SCIENCES E NERGIES ENVIRONNEMENT

 

Dear olivier hartmanshenn,

Here is your customized Science X Newsletter for week 10:

	After decades of Arctic sea ice getting faster, models suggest a dramatic reversal is coming Will ice floating in the Arctic Ocean move faster or slower over the coming decades? The answer to this question will tell us whether marine transportation can be expected to get more or less hazardous. It might also have important implications for the rate of ice cover loss, which is hugely consequential for Northern Indigenous communities, ecosystems, and the global climate system.
	James Webb Space Telescope captures the end of planet formation The James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) is helping scientists uncover how planets form by advancing understanding of their birthplaces and the circumstellar disks surrounding young stars.
	Study of slowly evolving 'living fossils' reveals key genetic insights In 1859, Charles Darwin coined the term "living fossils" to describe organisms that show little species diversity or physical differences from their ancestors in the fossil record. In a new study, Yale researchers provide the first evidence of a biological mechanism that explains how living fossils occur in nature.
	New analysis shows that the global freshwater cycle has shifted far beyond pre-industrial conditions A new analysis of freshwater resources across the globe shows that the updated planetary boundary for freshwater change was surpassed by the mid-twentieth century. In other words, for the past century, humans have been pushing the Earth's freshwater system far beyond the stable conditions that prevailed before industrialization.
	The Arctic could become 'ice-free' within a decade, say scientists The Arctic could see summer days with practically no sea ice as early as the next couple of years, according to a new study out of the University of Colorado Boulder.
	Scientists CT scanned thousands of natural history specimens, which you can access for free Natural history museums have entered a new stage of scientific discovery and accessibility with the completion of openVertebrate (oVert), a five-year collaborative project among 18 institutions to create 3D reconstructions of vertebrate specimens and make them freely available online.
	Birds, beetles, bugs could help replace pesticides: Study Natural predators like birds, beetles and bugs might be an effective alternative to pesticides, keeping crop-devouring pests populations down while boosting crop yields, researchers said Wednesday.
	Tests show high-temperature superconducting magnets are ready for fusion In the predawn hours of Sept. 5, 2021, engineers achieved a major milestone in the labs of MIT's Plasma Science and Fusion Center (PSFC), when a new type of magnet, made from high-temperature superconducting material, achieved a world-record magnetic field strength of 20 tesla for a large-scale magnet. That's the intensity needed to build a fusion power plant that is expected to produce a net output of power and potentially usher in an era of virtually limitless power production.
	Fixing space-physics mistake enhances satellite safety Correcting 50-year-old errors in the math used to understand how electromagnetic waves scatter electrons trapped in Earth's magnetic fields will lead to better protection for technology in space.
	Researchers find exception to 200-year-old scientific law governing heat transfer A team of researchers led by the University of Massachusetts Amherst has recently found an exception to the 200-year-old law, known as Fourier's Law, that governs how heat diffuses through solid materials.
	Geologists explore the hidden history of Colorado's Spanish Peaks If you've driven the mostly flat stretch of I-25 in Colorado from Pueblo to Trinidad, you've seen them: the Spanish Peaks, twin mountains that soar into the sky out of nowhere, reaching altitudes of 13,628 and 12,701 feet above sea level.
	Modeling the origins of life: New evidence for an 'RNA World' Charles Darwin described evolution as "descent with modification." Genetic information in the form of DNA sequences is copied and passed down from one generation to the next. But this process must also be somewhat flexible, allowing slight variations of genes to arise over time and introduce new traits into the population.
	Not just humans: Bees and chimps can also pass on their skills Bumblebees and chimpanzees can learn skills from their peers so complicated that they could never have mastered them on their own, an ability previously thought to be unique to humans, two studies said on Wednesday.
	Fossils of giant sea lizard with dagger-like teeth show how our oceans have fundamentally changed since the dinosaur era Paleontologists have discovered a strange new species of marine lizard with dagger-like teeth that lived near the end of the age of dinosaurs. Their findings, published in Cretaceous Research, show a dramatically different ocean ecosystem to what we see today, with numerous giant top predators eating large prey, unlike modern ecosystems where a few apex predators—such as great white sharks, orca and leopard seals—dominate.
	NASA unveils design for message heading to Jupiter's moon Europa When it launches in October, the agency's Europa Clipper spacecraft will carry a richly layered dispatch that includes more than 2.6 million names submitted by the public.
	Multiple spacecraft tell the story of one giant solar storm April 17, 2021, was a day like any other day on the sun, until a brilliant flash erupted and an enormous cloud of solar material billowed away from our star. Such outbursts from the sun are not unusual, but this one was unusually widespread, hurling high-speed protons and electrons at velocities nearing the speed of light and striking several spacecraft across the inner solar system.
	Beam balance designs could elucidate the origins of dark energy One of the greatest problems in modern physics is to reconcile the enormous difference between the energy carried by random fluctuations in the vacuum of space, and the dark energy driving the universe's expansion.
	An evolutionary mystery 125 million years in the making Plant genomics has come a long way since Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (CSHL) helped sequence the first plant genome. But engineering the perfect crop is still, in many ways, a game of chance. Making the same DNA mutation in two different plants doesn't always give us the crop traits we want. The question is why not? CSHL plant biologists just dug up a reason.
	Lack of focus doesn't equal lack of intelligence: It's proof of an intricate brain, say scientists Imagine a busy restaurant: dishes clattering, music playing, people talking loudly over one another. It's a wonder that anyone in that kind of environment can focus enough to have a conversation. A new study by researchers at Brown University's Carney Institute for Brain Science provides some of the most detailed insights yet into the brain mechanisms that help people pay attention amid such distraction, as well as what's happening when they can't focus.
	Scientists predict the extinction risk for all the world's plants with AI In a new study, published in the journal Ne