Plan to refreeze Arctic sea ice shows promise in first tests
Field trials indicate that pumping seawater onto the snow on top of Arctic sea ice can make the ice thicker, offering a possible way to preserve sea ice throughout the summer
An AI can beat CAPTCHA tests 100 per cent of the time
CAPTCHA tests are supposed to distinguish humans from bots, but an AI system mastered the problem after training on thousands of images of road scenes
What to know about the new covid-19 XEC variant
A new covid-19 variant called XEC may spread more easily than past variants, but current vaccines are still effective against it
Why physicists are air-dropping buoys into the paths of hurricanes
A sprawling research program aims to improve hurricane forecasts by collecting data at the chaotic interface of ocean and atmosphere
Deforestation is partly to blame for Amazon’s worst-ever drought
Forest loss is thought to have played a part in record low rainfall across South America this year, in a sign that environmental destruction is accelerating climate collapse
Astronauts may need medical evacuation from one-third of moon missions
Medically evacuating an astronaut from space is difficult and expensive, and a new model predicts that one in three long-duration moon missions may require it
Antarctica’s ‘doomsday’ glacier is heading for catastrophic collapse
As a six-year investigation into the Thwaites glacier in Antarctica wraps up, the scientists involved are pessimistic for the future of this glacier and the consequences for sea level rise
Bacteria on the space station are evolving for life in space
Genetic analysis shows that microbes growing inside the International Space Station have adaptations for radiation and low gravity, and may pose a threat to astronauts
Special electrodes can split seawater to produce hydrogen fuel
Making hydrogen from seawater can be tricky because the salt is corrosive and the process can create toxic chlorine gas – new electrodes can split ocean water to make the clean fuel more easily
We’ve just doubled the number of gravitational waves we can find
Nearly imperceptible quantum flickers used to limit how precisely we could detect the way space-time ripples, but squeezing the laser light used in detectors overcomes this and doubles the number of gravitational waves we can see