What goes up must come down, and that includes all of the satellites, rocket stages, and junk that humans have launched into space. A group of scientists is sounding the alarm about how that growing cloud of debris orbiting Earth may cause us trouble in the future, and are championing a global approach to governing…
An analysis of global plastic data over the past four decades, published in the journal PLOS ONE, found that there’s now an estimated 170 trillion plastic particles—more than 2.2 million tons—floating in the world’s oceans.
Fungi are some of the strangest living things on Earth. Some are single-celled organisms like bacteria, other are multicellular beings akin to plants and animals. Some can even shapeshift between these forms of life. However they look, they’re an integral part of the environment: Many fungi act as nature’s recyclers,…
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Say cheese: a newly deployed Starlink V2 satellite unknowingly posed for an orbital snapshot captured by a satellite imaging company. The photo revealed the new look of the miniature satellites in action, which SpaceX is hoping will increase the broadband capacity of its internet constellation.
We may some day be able to produce power from thin air—all thanks to bacteria living in dirt. Microbiologists at Australia’s Monash University have identified an enzyme within a bacteria found in soil that can produce electricity using nothing but hydrogen from the atmosphere.
Maxim Shemetov/REUTERS
There’s no shortage of nasty germs in the world that can make us sick. The most common ones tend to be those passed on from person to person through methods such as respiratory droplets and aerosols, fecal-oral contamination (touching traces of poo from someone’s unwashed hands), or even sex. But there are other…
It’s official: One of the new towers at the Vogtle power plant has started splitting atoms. The step brings the troubled plant in Georgia, which is years behind schedule and billions of dollars over budget, closer to providing an enormous amount of carbon-free power to the grid.
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