126 articles from FRIDAY 1.4.2022

California drought deepens as wet season is anything but

California is experiencing one of the driest starts to spring in decades, data showed Friday, and absent a heavy dose of April and May showers the state's drought will deepen and that could lead to stricter rules on water use and another devastating wildfire season.

Losing a hectare of wetlands could cost upward of $8,000 in flood damages

A first-of-its-kind article coauthored by scholars at Resources for the Future (RFF) and Columbia University in the journal American Economic Review finds that the loss of a hectare of wetlands (roughly the size of two and a half football fields) costs society an average of $1,900 in flood damages per year. In developed areas, that figure jumps to more than $8,000.

After wildfires, California communities struggle with budgets

California is a wildfire hot spot: each year, homes, businesses, and ecosystems are destroyed by fires exacerbated by climate change. But even after the blazes subside, wildfires can still threaten community wellbeing. A new paper by scholars Yanjun (Penny) Liao and Carolyn Kousky, published in the Journal of the Association of Environmental and Resource Economists (JAERE), finds that wildfires...

The Hubble, About to Be Outclassed, Is Still Making Record-Setting Discoveries

There are people in their 30s who have never lived in a world without the Hubble Space Telescope peering into the cosmos. The venerable observatory was launched in April 1990, back when George H.W. Bush was in the White House, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was the number one box office hit, and gas went for a buck a gallon. It’s only fitting then that this week, the very old telescope made...

New research shows what it takes to make society change for the better

New research suggests that social change may depend on the relationship between beneficial behaviors and policies. Using an innovative mathematical model, researchers studied a behavior that benefits groups, but does not spread without policy support, such as a costly measure to mitigate the effects of climate change. The results showed that both behavioral change and policy change are required to...

'Flash droughts' coming on faster, global study shows

Just like flash floods, flash droughts come on fast -- drying out soil in a matter of days to weeks. These events can wipe out crops and cause huge economic losses. And according to scientists, the speed at which they dry out the landscape has increased.

The future of 5G+ infrastructure could be built tile by tile

5G+ (5G/Beyond 5G) is the fastest-growing segment and the only significant opportunity for investment growth in the wireless network infrastructure market, according to the latest forecast. But currently 5G+ technologies rely on large antenna arrays that are typically bulky and come only in very limited sizes, making them difficult to transport and expensive to customize. Researchers have now...

CRISPR and HIV: New technique in human blood unveils potential paths toward cure

Gene editing used to discover human proteins hijacked by HIV to replicate in blood • By better understanding how the virus replicates, treatments could one day become cures • 'This new assay is the most faithful representation of what's happening in the body during HIV infection that we could easily study in the lab,' researcher says • Over half the genes identified in the study had never...

Monkeys routinely consume fruit containing alcohol, shedding light on our own taste for booze

Scientists analyzed the ethanol content of fruit eaten by spider monkeys in Panama, and found that the fruit regularly contained alcohol: between 1% and 2%. The researchers also collected urine samples, most of which contained secondary metabolites of ethanol. The results provide further evidence that our primate ancestors preferentially sought out fermented, alcohol-containing fruit likely for...

Drenching rains to pose greater threat to fire-damaged areas in West

The western US this century is facing a greatly heightened risk of heavy rains inundating areas recently scarred by wildfires, new research warns. Such events can cause significant destruction, including debris flows, mudslides, and flash floods, because the denuded landscape cannot easily contain the drenching moisture.

The Dunedin study at 50: landmark experiment tracked 1,000 people from birth

Study into health and behaviour, which began in New Zealand in 1972, marks its half century this week as its subjects prepare for old ageIn 1972, a researcher in a small city at the bottom of New Zealand set out to track the development of more than 1,000 newborn babies and their health and behaviour at age three, not realising then that over the next 50 years, the research would morph into one of...

Drenching rains to pose greater threat to fire-damaged areas in West

The western United States this century is facing a greatly heightened risk of heavy rains inundating areas that were recently scarred by wildfires, new research warns. Such events can cause significant destruction, including debris flows, mudslides, and flash floods, because the denuded landscape cannot easily contain the drenching moisture.