A centuries-old technique for making cement may be the key to large-scale carbon capture, according to US chemists. The first step in making cement involves converting limestone to calcium oxide, inside a kiln heated to 1400 degrees Celsius. Calcium oxide is then mixed with sand to produce a vital ingredient for cement. Inspired by this … Read more
Despite what Star Trek and Star Wars may have taught you, the amount of time required to travel between stars is vast. Consider Voyager 1. The spacecraft is traveling at 38,000 mph (61,155 km/h). If Voyager 1 were pointed towards our nearest star, Proxima Centauri (which it isn’t), it would take 73,000 years to reach … Read more
Extreme cold is hitting the U.S. Here’s a person bundled up against the cold. Image via Demeter Attila/ Pexels. Dangerous cold in mid-US on Wednesday As of late Tuesday night and early Wednesday morning, Extreme Cold Warnings stretched over 1,300 miles (2,100 km) of the continental United States, from North Dakota, down through south Central … Read more
If you’re in the Northern Hemisphere, Shaula and Lesath will come over your southeastern horizon before dawn sometime this month. They’re a hopeful sign that spring is coming. How do you recognize the coming of spring? Maybe you spot a first returning robin. Or tune into news about a groundhog looking for its shadow. For … Read more
For the last month and change, you might’ve seen the headlines about the planetary alignment, or a planetary parade, going on in our solar system. And that’s true. In January 2025, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune were all visible in the night sky. And in February, 2025, Mercury will join the fun, with … Read more
Study author, Maëlan Tomasek, with a “volunteer” in the experiment conducted in the Mediterranean Sea. Credit: Maëlan Tomasek European researchers have made the startling claim that fish can recognise individual divers. In a peer reviewed paper published today in Biology Letters, the research team from the Max Planck Institute of Animal Behavior (MPI-AB) in Germany … Read more
For those who missed the memo, UFOs (Unidentified Flying Objects) are now called UAPs (Unidentified Aerospace-Undersea Phenomena). The term UFO became so closely tied to alien spacecraft and fantastical abduction stories that people dismissed the idea, making any serious discussion difficult. The term UAP is a broader term that encompasses more unexplained objects or events … Read more
The fourth Captain America movie, Captain America: Brave New World, is finally out and has been met with middling critical reviews. Despite that, fans are already dissecting every new character and plot development that’s transpired as they eagerly await The Fantastic Four: First Steps and Thunderbolts. Most intriguing is the introduction of adamantium in this … Read more
Clyde Tombaugh didn’t set out to discover Pluto when he sent his sketches of the night sky to Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona in 1929. More than anything, he just wanted to get off the farm in Kansas where he spent his days working the earth. At just 23 years old, Tombaugh sent his drawings, … Read more
Banksia cunninghamii. Credit: (c) Kim Tarpey, some rights reserved (CC BY) Australian plants adapted to resist and recover from fire are becoming threatened by it, as climate change worsens fire weather and drives more frequent and severe wildfires. A recent study of the striking hairpin banksia (Banksia cunninghamii), in areas of Victoria affected by the … Read more