In 2023, a new type of apple made its commercial debut at a trade show in Berlin. The Tutti is crisp, juicy and has that perfect blush tinge — a lovely cultivar that took decades to produce. But it has a bigger claim to fame: It is designed to thrive at temperatures as high as … Read more
Shorelines worldwide have always been vulnerable to coastal erosion, a phenomenon rendered more ominous by rising sea levels that accompany modern-day climate change (SN: 9/29/22). Coastal engineers have few ways to address this erosion, says Alessandro Rotta Loria, a civil engineer at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. One method is to build a seawall; another … Read more
Earth’s most famous killer asteroid came from the outer reaches of the solar system, researchers report in the Aug. 16 Science. About 66 million years ago, an asteroid slammed into the sea just off Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, forming the Chicxulub crater. That powerful impact may have triggered a mass extinction event on Earth, killing off … Read more
Access to clean water is a human right — one that half of the world may not have. Out of the roughly 8 billion people on Earth, more than 4.4 billion lack access to safely managed drinking water, researchers report August 15 in Science. The estimate, based on computer simulations of data from low- and … Read more
An extraordinary heat wave last week toppled thousands of temperature records across Asia, from Iran to Japan. In Iran’s highlands, the city of Isfahan, at the foothills of the Zagros Mountains, sweltered in temperatures up to 43.8° Celsius (110.8° Fahrenheit). Japan, which saw at least 120 deaths due to heatstroke in July, issued more heat … Read more
On August 8, the Japanese Meteorological Agency issued its first-ever “megaquake alert,” after a magnitude 7.1 earthquake rocked the Miyazaki prefecture in southern Japan earlier that day. The Miyazaki quake injured at least 16 people and generated minor tsunamis up to 50 centimeters tall that reached the country’s coastline about half an hour later. The … Read more
Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? For some, chronic health conditions can add an extra kick or two when it comes to regulating body temperature. … Read more
Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? Since the most recent El Niño ended in May, the tropical Pacific has resided in a neutral state – … Read more
Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? Bjornerud is exhausted and dizzy. She is dealing with the collapse of her department, the sleep deprivation of early … Read more
Extreme Climate Survey Scientific news is collecting questions from readers about how to navigate our planet’s changing climate. What do you want to know about extreme heat and how it can lead to extreme weather events? The extreme heat and rain are scary enough on their own, and it’s getting hotter with climate change. But … Read more