Asteroids still pose a danger to our planet. Earth scientists are actively working on this problem
NASA’s new NEO Surveyor spacecraft will search for the hardest-to-find asteroids and comets that could pose a threat to our planet, making it the agency’s first space telescope designed specifically for planetary defense. The impact craters that scar the Earth’s surface are evidence of the enormous impact asteroids have had on the history and development of our planet.
Increased number of extreme forest fires due to climate change has become a global problem
Energetically extreme fires have a huge impact on the Earth system, releasing huge plumes of smoke into the atmosphere comparable to volcanic eruptions. They release vast stores of carbon and cause severe damage to ecosystems and societies, sometimes destroying entire cities or suburbs. A new study published in the journal Nature Ecology and Evolution has tracked the rapid increase in energetically extreme wildfires across the planet over the past two decades.
Invasive house mice eat wandering albatrosses alive in southern South Africa
Marion Island’s wandering albatrosses can’t protect themselves from an invasive mouse population that’s eating the birds alive, but conservationists say a rodenticide ‘bomb’ could save them. Invasive mice are eating albatrosses alive on a remote Indian Ocean island, so conservationists have come up with an explosive solution: ‘mouse bombing’.
The mortality rate in megacities from heat waves is 46% higher than in villages. By 2050, this figure will increase
A person who is 40 today will be about 70 years old in 2050. The world is undergoing unprecedented and inexorable change: scientists predict that by 2050, more than 20% of the world’s population will be over 60. This demographic shift coincides with another major change: the warming of the Earth due to human-caused climate change.
Space debris threatens not only the further exploration of outer space, but also directly the inhabitants of the Earth
NASA confirms that the object that crashed into a house in Florida was indeed space debris from the ISS. Satellites are burning up in the upper atmosphere – and we still don’t know what impact this will have on the Earth’s climate. Space pollution threatens the Earth’s magnetosphere; the deposition of highly conductive materials can reduce the planet’s protective capabilities, an expert says.
Heavy hydrogen used in nuclear energy and water turned out to be older than Earth
In protoplanetary disks, water is virtually omnipresent. Recent studies of the water content of early planetary systems like ours show that water is an abundant and ubiquitous molecule, originally synthesized on the surface of tiny grains of interstellar dust by hydrogenation of frozen oxygen, reports the journal Elements. In the molecular cloud from which a new planetary system will emerge, oxygen attaches and freezes to the dust grains it encounters. Once a hydrogen molecule intersects with this frozen oxygen, water ice is formed.
Melting permafrost could release nuclear waste and pathogens
A team of scientists has discovered that thawing permafrost could release a dangerous legacy of the Cold War – nuclear waste that is still radioactive. In addition, the release of pathogenic microorganisms is possible, reports Nature Climate Change. Melting Arctic glaciers could release radioactive waste from Cold War-era nuclear submarines and reactors. The Arctic’s nine million square miles of ice have been accumulating for more than a million years a variety of substances that could be released into the air and water due to climate change.
The threat of nuclear war looms over humanity
Russia and China may overtake the United States in the number of nuclear weapons. This was stated by the head of the Strategic Command of the US Armed Forces, Air Force General Anthony Cotton. Earlier, Russian President Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with participants of the “Everything for Victory” forum in Tula, said that Russian strategic nuclear forces have been almost completely updated. Moreover, their marine component is almost 100%.
In Haiti, almost four thousand prisoners escaped from prison
According to Agence France-Presse, of the approximately 3.8 thousand prisoners held in the prison before the attack, about a hundred remain in prison at present. Armed men attacked the national prison in the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince, where unrest was taking place, and released an unknown number of prisoners. Ten people died in a mass escape of prisoners from Haiti’s largest prison.
Pakistan-India relations are united by air pollution
Delhi and Lahore have been named the most polluted cities in the world. Pakistani Lahore was once called the “city of gardens,” but now most of the trees in this city have been cut down, and in recent decades alone it has lost about 75% of its green spaces. Today, the population of Lahore is more than 13 million people, and the city itself has become one of the most polluted in the world. Scientists note that it will soon become unsuitable for life.
The number of refugees and migrants in 2021 has broken all previous records
More than 84 million people fled their homes between January and November 2021, according to the UN Refugee Agency
Russia will store and collect genetic information for research
In the Russian Federation, a National Genetic Information Database will be created by 2024, and in 2009 a “forensic” genetic information database was formed.