A blast of Arctic air brought temperatures in the city of International Falls, Minn., down to a new record low of -36 degrees Fahrenheit on Wednesday morning, beating out a nearly century-old record.
International Falls is known as the “ice box of the nation” because the town experiences a high of 32 degrees Fahrenheit for more than 100 days throughout a typical year. The previous record cold for the city was -32 degrees in 1924, but now that’s been shattered, the National Weather Service reported.
Astronomers are in for a treat as 2018 gets under way, with the arrival of a blue moon at the end of January. According to tradition, when two full moons appear in the same calendar month the second is termed a “blue moon”.
It is the celestial phenomenon that gave rise to the phrase “once in a blue moon”. The last one took place back in July 2015 . Even though it is called a blue moon, there’s no colour change in store for our lunar neighbour. The moon won’t suddenly appear with a blueish tinge.
In a little over a decade the world could be plunged into a ‘mini ice age’, scientists have warned. Temperatures will start dropping in 2021, according to a mathematical model of the Sun’s magnetic energy.
Image copyright: PAImage caption: Artist’s impression of two neutron stars colliding
In 2017, scientists thought they had detected Einstein’s gravitational waves from a new source – the collision of two dead stars, or neutron stars. The first direct detection of these waves was announced in 2016, when the Advanced LIGO laboratories described the warping of space from the merger of two distant black holes. The result was hailed as the starting point for a new branch of astronomy, using gravitational waves to collect data about distant phenomena.
American consumers, particularly parents, should be asking some hard questions about why the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and Immunization Action Coalition (IAC) apparently have no interest in improving vaccine safety.
THE sun is the source of all our warmth. Without it, we would not exist. Like everything else, it is cyclical in nature. The term “lunatic” referred to people who seemed to go a bit strange when there was a full moon. Some people are perhaps susceptible to its gravitational forces. After all, it is the moon that lifts the entire oceans creating high and low tide. There are people who have varying mood swings and others who are a tad more steady. Yet we all have our ups and downs.
People living around the Pacific Ring of Fire are facing a terrifying New Year of earthquakes and volcanoes after experts predicted a period of unprecedented seismic activity.
Santa really was good this year. Rather than handing out expensive kitchen gadgets to clutter up the shrinking counter space, he had some swell presents in his bag. My Dearest was the clear winner — she got a new snow shovel!
When the US entered the nuclear age, it did so recklessly. New research suggests that the hidden cost of developing nuclear weapons were far larger than previous estimates, with radioactive fallout responsible for 340,000 to 690,000American deaths from 1951 to 1973.
Albert Einstein contributed greatly to modern physics, but was he wrong in his definition of gravity lensing? If you are less impressed with clever manipulation of mathematical equations and prefer empirical science, that which is based on verifiable observation of natural events, then the work of Edsel Chromie will interest you.
Paper Reviewed: Pingale, B.N., Singh, S.D. and Yadav, A. 2017. Potential impacts of increasing atmospheric carbon dioxide on yield and plant growth of rice (Oryza sativa) and maize (Zea mays) crops. Indian Journal of Agricultural Sciences87: 1041-1044.
Image copyright: TANUSREE CHAUDHURIImage caption: Tanusree Chaudhuri (centre) with two of her remote-working research colleagues
Tanusree Chaudhuri, 34, was pregnant with her first child when her supervisor told her she would have to give up her dreams. She was doing a doctorate in computational biology and aspired to improve people’s health.
Image copyright: JAMES GALLAGHERImage caption: Peter has Huntington’s disease and his siblings Sandy and Frank also have the gene
It has been a remarkable year of promise in medical science. Incurable diseases from sickle cell to haemophilia now look as though they can be treated. Here are the highlights.
In recent decades, select groups of scientists and politicians have blamed carbon dioxide (CO2) — a “greenhouse gas” — for increasing global temperatures to dangerous levels.
