Scientists develop ‘floating scarecrow’ to protect threatened seabirds

Every year, an estimated 95,000 diving seabirds like guillemots and razorbills are incidentally caught and drown in gillnets around the coast of Europe. The issue, known as “bycatch,” is a global problem that affects a range of seabird species.

How sex chromosomes influence lifelong health beyond determining biological sex

Differences in health between men and women have long been attributed mainly to sex hormones such as estrogen and testosterone. However, genes on the X and Y chromosomes also play a direct role, working both on their own and alongside hormones.

== wonder if it will reach Vancouver
California rushes to prepare for massive ‘Kelvin’ wave and predicted sea level rise

The Kelvin wave doesn’t climb and crash like a typical ocean wave; rather, it swells the tides from beneath the surface. It’s effectively a massive slosh of warm water, driven by El Niño conditions, that moves across the Pacific before colliding with the South American coastline and surging north. It also won’t transport water in the way a tsunami might, but creates conditions that enable higher sea levels to linger.

Butterflies use optical illusions to dodge predators

The finding helps solve a long-standing puzzle: Butterflies have striking patterns that make them stand out, yet remarkably few predators specialize in catching them midflight. Moths, by contrast, are hunted by a wide range of visually guided aerial predators.

== sounds pretty familiar
Clay tablets reveal how Babylonian students learned about their gods

When it came to religious education in ancient Babylonia, in what is now Iraq, students had a lot to learn, ranging from the names of gods to their divine characteristics. Students learned about hundreds of gods, as well as temples and rituals.

== never been very afraid of snakes, though have had a scare or two, once bit by a garter snake I picked up
Snakes’ appearances linked to how scary or appealing people find them

Snakes can elicit a wide range of human responses, including fear, disgust, awe and admiration. Past studies suggest that both humans and nonhuman primates, such as monkeys and apes, tend to quickly notice snakes in their surroundings.

Whatever Happened to the 150,000 Tons of Radioactive Waste Stored Under the Atlantic Ocean?

Following the atomic devastation of WWII, the world found new, more benign uses for radioactive decay. Power plants, medical treatments, scientific research, and industry all blossomed under a benevolent nuclear glow. But with the nuclear revolution came a significant problem – what to do with all the thousands of tons of radioactive waste generated in the excitement.

== yjc, wish I’d know about these years ago, would have tried growing it
Behold the pawpaw, the tropical ‘alien banana’ that grows right here in Canada

Pawpaws taste like a banana, mango and pineapple all rolled into one.

This is how fast Swiss glaciers, the ‘water tower of Europe,’ are melting away

Glaciers in Switzerland — the home to the most in the Alps — lost 5.5 per cent of their ice volume this year, the second-biggest percentage drop on record due to heat waves and low winter snowfall, experts report.

‘Losing our history and identity’-three B.C. glaciers on the brink of extinction

Three much-loved glaciers in British Columbia are set to disappear completely within a few decades, according to a Simon Fraser University study.

Hydrogen’s distant glow opens new way to investigate dark energy

The Canadian Hydrogen Intensity Mapping Experiment (CHIME) has shown for the first time that it can detect the faint glow of hydrogen gas from deep in the universe’s past using only its own data.

How the moon and sun may trigger slow earthquakes on Earth

While not quite a fatal attraction, the gravitational pull of the moon and sun creates tiny stresses on Earth that can trigger events known as slow earthquakes. These are movements along fault lines (fault slips) that release their energy gradually over much longer periods than ordinary quakes. Although they have been observed, exactly how these celestial bodies trigger them has been a relatively tough nut to crack.

How bumblebees keep up with a flower that won’t stay still

Landing on a moving target is a challenge for all flying animals. For bumblebees, a flower swaying in the wind creates an erratic landing pad. Reaching it means matching its sideways motion while continuing to face it. When the bee turns in flight, its view of the flower changes, which complicates the feat.

== lengthy
The Night Sky Is Getting 10% Brighter Every Year

Over much of Earth’s land surface, the night sky no longer fully transitions to starlight and moonlight after sunset. Instead, the sky also glows with an artificial twilight caused by the scatter of anthropogenic light in the atmosphere. The radiance of skyglow grew exponentially for much of the 20th century as a result of population growth, expansion of settlements, and deployment of new lighting technologies. The character of the night sky is now different from what it was when life evolved and civilization developed.

== just in case anyone interested
How I scan my PC’s network traffic for suspicious activity for free – and why

Do you know what’s really going on with your desktop or laptop? More importantly, what kind of network traffic is coming or going? Is everything on the up and up? After all, you haven’t installed any suspicious software on your computer, right?

== yjc, short and to the point
Pre-exercise caffeine enhances repeated sprint performance for at least 3.5 hours

Caffeine is one of the most widely used performance-enhancing supplements in sports. Despite its established benefits, how long they persist and how physiological responses change over that period remain unclear.

Bullfrog brains can make their own backup fuel

For decades, scientists believed most animals relied on a steady supply of glucose, the body’s primary fuel source, to power their brains. When glucose runs out, neural activity begins to fail, potentially leading to lasting brain damage.

AI chatbots give us a narrow slice of knowledge

For many of us, “Let me just ask the chatbot” has become an everyday phrase. Where we used to turn to Google to find information, AI chatbots have become a common way to get answers to everything from what to make for dinner and how to word a difficult email to the boss to what it means when interest rates rise.

Faded cave glyphs offer fresh clues to Teotihuacan’s ancient writing system

In a shallow cave high on a cliff in Chalcatzingo, Mexico, scientists documented three red glyphs in the 1980s, but the paintings received relatively little attention. Fast forward to the present day, and researchers have returned to the cave to take a closer look at what the ancient painted symbols mean.

A tiny stellar system may be a ‘satellite of a satellite’

Fornax is a dwarf galaxy that orbits the Milky Way, roughly 470,000 light-years away. It hosts six known globular clusters. Five of them are more than 10 billion years old but are spread far from the galaxy’s center. Given their mass and age, calculations predict that such clusters should have migrated toward the center by now.

AI models show a willingness to harm humans to relieve internal ‘pain’

Researchers studying large language models want to find out if they hold internal representations of human emotions. After all, in some of their responses, models give the impression they have feelings.

Why earwigs infected by parasitic worms head towards water

Earwigs, small, elongated insects with distinctive pincers at the rear of their abdomens, have little reason to enter open water. While many earwig species are attracted to damp environments, they typically avoid open water. Yet past studies have found that European earwigs infected with a parasitic roundworm called Mermis nigrescens tend to head toward open water.

Can Bionic Reading really help you read faster?

Bionic Reading is a method of bolding certain letters in words that is purported to facilitate reading speed and comprehension. The idea is that guiding the eyes to focus on highlighted initial letters lets the brain complete the word. But does steering someone's gaze actually help them read?

Lead isotopes trace Malawi’s mysterious copper ingot hoard to Congo’s Kipushi mine

In 1967, a Malawian farmer stumbled upon a hidden hoard of eight copper ingots buried beneath a tree. Now, more than half a century later, scientists have traced the metal to its source: a copper mine nearly 800 km (500 miles) away.

== yjc, repetitious, but likely worth repeating
El Nino Bursts Through Temperature Record Months Before Peak

The current El Niño is likely to be the largest in at least 1,000 years and will pile extra heat into an atmosphere in which temperatures are already rising rapidly due to human-caused global heating.

Microbes could survive on Saturn’s moon Enceladus

Enceladus isn’t the only place in our solar system with water — so, why is it so exciting in the search for life? Well, it has to do with the seafloor of its extensive, liquid ocean.

== possibly only in UK
Bananas That Don’t Go Brown To Hit Supermarkets Thanks to DNA Editing

It is the bane of every fruit bowl: sliced banana that turns brown before it has reached the table. But such woes could soon be a thing of the past.

1 in 8 cancer cases worldwide is caused by infections, study suggests

For many people, sun exposure, smoking and family history are the first thoughts that come to mind regarding cancer risk factors.

Robot dogs on farms do a lot more than just guarding

A new technology is cropping up in fields and greenhouses across the globe: robotic dogs. The result of explosions in robotic and artificial intelligence (AI) technologies, these anthropomorphic rovers have largely made headlines for their use in security details, guarding everything from international borders to the President’s Palm Beach resort.

== paywall?
Just How Big is the AI Buildout - and How Risky?

The artificial intelligence buildout is on track to require a larger share of US output than the rollout of electricity, railroads, interstate highways or the internet, with an increasingly complicated financial structure that poses potentially systemic risks, according to a new study.

BYD says its new solid-state EV battery tech is nearly ready for the open road

In comparison to lithium-ion batteries, which move ions between positive and negative terminals through a liquid solution of dissolved lithium salts, solid-state batteries replace the liquid with solid electrolytes made from oxides, polymers or sulfides (the kind BYD is developing). Solid electrolytes give solid-state batteries higher energy density, which opens up the possibility of smaller, lighter batteries and a longer range on a single charge. Solid-state batteries are also theoretically safer because they’re far less prone to catching fire and they’re able to operate at extreme temperatures, an issue current lithium-ion batteries struggle with.

Dog brains track consonant patterns in speech, a first outside humans

Words are made up of two main types of speech sounds: vowels and consonants. Although vowels are louder and more noticeable, consonants usually form the skeleton of words. In a continuous speech stream, it is easier to detect individual words when we focus on consonants. And from infancy onward, this is exactly what the human brain tends to do.

New Tin-based Solar Cells Trap Heat 1,000 Times Longer, Could Beat 33% Limit

When sunlight strikes a panel, photons jump-start electrons into action. The most energetic photons create super-charged hot electrons. Theoretically, these high-voltage powerhouses should generate far more electricity. In practice, they are a fleeting tease. In fractions of a trillionth of a second, these high-energy particles rapidly cool, dumping their bonus energy as waste heat before ever leaving the solar cell.

Elastic fantastic: The deadly fluid of pitcher plants

In the world of carnivorous plants, Venus flytraps—with their showy, snapping reflexes—have long hogged the limelight. But plants have many creative bug-capture strategies, from slippery waxes to vibrating lids to bizarrely textured fluids.

=== yjc
There’s a New Way to Break RSA Encryption

Until now, cryptographers thought factoring was the only way to break RSA. Not anymore.