Latest news with #Fahrenheit
eNCA
an hour ago
- Science
- eNCA
How did life survive 'Snowball Earth'? In ponds, study suggests
Earth has not always been so hospitable to live. During several ice ages, the planet's surface was almost completely frozen over, creating what has been dubbed "Snowball Earth". Liquid water appears to be the most important ingredient for life on any planet, raising the question: how did anything survive such frosty, brutal times? A group of scientists said Thursday that they had found an astonishing diversity of micro-organisms in tiny pools of melted ice in Antarctica, suggesting that life could have ridden out Snowball Earth in similar ponds. During the Cryogenian Period between 635 and 720 million years ago, the average global temperature did not rise above -50 degrees Celsius (-58 Fahrenheit). The climate near the equator at the time resembled modern-day Antarctica. Yet even in such extreme conditions, life found a way to keep evolving. Fatima Husain, the lead author of a new study published in Nature Communications, told AFP there was evidence of complex life forms "before and after the Cryogenian in the fossil record". "There are multiple hypotheses regarding possible places life may have persisted," said Husain, a graduate student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Perhaps it found shelter in patches of open ocean, or in deep-sea hydrothermal vents, or under vast sheets of ice. The tiny melted ice pools that dotted the equator were another proposed refuge. These ponds could have been oases for eukaryotes, complex organisms that eventually evolved into multicellular life forms that would rise to dominate Earth, including humans. - Could aliens be hiding in ponds? - Melted ice ponds still exist today in Antarctica, at the edges of ice sheets. In 2018, members of a New Zealand research team visited the McMurdo ice shelf in east Antarctica, home to several such pools, which are only a few metres wide and less a metre deep. The bottom of the ponds are lined with a mat of microbes that have accumulated over the years to form slimy layers. "These mats can be a few centimetres thick, colourful, and they can be very clearly layered," Husain said. They are made up of single-celled organisms called cyanobacteria that are known to be able to survive extreme conditions. But the researchers also found signs indicating there were eukaryotes such as algae or microscopic animals. This suggests there was surprising diversity in the ponds, which appears to have been influenced by the amount of salt each contained. "No two ponds were alike," Husain said. "We found diverse assemblages of eukaryotes from all the major groups in all the ponds studied." "They demonstrate that these unique environments are capable of sheltering diverse assemblages of life, even in close proximity," she added. This could have implications in the search for extraterrestrial life. "Studies of life within these special environments on Earth can help inform our understanding of potential habitable environments on icy worlds, including icy moons in our Solar System," Husain said. Saturn's moon Enceladus and Jupiter's Europa are covered in ice, but scientists increasingly suspect they could be home to simple forms of life, and several space missions have been launched to find out more about them. By Bénédicte Rey
NDTV
an hour ago
- Science
- NDTV
Rise In Greenhouse Gas Release Causing More Extreme Weather, Scientists Warn
Washington: Humans are on track to release so much greenhouse gas in less than three years that a key threshold for limiting global warming will be nearly unavoidable, according to a study to be released Thursday. The report predicts that society will have emitted enough carbon dioxide by early 2028 that crossing an important long-term temperature boundary will be more likely than not. The scientists calculate that by that point there will be enough of the heat-trapping gas in the atmosphere to create a 50-50 chance or greater that the world will be locked in to 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of long-term warming since preindustrial times. That level of gas accumulation, which comes from the burning of fuels like gasoline, oil and coal, is sooner than the same group of 60 international scientists calculated in a study last year. "Things aren't just getting worse. They're getting worse faster," said study co-author Zeke Hausfather of the tech firm Stripe and the climate monitoring group Berkeley Earth. "We're actively moving in the wrong direction in a critical period of time that we would need to meet our most ambitious climate goals. Some reports, there's a silver lining. I don't think there really is one in this one." That 1.5 goal, first set in the 2015 Paris agreement, has been a cornerstone of international efforts to curb worsening climate change. Scientists say crossing that limit would mean worse heat waves and droughts, bigger storms and sea-level rise that could imperil small island nations. Over the last 150 years, scientists have established a direct correlation between the release of certain levels of carbon dioxide, along with other greenhouse gases like methane, and specific increases in global temperatures. In Thursday's Indicators of Global Climate Change report, researchers calculated that society can spew only 143 billion more tons (130 billion metric tons) of carbon dioxide before the 1.5 limit becomes technically inevitable. The world is producing 46 billion tons (42 billion metric tons) a year, so that inevitability should hit around February 2028 because the report is measured from the start of this year, the scientists wrote. The world now stands at about 1.24 degrees Celsius (2.23 degrees Fahrenheit) of long-term warming since preindustrial times, the report said. Earth's energy imbalance The report, which was published in the journal Earth System Science Data, shows that the rate of human-caused warming per decade has increased to nearly half a degree (0.27 degrees Celsius) per decade, Hausfather said. And the imbalance between the heat Earth absorbs from the sun and the amount it radiates out to space, a key climate change signal, is accelerating, the report said. "It's quite a depressing picture unfortunately, where if you look across the indicators, we find that records are really being broken everywhere," said lead author Piers Forster, director of the Priestley Centre for Climate Futures at the University of Leeds in England. "I can't conceive of a situation where we can really avoid passing 1.5 degrees of very long-term temperature change." The increase in emissions from fossil-fuel burning is the main driver. But reduced particle pollution, which includes soot and smog, is another factor because those particles had a cooling effect that masked even more warming from appearing, scientists said. Changes in clouds also factor in. That all shows up in Earth's energy imbalance, which is now 25% higher than it was just a decade or so ago, Forster said. Earth's energy imbalance "is the most important measure of the amount of heat being trapped in the system," Hausfather said. Earth keeps absorbing more and more heat than it releases. "It is very clearly accelerating. It's worrisome," he said. Crossing the temperature limit The planet temporarily passed the key 1.5 limit last year. The world hit 1.52 degrees Celsius (2.74 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming since preindustrial times for an entire year in 2024, but the Paris threshold is meant to be measured over a longer period, usually considered 20 years. Still, the globe could reach that long-term threshold in the next few years even if individual years haven't consistently hit that mark, because of how the Earth's carbon cycle works. That 1.5 is "a clear limit, a political limit for which countries have decided that beyond which the impact of climate change would be unacceptable to their societies," said study co-author Joeri Rogelj, a climate scientist at Imperial College London. The mark is so important because once it is crossed, many small island nations could eventually disappear because of sea level rise, and scientific evidence shows that the impacts become particularly extreme beyond that level, especially hurting poor and vulnerable populations, he said. He added that efforts to curb emissions and the impacts of climate change must continue even if the 1.5 degree threshold is exceeded. Crossing the threshold "means increasingly more frequent and severe climate extremes of the type we are now seeing all too often in the U.S. and around the world - unprecedented heat waves, extreme hot drought, extreme rainfall events, and bigger storms," said University of Michigan environment school dean Jonathan Overpeck, who wasn't part of the study. Andrew Dessler, a Texas A&M University climate scientist who wasn't part of the study, said the 1.5 goal was aspirational and not realistic, so people shouldn't focus on that particular threshold. "Missing it does not mean the end of the world," Dessler said in an email, though he agreed that "each tenth of a degree of warming will bring increasingly worse impacts."
UPI
an hour ago
- Politics
- UPI
On This Day, June 20: Arctic Circle reaches record-setting 100 degrees
1 of 5 | On June 20, 2020, the town of Verkhoyansk, Russia, reached a temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic Circle. File Photo by Anatoli Zhdanov/UPI | License Photo On this date in history: In 1893, a jury in Fall River, Mass., acquitted Lizzie Borden in the ax murders of her father and stepmother. In 1898, the U.S. Navy seized Guam, the largest of the Mariana Islands in the Pacific, during the Spanish-American War. The people of Guam were granted U.S. citizenship in 1950. In 1900, in response to widespread foreign encroachment upon China's national affairs, Chinese nationalists launched the so-called Boxer Rebellion in Beijing. In 1945, Secretary of State Edward Stettinius, Jr. approved the resettlement of Wernher von Braun and his team of Nazi rocket scientists to the United States. Von Braun would go on to lead the U.S. space program. File Photo courtesy of NASA In 1963, the United States and Soviet Union agreed to establish a hot line communications link between Washington and Moscow. In 1967, the American Independent Party was formed to back George Wallace of Alabama for president. In 1977, oil began to flow through the $7.7 billion, 789-mile Trans-Alaska Pipeline. In 1988, armed forces commander Lt. Gen. Henri Namphy declared himself leader of Haiti in a military coup overthrowing President Leslie Manigat. In 1991, the German Parliament voted to move its capital from Bonn to Berlin. In 2004, Pakistan and India reached agreement on banning nuclear testing. In 2009, insurgents, striking in a series of attacks as U.S. troops pulled out of Iraq as planned, set off a truck bomb near a Shiite mosque in northern Iraq, killing 82 people and injuring 250. In 2010, Juan Manuel Santos easily defeated former Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus to become Colombia's president. File Photo by Kevin Dietsch/UPI In 2020, the town of Verkhoyansk, Russia, reached a temperature of 100.4 degrees Fahrenheit, the highest temperature ever recorded in the Arctic Circle. In 2023, Romanian authorities charged self-styled lifestyle coach and social media personality Andrew Tate and his brother, Tristan Tate, with rape and human trafficking. As of 2025, the brothers were expected to stand trial on the charges. File Photo by Robert Ghement/EPA-EFE
NDTV
2 hours ago
- Automotive
- NDTV
Cybertruck Burned So Hot That Driver's Bones Disintegrated, Lawsuit Claims
A Tesla Cybertruck owner in Texas, US, was burned to death after the car rolled into a ditch, following an accident in which he became trapped inside. As per the lawsuit filed by the victim's family, 47-year-old Michael Sheehan burned so hot in the crash that his bones literally 'disintegrated'. Mr Sheehan bought a brand-new Cybertruck from a Tesla showroom on April 25, 2024. However, just 102 days later, Mr Sheehan was involved in an accident where the car left the road and struck a large concrete culvert. Post the collision, the vehicle's "hyper volatile" battery system went into "thermal runaway" - a chain reaction of short-circuits ultimately resulting in uncontrollable temperature escalation. The family has blamed the company for the incident where Mr Sheehan burned to death at 2,760 degrees Celsius (5,000 Fahrenheit), a fire so hot his bones experienced thermal fracture. "He was eight inches shorter in length than he was before he burned. That's thermal fracture," the family's attorney, S Scott West, told The Independent. The lawsuit added that Mr Sheehan would have survived if it had been virtually any other vehicle. However, the Cybertruck was "defectively designed," trapping him inside and incinerating him. With the power out, Mr Sheehan was unable to open the truck's electronic doors while the external door handles failed too, the suit alleged. "Every religion has a version of hell, and every version of hell has fire. It is the most excruciating and longest torture of any death," said Mr West. "Whether it's steam or fire or electrical, the nerves are literally exposed to everything. It's horrific. If you've ever been to a hospital burn unit, you'll hear patients begging the doctors to let them die because the pain is so bad." Cybertruck design issues As per Mr West, the family had been trying to reach a settlement with Tesla to avoid a lawsuit, but the talks eventually collapsed. The family has claimed that aesthetics took priority over functionality at Tesla when designing the Cybertruck, which contributed to the tragedy. Notably, Mr Sheehan was the first-ever person to perish in a Cybertruck wreck since the model hit the market in November 2023. Three months after his death, three college students in California were also burned to death in a Cybertruck that slammed into a tree after veering off the road. Since its launch, Tesla has issued eight recalls for the Cybertruck over problems ranging from malfunctioning accelerator pedals to faulty windshield wiper motors to body panels.
New Straits Times
2 hours ago
- Climate
- New Straits Times
Jeeno Thitikul edges clear as heat takes toll at Women's PGA
HOUSTON: Thailand's Jeeno Thitikul fired a four-under-par 68 to edge into a slender lead as searing heat and humidity tested players in the opening round of the KPMG US Women's PGA Championship in Texas on Thursday. The 22-year-old, who is chasing her first major victory after seven top-10 finishes, reeled off six birdies to move into a one-shot lead. Jeeno's only blemish on an otherwise flawless opening round was a double-bogey six at the par-four fourth hole of PGA Frisco's 6,404-yard Fields Ranch East layout. The rising Thai star, who has already amassed 18 wins as a professional including five on the LPGA Tour, said she had taken a patient approach after shrugging off her early double-bogey disappointment. "I think like all the majors, I have told myself just to be really patient," Jeeno said after her round. "I definitely know that I'm going to miss a shot or make a bogey during the day. "Don't be like, moody ... I told myself be patient and focused on the next shot." Jeeno was one shot clear of Australia's Minjee Lee, who had a roller coaster round that included seven birdies and four bogeys en route to a three-under-par 69. Lee was satisfied with her round but admitted the searing temperatures in the high 90s (Fahrenheit) were challenging. "I just kept telling my caddie, can you give me another water, can you give me another water," Lee said. "I don't think we could have enough (water) out there. It's really hot." Japan's Rio Takeda, South Korea's Lee So-mi and American Yealimi Noh were a further shot back after carding two-under-par 70s. World number one Nelly Korda, meanwhile, is four off the pace after an opening level-par 72. Korda also admitted she had found the heat a struggle. "It's hot; I'm still cooling down right now," Korda said. "I'm pretty happy with my first round in the conditions. "It definitely takes a toll on you, the Texas heat." Auston Kim, who posted a one-under-par 71, said the heat had been more of a challenge than anything the twists and turns of the PGA Frisco layout had offered. "I think the most difficult thing is dealing with the heat," Kim said. "There were times I had to lock in really hard just because the heat is taking a toll on you. You kind of want to just get into a daze and it's hard to focus. "The heat was probably the hardest part, and then hitting the fairways. I had to chop it out of the rough twice today, including on the last hole.
