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☆ Photos show a Russian town buried in ash after the Shiveluch volcano erupted, spewing debris miles into the air
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-11 | by ( Chris Panella | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

This is Shiveluch, a volcano in the eastern Russian peninsula of Kamchatka. The Shiveluch volcano erupting late last year. Yury Demyanchuk / The Russian Academy of Sciences' Vulcanology InstituteIts current eruption period began in August 1999 and has produced ongoing explosions and emissions, according to the Global Volcanism Program at the Smithsonian Institution.

☆ Russian volcano erupts, spewing out a vast cloud of ash
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-10 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

Summary Shiveluch erupts in Russian far eastAsh shoots up 20 km into the skyVast ash cloud in Russian far eastAviation warning issuedResidents trudge through ash driftsVLADIVOSTOK, Russia, April 11 (Reuters) - One of Russia's most active volcanoes erupted on Tuesday shooting a vast cloud of ash far up into the sky and smothering villages in drifts of grey volcanic dust, triggering an aviation warning around Russia's far eastern Kamchatka Peninsula. The Shiveluch volcano erupted just after midnight reaching a crescendo about six hours later, spewing out a ash cloud over an area of 108,000 square kilometres, according to the Kamchatka Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences' Geophysical Survey. "The ash reached 20 kilometres high, the ash cloud moved westwards and there was a very strong fall of ash on nearby villages," said Danila Chebrov, director of the Kamchatka branch of the Geophysical Survey. He said the volcano would probably calm now, but that further major ash clouds could not be excluded. Scientists posted pictures of the ash cloud billowing swiftly over the forests and rivers of the far east and of villages covered in ash.

☆ Indian rescuers scour site of deadly avalanche for any more victims
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-05 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +1 min

[1/2] Rescue team members search for survivors after an avalanche in the northeastern state of Sikkim, India, April 4, 2023. Indian Ministry of Defence/Handout via REUTERSApril 5 (Reuters) - Rescue teams made final checks on Wednesday for anyone still trapped in an avalanche that swept down on a road in the Indian Himalayan state of Sikkim the day before, killing seven people. We will scour the area properly before we call them off," Tenzing Loden Lepcha, a police official in the northeastern state, told Reuters by telephone. Avalanches have killed at least 120 people in the Indian Himalayas over the past two years. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences concluded in 2018 that climate change had increased avalanche risks in the Himalayas.

☆ The moon could have up to 297 billion tons of water stored in tiny glass beads on its surface, scientists say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Matthew Loh | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

Researchers say glass beads found on the moon's surface could contain billions of tons of water. The scientists say the water was created from solar winds, which blow hydrogen — one of the two elements in water — onto the lunar surface. The glass beads themselves form when small meteorites hit the surface of the moon and melt with material on the surface, per the study. Hu said the water extracted from the glass beads shows promise that it could be used in future lunar missions. NASA also plans to once again send astronauts to the Moon in 2025, 50 years after man last set foot on the lunar surface.

☆ China tackles chip talent shortage with new courses, higher pay
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-28 | by ( Josh Horwitz | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +5 min

China faces a shortage of an estimated 200,000 industry workers this year, according to a white paper jointly published by the China Center for Information Industry Development, a government think tank, and the China Semiconductor Industry Association (CSIA), a trade group. A 2022 survey from Chinese research firm ICWise found more than 60% of students studying chip engineering in China graduate with no internship experience in the field. In Taiwan, top chipmaker Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co (TSMC) (2330.TW) has established research centres at four universities. Its largest chip foundry, Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC) (0981.HK), in 2021 announced a jointly-established School of Integrated Circuits at Shenzhen Technology University. "If I didn't switch to chip engineering, I would probably have to find a job in a traditional manufacturing industry like cars or machinery," he said.

☆ Intriguing moon water source found in glass beads from impacts
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-27 | by ( Will Dunham | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

The researchers see promise in obtaining water from the glass beads, perhaps through a heating process to release vapor that would then turn into liquid through condensation. "We can simply heat these glass beads to free the water stored in them," said planetary scientist and study co-author Hejiu Hui of Nanjing University in China. The glass beads were found to hold a water content of up to about 2,000 parts per million by weight. Hu said he believes that such impact glass beads are a common part of lunar soils, found globally and spread evenly. The interaction of the solar wind with lunar surface materials could sustain a water cycle on the moon, with the glass beads absorbing the water and acting as a repository for it, the researchers said.

☆ Bill Gates says 'we need a fire department for pandemics' as he worries we're unprepared for the next one
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-20 | by ( Pete Syme | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +3 min

Bill Gates wrote a New York Times op-ed Sunday warning about future pandemics. He supported the WHO's global health emergency corps, calling it a "fire department for pandemics." "We can't afford to get caught flat-footed again," Gates wrote. But he added he was "optimistic" about the global health emergency corps – a network of health leaders around the world designed to promote collaboration between different countries. "The Global Health Emergency Corps will represent massive progress toward a pandemic-free future," Gates wrote in the Times.

☆ Fact Check-Dinosaurs existed and were documented before the term ‘dinosauria’ was coined in the early 1840s
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-15 | by ( Reuters Fact Check | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Dinosaurs existed long before the word ‘dinosauria’ was coined by paleontologist Sir Richard Owen in the 19th century, paleontology experts and a spokesperson for Britain’s Royal Society told Reuters, rejecting a claim to the contrary spreading online. They were invented by the Royal Society in 1841,” the individual says, referring to the academic organisation which is Britain’s national academy of sciences. However, three experts and a spokesperson for the Royal Society told Reuters separately that these claims are false. They say Sir Richard Owen first used the term ‘Dinosauria’ in the early 1840s but that dinosaurs and their fossils existed and were documented long before. Dinosaurs existed and were documented long before they were given a universal name in 1841, paleontologists and Britain’s Royal Society say.

☆ China to raise retirement age to deal with aging population - media
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-14 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

HONG KONG, March 14 (Reuters) - China is planning to raise its retirement age gradually and in phases to cope with the country's rapidly aging population, the state-backed Global Times said on Tuesday, citing a senior expert from China's Ministry of Human Resources. Jin Weigang, president of the Chinese Academy of Labor and Social Security Sciences, said China was eyeing a "progressive, flexible and differentiated path to raising the retirement age", meaning that it would be delayed initially by a few months, which would be subsequently increased. "People nearing retirement age will only have to delay retirement for several months," the Global Times said, citing Jin. China has yet to formally announce a change to its retirement age, which is among the lowest in the world at 60 for men, 55 for white-collar women and 50 for women who work in factories. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the pension system running out of money by 2035.

☆ Money really does buy happiness for most people, researchers say
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-09 | by ( Grace Dean | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

It found that for the vast majority of people, money does buy you happiness. Meanwhile, happiness "increases steadily" along with income among the rest of the population, Killingsworth, Kahneman, and Mellers found. For the happiest 30% of people, happiness rises at an accelerated rate beyond $100,000. "In other words, the bottom of the happiness distribution rises much faster than the top in that range of incomes. Killingsworth, Kahneman, and Mellers noted, however, that the correlation between income and well-being was "weak, even if statistically robust."

☆ China leads US in global competition for key emerging technology, study says
▼ + stars: | 2023-03-02 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +3 min

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI) said its study showed that, in some fields, all of the world's top 10 research institutions are based in China. The study, funded by the United States State Department, found the United States was often second-ranked, although it led global research in high-performance computing, quantum computing, small satellites and vaccines. "Western democracies are losing the global technological competition, including the race for scientific and research breakthroughs," the report said, urging greater research investment by governments. The report called for democratic nations to collaborate more often to create secure supply chains and "rapidly pursue a strategic critical technology step-up". The study recommended visa screening programs to limit illegal technology transfers and instead favour international collaboration with security allies.

[1/7] Farmer Wang Zhanling sits next to his wife in their house in Quansheng village, Heilongjiang Province, China, February 8, 2023. The state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences sees the pension system running out of money by 2035. "If the pension system does not change, this is unsustainable," said Xiujian Peng, senior research fellow in the Centre of Policy Studies at Victoria University in Australia. The province has the lowest birth rate in China, with just over 100,000 births in 2021 and 460,000 deaths. Many experts, including Macquarie's chief China economist Larry Hu, suggest implementing a unified national pension system, backstopped by the more resourceful central government rather than cash-strapped local administrations.

☆ Mysterious flying objects across the US probably aren't aliens, but experts believe life is out there. Here are 13 reasons why we haven't made contact yet.
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-13 | by ( Aylin Woodward | Morgan Mcfall-Johnsen | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: 1 min

Even if intelligent aliens aren't flying overhead, though, many experts believe they're out there. Nobel Physics Laureate Didier Queloz speaks during a press conference at the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm, Sweden. Jonas Ekstromer /TT News Agency via AP"I can't believe we are the only living entity in the whole universe. Queloz had just won the Nobel prize in physics for his discovery of the first exoplanet orbiting a sun-like star. He said that his work has led him to become "absolutely convinced" that humans will detect alien life in the next 100 years.

☆ Brazilian fishermen follow instructions from wild dolphins to know where to throw their nets, video shows
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-10 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +6 min

A video shows a rare example of wild dolphins collaborating with humans to fish in a small lagoon in Brazil. The dolphins learned how to tell the humans exactly when to throw their nets to catch the most fish. The fishers need the dolphins to know when to cast their netsFishermen toss these circular nets to catch the fish in the water. After the net is cast, the dolphins can catch stray fish or pick a few fish out of the net. The Laguna dolphins are about 13% more likely to reach old age, per the study.

HONG KONG, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The world should "calm down" about the possibility of new COVID-19 variants circulating in China, leading Chinese scientist George Gao said. "The world should completely calm down from the fear that there are new variants or special variants circulating (in China)," Gao, professor at the Institute of Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Reuters. The variants causing infections in China were the same Omicron sub-variants - BA.5.2 and BF.7 - seen elsewhere in the world, he said by email. Gao said China was continuing widespread viral genomic sequencing, and would identify any new variants if they emerged. A total of 13 cases of variants were found, including 1 case of XBB.1, 5 cases of BQ.1.1, 1 case of BQ.1.1.17, 4 cases of BQ.1.2 and 2 cases of BQ.1.8.

☆ Explainer: What we know and don't know about the Chinese balloon
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-08 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +6 min

Here's what we know, and don't know, about the balloon that has triggered a dramatic diplomatic dispute between the two powers:HOW BIG IS IT? WAS IT A WEATHER BALLOON? Other companies that develop stratospheric balloon systems include U.S. space tourism firm World View and French firm CNIM Air Space. AIR is particularly keen on stratospheric balloon technology and has posted several articles on its WeChat account about Aerostar. read moreWhile analysts did not yet know the size of the Chinese balloon fleet, U.S. officials have spoken of dozens of missions since 2018 across five continents, with some targeting Japan, India, Vietnam, Taiwan and the Philippines.

HONG KONG, Feb 8 (Reuters) - The world should "calm down" about the possibility of new COVID-19 variants circulating in China, leading Chinese scientist George Gao said. "The world should completely calm down from the fear that there are new variants or special variants circulating [in China]," Gao, professor at the Institute of Microbiology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences and former head of the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), told Reuters. The variants causing infections in China were the same Omicron sub-variants - BA.5.2 and BF.7 - seen elsewhere in the world, he said by email. Gao said China was continuing widespread viral genomic sequencing, and would identify any new variants if they emerged. The authors said there were some limitations to the study, including China's decision to end large-scale mandatory testing.

☆ Facebook co-founder Moskovitz funds research into cooling the Earth with sunlight reflection
▼ + stars: | 2023-02-07 | by ( Catherine Clifford | In Catclifford | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +9 min

(It's sometimes called solar radiation modification or solar geoengineering.) But it's potentially important, it could be very, very helpful, it could be disastrous," Stone told CNBC. And so it goes for solar geoengineering," Stone said. Everyone perceives it to be controversial," Camilloni told CNBC. "This is no one's Plan A for how you deal with climate risk, and whatever happens, we have to cut our emissions," Stone told CNBC.

"(The balloon can) induce and mobilise the enemy's air defence system, providing the conditions for the implementation of electronic reconnaissance, assessment of air defence systems' early warning detection and operational response capabilities," the researchers wrote. Balloons are also used for scientific purposes such as weather monitoring, including by the likes of the China Meteorological Administration. "In response to the growing threat posed by ground-based air defence systems to air attack forces, it is necessary to use cheap air balloons to create active and passive interference to effectively suppress enemy air defence early warning systems and cover air attack forces to carry out their missions," it argued. TECHNOLOGY PURCHASESChinese military units and state-run research institutes have bought high-altitude balloons and related technology in the past two years, a Reuters analysis of government tenders shows, though the documents are heavily redacted. The Aerospace Information Research Institute, part of the official Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), is among state institutions to have shown interest in balloons, frequently publishing articles about high-altitude balloons on an official WeChat account.

October 2022 Wang Linfang,92, molecular biologist Four members of China’s two most prestigious academic institutions died in October – in line with the average in recent years. October 2022 Wang Linfang,92, molecular biologist Four members of China’s two most prestigious academic institutions died in October – in line with the average in recent years. Zhang Guocheng, 91 Zhao Zisen, 90, developed China’s first practical optical fiber Tang Hongxiao, 91 The obituaries began accumulating. October 2022 Wang Linfang,92, molecular biologist Four members of China’s two most prestigious academic institutions died in October – in line with the average in recent years. October 2022 Wang Linfang,92, molecular biologist Four members of China’s two most prestigious academic institutions died in October – in line with the average in recent years.

☆ The Green Comet will be closest to earth on Feb 1. Here's the science behind its ghoulish glow.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-31 | by ( Marianne Guenot | ) www.businessinsider.com time to read: +4 min

A green comet is whizzing past the earth for the first time since the ice age. The green comet, which last passed through the inner solar system about 50,000 years ago, will be at its brightest during this time. Comet ZTF (C/2022 E3) taken at NAOJ Mitaka Campus on January 31, 2023. Another green comet, called ISON, passed Earth in 2013. As it approaches the sun, the heat turns the ice into gas creating an atmosphere around the comet called the coma.

☆ California has been hammered with rain. It may not be enough to reverse its drought.
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-12 | by ( Evan Bush | Evan Bush Is A Science Reporter For Nbc News. He Can Be Reached At Evan.Bush Nbcuni.Com. | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

California counts on a system of about 1,400 human-made surface reservoirs and thousands upon thousands of miles of levees to manage surface water. During the recent storms, extreme drought has buffered some impacts of intense rainfall with plenty of space in the state’s largest reservoirs, which have withered under drought. Before the series of atmospheric rivers, it was storing less than 1 million acre-feet of water. In the Central Valley, Californians extract about 2 million acre-feet more than what returns to the ground, on average, every year, Lund said. California legislators in 2014 passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires local agencies to reach groundwater sustainability by 2042.

☆ Nobel laureate economist faces sex harassment investigation
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-18 | by ( The Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +3 min

The findings in the early 1980s laid the foundations for regulating financial markets, the Nobel panel said. They’re among a group of seven former students Bloomberg reported it had spoken with who allege Dybvig sexually harassed them. The Nobel Peace Prize and Foundation didn’t immediately respond to email messages from the AP. University spokesperson Julie Flory told Bloomberg that the school doesn’t comment on specific cases but takes sexual misconduct seriously and will investigate any allegations. Miltenberg said it is his understanding that the investigation is in the preliminary stages and that the Title IX office wants to speak with Dybvig again.

☆ Spending more time with your kids, grandkids—and their germs—may lower risk of a severe outcome from Covid-19, recent studies show
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-16 | by ( Renée Onque | ) www.cnbc.com time to read: +3 min

That's according to two studies that were published in August and November of this year, which researched how exposure to younger kids and common colds may impact outcomes for adults after contracting Covid-19. Exposure to kids may lower your risk of hospitalization from Covid-19The study, published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) in August, discovered an association between people who were exposed to young children and lower risk of severe illness from Covid-19. And researchers compared the severity of outcomes from Covid-19 for people without children and people with children in three different age ranges: 0-5, 6-11 and 12-18. The findings showed that chances of Veteran Affairs patients contracting Covid-19 decreased by 80% to 90% if they tested positive for any of the common coronaviruses between February 2020 and February 2021. This means developing a common cold may shield people from Covid-19 infection, even if for a short period time.

☆ Keystone pipeline rupture spilled diluted bitumen, complicating cleanup
▼ + stars: | 2022-12-15 | by ( Rod Nickel | Mrinalika Roy | ) www.reuters.com time to read: +2 min

(Reuters) -The oil spilled from TC Energy Corp’s ruptured Keystone pipeline was diluted bitumen, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) said on Thursday, adding complications to the cleanup. The report said that when diluted bitumen spills, a thick, dense material forms as a residue after exposure to the environment. “For this reason, spills of diluted bitumen pose particular challenges when they reach water bodies,” the report said. The Sierra Club, an environmental advocacy group, questioned why parts of the pipeline reopened before TC Energy had identified the leak’s cause. Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration, state and local agencies, TC Energy and TC Energy contractors, the agency said.

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