spread mid atlantic ridge model
© MARK GARLICK/SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARYOne model of several in explaining formation of new deep ocean crust formation
The crust expands at mid-ocean rifts. But how?

One of the central features of plate tectonics is the formation of new crust at mid-ocean ridges. Part of the spreading process that drives continents apart, it was arguably the discovery of these ridges that drove widespread acceptance of plate tectonics as a theory. Thanks to decades of exploration, we now have a good picture of what the crust that forms at the site of spreading looks like. But we still have an incomplete idea of how its features are actually produced.

In other words, we have a good idea of the outcome of the process, but not a detailed picture of the process itself.

That is starting to change. In 2024, a team of French scientists was able to remotely monitor a major event on the border between the Australian and Antarctic plates, only two months after they installed equipment on the ocean floor. Their data shows that most of the spreading occurred in a relatively short time window, and some key events happened without any obvious seismic activity.
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Better Earth

Hidden deep-sea turbulence could alter climate and fisheries within one lifetime


PhysOrg
Thu, 09 Jul 2026 19:55 UTC
deep ocean sea
© CC0 Public Domain
Tiny, invisible swirls and twirls — not much bigger than a coin — deep below the ocean's surface are silently shaping some of the biggest forces shaping our climate: sea level rise, fisheries collapse, extreme flooding and how much carbon dioxide the ocean absorbs.

An international research team, led by the University of Cambridge, found that deep ocean turbulence — the process that distributes heat, nutrients and carbon from the surface to the seafloor and back — affects our lives not on a scale of thousands of years, as was previously thought, but within the span of a human lifetime.

However, the tools used to predict these effects and inform policy do not adequately represent this turbulence, or the speed at which it moves. The results are reported in the journal Nature Communications.
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Comet 2

Did a passing star shower us with Comets?

Arielle Frommer
Sky & Telescope
Wed, 08 Jul 2026 17:40 UTC
We might be living through a comet shower created by a star that millions of years ago jostled the Oort Cloud surrounding the solar system.
McNaught (C/2006 P1)
© ESO / Sebastian DeiriesThe long-period comet Comet McNaught (C/2006 P1) was captured over the Pacific Ocean from Paranal Observatory. Long-period comets come from the Oort Cloud that surrounds the solar system.
Far beyond Pluto, a vast, icy reservoir envelopes our solar system: the Oort Cloud, the birthplace of comets. Now, two astronomers found that a close encounter with another star might've sent a flurry of Oort Cloud comets on a journey to our inner solar system.

Astronomers, led by Nathan Kaib (Planetary Science Institute), recognized this long-ago stellar flyby by the anomalies it created in the orbits of long-period comets. These comets orbit on highly elliptical paths, taking thousands to millions of years to complete their trip around the Sun. Such comets come from The Oort Cloud.

Tugs from our galaxy can knock some Oort Cloud objects off course, sending them spiraling toward the Sun. From there, the balls of ice, gas, and rock heat up and shed material to form their long, signature comet tails. But the Milky Way tends to tug on comets of certain orientations more than others. According to the analysis of Kaib's team, older, returning comets seemed to follow this pattern.

But newer comets did not, suggesting they were sent inward when a star made its close passage. The star's flyby could've sent roughly 10 times as many comets into the inner solar system as before. If that's the case, we're still living through the late stages of this brilliant comet shower today.
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Satellite

JWST detects mysterious compound on Pluto and Titan

Jorge Garay
Wired
Tue, 07 Jul 2026 21:32 UTC
titan pluto spectrograph sun
© Titan: NASA/JPL/Space Science Institute; Pluto: NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Southwest Research Institute; Spectrograph: NOAO/AURA/NSF; with annotations by Harry BakerResearchers have detected an absorption line from an unknown molecule in the spectra of Titan (upper left) and Pluto (lower right). (The colorful spectrograph in this image is of the sun and is not part of the new study.)
Something on Pluto and one of Saturn's moons, Titan, absorbs light in a way unexplained by anything in spectroscopic databases

A look at the dwarf planet Pluto and Titan, Saturn's largest moon, baffled astronomers after the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) detected a chemical signature on their surfaces that does not match any recorded in spectroscopic databases. Researchers believe this is not an instrument error, but rather the signature of a compound whose identity remains a mystery — a mixture of materials never studied in a laboratory, or even a compound whose chemistry has not yet been characterized.

The finding appears in a study awaiting publication in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics. Scientists identified an absorption band centered at 5.113 micrometers on both Titan and Pluto — two worlds separated by billions of kilometers and with very different physical conditions. The signal appeared in observations made with two different instruments on the JWST, leading the team to rule out the possibility that it was a calibration issue or some other type of technical error.
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Moon

US 'very much in space race' against China - NASA chief


RT
Mon, 06 Jul 2026 07:45 UTC
Artemis II Commander Reid Wiseman
© NASA/Getty ImagesArtemis II Commander Reid Wiseman looking back at Earth as the crew travels towards the Moon
Beijing maintains that outer space is an area for cooperation, not contest.

The US is "very much in a space race" against China as the two nations look to land humans on the Moon and establish permanent bases there in the coming years, NASA Administrator Jared Isaacman has said.

The US remains the only country to have sent manned missions to the Moon, with American astronauts visiting the Earth's satellite six times as part of the Apollo program between 1969 and 1972.

During an interview with 'Face the Nation' on CBS on Sunday, Isaacman stressed:
"The Chinese "will land their taikonauts on the Moon - there's no question. Beijing's lunar program is moving at incredible speeds.

"The question is - will the US return before them and will we do so in a different way this time? Will we build the base, establish that enduring presence? I think the answer is yes."
According to Isaacman, the American and Chinese timelines for putting humans on the Moon are very close.
"They are thinking in 2029, we're saying end of 2028 is when we're targeting the landing. That's months, not years."
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Beaker

World's first synthetic cell with a complete life cycle could revolutionize biological engineering


Phys.org
Wed, 01 Jul 2026 00:00 UTC
Fluorescent microscopy of SpudCel
© Kate Adamala, Adamala LabFluorescent microscopy of SpudCell—a synthetic cell assembled entirely from non-living chemical components—undergoing division.
While many of life's mysteries remain unsolved, every biologist can describe the basic processes performed by a living organism, including energy use, reproduction, growth and development. While these characteristics can be replicated in isolation in a lab, the idea of a completely synthetic biological organism has long been relegated to science fiction.

University of Minnesota associate professors Kate Adamala and Aaron Engelhart and their teams have developed the world's first synthetic cell with a complete life cycle, built entirely from nonliving chemical components, and described it in a new paper.

The project, called SpudCell, marks a major breakthrough in biological engineering. In time, it may provide solutions to some of our most challenging problems in medicine and engineering.

Adamala said:
"This is likely the most exciting project I've ever worked on. We've replicated in chemistry what only used to be possible in biology: the complete set of behaviors of a cell. It proves that the most fundamental functions of life, like growth and replication, do not need a mysterious magical spark."
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Light switch

Is Jason Herring the Elon Musk of hydrogen energy?

Justin Teller
International Policy Digest
Fri, 29 May 2026 00:00 UTC
Jason Herring
© UnknownJason Herring founder of vivify and Syzygy
The biggest challenge facing artificial intelligence may not be intelligence at all.

It is electricity.

The world is racing toward an era defined by AI data centers, autonomous factories, humanoid robots, military automation, and always-on computing. Yet beneath every breakthrough model, every server rack, every robot, and every automated system lies a stubborn physical constraint that software alone cannot solve: power.

The numbers are already daunting. The International Energy Agency projects that electricity consumption from data centers will more than double, reaching roughly 945 terawatt-hours by 2030. In the United States, the Department of Energy has cited estimates suggesting that data centers could consume as much as 9 percent of the nation's annual electricity generation by the end of the decade.

And that is before the robotic economy arrives in full force. Morgan Stanley has projected that the global population of humanoid robots could approach one billion units by 2050. Another forecast from the firm estimates that the United States alone could have 8 million working humanoid robots by 2040.
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Books

The scientific case has been made for reading on paper, not screens

Markham Heid
Time
Tue, 23 Jun 2026 21:40 UTC
read books or tablets
© pixel-shot.com
Norway is one of the wealthiest countries in the world. Until recently, it was also one of the most enthusiastic adopters of screen-based education technologies.

In the 1980s, Norway was quick to prioritize the use of computers in its classrooms. During the early 2000s, the country's government declared the use of digital technologies a basic skill — as necessary as the ability to read, write, and do arithmetic — and for the past decade, Norwegian students have done most of their coursework on tablets and laptops.

"In Norway, we were one of the first countries to say we want to be world-leading in education technology, and we've been very proud of that," says Marte Blikstad-Balas, a professor in the department of teacher education and school research at the University of Oslo. "But now you see a very sharp U-turn. Especially for children in grades one to four, we're trying to build down our digital infrastructure."

Comment:

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Microscope 2

Stressed-out soil bacteria can adapt to environmental conditions


CalTech
Fri, 19 Jun 2026 20:46 UTC
fungi microbes partnership stress soil deficiencies
© Reinaldo E. Alcalde and Hannah JeckelFluorescence micrograph of a Brachypodium distachyon root colonized by Pseudomonas synxantha bacterial cells.
A new study from Caltech demonstrates that soil bacteria can adapt under stress, particularly when a key nutrient, phosphorus, is running low in their environment. The work is important for understanding the complex relationships between microorganisms and the roots of plants, which has implications for soil health and food sustainability as the climate changes.

The work was conducted in the laboratory of Dianne Newman, the Gordon M. Binder/Amgen Professor of Biology and Geobiology, and is described in a new paper appearing in the journal Current Biology on June 19.
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Robot

Cyber warfare is no longer directed by humans. It's being shaped by AI.

Shalev Hulio
International Policy Digest
Wed, 03 Jun 2026 00:00 UTC
Robot Chappie
© UnknownThe doodles of Robot Chappie
We are approaching the most consequential transformation in cyber conflict in a generation.

The next wave of AI-driven cyber capabilities is not some distant prospect waiting over the horizon. It has already arrived. Yet much of the public conversation remains fixated on model releases, company valuations, and the race among technology firms to dominate the artificial intelligence marketplace. Inside government circles, however, the discussion has taken on a far greater sense of urgency.

Behind closed doors, national security officials are grappling with a reality that only recently seemed theoretical: artificial intelligence is beginning to alter the balance of power between attackers and defenders in cyberspace.

The change is not gradual. It is structural.

For the first time, nation-state actors are gaining the ability to conduct cyber operations at machine speed.

Comment: We don't just live inside the machine, we are for all intents and purposes its cogs and wheels.

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