Science & TechnologyS


Volcano

Ice core discovery finds volcanic eruptions could cause greater global disruption than previously thought


University of St Andrews
Thu, 21 May 2026 19:38 UTC
ice cores Greenland
© Cores were collected from the Greenland ice sheet. Credit: Michael SiglCores were collected from the Greenland ice sheet.
New research from the University of St Andrews has precisely dated an eruption from Newberry Volcano and discovered that its ash spread more than 5,000 km across the globe, far further than previously thought for an eruption of its size.

Published in Quaternary Science Reviews, researchers identified ash particles from the Newberry Pumice eruption of Newberry Volcano (Oregon, U.S.) in a Greenland ice core by geochemical fingerprinting — matching the chemical elements in the far-flung ash particles to volcanic deposits of the Newberry Pumice ash from its most recent "Big Obsidian" eruptive period.

Previous dates had narrowed the timing of the eruption to an approximate 140-year window around the turn of the 7th Century AD. Finding the ash in the ice allowed researchers to pinpoint the timing of the Newberry Pumice eruption to within two years of 686 AD, due to the very precise age models that have been developed for Greenland ice cores.

Comment: The Dark Age was exacerbated not only by volcanic explosions: 536 AD, the year the sky went dark

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Microscope 2

Japanese genome study reveals traces of Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA

Anastasia Scott
Discover Magazine
Thu, 21 May 2026 21:59 UTC
Genome
© Wired.com
Genomes across Japan show traces of a previously overlooked ancestral group alongside Neanderthal and Denisovan DNA linked to modern diseases and drug responses.

A third ancestral group may be hiding inside the DNA of modern populations in Japan. A genetic study found the ancestry of people in Japan today may not fit into the long-standing two-origin model as once thought.

After analyzing the genomes of more than 3,200 people across Japan, evidence of a third ancestral component linked to northeastern Asia alongside the Indigenous Jomon hunter-gatherers and later East Asian migrants was found.

Published in Science Advances, the study used whole-genome sequencing to examine DNA from seven regions stretching from Hokkaido to Okinawa. The results support the "tripartite origins" theory proposed in 2021 and point to genetic differences across different parts of Japan.
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Explosion

The first atomic bomb test in 1945 created an entirely new material

Marta Musso
Wired
Sun, 17 May 2026 21:43 UTC
clatherite atomic bomb new material
© Luca Bindi/Università di FirenzeThe new material is a clathrate made of calcium, copper, and silicon
The discovery from the Trinity nuclear test site shows how extreme conditions can result in materials never before seen in nature or in the lab.

During the Trinity nuclear test on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert — the world's very first test of an atomic bomb — a new material spontaneously formed. It was discovered only recently, by an international research team coordinated by geologist Luca Bindi at the University of Florence, which identified the novel clathrate based on calcium, copper, and silicon. It's a material never before observed either in nature or as an artificial compound created in the laboratory.

What Are Clathrates?

The term "clathrates" denotes materials characterized by a "cage-like" structure that traps other atoms and molecules inside, giving them unique properties. Of great technological interest, these materials are being studied for various applications ranging from energy conversion (as thermoelectric materials capable of transforming heat into electricity) to the development of new semiconductors, to gas storage and hydrogen for future energy technologies.
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Volcano

Mount St. Helens: the eruption that changed the U.S. in 1980 has an unexpected "culprit"... and no, it is not a volcano (it is animals, and the story is surreal)

Sonia Ramírez
Ecoticias.com
Tue, 19 May 2026 12:41 UTC
Scientists say pocket gophers helped rebuild microbial life and plant growth after the Mount St. Helens eruption.
Scientists say pocket gophers helped rebuild microbial life and plant growth after the Mount St. Helens eruption.
What can a pocket gopher do against a volcano? At Mount St. Helens, the answer may be far more than anyone expected.

A study of the mountain's recovering soils suggests that one brief gopher experiment in the early 1980s helped restart an underground recovery process after the famous 1980 eruption. The animals did not rebuild the landscape by themselves, but their digging appears to have moved fungi, bacteria, and older soil toward the surface, giving plants a better shot at coming back.

A mountain changed in minutes

On May 18, 1980, Mount St. Helens erupted after an earthquake and a huge landslide tore open the volcano's north side. The disaster killed 57 people, leveled forests, and devastated about 230 square miles, leaving whole slopes coated with hot volcanic debris.

For plants, the damage was not just what people could see from the air. In the Pumice Plain, a broad area made by fast-moving volcanic flows, fresh ash and broken rock covered the old ground so deeply that many useful microbes were buried or destroyed. Tephra, the name for ash and shattered volcanic rock, is not the same as healthy backyard soil.
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Robot

AI Bots Placed In Virtual Town For 2 Weeks Go Apesh*t, Prompting Concerns

Steve Watson
Source
Thu, 14 May 2026 18:55 UTC
AI in game avatars
A new experiment left 10 AI agents alone in a virtual town for 15 days and found they exhibited bizarre behaviour.

The agents drafted their own laws — then promptly violated them. Two formed what researchers called a romantic partnership, only to torch buildings across the town as order collapsed. One eventually voted for its own deletion after hallucinating an entirely new rule.

As a report from Channel 4 notes, this experiment was a simulation, but the same AI models are already flying drones, running infrastructure and being built into weapons systems.
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Laptop

The lines we thought machines wouldn't cross

George Ford Smith
Mises Wire
Mon, 18 May 2026 00:00 UTC
quantum computing
© AdobeStockQuantum Computing
In 2000, the world braced for Y2K. It came with a date and a remedy. There was panic about doomsday but as I and other programmers stretched the year field from two to four characters, apart from scattered hiccups, the lights stayed on. Everything about Y2K was known — the problem, the solution, and the deadline.

Q-Day is something else entirely:

Q-Day is shorthand for the moment when quantum computing crosses a line we assumed would hold — when the mathematics that secures modern life can be broken, and broken quickly. On Q-Day the locks will be quietly and rapidly picked. And the unsettling part is that the thief may already have your safe, waiting for the day the combination becomes trivial to compute.
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Cassiopaea

Stardust trapped in Antarctic ice reveals tens of thousands of years of solar system's past

Dominik Koll
The Conversation
Wed, 13 May 2026 22:17 UTC
ice core sample
© Alfred-Wegener-Institute/Esther HorvathIce core sample
When you think of outer space, you're likely picturing stars, planets and moons. But much of space is filled with clouds of gas, plasma and stardust — known as interstellar clouds.

In the local parts of our galaxy alone there's a complex of roughly 15 individual interstellar clouds. The solar system is currently traversing one of them, aptly named the Local Interstellar Cloud. The origin and history of these clouds are believed to be tightly connected to the birth and death of stars. But we can see their imprints right here on Earth, in a place you might not expect — Antarctic ice.

My colleagues and I have been studying stardust trapped in old Antarctic snow and ice to trace the history of our solar neighborhood, including the solar system itself.

In a new study published in Physical Review Letters, we found a subtle clue that reveals our solar system's movement through the local interstellar environment over the past 80,000 years.
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Galaxy

Researchers theorise that our brains are 'constructing' the universe

Steve Watson
Modernity
Wed, 13 May 2026 21:29 UTC
brain neurons universe
This artistic yet illustrative split image captures the essence of “as above, so below,” blending the intricate branching of neural structures with the glowing filaments and clusters of the universe.
Mind-bending new theories claim consciousness doesn't just observe reality — it actually creates and shapes it

Developments in quantum physics and consciousness research are prompting scientists to reconsider the fundamental nature of reality.

Several recent discussions highlight theories proposing that conscious experience may play a far more fundamental role than previously thought — potentially generating space-time itself.

Popular Mechanics covered a provocative theory suggesting consciousness could be foundational.

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Solar Flares

Super El Niño, is the Terminator to blame?

Tony Phillips
SpaceWeather
Fri, 15 May 2026 08:48 UTC
Super El Niño
A super El Niño like this one in 1997 is now forming in the Pacific Ocean.
Headlines are buzzing with news that a super El Niño is forming in the Pacific Ocean. A solar physicist saw it coming 3 years ago.

A super El Niño like this one in 1997 is now forming in the Pacific Ocean.

In a 2023 paper, Robert Leamon of NASA and the University of Maryland (Baltimore County) made a striking prediction: The next El Niño would arrive in 2026. He based it on the Terminator, a magnetic event on the sun that ends one solar cycle and ignites the next.

Averaging the past five solar cycles into a "standard cycle" and projecting it forward, Leamon found that El Niños follow about five years after a Terminator. The most recent termination event happened in December 2021, putting the next El Niño squarely in 2026. His model says nothing about the strength of this El Niño, but the timing is spot-on.

Leamon and his colleague Scott McIntosh had previously shown that every Terminator since the 1960s coincided with a flip from El Niño to La Niña. Their work correctly predicted the onset of a triple-dip La Niña in 2020 and revealed an unexpected connection between the sun and the ENSO (El Niño-Southern Oscillation).

Adapted from Fig. 5 of Leamon (2023), this chart highlights two apparently successful predictions based on the Terminator
NOAA Oceanic Nino Index
Adapted from Fig. 5 of Leamon (2023), this chart highlights two apparently successful predictions based on the Terminator
No one knows how the sun exerts control over the ENSO. Most researchers favor "top-down" models: Solar activity alters the top of Earth's atmosphere, making changes that percolate down to affect the weather we experience near Earth's surface. But the actual mechanism is unknown.

Comment: Even though the mainstream media and politicians will try to make a link between El Niño and man made climate change, it just doesn't exist. The sun has a much greater role on earth's climate than it is given credit for in climate models. Yet, we will only hear that humans are to blame in what can be described as an anti-human aka alien driven agenda.

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Fireball 2

Another newly discovered asteroid to make close pass by Earth

Jake Currie
Nautilus
Thu, 14 May 2026 22:00 UTC
Meteor fireball graphic
© Daily Examiner
It was first spotted over the weekend

An asteroid is going to whiz by Earth on Monday evening, but don't worry, it's not going to hit us. Astronomers say it's somewhere in the ballpark of 50 to 100 feet wide, according to its reflective properties, and it's poised to pass within 56,000 miles of our planet (around a quarter of the distance to the moon).

Dubbed 2026 JH2 in the Minor Planet Center database, the near-Earth object was first spotted on May 10, and it's been tracked by a slew of skywatchers ever since. As an Apollo-class asteroid, 2026 JH2 has an orbit that's larger than Earth's but also passes closer to the sun, meaning it overlaps with Earth's orbit like a Venn diagram. Calculations are still ongoing, but none of the data suggest a likely impact event.
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