As a child in Algeria in the late 1990s, Walid Ouaret remembers going to the mosque when the droughts became severe. There, he and his family would join their neighbors in a communal prayer for rain called Salat al-Istisqāʼ. It was not an informal event: the ceremony had been announced by the government. “I wasn’t…
Image credits: Sebastián Unrau. At first glance, a forest is a peaceful place and the trees are the calmest. However, researchers like Dr. Richard Karban, a formally trained ecologist and member of the UC Davis Department of Entomology since 1981, are changing the narrative. Turns out the forest is pretty loud, we just can’t hear…
By Mitzi Perdue “The Internet will have no more economic impact than the fax machine,” said Nobel laureate Paul Krugman. US intelligence insisted that the Afghan government would hold out for months after the US withdrawal. It fell in eleven days. Military analysts around the world predicted that kyiv would fall in seventy-two hours in…
September 4, 2025 AGU is deeply alarmed by the Environmental Protection Agency’s plan to reverse its long-standing greenhouse gas hazard determination. This action undermines decades of rigorous scientific research showing that carbon dioxide, methane and other emissions pose a clear threat to human health and well-being. AGU strongly supports the global scientific community: the weight…
A detailed set of simulations by astrophysicists at the Flatiron Institute and their collaborators showed that magnetic fields can produce black holes with masses previously thought unattainable. In 2023, astronomers recorded a dramatic cosmic event. Two unusually large black holes collided about 7 billion light years from Earth, and their […] #Scientists #Finally #Explain #Mysterious…
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), almost one in seven people worldwide were living with a mental illness in 2021, with anxiety disorders and depression being the most common. These conditions often arise from a combination of influences, and genetics plays a large role in shaping a person’s risk. Having a close family member…
Behind the result of large language models like Chat GPT lies a journey with complex environmental and social impacts, from mineral extraction by children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, to training systems that expose people to violent and degrading images in countries like Nigeria, and huge, resource-intensive data centers in regions where energy,…
At the end of the summer semester, Columbia University students AMP in environmental science and policy The program visited Stamford, the Connecticut Water Pollution Control Authority and its municipal recycling operations. At first glance, these facilities represent the kind of critical behind-the-scenes infrastructure that most of us take for granted: wastewater treatment plants that protect…
For more than 10 billion years, the rate of cosmic star formation has been slowing and slowing. Someday, the last star in the Universe will die. Continue reading Start with a bang! » #decline #fall #stars #Universe
Genetic changes in genes are the main reasons for the formation of a tumor, also called tumorigenesis. In addition to genetic changes, epigenetic changes and reversible nongenetic alterations play an important role in tumorigenesis and disease progression. Since epigenetic changes can induce tumorigenesis and also reverse it, it is critical in cancer research to understand…