218 articles from FRIDAY 16.7.2021

Oregon wildfire forms 'fire clouds' that pose danger below

Smoke and heat from a massive wildfire in southeastern Oregon are creating giant "fire clouds" over the blaze—dangerous columns of smoke and ash that can reach up to 6 miles (10 kilometers) in the sky and are visible from more than 100 miles (160 kilometers) away.

Scientists create tool to explore billions of social media messages, potentially predict political and financial turmoil

Scientists have invented an instrument to peer deeply into billions of Twitter posts -- providing an unprecedented, minute-by-minute view of popularity, from rising political movements, to K-pop, to emerging diseases. The tool -- called the Storywrangler -- gathers phrases across 150 different languages, analyzing the rise and fall of ideas and stories, each day, among people around the world. The...

Climate change to bring more intense storms across Europe

Investigating how climate affects intense rainstorms across Europe, climate experts have shown there will be a significant future increase in the occurrence of slow-moving intense rainstorms. The scientists estimate that these slow-moving storms may be 14 times more frequent across land by the end of the century. It is these slow-moving storms that have the potential for very high precipitation...

Air-powered computer memory helps soft robot control movements

Engineers made a pneumatic RAM chip using microfluidic valves instead of electronic transistors. The valves remain sealed against a pressure differential even when disconnected from an air supply line, creating trapped pressure differentials that function as memories and maintain the states of a robot's actuators. Dense arrays of these valves can perform advanced operations and reduce the...

Global Electricity Production Is Roaring Back—and So Are CO2 Emissions

Carbon emissions from power plants around the world declined in recent years, but they’re poised to make a dramatic comeback over the next 18 months, according to a worrying report released July 15 by the International Energy Agency (IEA). https://datawrapper.dwcdn.net/cQ7Ua/2/ COVID-19 lockdowns were responsible for some of the recent decline, as office buildings, for instance, reduced...

NASA Mission Explores Intense Summertime Thunderstorms

Portal origin URL: NASA Mission Explores Intense Summertime ThunderstormsPortal origin nid: 472545Published: Friday, July 16, 2021 - 14:00Featured (stick to top of list): noPortal text teaser: NASA and university scientists will be studying the intense summer thunderstorms over the central United States to understand their effects on Earth’s atmosphere and how it...