Measuring a previously mysterious imaginary component of wave scattering

There has long been a mystery when calculating how an incoming light wave scatters off an object and becomes a modified, outgoing light wave. In particular, the time delay of the transition from one to the other comes out to be a complex number.

US Is Throwing Away the Critical Minerals It Needs, Analysis Shows

These minerals, such as cobalt, lithium, gallium and rare earth elements like neodymium and yttrium, are currently being discarded as tailings of other mineral streams like gold and zinc.

Stablecoins could transform how we exchange money

China reportedly exploring a digital currency backed by the yuan in challenge to USD.

Ozone will warm planet more than first thought, study finds

While banning ozone-destroying gases such as CFCs has helped the ozone layer to recover, when combined with increased air pollution the impact of ozone could warm the planet 40% more than originally thought.

Novel cement lets buildings cool themselves

Typically, cement absorbs infrared radiation from the sun and stores it as heat, which increases the temperature inside a building.

DNA from extinct hominin may have helped ancient peoples survive in the Americas

Thousands of years ago, ancient humans undertook a treacherous journey, crossing hundreds of miles of ice over the Bering Strait to the unknown world of the Americas.

Artificial Light Has Essentially Lengthened Birds’ Day

For these birds, effectively their day is almost an hour longer.

A universal rhythm guides how we speak

Have you ever noticed that a natural conversation flows like a dance—pauses, emphases, and turns arriving just in time? A new study has discovered that this isn’t just intuition; there is a biological rhythm embedded in our speech.

Industry managed forests more likely to fuel megafires, study finds

The odds of high-severity wildfire were nearly one-and-a-half times higher on industrial private land than on publicly owned forests, a new study found.

For apes, out of sight isn’t out of mind

Bonobos can mentally track multiple members of their social circle.

Unappreciated process helps cells change identity

Researchers worked with an incredibly resourceful group of cells called medullary thymic epithelial cells (mTECs). These cells are found in the thymus, a small, specialized organ of the immune system located just above the heart.

Mystery Greek hominin skull dated to be at least 286,000 years old

The mystery of the Petralona Cave skull centers around two intriguing unknowns. First, while it is clearly of the Homo genus, it is distinctly different from both Neanderthals and current modern humans. Next, dating the skull has remained difficult to narrow down.

Single quantum device that measures amperes, volts and ohms could revolutionize how we measure electricity

This is a significant breakthrough because until now, no single instrument could measure all three primary electrical units in one practical system.

Serbian Scientists Experiment With Mealworms To Degrade Polystyrene

They habitually eat more or less anything, but need the training to eat the plastic products.

Well-travelled New Brunswick lobster caught off Cape Cod, Mass.

Scientist working on Grand Manan says it’s the farthest she’s seen a lobster travel.

Playful, social and cuddly: world’s largest carnivorous bat surprises researchers

The apex predators greet each other with hugs, share prey and sleep in tight huddles, study suggests.

Tick-borne Rocky Mountain spotted fever spreading in Canada

Potentially deadly disease already found in Ontario and Quebec this year.

Saving China’s finless porpoise from the brink of extinction

Chinese scientists are in a battle to save one of the last large animal species living in the Yangtze River – and a complete ban on fishing in the region is helping them.

Scientists make ‘superfood’ that could save honeybees

Honeybees feed on pollen and nectar from flowers that contain the nutrients, including lipids called sterols that are necessary for their development.

== yjc
Freud would have called AI a ’narcissistic insult’ to humanity—here’s how we might overcome it

The cosmological, biological and psychological insults have now been followed by the intellectual. AI deals a fateful blow to our human self-understanding.

Radio waves amp up smell without surgery or chemicals

Our sense of smell is more important than we often realize. It helps us enjoy food, detect danger like smoke or gas leaks, and even affects our memory and emotions.

Clean hydrogen’s iridium problem? Solved in an afternoon with new megalibrary

For decades, researchers around the world have searched for alternatives to iridium, an extremely rare, incredibly expensive metal used in the production of clean hydrogen fuels.

I got an AI to impersonate me and teach me my own course

Imagine you had an unlimited budget for individual tutors offering hyper-personalized courses that maximized learners’ productivity and skills development.

Seabirds only poop while flying, researchers observe

The team found that streaked shearwaters (Calonectris leucomelas) poop while flying—not while floating on water—and they do so frequently.

== expect this is the case the world over
Exotic ticks are hitchhiking their way to the US on travelers, raising public health concerns

More than 140 nonnative tick species have entered the U.S. in the past 50 years.

== yjc
Liberica coffee consists of three distinct species, offering more climate-resilient options

Importantly, the three species exhibit a range of climate tolerances.

An alternative to LASIK—without the lasers

LASIK is just a fancy way of doing traditional surgery. It’s still carving tissue—it’s just carving with a laser.

Stalagmites in Mexican caves reveal duration and severity of drought during the Maya collapse

This is the first time it has been possible to isolate rainfall conditions for individual wet and dry seasons during the Terminal Classic, the time of societal decline historically referred to as the Maya collapse.

Physicists solve 90-year-old puzzle of quantum damped harmonic oscillators

A plucked guitar string can vibrate for seconds before falling silent. This is what physicists call “damped harmonic oscillators” and are well understood in terms of Newton’s laws of motion. But in the tiny world of atoms, things are strange—and operate under the bizarre laws of quantum physics.

Dramatic Slowdown in Melting of Arctic Sea Ice Surprises Scientists

Natural climate variation is most likely reason as global heating due to fossil fuel burning has continued.

== US perspective
Electricity Prices Are Climbing More Than Twice as Fast as Inflation

One out of six households already have trouble paying their current electric bills.

== this report has this caused a downtown in tech stocks
MIT Report: 95% of Generative AI Pilots at Companies Are Failing

Study warns of ‘learning gap’ in enterprise adoption as most projects stall at pilot stage.

Webb telescope spots a new moon orbiting Uranus

It’s only an estimated six miles wide.

== yjc, not just about code line length, you might find it interesting
The Best Line Length

What’s a good maximum line length for your coding standard?

== also see: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gu8ksxHWYAAyHEq?format=jpg&name=900x900
Rare ‘Upper Atmosphere Lightning’ Photographed From ISS

A newly unveiled astronaut photo shows a “gigantic jet” shooting upward from a thunderstorm above Louisiana in November 2024.

== getting truly scary
LLM Found Transmitting Behavioral Traits to ‘Student’ LLM Via Hidden Signals in Data

AI has moved on from answering questions. It’s now slipping coded messages to its friends.

Security Flaws In Carmaker’s Web Portal Let a Hacker Remotely Unlock Cars

Eaton Zveare, a security researcher, told TechCrunch the flaw he discovered allowed the creation of an admin account that granted “unfettered access” to the unnamed carmaker’s centralized web portal.

== reads like an ad, but…
Can We Harness Light Like Nature for a New Era of Green Chemistry?

Photosynthesis is nature’s way of turning sunlight into chemical energy. This transformation, however, does not happen in a single step.

Researchers Solve Long-Standing Mystery After Voyager’s 1986 Flyby of Uranus

For decades, scientists puzzled over why Uranus seemed colder than expected.