Top Stories

Putting Underused Smart Devices to Work

There are currently millions of heavily underutilized devices in the World. The storage, networking, sensing and computational power of laptops, smartphones, routers or base stations grows with each new version and product release. Why not put all those extra gigabytes of memory and those powerful processing units to work collaboratively and expand the services available to all of us?

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Physicists Train Robotic Gliders to Soar like Birds

The words “fly like an eagle” are famously part of a song, but they may also be words that make some scientists scratch their heads. Especially when it comes to soaring birds like eagles, falcons and hawks, who seem to ascend to great heights over hills, canyons and mountain tops with ease. Scientists realize that upward currents of warm air assist the birds in their flight, but they don’t know how the birds find and navigate these thermal plumes.

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From south to north, young lobsters find cool refuge in deep water

Maine fishermen hauled in 110.8 million pounds of lobsters in 2017 with a value of more than $400 million. While still incredibly large, this volume represented a 16 percent decline and $100 million loss compared to previous years of record-setting landings.

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Glacial Engineering Could Limit Sea-Level Rise, If We Get Our Emissions Under Control

Targeted engineering projects to hold off glacier melting could slow down the collapse of ice sheets and limit sea-level rise, according to a new study published in the European Geosciences Union journal The Cryosphere. While an intervention similar in size to existing large civil engineering projects could only have a 30% chance of success, a larger project would have better odds of holding off ice-sheet collapse. But study authors Michael Wolovick and John Moore caution that reducing emissions still remains key to stopping climate change and its dramatic effects.

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Researcher using bird’s eye view to reduce building strikes

Brandon Samuels plans to set up cameras this January in hopes of catching footage of birds crashing into windows across campus. Honestly, he really is a nice guy – it’s for science.

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Mediterranean-Style Diet May Lower Women’s Stroke Risk

One of the largest and longest-running efforts to evaluate the potential benefits of the Mediterranean-style diet in lowering risk of stroke found that the diet may be especially protective in women over 40 regardless of menopausal status or hormone replacement therapy, according to new research in the American Heart Association’s journal Stroke.

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Humpback whales are navigating an ocean of change

In late December 2015, Ed Lyman started getting calls from whale watching companies on the island of Hawai‘i. “Ed, how are the whales off Maui?” tour operators were asking. “We’ve never seen them arrive this late.”

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USGS Keeps Vital Information Flowing in Carolina Flood Catastrophe

At least 80 U.S. Geological Survey scientists are in the field in the Carolinas and Virginia, working to ensure that vital information about river flooding continues to reach emergency managers, forecasters and others threatened by the catastrophic flooding that has been linked to 32 deaths.

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Connecting Environmental Sustainability with the Science of Organic Production

Connecting Environmental Sustainability with the Science oBrock University biology professors are among a group of researchers participating in a Canada-wide research cluster aimed at boosting the nation’s organic farming sector.

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Flood Frequency of the World’s Largest River has Increased Fivefold

A recent study of more than 100 years of river level records from the Amazon shows a significant increase in frequency and severity of floods.

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