USA TODAY - Southern California's Salton Sea may be sitting atop a lithium gold mine that, if extracted, could power a staggering 375 million electric vehicle batteries, according to a new report. It's not exactly a secret that lithium is present in the hot brine located in the shallow, landlocked body of water's vast underground...
NPR / KQED - Fruit Fly Threat Being Fought In Different Manner In California Four decades ago, California went to war against an enemy that wasn’t human. The adversary was the Mediterranean fruit fly, an invasive pest that threatened to destroy California’s agricultural economy. To fight the fly, the state launched controversial aerial pesticide spraying...
NBC PALM SPRINGS - Christiana Green runs four farmers markets across the Coachella Valley with vendors selling all kinds of produce. “It could decimate our farmers markets and the availability of the freshest food available,” she said. Green is talking about a large infestation of the Oriental Fruit Fly (Bactrocera dorsali) which were recently found...
FAST COMPANY - Scientists use the term “luxury effect” to refer to the fact that the wealthier and whiter your neighborhood becomes, the likelier your block is to be green. Having a greater disposable income gives people the resources to increase the plant biodiversity of where they live. Research shows that increased vegetation yields a...
THE PRESS-ENTERPRISE - The mineral-rich stew bubbling thousands of feet beneath the shores of Southern California’s Salton Sea contains one of the largest lithium deposits in the world, with enough of the valuable metal to make batteries for more than 375 million electric vehicles, according to a long-awaited analysis published Tuesday. “It’s pretty exciting how...
INTERESTING ENGINEERING - Researchers have discovered up to 10 previously unknown species of now-extinct trilobites in Thailand's least explored region. Fossils hidden for 490 million years were uncovered by researchers from the University of California along the coast of Ko Tarutao island. This discovery has the potential to bridge gaps in our knowledge of animal...
POPULAR SCIENCE - Geologists have discovered 10 new species of trilobite in a relatively unstudied area of Thailand. These extinct sea creatures were hidden for 490 million years and are helping scientists create a new map of the animal life during the late Cambrian period. They are described in a monograph that was published in...
NPR / KCRW - A giant tumbleweed roughly the size of a Volkswagen beetle was spotted hurtling its way down a four-lane road in California this week. The jaunty brown bundle of brush was captured on video and posted on Tuesday on X, formerly known as Twitter, where it has gathered a number of fans...
NEWSWEEK - Researchers have uncovered the fossils of numerous extinct sea creatures that lived hundreds of millions of years ago—and they could help solve an ancient geographical puzzle, according to a recently published study. The fossils represent various types of a strange class of prehistoric marine animals known as trilobites. A team of scientists collected...
SALON - In distant galaxies exist stars that are smaller and cooler than our own Sun. These so-called red dwarf or M dwarf stars also live 10 times as long as stars like ours and are the most numerous in our galaxy, outnumbering stars like ours 10 to 1. Because of their longevity and quantity...
IFL SCIENCE - The humble trilobite may be long-extinct, but even as fossils, there’s much they can teach us about the history of our planet. In fact, ancient arthropods – including 10 newly discovered species – that lived nearly half a billion years ago could provide the missing pieces to the puzzle of where Thailand...
CNN - Astronomers have spied an intriguing phenomenon in the distant universe — a galaxy that closely resembles the Milky Way — and it’s challenging key theories on how galaxies evolve. The faraway system, called ceers-2112, was spotted by an international team using the James Webb Space Telescope. Like our home galaxy, the newly discovered...
MASHABLE - Astronomers previously thought it took billions of years for galaxies to become stable enough to develop so-called "bars," ribbons of stars and gas that cut across the core of a galaxy. The Milky Way is an example of a barred spiral galaxy. But a new James Webb Space Telescope discovery means scientists might...
STUDY FINDS - Could Earth have a twin in a distant galaxy that looks just like ours? Scientists have made an astronomical discovery that disputes previous theories of galaxy formation. An international team of astronomers used NASA’s James Webb Space Telescope to identify the most distant barred spiral galaxy similar to our Milky Way ever...
PHYSICS WORLD - Taking inspiration from the flow of air around aeroplane wings, researchers in the US have imaged photoexcited electrons flowing around sharp bends for the first time. Because such bends are often found in integrated optoelectronic circuits, observing the electrons’ “streamlines” could lead to improvements in circuit design. More than 80 years ago...
SPACE.COM - Like huge playground bullies, planets like Jupiter can be "agents of chaos" around other stars, a pair of new studies suggest. Gas giant planets that are the size of Jupiter or larger create havoc in young planetary systems, often shoving smaller, Earth-sized planets way out of their original, circular orbits, according to the...
NEWSWEEK - While Jupiter may be our planetary guardian angel, protecting us from harm, gas giants in other solar systems might actually wreak havoc on other exoplanets nearby. In our solar system, Jupiter's huge gravitational field deflects comets and asteroids away from our delicate, rocky home planet. According to a new study in The Astronomical...
FORBES - Massive planets like Jupiter—now at its brightest and best in the night sky—can prevent Earth-sized planets from becoming Earth-like by upsetting their orbits and destroying climates. In other star systems, gas giants can play a much more destructive role. As an example, the authors studied HD 141399, a star system also with four...
THE DEBRIEF - New stellar models predict that gas giant planets can act as ‘agents of chaos’ in their solar systems by wreaking havoc on the habitable zone orbits of Earthlike planets that may harbor alien lifeforms. Our solar system’s gas giants, Jupiter and Saturn, help protect the inner rocky planets, including Earth, from potentially...
ENTOMOLOGY TODAY - Subterranean termites in the genus Reticulitermes are common pests in North America, responsible for significant damage to wooden structures. The scientific literature maintains that the western United States is home to two native species of termites: Reticulitermes hesperus in more coastal regions from British Columbia to Southern California, and Reticulitermes tibialis in...