Madagascar Is Experiencing The World’s First Famine Caused Entirely By Climate Change
Huge numbers of people in Madagascar, particularly in the Grand Sud in the south of the island, are on the brink of starvation following four years of exceptionally low rainfall. Climate change has been identified as the single major cause of the catastrophe. The United Nations and other humanitarian organizations say that this is the first to be generated solely by the effects of greenhouse gas emissions.
One Hot Dog Knocks 36 Minutes Off Your Life, Study Claims
Researchers have performed calculations on 5,853 foods, ranking them according to their impact on both human health and the environment. As part of this, they calculated the health burden (or benefit) in minutes of thousands of foods. For example, according to this analysis, a hot dog comes out at 36 minutes of life lost, while a portion of cucumber can add nearly ten minutes to your lifespan.
New Class Of Habitable Exoplanets Very Different From Earth Discovered
Astronomers have found that there is a new class of exoplanets named Hycean planets that could have the right conditions for life. Researchers worked out that planets with a radius up to 2.6 times that of Earth and an atmospheric temperature of 200 °C (392 °F), can still have oceans that would be habitable to certain microbes. Hycean planets should also have traces of atmospheric molecules that hint at life.
First Known Video Of Tortoise Hunting A Bird And Yes, We Have It
Filmed by researchers in the Seychelles, a video shows a tern chick getting a little too casual around an approaching tortoise. The tortoise – to the surprise of everyone – kills and eats the chick. Tortoises eating remains and meat isn’t unheard of, but until now nobody had been able to work out if such meals were something the tortoise stumbled across or if they played a part in the victim’s demise.
Mysterious Radioactive Cubes Found Around US Are Probably Nazi Experiments
The Nazis and the US were once locked in a race to figure out nuclear technology. At the heart of the Nazi’s research were two-inch-long cubes of near-pure uranium: the hope was to exploit nuclear fission to transform them into plutonium, creating an atomic bomb. Around 600 were shipped to the USA after the program was disrupted, but only about 12 are known today. Nuclear forensics research into their origins.
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We've Had 80 Firestorms This Summer - Should We Expect More In Future?
Generating their own weather and puncturing the atmosphere with monstrous plumes of smoke, firestorms are incredibly scary. Their sudden spike in prevalence sparks fears that they could become more frequent in the future. We speak to a meteorologist a professor of forestry and environmental science about these terrifying events.
