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Categories: Geoscience: Environmental Issues, Space: Exploration

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For 200 years, scientists have failed to grow a common mineral in the laboratory under the conditions believed to have formed it naturally. Now, researchers have finally pulled it off, thanks to a new theory developed from atomic simulations. Their success resolves a long-standing geology mystery called the 'Dolomite Problem.' Dolomite -- a key mineral in the Dolomite mountains in Italy, Niagara Falls, the White Cliffs of Dover and Utah's Hoodoos -- is very abundant in rocks older than 100 million years, but nearly absent in younger formations. The lessons learned from the Dolomite Problem can help engineers manufacture higher-quality materials for semiconductors, solar panels, batteries and other tech.  

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Extreme events like tropical cyclones have immediate impacts, but also long-term implications for societies. A new study now finds: Accounting for the long-term impacts of these storms raises the global Social Cost of Carbon by more than 20 percent, compared to the estimates currently used for policy evaluations. This increase is mainly driven by the projected rise of tropical-cyclone damages to the major economies of India, USA, China, Taiwan, and Japan under global warming.

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Exposure to fine particulate air pollutants from coal-fired power plants (coal PM2.5) is associated with a risk of mortality more than double that of exposure to PM2.5 from other sources, according to a new study. Examining Medicare and emissions data in the U.S. from 1999 to 2020, the researchers also found that 460,000 deaths were attributable to coal PM2.5 during the study period -- most of them occurring between 1999 and 2007, when coal PM2.5 levels were highest.

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In 1991, an experiment detected the highest-energy cosmic ray ever observed. Later dubbed the Oh-My-God particle, the cosmic ray’s energy shocked astrophysicists. Nothing in our galaxy had the power to produce it, and the particle had more energy than was theoretically possible for cosmic rays traveling to Earth from other galaxies. Simply put, the particle should not exist. On May 27, 2021, the Telescope Array experiment detected the second-highest extreme-energy cosmic ray. The newly dubbed Amaterasu particle deepens the mystery of the origin, propagation and particle physics of rare, ultra-high-energy cosmic rays.

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Engineers have achieved a world first by manufacturing the first back-contact micrometric photovoltaic cells.

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A new study of shallow-water ecosystems estimates that, by 2100, climate change and coastal land usage could result in significant shrinkage of coral habitats, tidal marshes, and mangroves, while macroalgal beds remain stable and seagrass meadows potentially expand.

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As the planet gets hotter, animal and plant species around the world will be faced with new, potentially unpredictable living conditions, which could alter ecosystems in unprecedented ways. A new study investigates the importance of temperature in determining where animal species are currently found to better understand how a warming climate might impact where they might live in the future.

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To meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and limit global heating to 1.5°C, global annual emissions will need to drop radically over the coming decades. Climate economists say that this goal could still be within our reach. They identify key 'sensitive intervention points' that could unlock significant progress towards the Paris Agreement with the least risk and highest impact.

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Quinoa and many other extremely resilient plants are covered with strange balloon-like 'bladders' that for 127 years were believed to be responsible for protecting them from drought and salt. Research results reveal this not to be the case. These so-called bladder cells serve a completely different though important function. The finding makes it likely that even more resilient quinoa plants will now be able to be bred, which could lead to the much wider cultivation of this sustainable crop worldwide.

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The land use, land use change, and forestry sector plays a strong role in achieving global climate targets, but a gap exists between how scientists and countries account for its emissions. A new study highlights how mitigation benchmarks change when assessing IPCC scenarios from a national inventory perspective, with net-zero timings arriving up to five years earlier and cumulative emissions to net-zero being 15-18% smaller.

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The latest image from NASA's James Webb Space Telescope shows a portion of the dense center of our galaxy in unprecedented detail, including never-before-seen features astronomers have yet to explain. The star-forming region, named Sagittarius C (Sgr C), is about 300 light-years from the Milky Way's central supermassive black hole, Sagittarius A*.

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Despite public perception, the Antarctic ozone hole has been remarkably massive and long-lived over the past four years; researchers believe chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) aren't the only things to blame.

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The deep sea is home to one of the largest animal communities on earth which is increasingly exposed to environmental pressures. However, our knowledge of its inhabitants and their response to human-induced stressors is still limited. A new study now provides first insights into the stress response of a pelagic deep-sea jellyfish to ocean warming and sediment plumes caused by deep-sea mining.

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Global measurements and model calculations show that the complex relationship between the chemistry and climate impact of aerosol particles can be successfully captured by a simple formula.

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Researchers have discovered solar-wind hydrogen in lunar samples, which indicates that water on the surface of the Moon may provide a vital resource for future lunar bases and longer-range space exploration.

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  The research makes it clear that ensuring the sustained well-being of our planet requires a more serious commitment toward new carbon dioxide removal technologies, and a faster scale-up of their production.

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Forest modeling shows that a site's productivity -- an indicator of how fast trees grow and how much biomass they accumulate -- is the main factor that determines which time period between timber harvests allows for maximum above-ground carbon sequestration.

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If you look at massive galaxies teeming with stars, you might be forgiven in thinking they are star factories, churning out brilliant balls of gas. But actually, less evolved dwarf galaxies have bigger regions of star factories, with higher rates of star formation. Now, University of Michigan researchers have discovered the reason underlying this: These galaxies enjoy a 10-million-year delay in blowing out the gas cluttering up their environments. Star-forming regions are able to hang on to their gas and dust, allowing more stars to coalesce and evolve. In these relatively pristine dwarf galaxies, massive stars--stars about 20 to 200 times the mass of our sun--collapse into black holes instead of exploding as supernovae. But in more evolved, polluted galaxies, like our Milky Way, they are more likely to explode, thereby generating a collective superwind. Gas and dust get blasted out of the galaxy, and star formation quickly stops.   

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Concerted action is required to mitigate the impact of warming on polar ecosystems and sustainably manage these unique habitats.  

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An engineering research team is pioneering a new method, based on percussion, to detect pipeline elbow erosion to prevent economic losses, environmental pollution and other safety issues.