Under the law, deforested properties or land cleared without a license can be retroactively legalized without restoring the land or ecological conditions, which rewards illegal deforestation. Larger projects, like irrigation, dams, and sanitation works, as well as roads and energy infrastructure, can proceed with minimal environmental scrutiny, risking more forest fragmentation and habitat destruction. And ..
Tag : Science
Back in 2023, we reported on MIT scientists’ conclusion that the ancient Romans employed “hot mixing” with quicklime, among other strategies, to make their famous concrete, giving the material self-healing functionality. The only snag was that this didn’t match the recipe as described in historical texts. Now the same team is back with a fresh ..
He said he was surprised by how few studies show evidence of wolves, bears, and cougars having an effect on elk, moose, and deer populations. Instead, the biggest driver of changing elk population numbers across the West is humanity. “In most mainland systems, it’s only when you combine wolves with grizzly bears and you take ..
Engineers traced the problem to a manufacturing defect in an insulator on the solid rocket motor, and telemetry data from all four boosters on the following flight in August exhibited “spot-on” performance, according to Bruno. But officials decided to recover the spent expendable motor casings from the Atlantic Ocean for inspections to confirm there were ..
If you add in nuclear, then the US has reached a grid that is 40 percent emissions-free over the first nine months of 2025. That’s up only 1 percent compared to the same period the year prior. And because coal emits more carbon than natural gas, it’s likely the US will see a net increase ..
Many dog breeds are noted for their personalities and behavioral traits, from the distinctive vocalizations of huskies to the herding of border collies. People have worked to identify the genes associated with many of these behaviors, taking advantage of the fact that dogs can interbreed. But that creates its own experimental challenges, as it can ..
Perhaps most relevant to this current paper is a 2020 study in which scientists analyzed Munch’s The Scream, which was showing alarming signs of degradation. They concluded the damage was not the result of exposure to light, but humidity—specifically, from the breath of museum visitors, perhaps as they lean in to take a closer look ..
The researchers argue that this setup lets Evo “link nucleotide-level patterns to kilobase-scale genomic context.” In other words, if you prompt it with a large chunk of genomic DNA, Evo can interpret that as an LLM would interpret a query and produce an output that, in a genomic sense, is appropriate for that interpretation. The ..
The Mayan calendars were maintained by specialists known as “daykeepers,” a cultural tradition that continues today. There is general consensus that eclipses were important to the Maya. “They were tracking them, they had rituals around [eclipses], and it was built into their system of belief, ” Lowry told Ars. “So we know the eclipse table ..
In 2010, the Deepwater Horizon oil rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, causing one of the largest marine oil spills ever. In the aftermath of the disaster, whale scientist Iain Kerr traveled to the area to study how the spill had affected sperm whales, aiming specialized darts at the animals to collect pencil eraser-sized ..
