Tales of post-apocalyptic landscapes in which few survivors emerge into a new and much different world have long been popular tales woven by screenwriters and authors. 

Scientists have used a “galaxy-sized” space observatory to find possible hints of a unique signal from gravitational waves, or the powerful ripples that course through the universe and warp the fabric of space and time itself.

Michigan State University is leading a global research effort to offer the first worldwide view of how climate change could affect water availability and drought severity in the decades to come.

By the late 21st century, global land area and population facing extreme droughts could more than double — increasing from 3% during 1976-2005 to 7%-8%, according to Yadu Pokhrel, associate professor of civil and environmental engineering in MSU’s College of Engineering, and lead author of the research published in Nature Climate Change.

“More and more people will suffer from extreme droughts if a medium-to-high level of global warming continues and water management is maintained at its present state,” Pokhrel said. “Areas of the Southern Hemisphere, where water scarcity is already a problem, will be disproportionately affected. We predict this increase in water scarcity will affect food security and escalate human migration and conflict.”

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In most animal species, if a major artery is cut off from the heart, the animal will struggle to survive.

Rice University engineers are turning carbon monoxide directly into acetic acid — the widely used chemical agent that gives vinegar its tang — with a continuous catalytic reactor that can use renewable electricity efficiently to turn out a highly purified product.

As the planet continues to warm, the twin challenges of diminishing water supply and growing energy demand are intensifying.

Water that had pooled in the crater since 2019 quickly boiled off during an eruption that began in December 2020.

Forty years of satellite data show that 2020 was just the latest in a decades-long decline of Arctic sea ice.

Micro-CT scanning and digital reconstructions have been used to compare the skulls of the Tasmanian tiger (thylacine) and wolf across their early development and into adulthood, establishing that not only did the thylacine resemble the wolf as adults, but also as newborns and juveniles.

Dr Katrin Linse, and a team of 20 researchers, intend to collect samples from the seabed in the Iceland Basin to the Azores at depths between 4,000 and 5,000 metres.