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Radical Plan to Make Earth’s Deepest Hole Could Unleash Limitless Energy

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Since its launch in 2020, a pioneering energy company called Quaise has attracted some serious attention for its audacious goal of diving further into Earth’s crust than anybody has dug before.   Following the closure of first round venture capital funding, the MIT spin-off has now raised a total of US$63 million: a respectable start … Read more

The Key Actions From The UN’s Major New Climate Report

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Rising global temperatures bring dire threats, such as floods, heat-related injuries, water scarcity, and hunger, making up to 3.6 billion people – nearly half of the world’s population – highly vulnerable to climate change.   That’s according to a major report, released Monday, from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a UN body that … Read more

A Major UN Climate Change Report Was Just Approved by Nearly 200 Nations

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Nearly 200 nations approved a major UN climate change report detailing the accelerating impacts of global warming on Sunday, at the end of a sometimes fraught two-week meeting overshadowed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.   The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) confirmed that debates had concluded over the report’s crucial “Summary for Policymakers”, a … Read more

Physicists Reveal The Weird Shapes Ice Takes as It Melts at Different Temperatures

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Melting ice can take on different shapes depending on the temperature of the water around it, new research reveals, giving us new insights into the complex physics that underlie this deceptively complicated transition.   The team behind the research created ultra-pure ‘clear’ ice for their experiments, free from bubbles and impurities, then observed the ice … Read more

China’s ‘Artificial Sun’ Just Broke a Major World Record For Plasma Fusion

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Just seven months after it announced a milestone record for plasma fusion, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has absolutely smashed it. Their ‘artificial Sun’ tokomak reactor is has maintained a roiling loop of plasma superheated to 120 million degrees Celsius (216 million degrees Fahrenheit) for a gobsmacking 1,056 seconds, the Institute of Plasma Physics reports.   … Read more

There Was a Major Unexpected Benefit to James Webb’s Christmas Launch

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After a detailed analysis of where the James Webb Space Telescope is now (29 December 2021) and how it got there, NASA determined the observatory should have enough propellant to operate in space for significantly more than 10 years in space.   Webb’s mission lifetime was designed to be at least 5-1/2 years, and mission … Read more

Scientists Smash Temperature Record on Keeping ‘Freezing Cold’ Water in Liquid Form

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Scientists have just proven that the freezing temperature of water can be even lower than what we thought was possible. Taking tiny droplets of water, up to just 150 nanometers in size, a team of engineers at the University of Houston has pushed the critical temperature threshold to -44 degrees Celsius (-47.2 degrees Fahrenheit) – … Read more