The world’s most indestructible species, the tardigrade, an eight-legged micro-animal, also known as the water bear, will survive until the Sun dies, according to a new Oxford University collaboration.
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Unabated climate change would bring devastating consequences to countries in Asia and the Pacific, which could severely affect their future growth, reverse current development gains, and degrade quality of life, according to a report produced by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK).
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As severe weather brewed in the Texas panhandle late in the afternoon of May 16, NOAA’s National Weather Service forecasters alerted residents in parts of western Oklahoma about the potential for large hail and damaging tornadoes that evening, particularly in the area around Elk City.
Ninety minutes later, a dangerous, rain-wrapped EF2 tornado struck the small town. It killed one, injured eight and destroyed about 200 homes and more than 30 businesses.
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It’s been a few years of soul-searching for Tim Duncan, the CEO of Talos Energy. The Houston-based oil company has long specialized in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mexico off Louisiana and Texas. Yet the oil bust that began in 2014 has made the region deeply unpopular. Facing dwindling prospects for big new finds offshore, companies have instead flocked to the Permian basin of west Texas, where layer upon layer of oil-saturated rock promises decent returns even at stubbornly low oil prices.
“We resisted the temptation to join the land race onshore,” says Duncan. But Talos did go somewhere new: Mexico.
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In 2015, a rural community in southeastern California approached Daniel Winkler and his doctoral advisor, Travis Huxman, for help with an invader that was hurting their local economy. An Old World annual plant called Sahara mustard (Brassica tournefortii) was spreading rapidly through the deserts of the southwestern U.S., carpeting the local Anza-Borrego Desert in spring, and smothering the native wildflowers that draw tourists to the region. Loss of native plants put the animals that depend on them for food and shelter at risk. The mustard was disrupting the entire desert ecosystem.
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Most of today’s lithium-ion batteries, which power everything from cars to phones, use a liquid as the electrolyte between two electrodes. Using a solid electrolyte instead could offer major advantages for both safety and energy storage capacity, but attempts to do this have faced unexpected challenges.
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