74 articles from MONDAY 2.9.2019

Weatherwatch: an unsung climate hero comes in from the cold

US woman Eunice Foote only now receiving credit for first identifying greenhouse effectThis year marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Eunice Foote, a pioneer in climate research of whom few people have heard. She showed that water vapour and carbon dioxide helped to heat Earth’s atmosphere, and realised that when the atmosphere had higher levels of carbon dioxide it made the climate much...

Some storm-savvy Floridians shrug, others flee or bunker down

Michael James was boarding over the last two windows of his house on Florida's east coast. The first gusty blasts of wind were announcing Hurricane Dorian's imminent arrival, and most residents had fled. But James, an old hand at this, knew he had a few hours to go before leaving.

Iran admits its rocket blew up

The explosion marked the third failure involving a rocket at the Iranian center, which has raised suspicions of sabotage in Iran’s space...

New feedback phenomenon found to drive increasing drought and aridity

A new Columbia Engineering study indicates that the world will experience more frequent and more extreme drought and aridity than currently experienced in the coming century, exacerbated by both climate change and land-atmosphere processes. The researchers demonstrate that concurrent soil drought and atmospheric aridity are largely driven by a series of land-atmosphere processes and feedback...

Toxic frogs with weak defenses persist in the gene pool alongside stronger competitors

Diversity is a hallmark of life and it shows up in unexpected places. A multi-national team of evolutionary biologists investigated how two types of poison frog co-exist when only one might be expected. Their innovative study uncovers conditions where diversity flourishes against the odds, and offers new perspectives on chemical defense. The findings were published in the Proceedings of the...

Vintage film shows Thwaites Glacier ice shelf melting faster than previously observed

Newly digitized vintage film has doubled how far back scientists can peer into the history of underground ice in Antarctica, and revealed that an ice shelf on Thwaites Glacier in West Antarctica is being thawed by a warming ocean more quickly than previously thought. This finding contributes to predictions for sea-level rise that would impact coastal communities around the world.

X-37B: America's Space Plane (Or Warplane?) That Has the World Guessing

The last “sexy” theory is that the space plane is basically a spy satellite with the ability to return to Earth and have its optical sensors periodically upgraded. The X-37 has orbited over some interesting locations, including North Korea, China, ISIS-held territory and Iran. U.S. optical spy satellites are, however, quite large—the size of a school bus—and the X-37’s payload bay is far...