193 articles from FRIDAY 26.6.2020

Alumni in the coronavirus conversation

The virus “I am very wary of simplistic projections about the ongoing outbreak based solely off of its current growth patterns” —Maimuna Majumder, SM ’15, PhD ’18, faculty, Boston Children’s Hospital Computational Health Informatics Program, and research associate, Harvard Medical School (ABC News, March 16)  “Closing schools, bars, and movie theaters...

Agricultural fires in central Africa light up in Suomi NPP satellite image

Fires have spread across the majority of the landscape in Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo in this NOAA/NASA Suomi NPP satellite image using the VIIRS (Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite) instrument from June 25, 2020. Fires of this number are not uncommon at this time of year in Africa. During the agricultural season of clearing field and planting new ones, farmers set fire...

Suomi NPP satellite analyzes Saharan dust aerosol blanket

Dust storms from Africa's Saharan Desert traveling across the Atlantic Ocean are nothing new, but the current dust storm has been quite expansive and NASA satellites have provided a look at the massive June plume. NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite showed the blanket of dust had moved over the Gulf of Mexico and extended into Central America and over part of the eastern Pacific Ocean.

Growing polymers of different lengths

Researchers have developed a new method for producing polymers with different lengths. This paves the way for new classes of polymer materials to be used in previously inconceivable applications.

Ancient Maya reservoirs contained toxic pollution

Reservoirs in the heart of an ancient Maya city were so polluted with mercury and algae that the water likely was undrinkable. Researchers found toxic levels of pollution in two central reservoirs in Tikal, an ancient Maya city that dates back to the third century B.C. in what is now northern Guatemala. New findings suggest droughts in the ninth century likely contributed to the depopulation and...