Chinaâs Changâe 5 moon craft on a new mission: the sun
China’s Chang’e 5 moon mission successfully returned moon rocks to Earth in December 2020 for the first time in 44 years. It’s now headed toward an Earth-sun Lagrange point, with the goal of making sun observations.
RNA’s mysterious folding process
Using data from RNA-folding experiments, the researchers generated the first-ever data-driven movies of how RNA folds as it is made by cellular machinery. By watching their videos of this folding occur, the researchers discovered that RNA often folds in surprising, perhaps unintuitive ways, such as tying itself into knots.
2020 tied for warmest year on record
2020 was Earth’s hottest year in the 140-year record, effectively tying 2016, the previous record-holder.
Scholars link diet, dentition, and linguistics
(University of Miami) University of Miami anthropologist Caleb Everett and former student Sihan Chen used a novel data analysis of thousands of languages, in addition to studying a unique subset of celebrities, to reveal how a soft food diet–contrasted with the diet of hunter-gatherers–is restructuring dentition and changing how people speak. Their findings were published this week in Scientific Reports.
SpaceX Cargo Dragon succeeds in 1st autonomous undocking
SpaceXâs CRS-21 Cargo Dragon undocked from the International Space Stationâs Harmony module on January 12, 2021, succeeding in the worldâs first-ever autonomous undocking and testing of several new vehicle upgrades.
Researchers at Brazil’s space institute discover why lightning branches and flickers
(Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de São Paulo) Analysis of the first super slow motion recordings of upward flashes suggests a possible explanation for the formation of luminous structures after electrical discharges split in the atmosphere.
Is a solar flare the same thing as a CME?
Solar Cycle 25 is here, and that means – in the years ahead – more solar flares and more coronal mass ejections, or CMEs. People sometimes use the words interchangeably, but they’re not the same thing. Here’s the difference.
New Year’s Resolution: No More Mr. Science Guy
My New Year’s resolution for 2021 is to go full bore whacko religious on climate change. No more Mr. Science Guy. No more using reason and real science when debunking climate alarmist voodoo. No more articles appealing to reason, facts,…
2020 Arctic Report Card: Sea ice loss, extreme wildfires
NOAAâs 2020 Arctic Report Card describes a region that is warming even more rapidly than scientists expected.
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